NMH2 Review Abridged, Writing Course Assignments

Guess what? Two people read my entire 12 page No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle review! I didn't say anything about length, and nobody commented. I have made an abridge version of it comprising only game basics, an analysis of the protagonist, and the conclusion. Rewritten very slightly at parts. Not quite four pages. If you want it, here it is: http://gryphonsreviews.blogspot.com/2010/02/videogame-no-more-heroes-2-desperate_04.html

I also finished an exercise and my 1-2 page short story revamp for my writing course. The revamp was easier. The exercise was surprisingly tough! It wound out to be four pages long.

For the exercise, we had to select ten novels, read the first paragraph of each, then answer four questions about each first paragraph. The novels I chose were:

Watership Down by Richard Adams
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Shogun by James Clavell
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgsen Burnett

That's actually a fairly good representation of the books that have impacted me the most throughout my life. I'm sure if I read them all over again, I'd have new opinions, though. It's not like I've read all of those within the last few years. I think I'd also add Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, the Moomintroll series, and, if I'm being true to myself and including even the regrettable stages of my development, the Xanth series.

Hey, if I'm being given 60% on sheer completion of my short story, then to even get a passing grade on content, I'd earn 20%. That's 80% total! Even if I only do well enough to pass, I'll get a pretty rocking grade, and since the advice was pretty straightforward, I don't see how I could screw up too bad.

I had the urge to add another twist on my revamp, but resisted. I'm getting a lot better at writing pages and pages of stuff. But I was already at a page and a half on a two page cap, and I didn't want to stray from my teacher's advice.