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Mythology wallpaper. Link here

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  1. Hey Lauren!
    First of all, great job on your portfolio! I had one suggestion upon first visiting your sight; How would you feel about changing the title of your whole portfolio to be more of something that relates to all of your stories common themes or symbols? I think that would be a great addition to begin. Next, I have always loved this story because of the trickster tactics in the end, it's such a cool plot twist! You did a nice job of setting the story up and spacing out the paragraphs/dialogue. I wonder why the monkey has a trickster stereotype applied to him? Maybe you could go into detail in the story about how the monkey has deceived multiple other animals in the zoo as well. I think keeping with the animal theme would be cool, and then you could make the title of your portfolio something to do with Zoos, maybe Zootopia?

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  2. Hi Lauren!
    Okay I loved how you utilized the zoo as your setting. I think it was logical and yet outside the box from the original. It also raises awareness about animals in the zoo. Some animals in zoos were injured or sick and can be returned to the wild. You could even put a link to a non-profit organization that works with getting animals healthy again to return to the wild. Back to your story, I think overall the story is told very well. I wonder why the monkey was willing to help the zoo keeper. Do you think the monkey was doing it to get out of his own cage or was he genuinely being kind? That is something to consider to explain on your story. I always wondered about that in the original story, so this may be a good chance to create the answer in story form! Well done.

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  3. Hi there!
    This was a great retelling of the Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal! I loved how you incorporated modern day elements into the story. The writing and the setting of your story reflected modern aspects. Seeing that most of my readings have consisted of dark stories, your story was a nice break from the heaviness. I wonder why the monkey decided to help the zookeeper? Was the monkey fond of the zookeeper? Or did the monkey just want to help the zookeeper? These details could help explore the relationship and could add further depth to the characters. I wonder what would happen if the ending was longer? For example, what happened after the lion locked himself in the cage? How did the relationship between the monkey, lion, and zookeeper evolve? It would be interesting to see these aspects in the story! These are just some suggestions, and I hope I helped!

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  4. Lauren,
    I very much like your theme and the overall look of your Folklore Zoo. I thought you did a great job of adapting the story to a modern day zoo setting. And the animals you chose work perfectly. The descriptions (specifically when you talk about the location of the monkey's cage in relation to the lions) could use a little smoothing. Since your story is relatively short, you can spare a few words to explain it before hand. Maybe include the fact that the lion had to listen to the monkey's screeching all day in the description of his misery at the beginning, something like that.
    Otherwise, great story!
    Love the photo of M'Bari!

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  5. Hi Lauren!

    I just finished reading through your portfolio stories, and I think you've done a really good job so far! I love the connecting theme with the animals and the zoos, and I like the way you've kept the stories pretty close to the originals. Your website looks really good, too - it's visually appealing, easy to navigate, and the photos you've chosen work really well with it. I also thought it was interesting that you chose Eve as the name of the woman who gets to take care of the animals and is eventually the reason for some of them becoming dangerous (it brings up Garden of Eden vibes, especially with the serpents!). My only critique for you would be that it might be fun for you to try deviating from the original stories just a little bit more, and adding your own spin on the plots might make them even more interesting for your readers. Good luck with the rest of the semester! :)

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  6. Hi Lauren! I want to start off by saying that I really like the name of your portfolio! I think it's so cool and the banner image on the homepage goes perfectly with it. I really enjoyed reading your stories! I like that you kept the plot of your stories almost the same as the original. I like that it's also a consistent thing in both of your stories as well. I wonder if for your next story you will also do the same? You could try deviating from the original a little and adding your own twist ending or something. You can even introduce new characters that aren't from the original stories. I like that you've added modern elements to the stories as well, like the Rainforest Cafe. Your use of modern language also goes along with that nicely. Overall, I think your stories are great so far! I'm looking forward to see how your next story turns out.

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  7. Hi Lauren,

    These are fun stories, playing off our stereotypes about various animals and painting a nice picture of a very strange zoo.

    Just a formatting note: two full linebreaks between paragraphs is excessive, and disrupts the reader’s sense of flow by making those separations seem more important than they are.

    Your final story, “The Rainforest Cafe,” was my favorite. I’m not sure if it was intentional (I have a feeling it was), but the nod to Genesis with naming the zookeeper Eve was great, and I like the supernatural element you introduced with Eve’s ability to curse the animals. One question that comes to mind, though, is this: if the serpents weren’t poisonous before, and the lions weren’t threatening, and so on, why was she scared of them in the first place? It seems that if the serpents weren’t yet devious and poisonous, there would be no reason for her to avoid taking them to the Rainforest Cafe...

    Best,
    A.M.

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  8. Hi Lauren,

    Okay you stories are so playful and fun to read. I love the stories that you used to inspire your writing and how you utilized them. This week the feedback is focused on the author's note. To really dial in on your author's notes I read them first before reading the story. Honestly, you did a great job at writing them. I knew exactly what happened and why you decided to make it happen before I even read the story. It may be fun to even dive deeper with your author's notes too. You could explain why you selected the animals you did! It also helped that you picked stories that are fairly familiar in a sense. That made it really easy to see the differences in your story. I also liked how you linked the original stories as well. Overall, the author's notes were great, but you can always dive a bit deeper. If you go back, I would focus on explaining the why. Why you made the change xyz and why that change was important to you! Well done.

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  9. Hi Lauren!

    First time visitor! I love theme of you story! It's very fun and creative! As far as paragraphing goes, I thought that your paragraphing was great. I liked that your paragraphs were only a few sentences long because it gave the stories a nice even pace to read at. Bigger paragraphs can be a little harder to read sometimes because it's easier to lose your place. The paragraphs in your story also do a great job at helping me follow the flow by breaking up distinct parts of the story. It's easy to make one longer, more cluttered paragraph, but you do a great job at avoiding that and finding those spots in the story where there should be paragraph breaks. It also sounds better in my while reading because the pauses that the paragraph breaks create make the narrative feel more natural. Great work!

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  10. Hi Lauren!
    I love this storybook idea. For one, it is a genius idea to use the animals as the central characters in your theme. For one, these animals are very symbolic in the realm of myths and folks, so you could play with what your audience stereotypically thinks of the cheetah, lion, etc. Also, depending on the context and origin of the story, different animals can represent different things. With this said, you did a great job playing with this character development in your own unique way.
    As far as formatting, you used a lot breaks in your dialogue which created simplicity and fluidity when reading. I have struggled to successfully do this with my own writing, so this is a great example for me to see! However, I almost wish there was not as much space between your paragraphs. I'm not sure if you are double entering or if this is just the set formatting of your website.

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  11. Hi Lauren, I read your "Rainforest Cafe" story and I think it's really neat how you made Eve basically play the hand of God! It's interesting how you manage to combine a biblical allusion (kinda) while twisting it with Eve being the creator and how she punished he animals. I never read the story that you shared so the context with the author's notes is extremely helpful! Also, your banner is great and I like the way that you set up your page! Perhaps one thing that could make the project even better is if you increased the font a little bit and decreased the spacing in between the paragraphs. The story is really spread out and at least for me, it looks better when it's closer together. Great story!

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  12. Hi Lauren,

    I think I reviewed your project earlier and I am excited that I get to do it again now that it is finished.
    You did a great job. the original twists and turns you added to the stories were fun and creative! I also like the overall aesthetic of the page. Like the commenter above, I really loved the Eve character in "Rainforest Cafe." Great work!
    I did notice the spacing issues that others have mentioned. I really think this is a personal style choice. Since this is a website, not a book, you have license to do it. The spacing can make the pacing seem a little faster. It's really up to you. I liked your site!

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  13. Hello!

    I really enjoyed reading your stories! I really like how you chose your project to be a zoo and include all kinds of animal myths! That’s such a good idea since there are countless animal myths out there. While I was reading your story I recognized a few of the myths that you based your stories off of. I think I recognized the one about the lion, zookeeper, and monkey the other once I recognized was the one you used to write your stone bear story. I also like the other stories you had which were new to me. Like the one about the tiger and the cheetah. At first I was really confused as to why a woman would marry an animal but I guess you just gotta go with the myth. I like how you named the zoo Pangea I though that was very clever. Great job!

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