Inside the Volcano

If there’s any short story anyone should read then make it Inside the Volcano by Donovan Webster. Webster is a great writer and has written for publications such as National Geographic, The New Yorker, and Times Magazine. This story is very use strong descriptive language and is about a photographer leading a team of adventurers into an active volcano in the South Pacific.

My favorite excerpt for the story is: A sinewy and friendly German engineer, Heinlein hands me the expedition’s climbing rope, which leads down, inside the volcano.  Clipping the rope into a rappelling device on my belt—which helps control my descent—I step into the air above the pit.

I really enjoy how he uses that kind of language to describe the engineer because he could’ve easily said, “A skinny engineer.” Since he used the sinewy, it helps the reader to get a visual on what he looks like. Also, describing the rope was pretty neat too.

This story has a ton of great dialogue that helps advance the story and I believe that this is one story that everyone should at least read once. 

Blog About Quote

Famed author Stephen King once said, “When we look at our dreams, a lot of times they decompose as the light hits them. So, you can have a dream, and you can remember vividly what it’s about, but ten or fifteen later unless it’s an extraordinarily good dream, it’s gone.”

King is right when he said that because it’s completely true! To illustrate, almost every morning I remember what I dreamed about when I first wake up, but after a few minutes I totally forget. This strange phenomenon can give a writer an idea. For example, one could write about the dream that never was. In which, the writer can write about searching for his dream, but in the process the writer begins to make a dream that never was. 

Revising

Let’s face it, nobody enjoys revising their papers and essays because once you are done you just want to turn it in and don’t want to see it again. But like it or not you are going to have to take these steps in order to become a great writer.

First step to revising is to read your paper aloud. To illustrate, if you read your paper aloud you will catch punctuation and grammatical errors. Also, reading your paper aloud can assist on adding more or using fewer words. For example, essay can get too wordy sometimes because the writer wants to over emphasis their point by using a lot or words. In addition, writer can often be vague in their writing. For instance, writers can sometimes use words without backing up its meaning which is why reading your paper aloud is always a must.

Second step is to have someone else read it aloud because having a second voice gives the writer another perspective on their work. For example, having another person read your paper makes it easier to find mistakes and correct them because having a second voice gives the paper new meaning. 

So with this blog post I hope you take these two revising techniques and apply them to your writing.