Sarah O'Neill Blog Pennsylvania

Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing What’s bugging you these days? Who’s got the power to fix it? And what magical words could you whip up to get them to care (and actually do something about it)? Better yet, how would you reel us in, too? If you’re looking to spice up your college application game, why not craft an Open Letter for the New York Times Contest? Or, go for Scholastic glory by submitting to their Critical Essay section. Either way, flexing those writing muscles and showing off your originality is like extra credit for life — and a win for college admissions! As the Learning Network advises, “Written to senators about making health care more accessible, to Gen Z about embracing kindness, and to Taylor Swift about reducing her carbon emissions, the letters should be direct, passionate, and powerful.” Why is a Letter (itself) special? ■What makes them special? ■Have you ever received a letter? ■What was the nature of it? ■Personal — written just for YOU ■Opi...

Sarah O’Neill Chester County Pennsylvania Supreme Editing How to Do Self-Writing Self-writing involves YOU — the human behind the writer — as the protagonist and/or narrator of the piece you will produce. Stories in this genre come from YOU, your point of view, not a fictional character you can hide behind. Write What You Know The myth of this phrase doesn’t necessarily have to be first-hand knowledge; it can be “what you know” from second or third-hand experience, sensory stimulation, subjective memory, lies, or knowledge from imagination. Can you think of any examples from your life where this would be applicable? ■Work from reminiscences ■Infusing subjective memories with elementary research in the development of a short autobiographical work ■Choose parts of your life to write about which will engage your readers and to write honestly about your experiences ■Today, we will consider techniques for using REAL LIFE as raw material for compelling work. Memoir writing? “It’s like...

  (To Submit to Contests to Build Your College Resume) By Sarah O’Neill, Chester County, Supreme Editing Everybody Says That POETRY is All Around Us: In commercial jingles In songs of course In textbooks for any English class in any rhyme, we hear in awe of nature In awe of ourselves But how the heck do you write a GOOD poem? Writing & Knowing We’re told ALL THE TIME to write about what we know. But what if we think our lives our dull or too ordinary? That we don’t have lives worthy of poetry. What are the greatest poems about? –death, desire, the nature of existence. They ask: who are we? Why are we here? We find it hard to believe that these BIG subjects can be explored in the ORDINARY of life like a poem about our best friend or about washing our wishes. Walt Whitman wrote about everyday things like the stars, a live oak, a field. Read this poem: The point? Whitman began with what he knew, what was “at hand”, what SHIMMERED around him in the ordinary world. Look off your own...

  Who Invented the Name Flash Fiction? We create our world through language, through naming.” Writer Robert Kelly used the term sudden  fiction  because the stories “are all suddenly — just there”. Thus, the name of the anthology came into being. James Thomas titled his 1992 anthology,  Flash Fiction : Seventy two very short stories. Short Stories Versus Flash Fiction Defined as being between 2,000 to 5,000 words (some say 10,000), short stories are more flexible, and unlike flash fiction, may take a couple of sittings to read. There is more space to develop ideas, plot, character, and theme; at most, one plot and a small subplot or a plot and a half. Flash fiction shouldn’t be more than one plot and one theme. Defined as being only up to 1,000 words, Flash Fiction is punchy and to the point, a story of extreme brevity with the plot pared down to the core of the story. Every detail, every character gesture, every description counts; each word has its place. Take one ...