I hate the system and I'm not just a raging teen...

sampsihoyos

sampsihoyos

Active member
This is long but please read the whole thing and tell me what you think.

I already posted this in the thinkers cult, sorry if you had to look at this twice.

I like writing. I write about really cool stuff that comes to mind, some of that i talk about in this cult. I just started something that I was thinking to make into a short story over the summer when I really have time.

I'm thinking of a kid growing up around the beginning of the 1900's in a large east coast whaling town. Each man is proud of his work and doesn't realize at the time what will come to the species of whale (extinction); they do as they are told like each of their fathers have done. They each wear the same scruffy beard, the young men with black beards and the old with grey. Right now I'm thinking essentially the boy falls in love, when he gets that he can't have her, he runs away from society and begins to go crazy sailing the sea (it's supposed to mirror our own civilization). I wasn't really thinking of finishing it until last week...

I just took my SAT's and on my essay I got a 4 on a scale from 2-12. They don't judge creativity, they judge competence in an essay? That's the way that they judge me? I was pissed to say that least and my parents were pissed at me.

Because of this I've decided to commit to writing the short story and finishing it, thought you guys might be interested in hearing.

These are the first 2 paragraphs of what I want ot write about, the rest won't be so heavy.

The stench of rotting whale corpses was unavoidable throughout the entire town of Gloucester, Massachusetts and several miles west, wherever the Atlantic wind finally came to push it. With the cloudy morning fog came the extraordinary production and mass slaughter of the largest animals known to man; the town was infamous for existing as port to the largest and most successful whaling fleets in the young American nation. To the men of the town, young and old, their duty was worthy of nothing less than the highest honor. The harvest of whales was more a culture to the men of Gloucester than it was anything else. Like so many others, it was a career that had been passed down from each father to son, year after year, generation after generation, and yet monotony was not the slightest bit evident to the people. These glorious whalers were the effect of what had been reinforced inside their minds during the time they had spent on this Earth. They were the victims of a lie much larger than the animals they were killing. They had less reason to oppose the hunt than they did to side with it and thus, quite logically, no individual objected to the bloody, gruesome hunt.

In Gloucester, whaling seemed less like work and more similar to a due that the men were required to pay to the world. They had been told by their fathers to give their support in the form of catching and preparing their natural resources for the sustainment of outside populations. They were to survive, no matter if it meant the death of the surrounding life. The people of Gloucester were consumed by the expanding world around them. No individual would ever come to question or discuss this bizarre and powerful force, which gave purpose to their career. It shifted each man’s ideology, hollowed his soul, and taxed his short life. The entire town was prey to a well-organized system that fit together in a generational cycle. They were all unknowingly condemned to a lifetime of conformity.
 
a 4? thats a bummer since you seem a good writer. I'd say don't worry about being creative, give them what they want to read. I got a 9 on mine and did not even finish.
 
"I just took my SAT's and on my essay I got a 4 on a scale from 2-12.

They don't judge creativity, they judge competence in an essay? That's

the way that they judge me? I was pissed to say that least and my

parents were pissed at me."

Thats because the SAT doesnt test your cognitive ability whatsoever. Originality and creativity will actually hurt your grades on the test. I tell all of my students this. If you are a creative writer, I would probably expect you to get around a 4 or 6 on the essay part, especially if its your first time taking the test. People obsessed with structure and form will usually get much higher grades. Dont let it get to you, the SAT is a horrible test and is a awful measure of someones education or intelligence.

Your story's pretty good, think about submitting it to a short story symposium or something.
 
well you get scored on how well you answer their questions and follow the guidelines they give you, so that's probably why you got a 4. I'm just assuming though.
 
the sat's the suck ass test. and on that essay this year was my first year taking it (i am in 8th grade)and i totally bs'd my way through that essay and got like an 8. i did terrible on it though, like 76th percentile in math. o well i thought i would die cause that test was soooo boring/long
 
^^ Rowen your a teacher? or am i just being stupid.

anyway to the thread maker, thats a good story you should repost it at the end of the summer.
 
i'm so glad im not the only one. without trying to brag or sound cocky, i am a very good writer so i felt no pressure going into the SAT writing for the first time. When I got to the test, i took more time than i wanted to, so i didn't finish, but i still completed 4 solid paragraphs. I thought i had it down especially with the great vocab and everything.

i get my scores back, and i see a 5 for the writing and i was just shocked. now i'm actually preparing for the next one and i've been going to this prep class, and the english lady is saying how if you can write anything at all you should be able to get an 8 or above. i start laughing at the thought because being such a great writer, and seeing this terrible score compared to others who wrote crap just seems so dumb to me.

don't worry about it too much, focus on the out of 1600 score because every school i've talked to so far has said that the writing can't hurt me in any way since it's new (and stupid) to the SAT.
 
that sucks, I went in confident and only finished around 3 paragraphs. I was about to finish with this martin luther king quote on this poster on the wall that would have fit in perfectly but the bitch said "pencils down" as I began writing it and then threatened to disqualify my test. I know if I had gotten that quote in I would have gotten a 10 or possibly an 11. My essay had to do with civil disobedience. My essay was by no means "dumb", I just wrote it keeping in mind that it doesn't matter what I think of it, I have to view it through the eyes of a scorer.
 
Yeah, I work as a SAT teacher for The Princeton Review. Feel free to hit me up with SAT questions, I made a thread about it a while back.
 
You gotta conclude that shit man. 1 intro, 2 or three body, and a GOOD conclusion. Skip the third body if you have like 2 or three minutes back, essays that dont have a conclusion get a 8 tops.
 
the essay part of that test is soo pointless but its part of it so u might as well give em wat they want to see. if you think you are such a good writer then you should be able to tailor what you write to their liking. bitching wont get you into college.
 
I can't believe the SAT has an essay now. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to be fired.

The SAT is a "standardized test" which relies on asking questions that have right and wrong answers. There is no right or wrong way to write an essay, and, furthermore, there is no fucking way the SAT fuckheads are going to be able to thoughtfully grade each and every one of them.

I think there needs to be a massive boycott of the SATs until this gets fixed. There is no objective way of grading essays, especially if there are hundreds of thousands of them.

The whole thing is a massive crock of shit.
 
most schools arent counting the essays anyway. pretty much only the ucs are using them and thats only cus they were developed cus the ucs asked for em.
 
That sucks. I don't know much about the SATs, were you taking it to get into college? and can you take it again?

I never had to take the SAT (just provincial exams and write an entrance paper for college) so I don't really know what they're looking for, but your writing seems good and your ideas seem interesting so I think you should develop those further :)
 
thanks and yeah i am taking them to get into college. CU hopefully, I dunno if that will work though cuz my grades arent too strong.
 
i got a 1060 math and verbal then i killed it on the writing. i got an 11 and a composite 730 on the writing section(s). but since colleges don't look at the writing it's meaningless. retarted
 
This is completely irrelevant to your topic but when you retake the SAT's write your essay differently. My English blows, but I still got a 11 because i knew the format. Write a general inrtoduction overviewing the topic. And then use three sources, preferably books to prove your point, and then a short 2 sentence conclussion. Use all the space tehy give you and if you make good ties and prove your point using literature they will love it
 
from experience at least, solid conclusions are money. I wrote a four paragraph essay with a money one sentence conclusion (I wasn't sure they would like that), but it paid off in the end.
 
i can kind of understand why it was marked that way, i did enjoy it dont get me wrong, and you do have a good writing style, but i dont think that those particular paragraphs where in the style of a "short story."

i may have misunderstood what style you were writing in, but i would put that in the category of a more...analytical documentary. i say this because of the amount of historical/factual information that youve included within those first two paragraphs.

grief. i just realized i sound like an examiner or english teacher so im going to stop.
 
your from Washimgton right? well anyways on the WASL i always do really bad on the writing part (YES 8th grade didnt have it this year :) ) because im a creative writer so i infeer a lot cause i have a really overactive brain. on any kind of writing assignment i always do super good but those structured tests are so stupid.
 
You've got a good idea for a short story, and your vocabulary shows you are very well read which is very rare on NS, but there are many ways it could be written to achieve the status of literature and not become just another pos. In a story, you want to convey your ideas and messages and meaning to your reader. It seems that so far you are just slapping your reader in the face with all of your ideas, messages, meanings, etc. You must develop you story around these ideas instead of just throwing them at the reader. For example you say, "They were all unknowingly condemned to a lifetime of conformity". Instead of telling this to your reader, envelop this idea into the plot. Use symbols, imagery, unique diction, etc. to convey this idea. Instead of saying this, you should show it throuhout the plot. Its hard to explain how literature works and everyone has their own writing styles. Also, think about the narrator (1st, 3rd person etc.) because thats one of the most importanat parts of story telling. Sorry if this post wasnt very organized but ive got to go. Ill probably be posting more in this thread when i get back.
 
thanks, that helps. what do you mean by enveloping the idea? I was thinking of setting an image of what it would be like to grow up in the time and then start the plot. i posted this to show my writing style. I wanted to slip into the plot soon after...
 
in college interviews the admissions officers have blatantly told me that they disregard the writing because of how new and untested it is
 
The entire writing section was put into the SAT because the UC schools threatened to drop the SAT off their admissions reqs. It sucks, yes, but the majority of schools look at it. Some midwest schools are now switching over to ACT, so you might have applied to one of those...
 
Very good start to your story. You should definatly finish it.

Can't give you much advice on the SAT thing cause I live in Canada and we don't have them
 
Show, don't tell. This advice is pretty much the most used and possibly most important you will get in fiction writing. I'm sure you've heard it before, and I'm sure you'll hear it again. Don't disregard it, even if it might be cliché. While your ideas could be pretty good if you pull them off in your writing, your story is boring as hell so far for the reader.

"The stench of rotting whale corpses was unavoidable throughout the entire town of Gloucester, Massachusetts and several miles west, wherever the Atlantic wind finally came to push it."

It seems like you were trying to catch the reader's attention by starting with the stench of rotting whale corpses. You want to catch their attention, but you don't want to look like you're trying to. It is too blatant as is, and comes off as an attempt to include cheap shock value. I would try to be more discreet about stating "rotting whale corpses." I might have the opening paragraph follow the path of the stench from the whalery (or wherever it is the whales are being processed) through the town, adding descriptors about the setting.

"With the cloudy morning fog came the extraordinary production and mass slaughter of the largest animals known to man; the town was infamous for existing as port to the largest and most successful whaling fleets in the young American nation."

This seems kind of clumsy. I would describe the first part instead of saying it outright like you did. Keep the second part as is, but use renowned or famous or something instead of infamous. Infamous implies that people think the whaling industry is bad, and I thought you wanted to show that their carelessness eventually would lead to the whale population's depletion. I think the word "American" is unnecessary too.

"To the men of the town, young and old, their duty was worthy of nothing less than the highest honor. The harvest of whales was more a culture to the men of Gloucester than it was anything else. Like so many others, it was a career that had been passed down from each father to son, year after year, generation after generation, and yet monotony was not the slightest bit evident to the people."

Show, don't tell. This is some good stuff, but it's wasted unless you show it with the characters through their actions, dialogue, or whatever.

"These glorious whalers were the effect of what had been reinforced inside their minds during the time they had spent on this Earth."

Wordy. The complexity of the sentence doesn't add anything.

"They were the victims of a lie much larger than the animals they were killing."

Great sentence.

"They had less reason to oppose the hunt than they did to side with it and thus, quite logically, no individual objected to the bloody, gruesome hunt."

Instead of this, a conflict should arise in which someone (main character probably) expresses some sort of doubt about the morality of the entire industry, but realizes that the town could not run without it. That could be good main contributing factor to his going crazy.

"In Gloucester, whaling seemed less like work [better if: "than a due..."] and more similar to a due that [don't need "that"] the men were required to pay to the world [I would cut out "to the world"]. They had been told by their fathers to give their support in the form of catching and preparing their natural resources for the sustainment of outside populations."

The second sentence just sounds weird. I would cut it out and make this conflict appear between the character's father and him, or something like that.

"They were to survive, no matter [use "even" instead of "no matter"] if it meant the death of the surrounding life."

You seem to be using a lot of "they"s.

"The people of Gloucester were consumed by the expanding world around them."

Cool sentence.

"No individual would ever come to question or discuss this bizarre and powerful force, which gave purpose to their career."

I thought this is exactly what your character does.

"It shifted each man’s ideology, hollowed his soul, and taxed his short life. The entire town was prey to a well-organized system that fit together in a generational cycle."

I like the way you said this too, but it would still be better if it was fleshed out throughout the story.

"They were all unknowingly condemned to a lifetime of conformity."

Sorry, but please don't do this. It makes you sound exactly like an angsty teen, which people hate to read. I know the idea of the story is about conformity and "the system" and all that, but you can still pull it off without being pointed out as a raging teen. Plenty of great works deal with this theme, but people can always tell the difference between shallow teenage angst writing and mature observations about the world. It has to do with letting the reader figure the theme out for themselves instead of outright telling them.

I'm really sorry if I came across as a jerk (and a broken record, but the show, don't tell rule is important). I know I probably sounded harsh, but harsh criticism is sometimes the best. Remember: you don't have to use any of my suggestions, they're just possibilities and it could be totally wrong with what you want to do. Everything is ultimately your choice, but always at least consider any feedback you get, because the reader has a different vantage on the story, which is extremely valuable. For the SAT situation: it's good that you don't seem daunted too much by it. I'm glad that you decided to keep going with your writing, but keep in mind that you didn't get a 4 because you were creative, you got it because you were either not paying attention to form, structure, and grammar (or because you didn't answer the question adequately) or because you aren't as good as you could be in those areas. To be a writer, creativity is by far the most important facet (and it seems like you have it), but the basics are essential as well. Don't forget about them. The most important thing is to keep writing. Don't be discouraged by criticism, but learn from it.

 
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