Original Freewrite:
Complete - Honors
”Tzezar... was still young. He'd made films. Nut he hadn't finished his first when they arrested him" (Solzhenitsyn 29).
"Volkovoi was as unpopular with the prisoners as with the guards... God had named the bastard appropriately. He was a wolf indeed" (Solzhenitsyn 31).
"Senka was a quiet luckless fellow... he was captured; he escaped, and was recaptured, and was resent to Buchenwald. There he evaded death" (Solzhenitsyn 49).
When we are told the backstories, we are more likely to understand and also enjoy reading the story more. We connect with the characters and realize that sometimes people tend to have their own story to tell. The people in the gulag might be put together into one category, but the truth is they have their own ideas and history to tell. "Senka was a quiet luckless fellow... he was captured; he escaped, and was recaptured, and was resent to Buchenwald. There he evaded death" (Solzhenitsyn 49). Sometimes knowing a character can make you realize what they mean to the story, like Senka. He is breifly explained in the beginning to be a luckless fellow, and it is proven numerous times throughout the book.
I like the back story about the train and the girl. It makes you realize that the man who was telling it is actually a very kind man. He cares for other people and helps them even if it means that he could get in trouble. The girls teakettle was filled while the train was leaving. She was crying, scared of being left behind. The man realized this and new that he had to help her. Now, when we come back to the present, you realize that this man is more than we thought he was. He had this whole other history that we didn't know about and that he didn't tell until this very moment. With out this in the book, he would just be another man in the story that is not at all significant.
The reason people are given backstories is also to tell us that this character is significant in his own way. He has something to do with the story. He is not just a prisoner, no. He is a character that has a role to play, and the backstory tells us that later on he will become even more important to the story as a whole. "Volkovoi was as unpopular with the prisoners as with the guards... God had named the bastard appropriately. He was a wolf indeed" (Solzhenitsyn 31). We start to understand him, and it is like that with any character, Even the evil Volkovoi. We start to understand what kind of person they are, finding out that Volkovoi was known as the wolf, makes an image of him start to emerge in the back of our minds. It is an interesting and common thing to use in storytelling. personally, I enjoy having more backstories to understand each person's past.
Freewriting Revision:
When told a backstory, this is what you think of a character; I had no clue. We connect with the characters and realize that sometimes people are not as malicious as they seem. They have their own stories to tell, and usually, knowing those stories makes you realize something new about the character, just as it can make them easily unforgettable. This is greatly seen in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. You may categorize them all into one group, criminals, but the truth is they have their own lives behind those masks. "Senka was a quiet luckless fellow... he was captured; he escaped, and was recaptured, and was resent to Buchenwald. There he evaded death" (Solzhenitsyn 49). Sometimes knowing a character can make you realize what they mean to the story, like Senka. He is briefly explained in the beginning to be a luckless fellow, and it is proven numerous times throughout the book.
I like the back story about the train and the girl. It makes you realize that the man who was telling it is actually a very kind man. He didn’t neglect the girl, and even cares for other people and helps them even if it means that he could get in trouble. The girls teakettle was filled while the train was leaving. She was crying, scared of being left behind. The man realized this and knew that he had to help her. Now, when we come back to the present, you realize that this man is more than we thought he was. He had this whole other history that we didn't know about and that he didn't tell until this very moment. Without this in the book, he would just be another man in the story that is not at all significant.
The reason people are given backstories is also to tell us that this character is significant in his own way. He is not just a prisoner, no. He is a character that has a role to play, and the backstory tells us that later on he will become even more important to the story as a whole. "Volkovoi was as unpopular with the prisoners as with the guards... God had named the bastard appropriately. He was a wolf indeed" (Solzhenitsyn 31). We start to understand him, and it is like that with any character, Even the evil Volkovoi. We start to understand what kind of person they are, finding out that Volkovoi was known as the wolf, makes an image of him start to emerge in the back of our minds. It is an interesting and common thing to use in storytelling to keep the readers keen on learning more. Personally, I enjoy having more backstories to understand each person's past.
Another thing I believe is that backstories make a particular character unforgettable. In a book full of names that you may get confused between who is who, you need small backstories to really know a character to the point that you realize who had what happen in their pasts. I for one, didn’t even know what the difference was between the two people with the names, Tiurin and Tzezar was. That was when I found out what kind of person Tiurin had been in years past. He was a kind man who helped children. I didn’t forget that he was the leader of the 101st, or that he had a strong personality that makes him look after his squad members as if they were all his dear friends. Even in the barrack where they had to fix the scaffold, he stood up for his squad, with peremptory words. Tzezar on the other hand, I am not sure of even now. He had no back story, and whatever he may have had, was not enough to catch a reaction from us.
All books you read in life will have small backstories, but the unique way that this novel has done it, has kept me hitched on the story since the beginning. It was not at all what I was expecting, and it had a good impact since the start.and really kept me going until the end. Characters have their own lives to tell us, when you know their pasts, you understand the character, making them unforgettable in the process. It is a severe mistake to not have them in any sort of story, and a story would be barren without it. No matter how good your writing may be, without something to connect to, all you have written are words that don’t matter to anyone but yourself.
Works Cited: Yn, Aleksandr Isaevich, and Ralph Parker. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York: Dutton, 1963. Print.
Complete - Honors
”Tzezar... was still young. He'd made films. Nut he hadn't finished his first when they arrested him" (Solzhenitsyn 29).
"Volkovoi was as unpopular with the prisoners as with the guards... God had named the bastard appropriately. He was a wolf indeed" (Solzhenitsyn 31).
"Senka was a quiet luckless fellow... he was captured; he escaped, and was recaptured, and was resent to Buchenwald. There he evaded death" (Solzhenitsyn 49).
When we are told the backstories, we are more likely to understand and also enjoy reading the story more. We connect with the characters and realize that sometimes people tend to have their own story to tell. The people in the gulag might be put together into one category, but the truth is they have their own ideas and history to tell. "Senka was a quiet luckless fellow... he was captured; he escaped, and was recaptured, and was resent to Buchenwald. There he evaded death" (Solzhenitsyn 49). Sometimes knowing a character can make you realize what they mean to the story, like Senka. He is breifly explained in the beginning to be a luckless fellow, and it is proven numerous times throughout the book.
I like the back story about the train and the girl. It makes you realize that the man who was telling it is actually a very kind man. He cares for other people and helps them even if it means that he could get in trouble. The girls teakettle was filled while the train was leaving. She was crying, scared of being left behind. The man realized this and new that he had to help her. Now, when we come back to the present, you realize that this man is more than we thought he was. He had this whole other history that we didn't know about and that he didn't tell until this very moment. With out this in the book, he would just be another man in the story that is not at all significant.
The reason people are given backstories is also to tell us that this character is significant in his own way. He has something to do with the story. He is not just a prisoner, no. He is a character that has a role to play, and the backstory tells us that later on he will become even more important to the story as a whole. "Volkovoi was as unpopular with the prisoners as with the guards... God had named the bastard appropriately. He was a wolf indeed" (Solzhenitsyn 31). We start to understand him, and it is like that with any character, Even the evil Volkovoi. We start to understand what kind of person they are, finding out that Volkovoi was known as the wolf, makes an image of him start to emerge in the back of our minds. It is an interesting and common thing to use in storytelling. personally, I enjoy having more backstories to understand each person's past.
Freewriting Revision:
When told a backstory, this is what you think of a character; I had no clue. We connect with the characters and realize that sometimes people are not as malicious as they seem. They have their own stories to tell, and usually, knowing those stories makes you realize something new about the character, just as it can make them easily unforgettable. This is greatly seen in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. You may categorize them all into one group, criminals, but the truth is they have their own lives behind those masks. "Senka was a quiet luckless fellow... he was captured; he escaped, and was recaptured, and was resent to Buchenwald. There he evaded death" (Solzhenitsyn 49). Sometimes knowing a character can make you realize what they mean to the story, like Senka. He is briefly explained in the beginning to be a luckless fellow, and it is proven numerous times throughout the book.
I like the back story about the train and the girl. It makes you realize that the man who was telling it is actually a very kind man. He didn’t neglect the girl, and even cares for other people and helps them even if it means that he could get in trouble. The girls teakettle was filled while the train was leaving. She was crying, scared of being left behind. The man realized this and knew that he had to help her. Now, when we come back to the present, you realize that this man is more than we thought he was. He had this whole other history that we didn't know about and that he didn't tell until this very moment. Without this in the book, he would just be another man in the story that is not at all significant.
The reason people are given backstories is also to tell us that this character is significant in his own way. He is not just a prisoner, no. He is a character that has a role to play, and the backstory tells us that later on he will become even more important to the story as a whole. "Volkovoi was as unpopular with the prisoners as with the guards... God had named the bastard appropriately. He was a wolf indeed" (Solzhenitsyn 31). We start to understand him, and it is like that with any character, Even the evil Volkovoi. We start to understand what kind of person they are, finding out that Volkovoi was known as the wolf, makes an image of him start to emerge in the back of our minds. It is an interesting and common thing to use in storytelling to keep the readers keen on learning more. Personally, I enjoy having more backstories to understand each person's past.
Another thing I believe is that backstories make a particular character unforgettable. In a book full of names that you may get confused between who is who, you need small backstories to really know a character to the point that you realize who had what happen in their pasts. I for one, didn’t even know what the difference was between the two people with the names, Tiurin and Tzezar was. That was when I found out what kind of person Tiurin had been in years past. He was a kind man who helped children. I didn’t forget that he was the leader of the 101st, or that he had a strong personality that makes him look after his squad members as if they were all his dear friends. Even in the barrack where they had to fix the scaffold, he stood up for his squad, with peremptory words. Tzezar on the other hand, I am not sure of even now. He had no back story, and whatever he may have had, was not enough to catch a reaction from us.
All books you read in life will have small backstories, but the unique way that this novel has done it, has kept me hitched on the story since the beginning. It was not at all what I was expecting, and it had a good impact since the start.and really kept me going until the end. Characters have their own lives to tell us, when you know their pasts, you understand the character, making them unforgettable in the process. It is a severe mistake to not have them in any sort of story, and a story would be barren without it. No matter how good your writing may be, without something to connect to, all you have written are words that don’t matter to anyone but yourself.
Works Cited: Yn, Aleksandr Isaevich, and Ralph Parker. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York: Dutton, 1963. Print.