While reading the works by Goldburg, Burroway, and Lamott I chose my favorite stories or section from each and analyzed them.

Goldburg: Blue Lipstick and a Cigarette Hanging Out Your Mouth
          This story really let my imagination wander. The author is explaining how when she is writing she has to wear something different, become someone else, or wear something outrageous. The things way she described things really made me picture everything and a stereotype that went along with that "look". It kind of made me think that when you are writing it is almost an escape from reality, and you can create anything you want, be anyone you want. I know she literally is wearing these crazy outfits and having a unlit cigarette hanging out of her mouth but it makes me think that she does this in relation to what or who she is about to write about. The story has a deeper meaning of simply the art of writing and how it can change your outlook on anything and make you be anything or anyone else. It is an escape.

Lammott: Dialogue
        Basically dialogue can really make or break a fictional story. Lammott talks about how her students can really ruin a piece with some bad dialogue, you really have to know what you are doing. On the other hand there is nothing better than great dialogue. It allows you to actually hear from a character and directly know what they are thinking, where as otherwise you would have to infer or guess about how they feel about something or what their opinion is. Lammott says that dialogue in fiction should be more like a movie, very dramatic. She suggests sounding it out and making sure it sounds good out loud. What a character says should represent who they are. Lammott gives the example to put two people in an elevator who hate each other the most and let the elevator get stuck. This really was amusing to me, but it makes sense. Fiction writing really is a bit more complicated than I thought, yet that is such a simple idea that would be very entertaining to readers. She talks about how what they say has to be believable, and to treat these characters like real people, give them time to meet the other characters, then see how things go. This really opens your mind to a certain way of writing. You have to know the hearts of your characters. Character composition is quite the process. I feel as after reading Lammott's work I need to get started on some of my fiction works and rethink my characters and figure out who they are.

Burroway: The Active Voice
      After the character analysis of Lammott's work I became interested in another author's views. Burroway introduces the active voice. It is basically how we make our characters "come to life". It includes making their dialogue and actions much more detailed an interesting, in depth. We mostly use the active voice in fiction because it makes everything more dramatic, only using the passive voice for someone when we want them to be more of a background character or they are saying something un-important. Burroway talks about how we have to explain an action of a character, saying they are shocked is not enough, we have to explain an action that shows everyone they are shocked. I never thought of this specifically before, I understand how much it could improve a story. He is saying to use action to suggest an emotion. Burroway stresses to make sure the explanation of the action needs to quality though or it will not be as effective.