Sunday, September 15, 2019

Comment Wall

This is my Portfolio link.


(Image from Flickr)

16 comments:

  1. Hey Dorothy!

    I enjoyed reading your rendition of "Foolish, Timid Rabbit." I like how you use your own experience of owning cats and exploring them into characters for your portfolio story. I noticed you used quite a bit of dialogue, which I truly appreciated. Something about dialogues just engages reader even more so than a simple narrative story. I would suggest that you consider using action beat dialogue instead of using the traditional talk dialogue. I think action beat dialogues will truly elevate your story and help readers better visualize your point of view. Also, you may want to consider differentiating the author's note and bibliography from the whole story. Perhaps underline the author's note title or even break the portions up by creating space in between. Overall, good job on your first portfolio story!

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  2. Hello Dorothy!
    I really loved your portfolio story. I also did my story based off of the "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit". I think the story is really fun because there are endless ways you can come up with your own twist to the story. I thought each of your characters were really cute and creative. I love reading stories about cats because I feel they all have such different personalities. I also liked your use of dialogue in the story. I personally thought it gave the story life and was very entertaining. I feel as though I could imagine what was going on while reading the story, so the imagery was definitely there. I also liked in your author's note how you mentioned that the basis of the story was to never assume. The only comment I can make about change is to possibly space out the author's note from the rest of the story so the reader does not get confused and think they are still reading. Overall, cute story and very fun to read!

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  3. Hi Dorothy!

    The first thing I noticed about your page was the title, Cats Hate Water, and the adorable picture of the cat for this story! Not having read the story at this point, I’m already intrigued.

    When I started to read your story, the names of the cats sounded familiar to me. I went back and re-read your introduction post and sure enough, they are the names of your own cats! I thought it was cute that you included something from your personal life to tell this story in your own words. I think read your author’s note….after I re-read your intro

    I also really liked the level of detail you included about setting the scene. I could picture in my head the cat laying in the sill and enjoying the lazy day. I could also picture the cat freaking out when the water dripped on him and how cats spazz out.

    Overall, I really liked this story. I laughed at the descriptions used in this story, but I also thought it did a great job conveying the message the original author wanted to pass on.

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  4. I thought your "Cats Hate Water" was a great interpretation of the story. It was very clever to use water as the great disaster with cats as the characters. The only thing I would have loved to read is maybe some background on Logan. Is he known for these kind of antics? He seemed in the story to be unreliable among the other cats. Although I loved all the dialogue between the cats I would have loved to read more about the setting the cats were in as well. Also, your author's note was the most interesting I've read. I laughed thinking about how this story was justification to get another cat and how you felt bad not writing about your dogs. Overall I think you did a great job or retelling this well known story. I love that you kept it as animals in the story and think you connected well with the dialogue.

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  5. Hi Dorothy!
    I read your story line of "Cats Hate Water", and I think this was a great way to mix up the story line a little bit from the original story of "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit." Cats are one of my favorite animals so I would also like to include a story for mine that has animated cats. I think you story flows well and I enjoy your dialoge but I was a little iffy about the formating of your story as well as some small grammatical erorrs that I noticed while I was reading. Other than those small hiccups, I think your story is very clever. I wonder if you could add a twister at the end, instead of the normal ending, such as the world really is flooding and there is an alien attack or something of teh sort just to keep it interesting. Thank you for creating awesome work!

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  6. Hi Dorthy,
    I just noticed a small error terrible has a K in it towards the beginning of your story it was very small and I almost missed it. I also definitely had a little be of Dr. Seuss vibes from the scenery that you painted. I also really like how I can feel the nervousness of the characters and seem human like qualities through your writing. I pictured puss in boots from shrek when he had his eyes really big and wide when he was up to no good. I also like how you played up the stereotype of cats hating water to give it a familiar feel. I think it would be good to expand on how he got the massive following I feel like it was a little glossed over. Overall I really liked your story and it gave me beautiful imaginary to imagine, I would just watch out for some of the spelling.

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  7. Hi Dorothy!
    I really liked the home page of your story. There is not much info that lets you know if there is a specific theme of your portfolio or not but I really liked the image and found it easy to access your stories. I also enjoyed how you made an indian epic into a story of a cat who hates water. It is a very interesting and creative take. I also really appreciated the author's note because it let me know exactly what you were thinking when you wrote this story. Your second story of Rama and Sita was one I really liked in the Ramayana. I am also a hopeless romantic so I loved reading your romantic, modern day take on this story. I also think it is cool that your first story is more modern and you can hardly tell as your reading it that it relates back to an Indian epic but your second story is just a retelling of an Indian epic you can definitely recognize.

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  8. Hi, Dorothy! I really enjoy your vivid use of imagery to describe Logan at the beginning of your story! It gives the reader a great idea of what to imagine. Your use of adjectives throughout the story is absolutely enthralling. I think Severus’ character is really funny. I think his use of relaxed language creates a really nice comedic contrast between him and Logan. I thought the section where you write, “‘Not I!’ ‘Not me!’ ‘I think it was him’ ‘No it wasn’t me’” really gave the reader an idea of the chaos that is all around the cats. Maybe, just to make things easier for the reader, you could see about giving each one of those lines their own little paragraph section? Totally just a suggestion though!

    I really enjoyed your story about Rama and Sita too! I think this is such a happy part of the Ramayana. Since I’m such a sucker for happy endings, I would love to hear more about Sita’s excitement about marrying Rama at the end! That’s the best part!

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  9. Hey Dorothy! I think your portfolio's off to a great start. First, a couple of thoughts on the general design/look/feel of it:
    I really like the setup of your site, it's honestly one of my favorites that I've seen so far. I think the bar on the left looks really clean and is easy to track everything. One suggestion on the front page--if you list out the contents, maybe make them hyperlinked to the specific pages? Also, on the Rama and Sita story, there seem to be larger than normal gaps between the paragraphs. I don't know if that's just how the formatting is, although I didn't notice it on the first story, but it felt a little too spaced to me. The side bar, title banner on each page, font and everything else is so clean though, great job!

    With the story of Rama and Sita, I feel like you did a great job of going into detail with their emotions, but I feel like the detail dropped off a bit as the story progressed, making the last third of the story feel like it happened really fast. So if you do revisions, I'd maybe focus on taking that great detail at the beginning and carrying it all the way through. Overall, great Portfolio!

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  10. Hi Dorothy! I immediately loved the title of your first story. I think it was very fitting with the myth you were retelling. It was also just really cute and enjoyable! I liked getting to hear about Logan and all of his antics with the other cats. Your description brought the story to life. It all flowed very well and made it interesting to read. I enjoyed the personalities that you gave the cats. It gave the whole thing more life. I can definitely see how this overlaps with the original. I think you did a great job retelling it. It was a cute twist to the story. I also enjoy the look of your portfolio. It’s easy to navigate! The picture of the cat at the end was adorable. The changes that you made were lovely and I’m excited to see what other stories you end up writing! This was great!

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  11. Hi Dorothy! I really enjoyed reading through your project! Since this week -- week 12 -- is being focused on author's notes, I paid especially close attention to them while I was reading through the stories in your portfolio. First, in your story "Cats Hate Water," your author's note is great! You do a really great job combining humor and detail, as you talk about what inspired you to write the story that way with humor that keeps the reader engaged, even though the story itself is done. I especially liked the parts about your family reacting to another cat, and the 'makes a (donkey) out of U and me." In your second story, I liked how you incorporated how you liked romance and how you're a hopeless romantic, and some of your confusion about Rama. These details in the author's note help the reader understand where in your mind the story and its tone came from. Also, stating what you wanted the reader to get out of the story -- visualize, ponder how they're feeling, etc. -- is really good, and helps the reader reflect on the effectiveness of the story at the end. And I really like your idea of a cat romance! That would be really fun.

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  12. Hey Dorothy! This was my first time visiting your portfolio and I was excited to dive into your stories! I read all three that you have up as of now. This week, we were told to focus on author's notes so that is what the majority of my comments will be about. The first story I read was "Cats Hate Water". I really liked that your author's note tied your story back to you and offered some personal information. It was nice to get to "meet the author" a little after reading the story. I also think you offered a great amount of information after the story. There was enough information to let readers know what happened in "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit" without making it a long summary. In "Ma's Blackie", I did notice that you had a couple of small typos and typed "y" instead of "my" and also "thee" instead of "the" in the author's note. But the author's note was still good. You gave me all of the information I was looking for in an author's note in a quick fashion. Great project so far!

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  13. Dorothy,

    I am focusing on the author's notes this week as assigned. Overall I think you do a great job of telling the reader what you changed from the original and why you changed those things. I loved reading what your personal reasons were for choosing certain changes or themes in your stories as well. If you were to add something to your stories I would say that maybe put a couple sentences in the beginning summarizing the original story. Particularly in the last story it could be confusing for someone that has not read the original story. I think your portfolio is looking great and can't wait to read more.

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  14. Hi Dorothy!
    Focusing on author’s notes this week, your author’s note in the Cats Hate Water story did a great job explaining the original story and also the details you changed! I love that you told us I the note about how the names of the cats in your story are actually the names of your own cats. I really enjoyed your retelling of this story because it definitely seems like a plausible scenario since cats do hate water and it makes sense that a cat would be having a water nightmare. If you have the source for who said the quote you have at the end it might be a good minor addition to your note for this story. Your Rama and Sita story also has a good descriptive author’s note.

    For Ma’s Blackie, you have a typo and say “y” instead of “my” and also “tghe” instead of “the”. I am not very familiar with the original story, so it could be helpful in the note to include a short summary of the original story right before you discuss what elements you changed in your retelling. For the sources, I like how you hyperlinked the source in the Cats Hate Water story, maybe you could also hyperlink the source in Ma’s Blackie.

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  15. Hi, Dorothy! I really enjoyed your story! You do a really great job of describing the cat in the beginning and I enjoyed learning about how the cat got its name. I thought the bit about the cat not wanting to help with the water was really cute! The part about hair in the food was cute too and the fact that it had happened before makes it even funnier! The only thing I would suggest is maybe clarifying that Blackie was offering her services to the exterminator, and not to Ma. At first, I thought she was talking to Ma. Just a thought, but it might be kind of funny if Blackie stood at the gate and hissed or something. I thought it was very clever that she used her size to deter the exterminator. Also, at the end, I wonder if Blackie and Ma ever got to go on their trip together? Overall, though, I think you’ve got a really cute story with some really cute characters!

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  16. Hello,
    I want to start off by saying that your storybook design is very interesting. This is the first storybook I have seen with this particular layout. From the first page I have access to the comment wall as well as all the stories. You don’t have an introduction because on the home page you have a brief summary of each of the stories in one sentence. The first story you wrote was very interesting. I could see hints of the other stories in yours but could also see your changes! When I got to the end and read the Author’s Notes it became apparent of some of the changes that I feel were improvements from the original. The main thing I loved that you changed the most was the cat’s hatred of water being the plot instead of the sky falling. This same writing style followed through with the next two stories! I loved each of your stories and wish I could read more!

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