Round Four= Marni Gillard

         I think there are a lot of things that work very welll in the journey chapter. I think right away in the first paragraph the story pulls you in. It's always good when a reader has questions in the beginning because it makes them want to find the answers to the questions. After the first paragraph I'm already wondering about her life and her family and what they went through after her dad passed away. "I first wrote a brief story of that evening as a Christmas gift for my mother. She and I had grown closer since my pregnancy, and I secretly hoped the story might help us share memories of my dad. He died in a one-car accident shortly after I turned thirteen. Mom’s way of handling it was, “It’s over. We have to move on.” So we all dealt with the shock and sorrow of it privately or not at all. As if it were invisible."
          I really like how she started the piece by bringing emotion and some backround information to make the story become so real right away. Marni uses such amazing language to share her mothers emotions and I think this is really touching and it triggers my emotional side. It helps me understand how Marni and her mother are feeling. "Reading my high dive story gift, Mom briefly opened her safety deposit box of emotions...But later, the way people return holiday decorations to the attic, Mom and I filed away the story, and any further talk of Dad." I think it's important how she talks about why she chose to tell stories instead of writing them but I think that part ccould be cut down a little like maybe taking out why fiction writing didn't appeal to  her. "Fiction writing didn’t appeal to me. My own experiences and understandings were puzzle enough." I think it's more important to explain why she loves to tell stories and less about how it happened like becoming a teacher. Those facts are still important but she could take out a few parts.
          I also really like how Marni explains that each time she tells the story it's different. Since she doesn't have it written down you know it comes from her heart everytime and she's not just repeating the same words over and over. Each time she tells the story it tells her something new about her life that she didn't realize before. "Once it surfaced, I realized the child narrator had more to tell me about what “she” had hidden for years." Her character in the story of herself as a child comes out when she tells the story. She also explains how the audience can dictate how she tells the story... "Every gasp or laugh, every puzzled or entranced face potentially affects the story, if I let it. Each of these details appeared because of some listener’s response: the drawn-out sound-effect of falling from the board, the smack as I hit the water, the way I wiggle my ruffle-bottomed suit and snap my bathing cap, my frown at the big kids' teasing, and Dad’s blowing bubbles with Meg. Details come and go, if I stay present to the memory as it surfaces."

1/12 Speaker= ****