My Assingnment -- Pilloried in the Mid-East

[Rhabbi]

I am so happy that everyone likse this story, and I thank you all for the encouragement. It amazes me that I could provoke this kind of response from a story that was so far away from me.

Let me try to explain something here. When I questioned the effectiveness of this story, it was not because I did not believe that someone might like it. I have seen things that were written that are much worse than this thet people have apparently liked. Nor did I doubt my ability to write. I have been told this even by instructors that thought I was wasting my talent by writing entertainment. What I doubted was my ability to write something I could not feel.

It is easy to write what I can imagine and feel, and to cause others to feel what I want them to feel through my feelings. I have seen this before with my work, the first time in high school. But with those stories I knew it was good because I felt it.

To have that kind of effect with a story that I cannot feel tells me more than I knew. It actually tells me that it is possible to write something I cannot feel, and make other people feel it. This is a writing level that I did not know existed, and it gratiifes me to be able to not only find it, but achieve it. I now know I do not have to be able to imagine something myself and feel it inside me to get others to feel that thing.

[Mad Lews]

I am so happy that everyone likse this story, and I thank you all for the encouragement. It amazes me that I could provoke this kind of response from a story that was so far away from me.

Let me try to explain something here. When I questioned the effectiveness of this story, it was not because I did not believe that someone might like it. I have seen things that were written that are much worse than this thet people have apparently liked. Nor did I doubt my ability to write. I have been told this even by instructors that thought I was wasting my talent by writing entertainment. What I doubted was my ability to write something I could not feel.

It is easy to write what I can imagine and feel, and to cause others to feel what I want them to feel through my feelings. I have seen this before with my work, the first time in high school. But with those stories I knew it was good because I felt it.

To have that kind of effect with a story that I cannot feel tells me more than I knew. It actually tells me that it is possible to write something I cannot feel, and make other people feel it. This is a writing level that I did not know existed, and it gratiifes me to be able to not only find it, but achieve it. I now know I do not have to be able to imagine something myself and feel it inside me to get others to feel that thing.

Rhabbi, good sir,

The question might be not whether you (can) feel it, but rather if you have enough empathy to understand how another might feel it. If that was the quest that's where you succeeded. Let's be honest, the characters were fictional and they were your creation, so you could make them act, speak, and feel any damn way you wanted. You managed to make them believable enough for your readers to become engaged with their tale. That's success in any story tellers book.
Mad