Subtext In Amy Bloom's Imaginative Writing

He woke up in a cold sweat on the floor of a strange, rusty iron elevator, there were steel barrels, crates, and coils of rope. He felt the elevator stop and he could faintly hear people talking above him. Suddenly, big iron doors above him swung open and he was blinded by the light that came out. “Hey there!” a voice said. “Well you must be confused, let me help clear things up a bit. I’m Ethan, I run things around here”.

To be able to analyze fiction, is directly opening doors to the abstract and nebulous parts of our minds. Being able to find the moral or message of a text without it directly being stated, is a skill not all people have opened themselves to. No one can make you think about a concept that you haven’t yet pondered yourself, you must be able to search in between the lines and create a certain meaning based on your own mental constructs. This is a very key element when reading fiction, it is impossible to decipher the purpose of the text without understanding hidden messages subtly suggested throughout. For example, in O’Conner’s story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” she uses mainly foreshadowing to create a grim atmosphere, as when the grandmother was ranting about ‘The Misfit’. “‘Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?” the grandmother asked.” (p. 1)

Taking a closer look to: Ten Ways to Think about Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students by the author Reid, E. Shelley.

The door was splattered with blood. The door exuded the scent of death. Satisfying my curiosity, I proceeded to open the door just a crack. The smell came in a hot wave to my nose. It almost seemed to burn my nose, it was so rotten. I was aghast at the sheer sight of rotten corpses that met my eyes when I opened the door.

Writing varies from a text message to a novel. Writers often have a difficult task in creating a piece of work that truly identifies the meaning of good writing. Every good writer usually starts with the basics such as genre, audience, rhetorical situation, and reflection of the piece. Throughout this semester, we have gone through all of these key terms in great detail with each new assignment that has come our way. In doing this, not only as students but also as writers, we have come to create our own theory of writing. Every writer has a different theory of writing though most are very similar. Now, at this point in the semester after doing countless journals, in-class exercises, and final assignments, I think I have figured out my own

At 11.26pm a girl with sleek straight hair walked along the middle of a deserted street, the sharp heels of her shoes making a muted click every time they hit the damp cobblestone road beneath them. As she walked her hair swayed only slightly, as if not even the most powerful of winds could cause it to be anything less than beautiful. The girl took beauty very seriously, her outfit was always creaseless, her nails were always without chips and her shoes were always polished to the point of immaculateness. But it was her hair that was the most beautiful thing about her; it was long and as black as the night sky way above her, and shone as if it too had stars though out it. Never was a single hair out of place; never was her hair anything less

I relaxed on my deck outside, basking in the streams of sunshine and sticky humid air.

I stood as steady as a statue. A myriad of gigantic brown trees as old as Adam surrounded me. They seemed to stare at me like watchmen. I took a deep breath and my heart began to beat like a cheetah chasing its prey. Slowly, I walked into the dark forest.

A fortnight passed, and Percy and his siblings spent extra time with Will. After coming close to losing him, they all got along better than ever.

Lionel Giverd was practicing his football one day on his team, and he suddenly landed on his arm he started to swear. He realized he would be in the cast for a while and he hoped he could make the team next year.

In January 1843 my fellow cop William Washington and I were just relaxing after and long and hard day on the job. All the sudden we get a suspicious call from a nearby home in Massachusetts. William and I grabbed our gear and went to investigate. When we arrived at the house, a lady answered the door and said that she heard a screech from her neighbor’s house. When we walked over to the neighbor’s house a young man answered the door and greeted us. When we told the young man that somebody reported a yell he said that it was his own from a nightmare he had. We ask him if we could search the his home and he hesitantly said yes. We searched all the floors of his home and William and I found nothing suspicious. We asked for the young man's name

Marcus anxiously awaited his turn to fight. The crowd was cheering and roaring as two slaves fought each other in the arena. Even though this was just a prelude to the main event the crowd was enthralled the action. He watched on nervously as they slashed and stabbed at each other. They weren 't inflicting serious damage on each other because they were both fast and wary of the other 's attacks. There were no major wounds inflicted yet but after a few minutes of dancing around each other one of them managed to just catch the other 's leg and they fell down into the sand. The soon to be champion stood above him, sword pointing at their neck. He looked up to the crowd; awaiting their verdict. At this point it was the Emperor and the crowd 's decision whether they survived or not. The crowd shouted to have him killed, pointing their thumbs down as the signal for death. With one quick stab, it was over. Some of the guards walked over to drag the dead body off as the champion walked around the arena basking in the crowd 's cheers. There were tens of thousands of people in the crowd excited for the upcoming fight. The Emperor was one of them. He was sitting in a much less crowded area; surrounded by his elite praetorian guard and his servants. He was wearing his most lavish toga and was drinking some fine Italian wine. The fights in the arena were a fortnightly event but it was rare for the Emperor to turn up to view one.

Last winter, I went on a camping trip in the woods. As we unpacked our tents, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Two red eyes glowing right at me behind a bush. They were getting bigger and bigger the closer the creature got to us. We usually go camping in this forest, but this was the first time I saw something strange here. My stomach churned as I noticed the bush starting to rustle, alarming me that the creature will jump out and kill us. ¨Hey Matt, do you see those big, glowing, red eyes too?¨ I whispered, still looking at the creature hidden behind the bush. Matt, my best friend, was too busy fighting the cloth of our tent because he got his legs somehow stuck.

Disoriented and hungry a devoured the only shape in sight, a strange, brown cylinder. The item was held up by a black, curving substance over a strangely shaped carpet of cracks which had grains of different colors, some darker than others. Suddenly, the cylinder dropped a little of itself onto the rug. The precipitate had a pulsing orange glow and, as I continued to consume, more of these dropped off. I did not care what the solid dropping off was or where this phenomenon came from.

We finally reached Alcove Springs! It was quite the sight, with all the trees and water. Everyone is happy here, we like to sing and play music on our instruments at night. We go to bed in good spirits and I'm happy to see that my boys have adjusted to the trip more than before. There is a huge problem here though, mosquitos. They have been getting in all of our food and getting bit by them terrible. We have tried to put mud on ourselves so that they wouldn't bite, but it dries our skin out really bad. It has been two days since we have got here and we all seem to be fed up with it. We left this morning.