feliksaaaps

War on Adjectives

Will Pace (’24) encourages writers to embrace maximalist description. “…we can’t change the world of writing all at once. But just one person at a time, we can do better to speak and write in more creative ways.”

As a society, minimalism is too widely celebrated. Sure, if you want your kitchen to look like an Ikea walkway, knock yourself out Brenda. But in literature, there should be color. There should be a flare that we seem to lack as of recently. And I think there’s a way to fix that.

The ball is red. It is shiny, and it is bouncy. These are simple statements, and are probably true about some little red ball. Now, if I told you that the ball was a blindingly vibrant red. If I said the ball was airy and soared in a birdlike way, with a glistening exterior. Now that was dramatic, but you probably would prefer to play with that ball. As writers, we have standards. They are all at different places and levels, but they do exist. There are different styles and guidelines that different people use in their work, but they all culminate to a similar type of format. It’s what we do with that format that really makes us unique.

Now my solution is not easy, because we can’t just change the mind of every single person on the planet who has written anything ever. But what we can do is, if you’re reading this, switch up our mindsets a little. Put your left hand on your keyboard, and put your right hand in the air. Now repeat after me…

“I, (insert your name)

Solemnly swear

To write more vibrantly

To describe more creatively

And to use adjectives the way they were intended to be used”

Thank you for taking my pledge. The Will Pace Adjective Pledge™. Like I said, we can’t change the world of writing all at once. But just one person at a time, we can do better to speak and write in more creative ways. Using language just like it was intended to be used. And even if just one person who reads this can do their best to follow suit. It’ll cause a ripple. A beautiful, asymmetric, effective, remarkable, deliberate, astounding, comforting, awesome, peculiar, ravishing, nice ripple.

Find Your Inner Critic! How to write your first film review by a novice

Felix Atkins (’24) outlines how to write a film review. If you are inspired by his work, submit your own review in the link at the end of the post to be published on our website!

Have you ever watched a movie so good that you just had to recommend it to a friend or family member, but you didn’t have any better way of recommending it other than simply saying: “You should really watch this movie!” Or maybe you can’t help but give a full synopsis and ruin their need to see it in the first place. If you’re anything like me and you like watching movies and picking them apart, you should consider writing a review!

Important Preface

One thing you must consider is that watching a movie for fun and watching a movie analytically are completely different experiences. If you think about a magic show, a magician uses tricks, distraction, and deception to make their audience feel surprise and awe. Similarly, a movie uses camera angles, dialogue, and visual effects, among other things, to evoke certain emotions. Watching a movie analytically is like learning about a magician’s tricks and how they make people feel the way they do.

This can feel overwhelming at first. I came across terms like mise-en-scène or semiotic analysis during my research. While knowing about these terms and techniques can help you elevate your opinions about a movie, it’s important to remember that you’re writing for your average Joe, not a film student. Your ultimate goal should be convincing your audience whether they should or shouldn’t watch a particular movie.

Let’s Watch

Firstly, watch your movie multiple times (at least twice). On your first watch, I encourage you not to take any notes until the end. Then, write down your big ideas and emotions. Here are some questions to think about.

How does this movie make you feel?
Is there anything specific about the movie you liked (Camera work, Music, Lighting)
Is there anything that you didn’t like?
What is this movie trying to tell you?

Now, on your second watch, go more in-depth with these questions. Did the movie leave you satisfied? Going back to the magician example, Did the trick work?

How does this movie make you feel?
- Do you think this was intentional?
  - If so, how does the movie achieve this?
  - If not, where do you think the movie falls short?
Is there anything specific about the movie you liked (Camera work, Music, Lighting)
- Go back and figure out exactly why you liked that element
- For Example, the dialogue in a scene feels convincing and necessary
Is there anything that you didn’t like?
- Again, go back and figure out exactly why you DIDN’T like that element.
- For example, the music in a scene could be too distracting.
What is this movie trying to tell you?
- This is a harder question to answer and is more about the theme(s) in a movie.
- Does the narrative represent the theme well?

Time to Write

Now it’s time to put pen to paper and write your review. Now that you have taken notes, develop an opinion about the movie. Which of the previous questions was most important for your watch? Once you have a central topic for your review, I will show you where to talk about it In this outline.

Expository Information

This is where you will write about the general discourse of a movie and its making. Write about who was involved in the movie: directors, actors, producers. Was the movie controversial or highly anticipated? Is the director well established or is this a debut film? Were there any risks taken while making the movie? Providing this kind of information can set up expectations and create interest for someone who otherwise wouldn’t watch the movie.

Plot Synopsis

Write a brief description of general events in the movie and plot. Be sure not to reveal too much; a good tip is to reveal about as much as the trailer does.

Review

Here, introduce your “central Idea” about the movie. Share your opinion, don’t be afraid to be critical, but do be professional. Try to answer the questions listed previously, and go into detail about the techniques used to make it happen (I will include resources below to help you with this).

Conclusion

Deliver your final verdict to the reader. Would you recommend this movie? Here you could include general sentiments about the film, and talk about your feelings at the end of the movie on your initial watch.

Here are some resources to learn more about film analysis and technical approaches to movies.

UNC Film Analysis Article

Mise en Scène Masterclass Article

How to read cinematography | Shot analysis explained

Parasite’s Perfect Editing

How I Analyze Movies: A Quick Guide to Film Analysis

Hopefully, this blog helped you with your review process! Though this can be an overwhelming process, Just remember to relax. You are only writing for your peers at Skyline.

Submit your review

How Audiobooks Changed My Reading

Andrew Chen (’26) discusses the pleasure of audiobooks and offers some recommendations. “It is thanks to audiobooks that I have developed a love for books and a strong vocabulary.”

Every year, like clockwork, my family travels to New Jersey and Pennsylvania over the Christmas or Thanksgiving break. Instead of flying, we would drive the ten or so hours on I-80 all the way to the East coast. During the drive, we would listen to audiobooks from excellent authors.

Specifically, in the most recent years, we obsessed over the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood. My dad would slide the disk into the CD player, and we’d be regaled by Katherine Kellgren’s incredible reading skills the whole drive long. Sometimes we’d pause and discuss, as the entire series is a mystery tale. Every detail could be something that was important to the overall story. But mostly, we’d listen and laugh at the antics of the characters.

This literary experience was impactful in several ways. It is thanks to audiobooks that I have developed a love for books and a strong vocabulary. I have long been convinced that I am an auditory learner. When I perform music, I don’t read the music, I hear it in my head. Same with a book, I don’t read it, I hear it. This, of course may not be the case for every reader and writer, but audiobooks can be an incredible way of passing the time. There’s something special about listening to a very calm, clear voice reading your favorite classic, or a new, exciting fantasy.

The amount of audiobooks I listened to while creating a 6 foot tall, 128,600 strand latch hook numbered somewhere in the 30s. I would encourage every writer, reader, and teacher to listen to an audiobook one day. You may never know what part of the story may stand out to

you that you missed while reading.

Whenever I encounter a challenging text, I immediately go and get the audiobook, and for many of these texts, it makes understanding much easier. I remember many of these audiobooks because they impacted my entire reading method. It’s not for everyone, but we should all encourage others to read, whether it is an audiobook or a real book. Either way reading enhances vocabulary and a portal into a new world is opened.

A few good audiobook recommendations (with links to Amazon): Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. Any of the Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (Del Roy). Anything Rick Riordan, especially the Trials of Apollo serial. Maryrose Wood’s Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place. Harry Potter (Jim Dale).

You can find audiobooks at the library, on Libby, if you have a library card, or on Hoopla, which also requires a library card. Many audiobooks are also on the internet for free, or for a small fee. Amazon’s Audible service has thousands of audiobooks that you can peruse as well.

From, To, Subject, Compose

Nora Zain (’24) reflects on the power of listening to your own voice. “I am not an advocate for bottling up your feelings, but I do feel it necessary to say now that relying on other peoples input/opinions to make your own will not make you happy.”

I’m not one to write in a diary; for three consecutive years (age twelve, thirteen, and fourteen). I would recycle the same dot-grid notebook and try to force myself into keeping a bullet journal and every year, without fail, the notebook would stay in perfect, pristine condition. That was until last summer: Granted, that exact notebook is likely stashed somewhere in a box, in a closet, in a house halfway across the world.

I started writing myself emails.

For The Vault, I’d write in the subject line each time. A Taylor Swift reference, of course. With each Vault letter I realized more and more how much worse overtalking my problems was than just overthinking. I was on one long slippery spiral slope of no longer believing in my own opinions.

Time Magazine: “We live in a world that doesn’t just encourage overtalking but practically demands it, where success is measured by how much attention we can attract.”

I’m an extrovert and (at least in my native language) consider myself confident and very comfortable talking in front of crowds. I’d learned to love sharing about my day in drawn out text messages to friends from other countries. It eventually became a competition to me: to see how long my daily round-ups could be; it had gotten to the point that I would throw the messages into a word counter just to see how many I could write in one setting.

My emails to myself made the writing feel more like a self-reflection and less like a way for me to brag about my day (or how my words I could write). They made me feel more intentional. I would sometimes not even finish an email for a few days.

Once Summer had wrapped up, I realized that I had stopped needing to write them entirely. I am not an advocate for bottling up your feelings, but I do feel it necessary to say now that relying on other peoples input/opinions to make your own will not make you happy. Everyone is different, and no one is going to know you better than yourself; I’m never going to be someone who writes in a diary or even consistently writes herself emails but I can teach myself not to overestimate my own strength in not caving to peer pressure/have my opinions on issues be swayed by people who aren’t in my situation to begin with.

I hope this advice finds you well.

Sincerely,

your scrapped email exclamation marks and more than half of this blog post.

Overthinking? Or just thinking

Ava Dawson (’24) describes a common thought-process, “prospection,” and urges us to be mindful about this human tendency.

I often find myself thinking about the future. It’s not always in an anxious manner, either. I could simply be envisioning my college dorm room and where I might live in ten years or the email I need to compose to send my boss. Sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming and lead to feelings of loss of control, that I am completely consumed by my mind and its thoughts about things that aren’t even relevant to what’s happening here, in the now.

Summer Allen from UC Berkeley shares her insight on this topic in a white paper titled “Future-Mindedness.” This innate ability everyone has to consider the future and posit what it might be like is called “prospection” or “future-mindedness.” Prospection can be defined in many different ways, ranging from the ability to “pre-experience the future by simulating it in our minds,” to imagining alternatives, or even just the simple act of thinking about the future. It turns out that what I often perceive to be a strange and unsettling experience of spending what feels like every waking moment thinking about my future is expected of any person, but especially of one in my current life stage. I’m graduating high school in three months; going off to college to live on my own; and will likely live on my own in the next ten years. It’s hard to know what to make of it all when you’re still only 17.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to spend more time consciously focusing on the present moment and savoring the little things: a takeout dinner with my parents, a walk with my dogs, my drive to school, or a coffee with friends. I find this helps me dampen the anxious feelings and the uptick in prospection. Allen also mentioned that prospection begins development in early childhood and continues throughout adolescence, peaking at around age 21. After that, it declines with age. Right now, it feels like the world is reticent, withholding some sort of secret from me. It’s somewhat of a comfort to know that in ten years a lot of the things in my life will become more concrete. The future I’m currently thinking about will no longer be an omnipresent, unforeseen, abstract concept that I’m unable to grasp because…I’ll be living it.