The End

 Hunter S. Thompson wrote the end of this book similarly to how I think I would write it. At the end of this book, we find Kemp drinking at a bar with Sala, just like how he is at the beginning of the book. It seems like nothing has changed, except we know that Kemp is different from the person he was before his adventures in the Caribbean. Nothing very exciting happens in the very last few pages, but that just makes everything that happened in the climax seem much more dramatic. It follows the story mountain outline to writing a good story.
 From this ending we can learn that an ending doesn't necessarily need to be dramatic to have an impact or a satisfying finish. Oftentimes saying less is saying a lot more. When I write personal essays, I like to connect the conclusion back to the introduction. It pulls everything together better. This is what Thompson did with his book by having Kemp in the same place in the beginning of the book as he is in the end. In the future, I will try to apply this technique to other pieces of writing and not just for essays.

And Then...

 The words we use when writing are just as important as how we write them too. A perfect example of this is on page 190. Thompson writes, "Then into a palm-lined driveway and hit the rasping brakes, flip down the Press tag on the visor and leave the car in the nearest No Parking zone. Hurry into the lobby, pulling on the coat to my new black suit and dangling a camera in one hand while an oily clerk calls my man to confirm the appointment. Then up a soft elevator to the suite--big greeting, pompous conversatioin, and black coffee from a silver pot, a few quick photos on the balcony, grinning handshake, then back down the elevator and hustle off." The use of all the commas and fragments of sentences forces the reader to read everything quicker than how they usually would read a passage with complete sentences and periods. This helps to illustrate that Kemp is hustling through his day, and getting all these different things done. It also shows that he is not taking the time to really reflect upon or appreciate each new event in his day. It shows that he doesn't really care about what he's doing. He doesn't have a passion for this job that he has, he's just going through each day for the sake of getting through it. The way something is written can say a lot more beyond just the words. This is the ultimate way to show and not tell.

Fast Forward

 Because this book is a very fast paced story, it does a good job with skipping and leaving out unnecessary details and parts nobody would really have cared about. This is a particularly good technique to use when writing short stories or novels. Sometimes, we might feel the need to include every last detail to help the reader better understand what's going on, but a quick summary is usually enough. Adding too many unneeded details will bore the reader and take away from the writing.

 On page 164, it says, "At four we went out to the runway and found Apache warming up. The flight back took thirty minutes," and then, "my car was in the airport lot where I'd left it..." Just from that, the reader already knows everything he needs to know. I wrote before that this story was written in a diary-type format, and just like how someone would only include the bigger events or details of a particular topic, this book does the same thing. It concentrates the writing on more important things. As writers, we should remember to keep our longer pieces free of unnecessary retellings of events and details.

"Balls!"

 In Creative Writing, we've talked about at one point giving a character a word or phrase to say often. This is to add to the personality of the character, and can also add a humorous spark to the writing. In this book, Yeamon's word is "balls," and he says it whenever he deems necessary, which is often.
 I like how he says this instead of a more common curse word. This is his word, something no other character in this book would say. It makes him more special that way. It helps to make him into a 3-D character with unique quirks like real people have. And since it's a funny word, it helps to lighten up the mood now and then as the story progresses.

"What the...?"

 This book doesn't have that much description compared to others, but when there is, it creates an image in your mind you wouldn't expect. That's what makes this book interesting to read. Absolutely nothing is predictable. For example, on page 53, Kemp describes Sala's apartment, and he says, "Sanderson shunned it, and Zimburger called it a sewer. It reminded me of a big handball court in some stench-ridden YMCA. The ceiling was twenty feet high, not a breath of clean air..." I knew exactly what Kemp was talking about, and my younger days at the YMCA came flooding back to me. I took gymnastics in such a gym, and played basketball in one too. It made me laugh. I got the perfect image of Sala's apartment.
 Another example of this is on page 54. Kemp says, "One Monday morning I was awakened by what sounded like children being butchered outside the window. I looked through a crack in the shutter and saw about fifteen tiny Puerto Ricans, dancing on the sidewalk and tormenting a three-legged dog." Never would I have expected to have an image of children being butchered in my head, but this description served its purpose, and I could hear the dog's helpless cries as the Puerto Ricans tortured it. This made the scene more real.
 It's also interesting because most of the non-dialogue text is Kemp's thoughts, and you can tell more about him from the way he describes the world around him. I really like how the author does this.

No Need to Wash Out the Mouths

 This book is filled with curse words. There are probably five swear words per page, give or take a few. Most of them are in the dialogue exchanged between the characters, but even when Kemp is thinking to himself, there are a few "goddammits" here and there.

 I've been taught that overloading on curse words could take away from the writing, but I can't imagine how this book would be without them. It'd be almost too polite, and unnatural. The words people use to speak help define personalities, and that's certainly the case with the characters in this book. Because of the use of swear words, I can tell who is the most educated, the most easily angered, etc. It really shows a lot of things without the narrator having to say them. The more I read, the more comfortable I become with the profanity, and the more I realize that they actually help the story to flow. For example, in one scene, Lotterman is arguing with Yeamon about a piece Yeamon wrote that he isn't happy with. The foul words move the scene along better because they really capture the heat of the moment, and you can tell how angry Lotterman is with the situation based on the words he uses. I think these words also help to convey the fact that the characters in this book are "real" people with "real" dispositions, and so they will speak as such. In our own lives, we will say the occasional "shit" and "f*ck", and that's just that.

 The curse words also come out the most after everyone has a few drinks in them, and since this book is about Kemp and his friends being drunk most of the time, the dirty words seem appropriate. 

Fluff

 Getting into this book took a little longer than I thought it would. Nothing very exciting happens in the first few pages. We meet our main character, Paul Kemp who moves to Puerto Rico from New York to work for a crumbling newspaper called The Daily News. 

 This book is written through the eyes of Kemp and we get to read his thoughts on his new life as he goes from one mini adventure to the next. As I continued reading, I realized that although it isn't written in a typical diary entry form, that's basically what it is. I found this technique interesting. Wouldn't it have been easier for Hunter S. Thompson to write it in a diary entry format? But then I realized that the way the book is now fits the story better. Kemp isn't trying to keep a diary or to keep track of what's going on in his life. He's just going at it day by day at a leisurely pace, just the way the book does. This diary entry-like format also keeps Kemp and the story as real as possible. There isn't any "fluff" that cushions the writing. It's just sort of like, "okay, here's what happened, with these people, in this order." I really like that.

 From Hunter S. Thompson I learned that you have to format your writing in a way that'll actually benefit it. How you write it is almost as important as the writing itself. I'm also one to write with a lot of unnecessary detail, and reading this novel is helping me to see that you can try taking all that out so you're left with only the core. Sometimes that's really all you need.

The Start of it All

 Up until a few hours ago, I didn't even have a book for this Creative Writing Honors assignment. Luckily, I ran into a fellow classmate at an after school club, and after complaining to her that I didn't yet know what book I was going to commit myself to, she pulled out this book, The Rum Diary out of her backpack and handed it to me. It looked interesting enough, the cover shows this black and white picture of a man in a pair of sunglasses (Johnny Depp?), and it informed me that it was now a major motion picture. But to be honest, I think it was just the word 'rum' in the title. 

 It's embarrassing to admit I don't remember the last time I picked up a book on my own and read it without an essay or a project coming after it. It's especially sad because I used to read all the time. My mom delighted in the fact that she had to go to the library to pick up more books on a weekly basis for her daughter. I wonder when it all changed. I've come to realize in the past that there is a certain skill one must possess to be a good reader, and I believe I had this skill. I don't know if I still really do. And that scares me. Will it come back if I start reading again? Is it like riding a bike, where after a few pedals, my brain will suddenly remember and it'll be like I never stopped riding? I guess we'll see.

 The purpose of this assignment is to read a contemporary novel and notice the writing styles and techniques the author uses and then try to use some in our own writing. I'm a little excited to see how this will turn out. I personally think it'll go well. I don't really see how it could go wrong, anyway. Happy reading!