Readings for 02/25

ZZ Packer's Brownies was a really great story that I enjoyed reading.  The way the author slowly brought the awareness to race relations was done really well in my opinion.  I appreciated how it was brought out in dialogue through the characters, and not spoken on from the author's point of view or own words as an omnipresent narrator.  The dialogue is another extremely strong aspect of the story that I enjoyed very much.  The back and forth between the girls gave each character a true feeling of their own identity and made them feel like a very important, needed piece to the story's puzzle.  What I especially like is the mild-mannered nature of the narrator, so eloquently referred to as Snot by the other characters.  She is the perfect observer of the heightened characters around her and the perfect offsetting balance as well.  Like in the scene where they sang songs to cheer up one of their mothers who was going through marital problems.  It was the narrator who urged the mother not to leave and for the other Brownie troops to suck it up and sing even though they didn't like the songs they were taught.  It is a very good dynamic between the characters that gives the story balance and especially account for when the girls call out the other troop in the bathroom, unaware of their handicaps and the situation going on. I feel that the story had lots of strong elements that would be really good for us aspiring writers to learn from and incorporate into our own works.  To touch on it again, the dialogue is one of the strongest aspects of this piece in my opinion.  Being able to construct plot and scene through dialogue is a masterful trait, one I aim to hone and refine. Showing and not telling your readers could very well be the difference maker in how well your works of written art are received and understood.