Some of My Opinion Columns

[Xephyr]

Hell yeah, I write for my school's newspaper.

And because I like to show off I like to get as much advice as possible on my writing, I have a tendency to post my shit on the forums I regular. Time for Smogon, whether it likes it or not.

p.s. Even though I'll pretend not to care if no one reads any of it, I actually will be very hurt emotionally ;_;

Oh, and here's my latest one, which is currently in draft 1 so it hasn't been edited. Although I doubt you'll find any grammar mistakes or anything.

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You find yourself strolling through the halls of a hospital, waiting to hold a newborn in your hands. Suddenly, you are in a church, walking down the aisle in the most fashionable attire you could afford. Finally, you are no longer conscious, and your physical body is being laid in a coffin to rest for all eternity.
While I haven’t been the proprietor of these three situations, I have experienced them all in the past few years of my life in some way, and each event has impacted me significantly. I have experienced the birth of a baby brother. I have experienced a wedding, and thus, the conjoining of two individuals into one recognizable entity. And I have experienced death, whether through the natural causes of my great-grandfather, or the inexplicable events surrounding the death of my step-uncle. I have experienced these three events, and I now believe these events to be the three pivotal phases to life: birth, marriage, death. While not all human beings necessarily get married over the course of their life, I am simply basing this on the existence led by the average human being in this country.
I have seen a life begin, a life start a new chapter by joining itself with another, and a life end. These images embed themselves in your head and change you. You can never purge the image of your great-grandfather in a coffin from your mind, nor can you erase the contrastingly pleasant mental pictures taken upon seeing your uncle kiss his new bride, the first kiss he will share with the woman who now shares his last name.
While these are rightfully considered to be the most beautiful and the most tragic stages of life, some people can draw upon different themes from each. While many individuals may see these instances as evidence in the beauty and tragedy in life, I see them as mere dates on a calendar. Indeed, the days that many see as the most important days to someone (birth date, date of marriage, date of death), are some of the more meaningless points in time to my perspective, and I don’t understand the great amount of importance that surrounds these dates.
Sure, the birth of a child and a wedding are wonderful, but what does it matter if you never do anything with your life, or if your marriage ends in divorce like exactly half of them do? Maybe I just have a slightly pessimistic outlook on life, but I don’t understand the need for a gaudy, dramatic wedding on the beaches of Spain at sunset. That’s a waste of a fortune, and it’s an overdone celebration for something that often has a bleak outlook in the lives of modern day adults.
Don’t get me wrong, here. I strongly want to get married, and I am absolutely looking forward to the day that I do stand at the front of a room and deliver my wedding vows while staring into the eyes of my bride. But do I want my wedding to cost a fortune and involve each remotely meaningful person in my life? Not really, and I don’t want an enormous funeral that involves everyone I’ve ever met. It’s not because I like to keep everything to myself, it’s simply because I don’t see the draw in celebrating or mourning heavily on these dates.
The days of my life that I care more about are the ones that land in the middle of these self-proclaimed phases in the existence of a human being. What did you do with yourself in between those stages of birth and marriage, where you are simply a lone entity in the world following guidance of peers and parents? Did you make best of what was presented to you? Or were you a troubled youth? What did you do with yourself between the years of marriage and death? Were you the best husband or wife as you could be? Did you impact someone through your actions, be it through your activities in the life of a working class adult or through a more abstract way? The days where these aspects are demonstrated with the most merit and solidity are the days in a life that matter most to me. One of these three stages has already occurred in my life, and I know the other two will happen at some point, and I will make the best of them. But rather than celebrate the fact that my wedding just occurred, I will celebrate the new opportunity that is presented to me. Then, and only then, is it time for rejoice.

<3 hugs to anyone that reads and critiques

also, watch this get locked for some reason.

i'd lol

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

Well your first problem is that there is no way to click spoiler tags on a newspaper

 

[Xephyr]

Well your first problem is that there is no way to click spoiler tags on a newspaper

I really wish there was a way though. There are some really shitty writers that just take up a lot of space.

 

[Molk]

Well your first problem is that there is no way to click spoiler tags on a newspaper

this, is both hilarious and completly true. make sure to remove it when it gets on paper.

 

[Stratos]

i don't want to dump on your writing or anything because mine is not much (read, any) better but it seems too skippy and like it just scratches the surface. I think you were onto something with the whole "dates on a calendar" thing but you didn't really delve in anywhere, and you seemed to contradict yourself when you said they were the most important dates and then that they weren't. Overall, I'd work on developing your themes better, but it's not like High School Newspaper = literary magazine so hey it's pretty good.

EDIT: spoke too soon, second half is really good.

 

[Xephyr]

Well I only have ~750 words to use Pwnemon. If I was given an infinite number of words I would DEFINITELY delve deeper. I could probably write a book on the subject, but it's gotta be condensed, ya know?

But I see what you mean. This is only draft 1, and I have over a week to get it fixed if it needs it.

 

[iDunno]

Yeah, sorry, but there's a lot of rambling in this piece. You need to work on condensing this and going into more detail. It just seems really redundant and kind of ADD to me. It just lacks structure. Instead of revising, I would try to rewrite this, tbh. It will probably come out a lot better since you have your ideas panned out already and you will be able to delve in deeper the second go-round. Keep it simple and you will go far.

EDIT: I know Pwnemon, below, is well meaning in his suggestions, but none of them are really necessary and kinda miss the mark (sorry Pwnemon).

 

[Stratos]

if you want me to be more nitpicky, then here's some more specific advice (THIS IS ALL IMO DON'T GET BUTTHURT):

REMEMBER THIS IS PURELY HUMBLE SUGGESTIONS

Remove all the subjects from the first paragraph. I think it would look better as "Strolling through the halls of a hospital, waiting to hold a newborn in your hands. Walking down the aisle in the most fashionable attire you could afford. No longer conscious, your physical body being laid in a coffin to rest for all eternity."

Replace proprietor with some other word; it has a formal business connotation and these events are certainly not formal business

"Been through them all" instead of "experienced them all" because it doesn't feed into the parallelism and so just sounds like half-awkward attempt at parallelism.

Scratch the "recognizable" from "recognizable entity;" just "entity" sounds better or still yet "being" I think might go better there.

Unless you want the whole school prying you on what happened to your step uncle I would probably leave out the "inexplicable events" part and just say that you've experienced death "both through the passing of my great-grandfather in old age, and also, tragically, my young step-uncle" or something like that.

pivotal phases of life, not to life.

"people" and "person" sounds more like a sociological, and thus fitting, phrase as opposed to the very sciency-sounding "human being"

"this belief" or "these stages/pivots/some other word" not simply "this" as it sounds awkward as you are talking about three things.

"a life begun, a life reinvented, and a life ended" or some other single word sounds better than the unwieldy phrase in the middle that throws off the sentence structure.

"embed themselves in your heart" is cheesy but it still works, and i think it works better seeing how these three milestones are all basically emotional checkpoints.

when you mention your great grandpa dying and your uncle getting married, to stick with the theme i would probably add in something about birth too just to keep the three-point theme woven throughout.

remove sentence "While these are rightfully considered to be the most beautiful and the most tragic stages of life, some people can draw upon different themes from each," the sentence immediately afterward says the same thing but in better words, also that being in there sort of contradicts the rest of your essay IMO.

"Indeed, these days, which many see as the most important dates in one's life" or a variant; the important part is the "these" which allows you to eliminate the parentheses which by now the repetition of is getting cumbersome.

"great importance" instead of "great amount of importance" works just fine.

"surrounding them" or "that surrounds them" is smoother than "that surrounds these dates"

instead of the morbid sounding "if you never do anything" and "if your marriage ends in divorce" i would prefer "but their importance is more decided by what you choose to do with it," or something like that.

scratch the "self-proclaimed" in "self-proclaimed phases," really it doesn't make much sense there and phases works just fine, or the word "milestones" as phases usually references a general swathe of time where milestone is a point.

Instead of "lone entity" i might go for "wandering soul," i get that it's supposed to mean you're not tied to a spouse yet but it sounds funny right before "peers and parents."

"best husband or wife you could be" should not have an "as" in it.

"indirect" as opposed to "abstract" in the sentence "did you impact.... abstract way?"

try "the days where these questions are answered" instead of "where these aspects are demonstrated."

also in that sentence "merit" doesn't sound right as it implies positive connotation and you just want a word that means answered the strongest, but i'm drawing a stupid on a good synonym, sorry.

Second to last sentence you're answering the question "why" and not "when" so the last sentence needs rephrasing. maybe something like "that, and only that, is a reason to rejoice."

either way use "to rejoice" not "for rejoice" as rejoice cannot be used as a noun. (it can but it sounds awkward)

holy shit i have a lot of opinions i firmly expect you not to listen to most of them.

anyway, congrats on capturing the essence of the phrase "the simple moments," and if there's one thing I had to suggest for you to help with your writing it's to keep in mind that letter count does not always determine the strength of a word.

wait no i lied i have two. the second is to be a little less formal, at least in your newspaper submissions. keep in mind your audience is high schoolers!

 

[Xephyr]

Yeah, sorry, but there's a lot of rambling in this piece. You need to work on condensing this and going into more detail. It just seems really redundant and kind of ADD to me. It just lacks structure. Instead of revising, I would try to rewrite this, tbh. It will probably come out a lot better since you have your ideas panned out already and you will be able to delve in deeper the second go-round. Keep it simple and you will go far.

EDIT: I know Pwnemon, below, is well meaning in his suggestions, but none of them are really necessary and kinda miss the mark (sorry Pwnemon).

Rambling? Could you clarify? I thought this was very concentrated.

wait no i lied i have two. the second is to be a little less formal, at least in your newspaper submissions. keep in mind your audience is high schoolers!

I'm not always this formal. This is one of my more "deep" articles, if you catch my drift.

 

[iDunno]

Well, I guess rambling is the wrong word. It's just unfocused. For instance, you will say something like these events have impacted me a lot in one moment and then neglect to say why the next. There is no real flow of ideas. It just seems like you're spit balling.

 

[Xephyr]

I state that they've affected me, and in the next paragraph I explain how it would affect others and then how it affected me in order to further get my point across by showing the contrast and how my opinion is fairly out of the ordinary.

I can see how paragraphs one, two, and three are definitely a bit "spit balling," though. I'll get that fixed. The second half, however, I (and my editor) thought were excellent in terms of flow and content.

 

[Stratos]

iDunno, I was offering specific syntax changes, you know, the sort you make with a rough draft turning into a final draft. They weren't broad changes, but word choice is just as important as anything when it comes to making a good piece.

 

[iDunno]

Its just that a lot of the changes there affect the tone in ways that are counterproductive to what (I believe) he's trying to convey. Except, yeah, proprietor is used wrong there.