Firework Flash – A Literary Critique
Foreword
Remember high school American lit class? Your teacher assigns a bone-crushing read like Eliot’s impenetrable The Waste Land or Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and asks, “Eliot’s fire and water, what do they represent?” A collective class groan: Uh, Aries and Pisces?
Yet there’s hope when your teacher asks, “The Scarlet Letter?” A collective class cheer: A for Adultery!
Why couldn’t all literary symbols be stitched upfront and worn on a sweater?
A couple months ago my wife’s sister, Jeanne, texted me three .pdf images – one’s a sketch her daughter Audrey had drawn of a superhero (an Audrey original) named Firework Flash. The other two images were front and back of a paper Audrey had written this semester for a school assignment.
J: Eric, thought you might like to read Audrey’s science story.
Walker Percy, in his foreword to Confederacy of Dunces, writes of his first encounter with the Pulitzer Prize winning novel,
“While I was teaching at Loyola in 1976 I began to get telephone calls from a lady unknown to me. What she proposed was preposterous. It was not that she had written a couple of chapters of a novel and wanted to get into my class. It was that her son, who was dead, had written an entire novel, a big novel, and she wanted me to read it. Why would I want to do that? I asked her. Because it is a great novel, she said.”
“Over the years I have become very good at getting out of things I don’t want to do. And if ever there was something I didn’t want to do, this was surely it: to deal with the mother of a dead novelist and, worst of all, to have to read a manuscript that she said was great.”
My wife will confirm to anyone in our representative republic that I too have become good at getting out of things. At first, I had an averse reaction to Jeanne’s request.
Percy writes,
“In this case I read on. And on. First with the sinking feeling that it was not bad enough to quit, then with a prickle of interest, then with a growing excitement, and finally an incredulity: surely it was not possible that it was so good.”
In my case I read on. And on. And texted Jeanne back.
E: Love it. I wrote a science story recently and now wish that I’d included a superhero with a vacation home in it.
J: Lol, she’s good isn’t she…
E: Better than most high schoolers.
J: I will be sure to tell her you said that.
After my first reading, I thought, wow, how’d my niece do it? I think my first impressions were favorably colored by Audrey’s drawing, clearly an original. Then, spider senses tingling – a high school teacher’s less-than-charitable instincts – I thought, what if I were to run this through the English teacher’s go-to similarity index: turnitin.com, and check for originality?
I refrained. To ease my mind, I googled – Middle School Science Superhero Element Project – and sure enough, I found the project, a Word doc the teacher likely used that provided Audrey and her classmates the structure. I read Audrey’s paper a second time. Sure, she’d followed an established form, dutifully ticking each checklist box. But still, within that form, some fun, original stuff. I was invigorated. Audrey’s youthful exuberance inspired an essay idea for me.
If you’re interested in such things, maybe you’re a teacher, or parent whose helped a child with a paper, or you’re simply one strange bird interested in science pedagogy, here’s a link to the Superhero Element Project page.
You might want to read Audrey’s paper. Not mandatory, but it will help you understand my essay. Four minute read. Mark your place, come back.
Done? You’ve read front and back? And the sketch, impressive, right? Audrey’s teacher’s comments in the margin:
- Oh no!
- Cool
- OK
- Good Sci.
- Nice
- Excelent (sic)
Audrey’s teacher scored Audrey’s paper, 100%, with the final comment:
- This is one of the best science incorporated story. This is what I was thinking about. Great job!
If I were to score not Audrey, but Audrey’s teacher on the spelling, grammar, tone, and quality of feedback, I’d give it a 74%.
Oh no! Not so excelent!
Take it from this teacher, no one wants to spend a weekend reviewing a stack of stultifying papers. Perhaps Audrey’s gem was buried at the bottom. A teacher’s desire to provide meaningful feedback is inversely related to the finished stack’s height, the willpower and desire to live drops as the finished stack oh so slowly rises. I get it.
I decided I would grade Audrey’s paper. Literature deserves thoughtful, in-depth criticism.
Wait, what? Literature? Who said anything about literature? I know what you’re thinking: Weren’t we just discussing the merits of a middle-school paper about an element on the Periodic Table?
You’re skeptical – as Audrey’s Uncle, you think I’m biased. I’m the whistle-chewing soccer coach, cotton socks to his knees, leader of strapping six-year-old men, the coach who favors kin, his own runt progeny, plays him with the fleet-footed first team, even though the half-pint is better off picking daisies, running laps around the Porta-Potty and waving a stick of melting creamsicle over his curly blonde head.
Ok, it’s not Shakespeare. But it got me thinking.
Think back to high school – wouldn’t you like another try at finding the symbols, at reading literature like a professor? Might Audrey’s paper be more fun than The Waste Land?
Can you find the quest in Audrey’s paper? The fairy tale references? How about Greek mythology? The Bible, anyone? Communion, baptism? Modern ladies and enlightened men, can I interest you in a Feminist Manifesto? Maybe a Hollywood screenplay.
The ultimate challenge: are you bibliophile enough to shed light on the vampire story that lies beneath it all?
Below is a preview of my essay’s font and form:
WRITING TRAIT: Description of What the Grader Evaluates
“Audrey’s excerpted writing”
My (the grader’s) comments
Want to be teacher for a day? Read Audrey’s paper and score her, filling in the table of writing traits below yourself. You can compare your assessment to mine to Audrey’s teacher’s 100%. Or, who am I kidding – just sit back and read. Let me do the heavy lifting.
Don’t expect to see my scores. My scoring is withheld until the essay’s afterword. You’ll know where I lean by the tenor of my comments.
| WRITING TRAITS | 5: DISTINGUISHED 3: PROFICIENT 1: EMERGING |
| ORGANIZATION |
|
| IDEAS AND CONTENT |
|
| VOICE |
|
| WORD CHOICE |
|
| SENTENCE FLUENCY |
|
| CONVENTIONS |
|
Ok class, any questions? You may begin.
I. ORGANIZATION
5: The paper is organized around a central thesis, which is stated in the first paragraph.
3: The paper has a main idea and the organizational structure is clear enough to move the reader through the text without much confusion.
1: The writing lacks a clear sense of direction. Ideas, details, or events seem strung together in a loose or random structure.
An inviting introduction draws the reader in.
“My superhero, Nicole, was created when her high school class went on a field trip to a firework manufacturing factory.”
Holy Explosion, Batman! The central thesis in Audrey’s paper is revealed – like Clark Kent ripping apart his dress shirt – in the first sentence: a Superhero Creation Story. Ker-Pow!
Not all (field) trips are quests, but buckle up your utility belt, dear reader. Nicole’s journey has just begun.
The organization is easy to follow.
“They walked into the building and were taken to the area where they have all the raw ingredients that they combine to create the fireworks.”
Pan out: up, up, and away to a wide-angle, drone’s view of the factory grounds. A collection of hayseed innocents fresh off the bus, clumped together, frightened but curious, they walk (lambs being led) through the factory gates. Around this corner, towering stacks of boxed sparklers, and that corner, top-heavy pallets of cherry bombs, the students thinning now into a single-file line, a human thread strung through this factory tinder-box.
These children are lost. Maybe not in the woods, like Hansel and Gretel, but in a technological wilderness nonetheless. Had anyone thought to drop shiny pebbles or bread crumbs?
Suspension of disbelief is required: what bumbling principal (Ferris Bueller’s Day off, anyone?) signed off on this field trip?
Verisimilitude is verified: having led countless plant tours in my day as a process engineer at a Sherwin-Williams paint plant, I can verify Audrey’s premise that all tours begin in raw materials – immediately following, that is, the mandatory safety meeting.
Our budding author, Audrey, off to a strong start, makes no mention of a factory safety meeting: for this rookie blunder, one point deduction.
Pacing is well controlled, sometimes slowing down to elaborate and sometimes moving on quickly.
“She closed in on the bucket of shiny rocks to observe it closer.”
It’s Nicole, our superhero to be, who ignores safety protocol, waiting for the hard-hatted tour guide (beady eyes, sharp nose) to turn his back before she bravely ‘closes in on the bucket of shiny rocks.’ Not all buckets of rocks are Holy Grails, but Nicole is clearly our Chosen One.
Her hapless peers, in my mind, fresh from viewing the safety video (graphic Youtube clips of firework factory explosions world-wide since 2017 in Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, China, and Canada), who have cleared the mandated garment check (visual only, no airport-like pat-downs), stay back, huddled around their tour guide. They eye one another, wondering, who among us is not wearing cotton?
All students, by virtue of their signed permission slips, were hereby informed, and acknowledged, to wear cotton clothes right down to their underwear, just like the factory workers themselves. Synthetic fibers generate static electricity, forbidden upon entry in a firework facility.
Clear transitions create relationships between ideas.
“The magnesium seeped into her skin and then into her body and then her bones.”
Zoom in, vanishingly small, and enter through an epidermal pore, riding along with the liquified magnesium to raft through Nicole’s bloodstream. As the magnesium inexorably advances, vanquishing bodily defenses, so too, our soon-to-be minted superhero – Firework Flash – has a preordained path to follow.
This is a quest, after all. Any English professor worth her sodium chloride knows that all quests share the same traits: a princess (Nicole), a dangerous road (a factory tour with gangly, uncoordinated teens, barely contained within the confines of adult supervision), a Holy Grail (bucket of shiny rocks), a dragon (threat of factory up-in-smoke), an evil princess (a mean girl, perhaps, with a burn book), and one prince.
The prince is not in this episode – Audrey, our author, is in 8th grade after all, and this may be beyond her skill-set and/or interest – nevertheless, her paper will be held to the highest standard and deducted a point.
The proposed reason for the quest – a firework factory tour – is never the real reason for the quest.
The real reason? Self-knowledge.
Paragraphs have topic sentences, and details that fit.
“Magnesium is a lustrous silvery white metal found on the left side of the Periodic Table. Firework Flash lives in the earth’s crust, but also has a vacation home in the ocean.”
We locate Magnesium, setting the table so to speak, to locate Firework Flash’s domicile: the lithosphere. But a home in rock? Plus a vacation home? Strange. Let’s explore, fellow literary spelunkers.
The parallel to the subterranean Bat Cave makes sense, geothermally. Saves on heating and cooling. As for vacation homes, Superman lives in the Fortress of Solitude, a get-a-way for recharging if ever there was one, so maybe this idea holds water too.
Dig deeper for the real backstory: The Amazons, warrior women in Greek mythology, lived on Paradise Island at an undisclosed location in the middle of the ocean.
The Queen of the Amazons, Wonder Woman’s mother, spun her daughter out of clay.
The title catches the reader’s attention and captures the central theme of the piece.
“Firework Flash by Audrey”
Fireworks burn, burst, boom, flash. Check. Verbs follow nouns. Check. Yet Audrey tilts convention – by incinerating the letter ’s’ – to create her superhero’s slightly imbalanced name: Firework Flash, an indicator, perhaps, of a troubled, imbalanced mind. All superheroes (Marvel, anyway) have character flaws – it makes them more human.
Could our Firework Flash be destined for a tragic end? A shooting star, a flare, passion too hot for this world?
Anyway, try naming your own superhero this way, removing the ’s’ from the noun followed by a typically paired verb: Bomb Explode; Rocket Blast; Jet Zoom; Fox Hunt; Wolf Blitzer. Once you start, it’s hard to stop: Tank Roll; Apple Ripen; Cloud Burst; Gal Gadot.
II. IDEAS AND CONTENT
5 The paper is clear and focused. It holds the reader’s attention. Accurate research from various sources illustrates and supports the thesis.
3 The writer is beginning to define the topic, even though development is still basic or general.
1 The paper has no clear sense of purpose or central theme.
The thesis is narrow enough to manage.
“Magnesium reacts with oxygen in air to form an oxidized coating.”
A protective coating is a metaphor for loss of innocence. Nicole’s self-discovery comes not without a price. A shell that resists detonation by sharp blow may keep her otherwise healthy emotions all bottled up.
Relevant, telling, quality details from research go beyond the obvious.
“Firework Flash’s hideout is in various fruits and vegetables including spinach, bananas, and avocados.”
Her hideout, not to be confused with her home in earth’s crust. We all have secrets, need safe places to hide when our worlds come apart.
A presumed shrinking aspect to Firework Flash, maybe a ‘reverse entropy’ superpower, like putting the genie (blackpowder) back into the bottle (aerial display shell).
Perhaps a wink and a nod to the diminutive Marvel pair: Ant-Man and the Wasp. Wasps burrow into figs to lay eggs.
Could the food be a reference to communion? Communions in literature symbolize friendship, goodwill, sharing. It’s odd that Firework Flash uses food to hide. Irony? Or an eating disorder? Could this be our superhero’s character flaw?
Reminds me of a wordplay: time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
The ideas are fresh and original.
“Firework Flash’s superpowers include the ability to create a blazing explosion from a few drops of water. Her weakness, the explosions cast her in bright light so her enemies can spot her from far away.”
Superman’s Kryptonite; Green Lantern’s yellow light; Firework Flash’s bright light.
DC comic superheroes may be susceptible to physical weakening, but they lack Marvel’s more relatable character flaws.
Teens get it. They prefer Marvel movies to DC. The other day in class, my students who were supposed to be solving classwork problems, gathered excitedly around a kid’s tablet to watch a movie trailer for the next Avengers movie.
The Avengers were co-created by Stan Lee in 1963. Stan Lee, RIP, took a permanent vacation to the lithosphere this past November.
In a Wall Street Journal article, Stan Lee is credited for giving Peter Parker his snarky attitude only a teen could love. Peter Parker has girl and bully problems. Parker’s first impulse, upon being spider-bit, was not to save the world, but to make money to ease his aunt and uncle’s economic troubles.
The above-it-all DC superheroes are to troubled Marvel superheroes what tropical party-hearty, spandex metal of the 80s was to grunge, flannel rainforest rock of the 90s.
At first glance, Batman seems a DC exception. We can relate to vengeance. But Batman is on an eternal vengeance quest, incapable of easing his tormented soul. Batman’s unquenchable thirst for settling scores would be considered obscenely criminal in real life. Vengeance is a dish best served cold, but every single meal? Is there no end?
Firework Flash’s true weakness: a fear of exposure. When you put yourself out there, in a position of leadership – teachers, plant managers, politicians, POTUS’s, superheroes – you will be judged.
Fear not, what exposure can do to you. Believe in, what exposure can do for you.
The reader’s questions are not answered. It’s hard to see what is important.
“…although the name might sound like the word ‘magnet’, magnesium is not very magnetic, and therefore it does not give Firework Flash any magnetic powers.”
Seems a perfect time to introduce a villain or arch-nemesis. Magneto, adversary of the X-men, was once ranked as the Greatest Comic Book Villain of all-time. This may be due to Magneto’s willingness to ally with the X-Men, situation- and value-dependent. Gray worlds require gray villains.
Magneto can generate and control magnetic fields. This critical reader generates and controls the scoring: a one point deduction for Audrey’s reluctance to introduce a villain. Time to grow up, kid.
Side note: Did you know that the X-Men are seen by some as metaphor for oppressed minorities?
III. VOICE
5: The writer crafts the writing with an awareness and respect for the audience and the purpose of writing.
3: The writer seems sincere but not fully engaged or involved. The result is pleasant or even personable, but not compelling.
1: The writer seems indifferent, uninvolved, or distanced from the topic and/or the audience.
The tone is clear and consistent and appropriate for the purpose and audience.
“Another element that magnesium bonds with is phosphorus (magnesium phosphide). This makes magnesium even more reactive.”
A bond suggests a relationship. In relationships, we bargain. Bargaining for (super-)power suggests Faust.
Silver Surfer sold his soul to Galactus. For his soul donation, Earth was saved along with Silver Surfer’s family and love interest. He was damned to embark on a tormented tour of the cosmos to find planets for the mighty Galactus, evil planet-devourer.
What power doth Firework Flash desire? Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
The words sound honest and authentic; not pompous or pretentious.
“She shot into the air and burst through the ceiling of the factory. Nicole was going up and then finally exploded into a dazzling firework display, yet unharmed. At that moment, she became Firework Flash.”
Roll opening credits. Once Hollywood calls for movie rights, the cinematographers will have a field day with this visual.
Girl Power at the Box Office: Wonder Woman opened in 2017 grossing $223 million its first weekend. Audrey may be on to something.
Stan Lee, in his personal writings used a sign-off, “Excelsior!,” to him, meaning ‘onward and upward to greater glory’.
The writer shows why the reader should care about the topic.
“She is not brittle but is ductile and malleable.”
Our superhero may have a tropical vacation home, but she’s a teenage girl after all, with insecurities and doubts, hopes and dreams. The whole flying around bit, the form-fitting silver suit, a waistline to die for, the long hair and highlights just make the earthbound girls jealous.
There is a high meaning-to-syllable ratio – no padding.
“Boom! Crack! Pop!”
Sounds from hell. The underworld. Smell the hydrogen sulfide? Vapor from hell. Nervous glances, students look to one another. The tour guide strokes his goatee, adjusts his red hard-hat. A splintering of wood. Structural, load-bearing wood. Dry wood, up in flames – the whole place could blow!
The writing is elegant: everything necessary is present, and everything present is necessary.
“A chemical reaction had occurred and Nicole was right in the middle of it.”
As is the reader.
IV. WORD CHOICE
5: Words convey the intended message in a precise, interesting, and natural way.
3: The language is functional, even if it lacks much energy. It is easy to figure out the writer’s meaning on a general level.
1: The writer demonstrates a limited vocabulary or has not searched for words to convey specific meaning.
Words are specific and accurate. It is easy to understand what the writer means.
“Water can sometimes be a downfall for Firework Flash.”
Water is a motif throughout the piece.
This field trip begins as the dry season ends. Convention says creation stories begin in spring. Spring, obviously, stands for rebirth, renewal, a new life. Cue chirping birds, flowering azaleas.
Striking words and phrases often catch the reader’s eye and linger in the reader’s mind.
“The tour guide presented to them the bucket of magnesium which is a vital ingredient in making fireworks.”
Vitality. The life force.
Esoteric energy whorls out west in red rock country. Sedona, Arizona is a haven for vortex-seeking spiritualists and pseudo-fractal, light illusion spirit chasers. Perhaps red rock country is home to our superhero.
Brings to mind the poet, Dylan Thomas, and four beautiful lines:
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood
Language and phrasing is natural, effective, and appropriate for the audience.
“Nicole opened her water bottle to take a quick sip and accidentally leaked a few drops in the bucket, oblivious to the fact that magnesium was highly reactive with water.”
Teenagers, oblivious.
Water again. Evocations of a baptism? Rebirth? Seems so, but Nicole’s elementary school years are left unaddressed, so we don’t really know why she’s being reborn. Besides, true baptisms require full immersion.
In the movie, Ordinary People, Timothy Hutton’s character is figuratively baptized when his boat capsizes; he survives the accident but his more accomplished brother does not. His life changes after the accident. Learns to live again.
Perhaps the drops of water are catalysts for Nicole’s upcoming baptism by fire.
Lively verbs add energy while specific nouns and modifiers add clarity.
“She can run extremely fast, fly, and use large explosions to blind her enemy.”
Sounds like Gal Gadot’s job description during her mandatory conscription as a combat instructor in the Israeli Defense Forces.
Precision is obvious.The writer has taken care to put just the right word or phrase in just the right spot
“She can shoot into the air like a firework and save anyone who is falling.”
Anyone is everyone, post-Eden; after the bite of the apple, we’ve all fallen.
V. SENTENCE FLUENCY
5: The writing has an easy flow, rhythm, and cadence. Sentences have strong and varied structure that makes them fun to real aloud.
3: The text moves along in a way that’s more mechanical than fluid or musical.
1: The reader has to practice to read this paper aloud. It’s confusing.
The writing has cadence; It is easy to read aloud.
“Her suit is silver like magnesium
And her hair is dark brown with a silvery tint.”
The second line (line break by me) is anapestic meter. Anapests are two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed, commonly found in limericks. To be read: da- da- DA-, da- da- DA-, da- da- DA-. Like this: there was ONCE, a young GIRL, in the SKY.
And her HAIR / is dark BROWN / with a SIL / ver -y TINT
Audrey adds a fourth foot; most limericks stop at three. Add a bonus point for breaking with convention.
Sentences are constructed to emphasize and enhance meaning.
“She is very reactive and commonly combines with oxygen, chlorine, hydrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus.”
‘She is very reactive’; we’ve got ourselves an overemotional female here, am I right fellas? Think again.
Audrey clearly means the opposite. The overemotional female is a gender-biased, cultural trope. Audrey is shining light on unhelpful, dim stereotypes. Being highly reactive is not a bad thing.
In Lynn Peril’s essay titled, Pink Think, she discusses what it means to be feminine, as defined by the culture in America from the ‘40s to the ‘70s. She includes a published description of how to put on a bathing suit in an article titled How to Win a Beauty Contest (1960):
First, roll it as you would a girdle. Pull the suit over the hips to the waist, then, holding the top away from your body, bend over from the waist. Ease the suit up to the bustline and with one hand, lift one breast up and in and ease the suit bra over it. Repeat on the other side. Stand up and fasten straps.
Peril writes, “Instructions like these made me bristle. I formed an early aversion to all things pink and girly.”
Linda Carter, the actress who played Wonder Woman in the ‘70s tv show, invented the Wonder Woman spin transformation, aka, the Wonder Twirl, as a way for her character’s alter-ego, Diana Prince, to change clothes. It had not appeared in the comic books before that. On tv, the Wonder Twirl ends in a burst of fire, a brief explosion, taking care of where to stow Diana’s business suit.
Take another look at Audrey’s sketch. Firework Flash stands strong: wide-stance, balled fists, un-styled hair (silver streaks suggest aged wisdom, not salon teased). Dark-colored uniform is absent girly pink. But what to make of the mascara and touch of lipstick?
Clearly, a wink and a nod in support of those uber-feminist billionaires, the Kardashians.
The Kardashians are feminist icons, per Jill Soloway, creator of Transparent (an Internet tv comedy about a family whose patriarch is a transwoman). During an interview with Ari Melber on his new show, Mavericks, Jill says, “I watch the Kardashians to learn about family. One, it’s a matriarchy. Two, I have a lot in common with Kylie and Kendall. We both have fathers in transition. Three, families are about getting together and having fun.”
Ari asks, “What does it tell you, when you have this matriarchy, women who are undeniably successful in multiple fields, in media, in entrepreneurship, in business – and a lot of society and the business community wants to diminish their success related to sexiness, or something quote-unquote superficial, and thus it doesn’t count?”
Jill responds, “In the world of feminism, they call this fem-phobia or fem-shaming. In other words, a lot of people are trying to get at the question of, who do we stand for, do all women stand for each other, or are there some women we don’t stand for. And whenever people say, these are the women we don’t stand for, the ones they don’t stand for are highly feminine, like sex workers, or women who use their femininity or beauty to make money. It’s just as valid a way as any to make money. Kylie is a billionaire businessman, Kim is an amazing artist, but because they are aware of how beauty is monetizable, they end up getting shamed in popular culture. I’m obsessed with the Kardashians. I’m a huge fan of all of them.“
Wonder Woman is a type of feminist icon. Her Lasso of Truth is an allegory for feminine charm, not so much a lie detector, as a tool for submission. Let’s be honest, who among us, in the presence of Kim Kardashian, flesh-and-blood, wouldn’t – charmed and awestruck – bow and obey?
Dialogue, if present, sounds natural.
Dialogue is absent in Audrey’s paper. Audrey seems to play it safe, not going beyond the project bounds, which does not require any.
I imagine Audrey’s spoken response to such criticism, “Uncle Eric, with all due respect, couldn’t the lack of dialogue be read as symbolic of today’s woman in this Me Too era, who still lacks a bold voice in today’s patriarchy?”
For subversive creativity, add two points.
VI. CONVENTIONS
5: Spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage, and paragraphing enhance readability.
3: Conventions are sometimes handled well and enhance readability; at other times, errors distract the reader.
1: Errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, usage, and grammar and/or paragraphing distract the reader and make the text difficult to read.
Paragraphs have topic sentences, supporting details.
“Magnesium is the lightest industrial metal in the world.”
Fact Check: Research published in Nature states UCLA researchers created ‘an extremely high specific strength and modulus’, or stiffness-to-weight ratio.
The new metal is magnesium infused with silicon carbide nanoparticles. It could be used to make lighter airplanes, spacecraft, and cars, helping to improve fuel efficiency, as well as in mobile electronics and biomedical devices.
Wonder Woman wore bracelets, perhaps an alloy of Feminum and Amazonium. Her bracelets were symbolic reminders of the shackles men used to subjugate women with imposed, artificial notions of femininity.
The piece is nearly ready to publish.
“Overall, she is quite powerful and key in keeping her town safe.”
Audrey needs a manager. I know a guy.
Afterword
I promised you a grade for Audrey’s paper but I’ve had a change of heart. Grades tend to stick in the mind a little too long, one person’s value judgement, and what does a single number mean, anyway? How valuable are IQ scores when it comes to playing the violin, painting, tap-dancing or singing a song? Let’s just say Firework Flash soars with flying colors.
Grand finale: did you find the vampire story? It was a subtext throughout the entire piece. How could you miss it? Who was the vampire?
Me.
Isn’t there something unseemly about appropriating a young girl’s creative work for my own purpose? Have I properly respected Audrey’s autonomy or have I transformed her paper selfishly? Scary, but Audrey did inspire and make me feel younger.
Current writers are still transforming vampire tales, giving them a modern spin. Baseball-playing, Volvo-driving vampires that glitter in sunlight were part of Stephanie Meyer’s mesmerizing spin in her Twilight vampire romances.
Must the vampire game be zero sum? Must one gain and one lose, in a one-way transfer of the vital life force? Maybe Audrey and I can reverse entropy together, each the other’s muse, driving the fuse like a radial shower of pyrotechnic stars sent from one lit sparkler to the next, each its own wonder, twirling on and on and on.