Category: Blog

By Olivia Murphy

Are you the kind of person that picks  apart your writing so much that it  lowers your self-esteem?  Do you have a hard time believing in yourself? Well instead of picking apart all of what you think you’re doing wrong, focus on what your strengths are.  Go line by line and pick out the strongest points of your paper then think of ways to expand. When you are trying to prove a thesis the more examples the better. One of the most common errors a writer can make this having too many spaces and having  run on sentences. In Addition to these setbacks people often write more  just to get to word  count try not to just keep writing in adding unnecessary sentences just to get to word count.

iI is important to focus on what the point of your paper is  rather  than  focusing on the fact that you haven’t   gotten  to word count. The words will come to you if you take a break.  If you have more than one person read over your paper before turning it in it can be very  beneficial. Sometimes other people notice small errors that we wouldn’t notice ourselves, having an extra pair of eyes helps. I suggest going the writing center after you’ve proofread it yourself.  They can be extremely helpful in any stage your writing.  I also would recommend using Grammarly it is a program that helps you edit your paper.

Additionally, if you have a friend in your class you can also proofread and edit each other’s papers.  when you are proofreading your own paper try to  keep  the negative thoughts out of your head such as “I’m going to get a bad grade on this and “there is no way I’m going to finish this. In the long run, the hard work pays off  and if you  put your mind to it you can  write an “A” paper.

By: Matthew Wheeler

Through the early years of smartphones and thanks to Apple, auto correct has been either a life saver or a relationship killer depending on what situation you’re in. Throughout the past decades of heart break, hook ups, friendships and quick hello’s, something is bound to happen. Your text conversations go VIRAL. Volunteering for a cat shelter can auto-correct to say that you’ve “punched” instead of “touched” a cat, a cookout can go from frying up the patties to frying up the panties. It really does cause the embarrassment of one another and just wish it never did happen in the first place. Sometimes depending on the type of friend you have, websites like “Damn You Auto correct” can make a big “you-know-what” out of you.

But it’s all not bad with auto correct. You always need auto correct in times of love and admiration, whether your using up all the data to send your girlfriend that very, deep and sensational text message that you’d rather give to her right then and there and not in real life. It keeps you and her happy, and makes you think of her in rough times when you aren’t side by side. Auto correct also helps when you just have that one perfect story right on the tip of your tongue, and needs to get jotted down as soon as possible. Auto correct easily fixes up your mistakes and with just a quick rundown of your story, your good to go for future reference.

Autocorrect has since gone though updates and completely new words, like YOLO to yo-yo, or swag to bag. It also has spread to every single smartphone known to man, and no matter what smartphone you do use, you can always force your auto correct to shut it self of completely, or just change one word to a random, completely out of the ordinary word, just so you can get a laugh making your parents wonder “Why is this one word coming up with this other word”?! Don’t worry, something will confuse us millennials son. See?!

The Greatest Showman

Miranda Olsen

“The Greatest Showman” is a 2017 musical film based on the life of P.T Barnum, directed by Michael Gracey, starring Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, and more. Original musicals are notoriously difficult to green light, and the project was announced years ago in 2009. The Award winning songwriting duo Pasek and Paul were chosen for the film (having previously worked on La La Land). The film features the story of P.T Barnum, the son of a tailor, who has big dreams. He meets a young socialite named Charity, and falls in love. Their class differences get in the way, however, they keep in touch through letters. Phineas, P.T, refuses to give up on their relationship. Years pass, and he ends up marrying Charity, despite her father’s disapproval, and they move to New York City.

 

Life is no cherry pie, though. Phineas loses his job, and is forced to find a new one. He cheats the bank out of real collateral, and gets a loan to open a Museum of oddities. Even in Victorian times, however, morbid curiosities are still only appealing to a niche audience. Barnum’s children suggest he sell tickets to see something alive. Barnum realizes he still wants to show oddities-just living oddities. He gathers giants, dwarfs, tattooed men, albino’s, and more. He renames his museum Barnum’s Circus. Despite bad reviews and violent protestors, Barnum and his performers triumph, and even though their Circus building burns down, they switch to tents, and continue to perform for the masses. The film is visually stunning, with an extremely talented cast who had backgrounds in music, such as Jackman, Efron, Williams, and Zendaya. With a mere budget of $84 million, the film has now grossed over $400 million, and is officially the highest grossing live-action musical of all time. As someone who writes screenplays, I noticed the clever dialogue and the smooth transitions into song. Transitioning from speaking to singing is notoriously difficult to blend in a way that’s not awkward or cheesy. The Greatest Showman does a fantastic job. The writers for the film were Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon. Bicks wrote much of the hit show Sex In The City, but Condon worked on The Twilight series and the live action Beauty And The Beast. It is his work with Disney that allowed such magic on the screen of The Greatest Showman. This film is magical, musical, and without a doubt-worth a watch.

By: Aleksandra Yefremova

Writing is not easy, even for professional writers. Describing events and expressing dialogue can be a challenge for anybody. A common problem most people experience while writing is overthinking. Luckily, this obstacle can be easily overcome with a few simple-to-follow tips.

To start, a good first tip in writing proficiently is to write daily. It is important to remind yourself to write every day. It does not have to be anything specific or even interesting, it can be anything in general. Writing does not mean creating an essay consisting of over one thousand words, it can be something simple and painless such as a short poem or a lyric. Write what comes to mind.

In addition, a second tip is to not overthink your sentence phrasing, sentence structure, and terminology until you revise your writing. Create a simple straight to the point sentence that can be easily understood. Furthermore, it is also important to let words flow naturally onto the page and not stress yourself over constructing the ideal or perfect line. This is important because letting your own words fly on to the page is the base of your writing. Once you have the base it becomes so much easier to revise and reconstruct what you have written.

Equally as important, a third step is to re-read what you have written out loud. It is a good idea to re-read your writing and remove some of the boring or dull phrases and spice them up with a more impressive synonym. This might sound strange. However, it is efficient in composing an acceptable or even an exceptional story, essay, or poem. To add, another good way to expand your wring is to let other people read what you have written and ask them for criticism. Strangely enough, criticism is a good way to view what strengths your writing holds and what weaknesses.

Given these points, writing is difficult and stressing. Yet with these few simple tips writing can be fun, easy, and most importantly effortless in constructing.

by: Mikala Dawson

Many writers and artists struggle with confidence. It is intimidating to publish your work for others to see. The internet and social media allow anyone and everyone to see what you’ve created and either “fan girl” over it or subject it to the harshest of criticisms. The aim of this editorial is to share some confidence boosting tips I’ve gathered over the years and hopefully encourage you to submit to our magazine.

Developing the confidence to publish or submit your writing can be a challenge, but if you’re willing to put in the time you will see results. There are two BIG ways you can boost your confidence in your writing. The first solution is edit and re-write. The more time you spend writing something, the more ideas you develop on the subject. Always go back and re-read what you’ve written and look for improvement in your writing. The second solution, get a second opinion. I know sharing your work with others may seem daunting, but a fresh pair of eyes will see mistakes your eyes have been missing. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, a popular alternative is copying and pasting your writing into Google Translate and pressing play. Google will read out your writing and you can hear the more obvious mistakes you made out loud. One of the best ways I’ve found to help my confidence is editing and re-writing over and over again. I’m so insecure with my writing I often don’t want to share it with anyone for a second opinion.

Building confidence in your art work can be a bit tricky. It’s important to understand that no one will understand your art the same way you do. Criticism form others should be taken with a grain of salt. A solution to dwindling confidence in your art is to always practice new art styles. Getting out of your comfort zone and working with new styles and materials helps you build as an artist. This expansion in your abilities will naturally lead to more confidence in your art. I feel the best solution is remembering to always compare yourself to yourself. This way, you always win.

Confidence is important in everyday life. Without it, you cannot hope to achieve your goals. Magazines like Elektraphrog rely on submissions from writers and artist to create a catalog of new ideas that help inspire others. Without you there isn’t a magazine. So, take a chance and submit something, you may surprise yourself.

by: Alysa Curley

Have you ever had a wonderful idea for a character, the story, or a message that you wanted to share? This then is for you, as it helps for you, the writer to have a some clear plot goals while developing your work.

To begin with, you the writers, should have the idea that the Goals in the story define the plot, meaning that what your characters are striving for lead the story into the plot. After all plotting is a verb, and in general it is showing the cause and effect that your characters choices are or aren’t leading to.

First, figure out the character traits that your protagonist possesses at the beginning of the story.

Let’s say that your protagonist is a boy. In fact a young man who has just started college would work fine. What kind of characteristics would he have? Is he smart, naive, athletic, curious? For this example let’s say that the young man named Josh is:

• Attending college on an academic scholarship
• Looking for a part time job

The next step is for you, the writer to determine what kind of genre this story is going to be. Do you like more Science Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, or perhaps Crime genres? The genre you choose will then determine the overall goal of the protagonist.

For science-fiction, maybe the job he interviews for, involves highly advanced technology. For thriller maybe he sees a a mysterious figure around the campus. I am sure you understand the idea.
For my example Josh is staring in a story about crime.

Now that you know what kind of character you have and the genre of story that you are writing the last step in developing your plot is to determine 2 things.

What is your character’s long term goal?
While your character is in the story are they looking to go against a physical antagonist. Such as the general bad guy/organization that is preventing the goal from being meet or completed. Or is the characters main struggle internal in nature. A story in which they are trying to overcome a certain fear or moral dilemma. Good stories tend to have their antagonist going through both as it depends plot and character development.

Focus on your character transitions.
With this I mean that in your plot the last thing you have to consider is how the challenges in the story are going to change your character or inlighten your character to the fact that they will not change. Meaning that it leads to a realization, for your character and audience, of how going against the antagonist changed the characters ideas or morals or rather how no matter hard they try cannot change no matter how hard they try.

After you have all of this figured out, you have all the plot goals for the story you are writing. Express your dreams, aspirations, and knowledge to your readers in a way that makes that makes you both happy and proud for what you have done.