6 + 1 Traits of Writing

Ideas
The Ideas are the heart of the message, always help, the content of the piece, and the main theme, strong relationships. Crutcher chose details that are interesting, important, and informative. I think he may be one of the most controversial writers but I still could not put down Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes.

Organization
Organizational structure can be based on development of a central theme, chronological history of an event, or any of a dozen other identifiable patterns. When the organization is strong, the piece begins meaningfully and creates in the writer a sense of anticipation that is, ultimately, systematically fulfilled. Chris does an excellent job at writing with this style. I was able to follow everything he was talking about very clearly.

Voice
Chris Crutcher’s voice is defiantly portrayed in this book. From discussing with my classmates, I have learned that many of Crutcher’s books discuss such topics as abuse and loners. I saw that he often puts the same story with just different characters or settings. Many of his stories seem to be the same but, hey, if it works and portrays the message that he wanted, why not?

Word Choice
Word choice means that the words were really descriptive and flowed with other parts. This was not Chris’s strong point. Obviously it was adequate because he got his book published, but he didn’t use very vivid language and the book seemed too easy to read. I would really find it much more entertaining if the words were a little harder to read.

Sentence Fluency
It was amazing how much Chris Crutcher could say in just a little time. I thought it was so cool that he could push a whole event into just a page or two. It shows great writing when you can get a whole idea off without going into boring details. He only put things that mattered and he didn’t bore us on by adding useless facts.

Conventions
Obviously Chris did well on this part because he had some of the best editors in the world reading over his books. I think that Chris can afford to pay for the best because of his great success. I did not notice any parts that didn’t make sense because of grammatical mistakes but than I guess he did a great job at this.

Presentation
I guess it was good because it was professionally made. I really like the cover with Sarah Byrnes on the front sort of faded into some flames. It looked very nice and it wasn’t boring or anything. At least it had a cover unlike some books that think just cover and spine is all that is needed.