Analysis of Genre Forums

For my reviews project, I am reviewing a movie and a book. Originally, I wanted to base my movie review off of a New York Times Review forum, but after doing a lot more research and reading several different New York Times reviews, I decided this may not be the smartest option for me after all. I thought it would be fun to challenge myself but like they say, the New York Times reviews are usually better than the object they are reviewing. On top of that, after having started the project I realize that it is a challenge in itself to write anything out of your comfort zone and to mimic a different "type" or style of writing. In other words, it is challenging to write a review in the style of an IMDB review because I need to change the style of writing that I am used to. In the end, I decided to stick with an IMDB review for my movie. I was also going to review a television show along with my movie, but after doing research on television reviews I found that critics only review either a particular episode of a television show or a particular season of the show and not the television show as a whole. It was hard to base my review off of any forum because there were no websites that reviewed a television show in general. Therefore, I decided to write a review on a book. I decided to write a review on my favorite book, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. For this review, I will be using an Amazon.com based forum for a relaxed and honest style of writing. Amazon reviews for any product (movies, products, books, albums, etc.) are easy to read and understand. They are written by every day people who genuinely care about other customers buying a product they will enjoy. They are honest and, unlike many other sites, do not focus mainly on summarizing the book.

Preliminary Ideas

For the English project of writing two reviews, I am planning on writing a review for both a movie and a television show. As of right now, I will be writing my movie review on the movie Remember the Titans. This is one of my favorite movies and has a powerful message worth writing about. Many of the characters are extremely unique and memorable and will make for good material in my review.  I will be writing this review in the style of an IMDB format. IMDB is an internet database for movie, actors, characters, etc. Its reviews are not very complex and get right to the point by including a brief summary and some smaller details about the characters and genre. I use IMDB regularly and am fairly familiar with their reviews and ratings. I think being familiar with this forum will make writing my review easier as well as help my grade. For my television review I will be writing about the show, One Tree Hill. For this review, I want to try to use a New York Times Review forum. I want to try writing a more complex review because I feel the same way about informal writing as the girl we read about in our textbooks. She was scared to use informal writing in her review because it was something she's never done before and something she was not trained to do. Informal writing is a lot different than what we as students are used to and I prefer to stick with the type of writing I am familiar with if I have the choice. This may be more difficult than I think and I may end up changing my mind, but for now I think it will be a fun challenge for me. This may be true especially because I will be raving about a television show that I love as opposed to some trivial, boring essay prompt that I have no interest in writing. I am excited for this assignment and to do something a little different and more fun as a writing assignment.

Writing Background

I have always loved writing. Ever since I was in first grade I have been entering writing pieces in different contests and trying to get different pieces published in many different types of media. I was successful in doing so several times and winning awards for my writing only boosted my love for writing. I wrote many short stories, journals, and poems. I won a Young Authors award every year for eight years throughout grade school and one of my short stories was even nationally recognized when I was in fifth grade. However, once I started high school, I found less and less time to pursue my writing and even less time to find time to write just for fun. Eventually, I stopped writing all together unless it was a writing assignment for school. I still enjoy writing essays and getting creative writing assignments but I would really like to find time to start writing for fun again in a few years from now. It has been a life long goal of  mine to publish a novel at some point in my future and that goal still stands. I hope that once I am finished with college and start my career, I will find more time to pursue this goal and get back to writing. For the time being, I hope to focus on my school work, graduate on time, and start a career. Hopefully I will not lose my passion for writing in the process, but I do look forward to turning some of the short stories I've written in the past into actual novels in the future.