How I've Improved as a Writer

Liana Raguso

Period 4

Part 1: Context and Reflection

For my final exam I chose to revise an old reading reflection. This was an assignment given during state test season, and we were supposed to write about the most entertaining book we had ever read, and recommend it to classmates as a good book to get rid of stress during state tests. I chose this piece because I thought that it was already pretty good, but some parts of it could use a little cleaning up. I mostly just clarified some of the plot summary and varied the sentence structures when I gave my opinion. These changes make my piece easier to understand and more fun to read.

Part 2: The Piece

The funniest book series I have ever read is probably The Mortal Instruments, by Cassandra Clare. The books are, in order, City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls, and City of Heavenly Fire.These books are about a group of people called Shadowhunters, who have the blood of angels. Their job is to kill demons, and protect mundies (non-Shadowhunters). There are also werewolves, vampires, faeries, and other creatures, which Shadowhunters don’t attack (usually). A while back, a Shadowhunter named Valentine wanted to kill all non-humans. He gathered a loyal group of followers called the Circle, and they attacked the other Shadowhunters. The Circle was defeated, and it was thought that Valentine had committed suicide. However, now it seems like Valentine might not actually be dead, and might be on the rise again. The protagonist is a teenage girl named Clary Fray, who witnesses some Shadowhunters killing a demon while she's at a club with her best friend Simon. This makes her question the reality of her mundie way of life, but she convinces herself that nothing is wrong. Then a few days later, her mother disappears and Clary has to work with Shadowhunters to get her mother back. She goes to the Institute, where the Shadowhunters live, and meets some Shadowhunters (Jace, Alec, and Izzy) and their teacher (Hodge). And it turns out that Clary, who has lived her whole life as a normal girl, is actually a Shadowhunter, and that her mother is nowhere near what she seems. Eventually, this series goes from mystery to pure fantasy, when Clary's goals start to shift from finding her mother and going back to her normal life to protecting the Shadowhunters from a threat within their own organization.

Frankly, I don't think this series is particularly good. In the first three books, almost every plot element is copied from other popular series (mostly Harry Potter and Percy Jackson). For example, the whole thing about people with special powers passed down through their bloodstream and a secret underground world of magic with werewolves and the like is a little too Harry Potterish for me to fully enjoy, and the way that mundies don't see this world is a little too much like Percy Jackson. The way that Clary finally finds the location of the Mortal Cup is just a little too similar to how Harry finds the Sorcerer's Stone, and the battle on the ship is like the Percy Jackson ship battle. The most striking similarity between this series and another is the concept of Valentine and the Circle, which is almost completely copied from Voldemort and the Death Eaters in Harry Potter. The second three books in the series are a little more original, but I don’t think they should have been written in the first place. The series was originally supposed to stop after the first three books, but it was just dragged out. None of the books are particularly well written-- there are lots of tiny inconsistencies. Characters who had one belief in one chapter will suddenly have the opposite belief in a different chapter. A device called the Sensor is used in earlier books and completely forgotten about in later ones. A character is described as acting a certain way, then proceeds to act in exactly the opposite manner. And throughout the whole series there seems to be too simplistic of a divide between good and evil.

That being said... these books are VERY funny. The dialogue is witty and amusing. These books are action packed, so the reader is never bored. The characters are funny and you can relate to them, even if they're not completely 3 Dimensional. There are just so many moments that make you laugh out loud. These books are the kind of books you can't put down. Even after reading them, and recognizing that they weren't actually very good, I wanted to start reading them again. And again. These books are an extremely enjoyable read. So my overall analysis? These books aren't good. They won't be remembered ten years from now. They're not even original. But if you want something to read to relax and laugh after a state test, these books are the books for you.

Part 3: About the Author

Hello, I’m Liana. In general I am a pretty good student. Over the course of this year, my writing has improved a lot. Last year my writing was a lot more formulaic and boring, but this year I have become more comfortable with putting more of my voice into my writing because of Ms. Cernera's encouragement. A huge thank you to Ms. Cernera for giving me a great year in English!