Essay 9/17/09

Hai Le
Ms. Sumner-Winter
Essay-9/17/09
English 2010

Ingredient, Process, and the Made Thing
When reading a story or book, I rarely understand the full meaning of it. I now realize that one of the reasons I don’t understand the full meaning of what I read is because I read it as a whole. A story, just like any other work of art, is made from a formula. The formula for a story is ingredient, process, and the Made Thing. All three of these steps make up the story, and you cannot fully understand the story unless you take the time to look for these three things. These three things in a way tell a story of their own. The ‘ingredient’ has its own story and so does the ‘process’ and the ‘made thing’. In other words it’s like reading three stories, and reading the story as a whole is like reading all three stories at the same time. You can’t fully understand it that way. These three things all have their own meanings; they are all the same yet all different at the same time.
The ingredient of a story is like the raw material used to build a structure. It is the foundation of a story. It is the body of a story. The ingredient can come from many different things like inspiration, motivation, and outside authorities. Things like plot, setting, voice tone, and theme are also considered ingredients of a story, because these things are the like the bricks that make up the story. Without them we have no story, and all we have is a bunch of word put on paper.
The process of a story is like its blueprint, and the author is like the architect. The process of the story tells us step by step of how the story is written. It distinguishes between written works, and separates them from other stories. The process tells us what kind of story it is. All of these are stories, whether it is a poem, short story, novel, drama, or movie, and only through learning process can we tell them apart.
The made thing of a story is the grand masterpiece itself. It’s like the final structure of the blueprint. It’s the picture you have in your mind when you thought of the story, and it ended exactly how you imagined it. It describes every little detail imagined in your head, and you put a piece of your soul into that masterpiece. It is also your ideas and thought put into paper. It tells the message you want the world to know, and it describes the moral you want to pass onto others.
These three are all alike in some ways. They are like three people on the same team aiming at the same goal. They are like three little kids formulating a plan to get an apple from that tree before the owner comes out. For that single moment, the kids put aside their difference and became one. It is certain that not one of those kids is alike one another; however, when they join forces together it makes them one. That is why the ingredient, process, and the made thing is alike. They are a team aiming at one goal.
They are also different in many ways. While the ingredient tells you what the author used to write the story. The process tells you how he writes it. And, the made thing tells you why he wrote it.