Six+1 Traits of Writing

Chris Crutcher did a superb job of using the six +1 traits of writing in the novel Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. Since he included most of these traits the novel was much more enjoyable to read.

Ideas and content: Chris Crutcher did an okay job of using this trait. For the most part the details were good but the book skipped around with the order of things. This made the book confusing at some parts. A lot of the ideas he had were very good and fit right into the story. I think that this helped the book immensely.

Organization: This was one of the worst traits that he used. The book skipped around a lot and the sequencing was not logical at all. It really confused me and I had to think about what was happening at all times. I think the organization clicked with the context of the book very well and it showed how confusing the characters lives were by comparing it to the organization of the book. Even thought he didn’t do a very good job with the organization of the story it sort of helped the book become what it is. It also had a very logical ending.

Voice: He had many different conflicts and subjects that he had strong feelings about so he could really put feeling behind the characters. Each person felt different about each subject so they all had different voices which made the book more interesting. Putting voice behind characters really helps the reader connect with the characters.

Word Choice: Word choice was one of the books stronger traits that Chris Crutcher used. The words that he used were elaborate and helped the story come to life. The words were very descriptive and helped paint a picture. This helps the reader understand what is happening better.

Spelling and sentence fluency: This trait was very good because the book did get published and was checked many times for errors like that. The one thing that was not so good about this trait was the fact that some times I had to pause and read the sentence again to get a better understanding of it. Other then having to read a sentence more then once the sentence fluency and spelling of the story was very good.

Message: When the message in the story is good that makes the book more enjoyable to read. There were many messages in this book and they were all very good messages. Chris did an excellent job backing up these messages and that made the story more enjoyable.

Over all, I believe that Chris Crutcher did an excellent job using all the six traits of writing to make this story more enjoyable to read.