Six + One Traits

I would like to take some time to evaluate the Chris Crutcher novel, "Whale Talk" in it's fufillment of the 6+1 traits of writing. Here we go:

#1: Ideas and Content: "Whale Talk" is a pretty dense book if based upon content. Many controversial issues are talked about multiple times and discussed openly in the book. The plot, however, is not jam-packed with drama. There is just enough content to barely keep the story going. I think that their could have been more main events to continue the story, or make me want to read on. There are also alot of ideas represented throughout. Though I may not agree with the ideas in particular, Chris Crutcher does add alot of opinions in the story to show character development.

#2: Organization: I think that overall, the book is organized in an average fashion. Sometimes the plot seems to jump around a bit and miss big or dramatic events that should've happened in order to create the situations represented. It doesn't seem as though the book is chronologically organized because T.J. goes back to alot of childhood memories, and so do the other characters in the book when they tell about their abuse stories or explain accidents. Also, the story delves into the past when explaining T.J.'s father's grief at an accident that happened many years ago. I think the story would have been easier to follow if maybe the memories the characters went back to were shorter, or maybe represented in the end as part of the conclusion of everything.

#3: Voice: Christ Crutcher's voice in this book is quite strong. Even though technically this book is fiction, I sometimes feel while I am reading it that Chris Crutcher is directly channeling his opinions through to his audience. the tone of voice characters use when describing their expieriences and the way they react to certain things shows Chris Crutcher's voice as a person. For example, he could have written that T.J.'s father was not remorseful at all about running over the little boy, but he chose to add that to the character dynamic.

#4: Word Choice: The word choice in "Whale Talk" is overall well-selected. This is especially because of the character Dan Hole. He is portrayed as the more..."intelligent" or "brighter vocabulary" person of the group. However, T.J. also uses well-though-out words and doesn't use much slang. Hardly any of the characters use slang, even though it's set in an 'urban' highschool.

#5: Sentence Fluency: Most of the sentences in this book flow quite well. However, there's some mess-ups it seems within the character dialogue. When the character's are having conversations, it seems awkward how they are put together. For example, when the boys get stuck in the snow and begin chatting, it awkwardly starts out with one of the characters asking how he got his "bionic leg." I'm not sure if that's how I would start a deep life chat.

#6: Conventions: The conventions in this book are overall almost perfectly placed. (It is a published book, after all.) There is a few parts where the grammer doesn't seem to fit with some dictionary-esque definitions, but if you think about it for more than two seconds it's easy to see that Chris Crutcher was just trying to include an element of the character, rather than not realizing a simple grammer rule.

#7: Presentation: The cover of this book shows a boy running (presumably away from something), and is titled Whale Talk. The two at a glance do not seem to fit together whatsoever. I think this book could have been presented much better. Perhaps a more fitting title? (Whales are only mentioned once in the entire book, with not much connection to the plot). Also, there is nothing about running in the story, and there are no scenes with people running in them in this story. Maybe a pool or a school hallway...a letter jacket, would have been better. (Though the boy who's running happens to be wearing a letter jacket.)