They were from two completely different sides of the spectrum. Not polar opposites, and I'm sure they had plenty in common, but still as different as could be. Penny is a sweet, middle-aged woman of Mexican descent. Mother of four, she always brought her shining attitude from home with work, and she quickly moved up the ranks to shipping room manager. Matt was from a different world entirely. He was raised in Massachusetts, and moved up to northern Maine to settle down and become a Mennonite. I'm not sure if that lifestyle change was the pivotal point that stressed him to become as “pig-headed” as he was, or if it was something from his childhood that provoked it. But he sure didn’t leave it down in Massachusetts when he moved. Two people from different backgrounds usually don’t have any reason not to get along. But Matt made sure to give all the reason in the world.
Before there can be fruitful differences there has to be some commonality--I mean, a chair and a piece of cinnamon toast are different but so what? What are those differences going to tell us? Not much.
ReplyDeleteI think this has the same problem. Basically you say that different people have different personalities--if you really want the graf to work we'll need examples of her great attitude and of his pigheadedness. It's not enough to assert the difference on the page--the writer has to prove it.