Longreads

Characters, narrative structure, and themes. About? True, why or why not?

Danger on the Divide

Maggie Slepian: Maggie is the main character/storyteller. She is an over-thinker and someone who comes off as very reserved and self-conscious on this biking adventure and in general.

Matt: Matt is the biking partner of Maggie who ends up getting really sick and deciding to keep biking hundreds of miles. Matt is a professional and someone who Maggie trusted.

Andrew: Andrew is one of the Search and Rescue volunteers who arrived on the scene to help Maggie and Matt.

Ed: Ed is also a Search and Rescue volunteer who was sent to help out Maggie and Matt. Ed keeps in contact with Maggie following the incident and is able to offer Maggie some peace of mind about what happened.

The narrative structure of this story is the Martini Glass structure. The story begins with some key facts about Maggie, what she does, and the situation they are in the at the moment. After that, the story is mainly put into chronological order. There is no real twist to the story aside from them getting the help that they needed, but the Martini Glass structure is the style that Maggie used to tell this story.

This story is mainly about danger and allowing personal thoughts or self-consciousness to lead yourself and others into a dangerous situation. From this story, I think you can learn to speak up for yourself and to go with your gut feeling about situations, especially ones that can lead to danger.

I do believe this story is true. I believe this because the thought process of Maggie throughout the story is very vivid and comes off as authentic. Throughout the story Maggie admits and acknowledges that some of her actions, or lack there of, were made out of embarrassment and or shyness. I just feel like the way she takes us through all of the thoughts and emotions that she felt at the time were real and nothing was sugar-coated.