Curricular Response

This is part of a script I wrote this semester of a conversation between a young war veteran and his therapist. My ability to write in different voices in evident in this piece. The colloquialisms used by Mikey compared to the professional vocabulary used by the therapist show the reader the difference in their backgrounds and education. However, finding a way to make the conversation flow naturally was a challenge. This script was supposed to be a maximum of five hundred words, but my final script was over nine hundred words. This shows that I need more practice pruning.

Core Competency Self Reflection

I find that writing is an easy task. I grew up reading and listening to books constantly, so I feel I have a good understand of wordplay and an advanced vocabulary. I am also in the process of writing a first draft of a book, which has provided me with extra practice. I love editing, and often edit my friends’ and brother’s work. We don’t have the opportunity to do a lot of creative writing in high school, which is a shame because it is my preferred genre of writing. I love writing fiction, and I draw inspiration from books I have read such as The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and The Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger. What sets these books apart in my opinion is the in-depth world building and environment description. Both of these authors have a talent for weaving incredible detail into their writing without making it feel blatantly expository. The Night Circus in particular describes even the smells in an atmosphere, the lighting, and the colours of the sky or walls.

One of the things I struggle with most when it comes to writing is pruning. I find that once I start writing, I have so many ideas that it’s a challenge to write them all. Alternatively, I will have multiple ideas for a sentence that essentially says the same thing. Hopefully I will improve with more practice.

As I mentioned previously, I am writing a book. It is a fantasy and mystery series, where the four main characters solve crimes and uncover government plots in an attempt to uproot the prejudiced systems that harm the other intelligent magical creatures in their land. I’m still in the very early stages of writing, and right now my document is a list of disjointed scenes and bullet points.