Dear Jane,
I joined this course to receive guidance on my creative writing. I wanted to improve my ability to craft stories for my OCs, which is a hobby of mine. As of now, I’m about to finish this workshop, and it has been so much fun with you as my professor. You helped give feedback on what I needed to work on, such as: When not to directly say things, and more show, don’t tell! For the future, however, I wanted to make sure that the knowledge I take from this class will help me become a better storyteller!
I learned about proper formatting and “Playwriting Terms” like Dramatic Action, and “At Rise”. The first term I was introduced to was Dramatic action, which is the scene/action in a play that characters take to reveal motivation. A good example of “Dramatic Action” is from my bookplay called “DIY DISASTER!” where I let one of my characters named Lisette, steal someone’s scrapbook to complete her portfolio to have a chance at her dream school. The reason this is so important is that it gives the audience a reason to care for the character, and it gives these characters life!
The second term, “ At Rise,” refers to the very beginning of a scene. It is a simple synopsis that allows the audience to imagine the scenery and is the setup for the rest of the play. This helps create context for what happens next! A good example of a play that uses “At Rise” would be Arms by Bekah Brunstetter. In the play, Brunstetter uses “At Rise” to set up the scene of two conjoined twins who are planning out their next chapters of life after being separated by an arm surgery. I like how Brunstetter uses “At Rise” here because she uses lots of short sentences, mainly just one word to describe everything about the setting. “ A park bench. Late at night, October, near Halloween. Deserted. A full moon. Crickets. A chill. Somewhere South” This made me realise that I didn’t have to write my “At Rise” paragraph as five sentences. Just a few words to describe things. This is something I’d definitely struggled with when I wrote my first play, “Cat Catastrophe,” which was the Kitchen Dialogue Assignment that I did incorrectly because I couldn’t find anyone to genuinely record over a kitchen counter. I settled with something more whimsical and fantasy-like knowing that that wasn’t a part of the assignment. 🙁
When it came to poetry, I learned about the different techniques that poets use to make their poems more interesting, such as Alliteration, Personification, and much more. “Alliteration” is the use of similar-sounding words to make rhythm. See what I just did there, that’s Alliteration!! This poem, called “ On Broadway” by Claude McKay, is about the secret sorrows underneath the limelight of Broadway. “Above, a hundred shouting signs/ The Rainbow lights of Broadway blaze.” “Shouting signs” and “Broadway Blaze” are some of the many examples used in this poem to vividly paint the scenery of Broadway. As a class, we evaluated this poem during the “Subway Poem” unit to understand that poems don’t have to be long. Subway poems are meant to be read in short increments of time whilst you’re riding the train! As for Personification, I made good use of this for my own subway poem called “ The Little Train That Could” by me! The poem is about a train picking up people and going on its own journey way too fast that it destroys itself and everyone else on it! The way how I wrote it is intended to be aimed toward children, with the words themselves being big, short, and simple to read for little readers. In the poem, I described the train as its own entity using phrases like: “Carries Young And Old/With An Unwavering Will.”
– SUBWAY POEM- I found it difficult to improve the subway poem because I connected to the collective theme of the poem called” Journey” in a different way by personifying the train going on a journey instead of the people. However, I changed one line in the poem to make sure that the “Journey” wasn’t obvious; and no, it wasn’t the word “tracks”.I already had this nursery-rhymish melody that I didn’t want to mess up due to the 3 and 4-word phrases, and finding a word that replaced “tracks” messed up the entire flow!
– BOOK-PLAY – Overall, I did well on this assignment! The only revisions I had to make were to make sure that the play was in proper format. Names and character information have to be placed on separate pages before the main page of the play begins.
– SHORT STORY – The short story was THE MOST DIFFICULT assignment to revise out of the entire class because the theme that I picked for it doesn’t support an end. You, as my professor, graded my assignment with feedback on wondering why my story had no “definite end”. Well, the theme was “Loss”. My character, Toby, is a middle-schooler who loses his beloved teacher due to a deadly meteor shower. My revisions for this assignment were adding more context afterwards to show the aftermath of the death, and how much it would impact him later.
– MONOLOGUE- I have no complaints about the Monologue. It was my best piece of work for the class, and I feel satisfied about the grade, so.. I didn’t change it!
My strengths have always been making lots of details and using imagery; however, it can be a weakness if it drowns out my plots. Think of it as a double-edged sword! More of my strengths outside of writing are the arts, science, and maths. I love making new characters from time to time, as I mentioned earlier. My goal in general is to push the boundaries of STEAM forward and find the intersection between art and engineering. I find the humanities to be just as important as STEM and dislike it when people think that STEM is the best thing to do. It’s just a matter of perspective!
Regarding my weaknesses, it’s got to be making non-fiction stories or any other literary work that involves the majority to be realistic(biographies, autobiographies, diaries, etc, fall under this category). Ironic, huh? I was just talking about the Arts being one of my strengths. Well, it just so happens that ELA itself is so abstract that the grade really depends on whether you or other professors like what “us students” are putting on display! While we were on the topic of ELA, nonfiction is difficult for me to produce because I don’t really consume much media that focuses on real-life. I know it’s technically my fault, but I personally don’t find realistic works to be interesting. I mean, I’m already in it! I don’t want to read more of it. It’s like playing a video game with realistic graphics that I already see by just touching grass outside!
Anyways, to conclude this letter, I’ll tell you the wonderful lessons from the course that I love! My favorite section of the course is the short story. I know, I know. It must be confusing why I like it so much. Its simple! I’m not a fan of poetry, nor do I have an interest for playwriting. I only make stories using the good-old-short-story way! Another reason why I loved this part of the course is because I was able to understand where my limits were and how to adjust them towards my next assignments. Overall, this course was one that I thoroughly enjoyed and kept me peaceful whilst the others in this semester has been downright stressful. I can’t wait to take the knowledge that I’ve learned throughout my time in this workshop and beyond! It was a pleasure being your student Jane!
Sincerely,
Taliya Caddle
