March 13

Journal 2: Developing Fictional World & Characters 

While the real story of the highschool boy flipping a coin to decide which school to target for a shooting (described in the last journal entry) ended on a more positive note with his grandmother reading his journal and stopping the attack, I am going to expand on what would've happened if she didn't have the courage to "see something say something." Although this would be a darker turn in the story, it is a necessary one to expand on the effects of a school shooting, meaning it has to happen in the first place. As I'm focused on the issues in society, the setting of the story will be in recognizables places such as home and school, but (as stated in the last entry) rather than going from the perspective of the highschool student, I am going to look at the story through the perspective of the Grandma. She is, of course, connected to the event by being the grandmother of the shooter. Her background (fictional) is that the parents of the student died years ago and she became his legal guardian. She's aware that he goes through a lot, but has a strong personality and isn't easily shaken- usually. For her, the event is the first time she has been this rattled. She finds his diary and sees his plans, but doesn't say anything because she doesn't know what to do. Do you report your own family? This makes her fall deeper into guilt, especially after the shooting occurs- something she can never escape. The details of this world will feel as real as possible, especially the emotion. Everyone knows about school shootings, but with all the numbers on the news, deaths can feel like just that- numbers and it is often hard to induce that emotion in people who have never been affected by gun violence. This applies to me too. I was unfortunately very disconnected to this cause before watching films that focused on pathos, so I hope to use that rhetorical strategy the most as well.