Scholastic Writing- 2nd & 3rd Draft

A: The aim of this experience is to edit and create further major drafts of my submission to the Scholastic (Art and) Writing Contest.

C: I realized that my characters were shallow, and I hadn't thought much into their reasoning and characterization. I set forth to create character charts and fill out personality quizzes for each character to get to know them better.

T: Writing can be a time drain, but sometimes, after finding my flow, the amount of time I spend a night writing becomes trivial. Though, I still spent lots of time "researching" my characters' personalities, as well as certain aspects of my world. 

I: Because the timeline of this short story is set before the Renaissance, I had to consider the existence (and the nonexistence) of certain technologies. As said before, I had to deeply investigate my characters. Not only that though, I spent a lot of time researching dialogue, learning about and compiling common phrases used to start sentences, pad sentences, and end sentences. When stressed, what do people do and say? Do they stutter, or do they instead just draw back, become reserved? A person's vocal tendencies reflect very highly on their characterization.

V: Throughout this experience, I was able to learn and practice a lot with dialogue, something I have always feared and been reluctant to approach. This short story is one of the few dense dialogue scenes I've ever written, and since I did it over twice (being unsatisfied with the first attempt), I really was able to practice writing human-like, consistent dialogue.

E: This experience was very engaging because I got to spend hours on doing my passion. Especially over the Thanksgiving Break, I was able to dedicate hours of just researching and reflecting off of what I found.

LO6: Gee, I wonder what my whole shortstory is about. Well, it's about school. I was really nervous about writing a fiction about school to submit to a competition looking for youth participants, since it must be a very common topic, but... if it's good enough, then they'll accept it. Hopefully. But I've digressed, the main theme of my short story is the tearing feeling of being hurried. There is so much in the future to experience, that one finds themself looking forwards to it, especially when compared to the arduous and cyclic nature of the systematic education and school. Yet at the same time, the main character finds herself fearing the future, since it is ever so unpredictable, and feels as if there is little security in her own future, despite being one of the top ranking students in the school. Thus, she drowns herself in work. I believe this is a global issue because many students are afraid and thus ignore everything by burying themselves in the present, whether by studying intensely, going to parties, living their social life, until they realize they aren't living quite meaningfully. That they won't have many deep memories. But under the pressure of the present and fear of the future for forgetting the past, what can they do?