Seeing a group of butterflies isn’t as beautiful when you’ve been abandoned in a foreign country. It morphs something so beautiful into something so mocking. It’s almost insulting how they fly so sure of the direction they’re going. So confident, so unlike Freya. The architecture here is unique yet unrecognizable. The bland buildings in Freya’s home country cannot compare to the beauty of the structures here, but at least the dullness was familiar. Freya really has no one but herself to blame for this. She was the one who insisted on moving out of the country for university. Maybe this was just a convoluted way for her to get attention. But instead of getting tearful farewells from friends and family, Freya got a cordial goodbye from her Uber driver after being dropped off at the airport.
Freya still remembers the way everyone reacted when she broke the news that she was moving to Korea for school. First were her parents, who just scolded her for mumbling out the confession rather than speaking up. Then there were her friends who barely even acknowledged her announcement before rattling off about their own college plans. Maybe Freya only went through with the move out of spite to prove to herself that someone cared.
Now a month has passed, and Freya traverses the streets of an unfamiliar city, just as disregarded, but in a different language. There’s nothing wrong with her, but that’s the problem. She has nothing going for her. That’s why she needed a foreign country to make her seem interesting, to set her apart from the average person. Not many people can say they attended a university in Korea. But now she needs something to set her apart in said foreign country because Korean people aren’t starstruck by Korean Universities. Just as that thought crosses Freya’s mind, she passes by a girl surrounded by people at an outdoor cafe. The brisk air blows in the girl’s hair perfectly, and she’s somehow eating a saucy dish with utmost grace. Freya knows her; she’s one of her classmates. She notices the way the people around her relish in her presence. She entices them. Maybe she could make Freya appear more impressive. Freya slows down her stride, and before she can stop herself, she calls out to her, “Hey! You go to SNU, right?”
She found a new foreign country.
When I wrote this story, I had my own experience in mind because I’ve been debating whether I want to go outside the country for my college experience. This is more of an exaggerated version of my fear of moving away from my friends and family. I was also inspired by the idea of creating a main character who is not a great person. Freya’s way of thinking was inspired by the way influencers or celebrities calculate their image in a way that makes them more digestible or likable to the general public, rather than being authentic.
My story is intended to highlight the societal issue of how it has become increasingly normalized for people to crave attention and praise from others rather than genuine connection. This is shown through the way Freya’s relationships are described. It was an intentional choice for the other characters that Freya associates with to be only described through how they interact with her. This is intended to highlight Freya’s mentality of craving attention rather than forming genuine relationships. Additionally, this societal issue is more overtly portrayed towards the end of the story when Freya decides to befriend a girl with the intention of improving her own image.
One choice in characterization I decided to make was the use of a motif to represent Freya’s personality. The idea of a foreign country is used as a motif to show how Freya values herself in relation to external factors, because she uses a foreign country as a last-ditch effort to appear more important. This becomes more of a motif when the girl Freya plans to befriend is referred to as a “foreign country” because she is seen as someone who can make Freya appear more interesting, just as she thought a foreign country would. This also characterizes Freya as more calculated because she uses shallow methods to boost her perception in the eyes of others.
I did not use any mentor texts when writing this, but I would say that the specification of sensory details is similar to the mentor text "Flower In The Curb." The challenge that I faced while writing this character sketch was not knowing where to go with the story. I overcame this challenge, however, by writing without breaks and letting my imagination take control. I plan to revise Freya’s character to add depth and further develop the plot and other key characters in the story.
In the last passage of my story, my narrative distance becomes less personal when describing Freya’s classmate. This was an intentional detail to show that Freya is only interested in the surface-level traits of this character that would benefit her. This last passage also shows some varied pacing, with the story becoming more fast-paced in the end to signify the impulsiveness of Freya’s actions. I also chose the narrative voice to be in third-person limited because I wanted to show Freya’s mindset and character without the readers being completely swayed by her narration and perspective.
I learned from writing this story that there are many ways to portray a character without directly telling the readers how a character is. I also learned that it is possible to turn details that are usually insignificant into impactful ones for the sake of storytelling. Writing this story has taught me that I can use objects, animals, bugs, and other elements to characterize a character, and it has also allowed me to experiment with pacing. I’ve learned that a story does not have to be full of drawn-out scenes to establish a plot or idea.