"I get to write a short story for an actual assignment"? was something I never thought I would be saying to myself, but was more then happy to accept as we started to work on MWA 3. I absolutely loved the premise of the assignment where we had to choose a creepy image and then write a story based off it. Now not only do I love writing fiction but I love horror as well. I love horror movies and spend hours a week listening to scary stories on the internet, so I can't say I was sitting with a lack of ideas. There was a lot of what I would think would be typical scary images, like little girls and strange looking clowns. But I decided to go with the picture below, which is of some kind of cave opening. I think cave horror stories are interesting because there's so much you can do with them, as the mystery of the unknown is always a fun tool to play with in horror writing. So I got my cave picture and sat down to start working on it right away, since honestly I was pretty excited for it.
It was mostly a fun write for me. It came very smoothly I didn't feel like I hit too many issues with it until I got to the ending of it. I wanted the story to primarily be about a boy getting lost in this mysterious cave, only for the perspective to switch at the end to see that the narrator is actually someone else telling the story of the cave to a friend. I liked the dynamic of it, but I struggled for a long time with this. I wanted the initial part of the story to be very personal with lots of emphasis about how the main character feels in this situation so naturally I wanted it to be in first person. However when the perspective switched at the end I also wanted it in first person, so it was very awkward to read. When I put the first part in third person it didn't really work either, as it sort of gave away the end. I ended up going with first person to start with then third person, but even then i thought it was awkward. peer review (SLO B) was really important here, as i'm pretty bad at editing my own fiction. I really needed a lot of eyes to look at my MWA to help me out with editing it. I was happy to see that a lot of my classmates really liked the perspective switch and thought it was an effective tactic even though I thought it was a little awkward still.
This was probbaly the first assignment where I really utilized SLO F, reflection. I like fiction writing and I want to actually improve my skills at it. Eventually I would even like to be publishing my own fiction novels. So when I was writing my reflection rather then looking at it like another little filler assignment I actually took it to heart. using my own feedback and feedback from my classmates to write my reflection and seriously look at my own work. This is something like I said that i'm not good at and it's something I really want to work on. Being able to look back at my own work and identify errors and places to improve myself ins such an important skills not just for the rest of my classes but for my work, and my hobbies. I work a lot with writing in my office and being able to reflect over previous work to improve future work is so important. As my quality of writing is one of the things my boss is most impressed about at my job. It's the same with my hobbies, as I write fiction for fun a lot. I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing skills because I enjoy it so much. I found that is is not only easier then it looks but fun as well, as I can take a piece of writing and figure out how to make it better and how to improve my writing for the future.
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