English Education

Storm

Teenagers want to feel like they belong in something greater than themselves. When I was a teenager, Marvel was just starting to get off the ground. 

My own nature was in contradiction with what I actually wanted. I also wanted to be apart of something - especially of superhero team, who wouldn't?

I was frustrated with writing a fanfiction. I wanted to be like my friend Lizzie and actually write a novel for NanoWriMo. 

I made up Nyla. Nyla was an idea for a girl who would fall asleep and find herself in different places within a fantasy world. It was like Alice in Wonderland, but more extreme - the dreamer couldn't find her way out of the world, and it was becoming more and more like a nightmare. 

When we were in middle school, we had to make a book for reading to kids that had to do with math. One of my characters was an evil witch who flew around on the character's "lost" pencils. 

This woman had been a figure in my mind, reoccurring in my dreams. She first appeared sitting in our bathroom. The next dream she appeared in, she was leaning out of a box with a creepy smile and Jesus put his hand up to me, warning me not to go near. 

I think this is an example of how subconscious images can wind up in the psyche, demanding release on paper. This witch was my great aunt, not understanding her illness, and being generally removed from what I needed to understand within her.

During NaNoWriMo, I learned the frustration of writing a novel. In school, there is often a perception that to write, you need to be at a certain level. You must meet all the elements of style and the correct length in order for your work to seem legitimate. You must understand that these "expectations" are Colonialist, Eurocentric, and are set to throw you away from your own writing. They teach essay writing as essential while teaching grammar in isolation from rhetorical concepts. Schools do not give you the tools / encouragement, nor drive to continue to develop your own ideas - they do not emphasize writing, and therefore, teenagers can't write!

I did not complete the novel, but the grammar / writing was terrible. I felt disheartened. My expectations did not align with reality. 

So I set out to guide my world /inspired by my friend Taylor's own obsession with her's. I used a certain page number so that I didn't feel pressured to build off a word count and would add to it later. The four stories I wrote - Nyla, Ansleigh, Mary (storm) and Susan were situated in what is now a flimsy composition notebook that I have probably thrown away. 

I wanted to build off Storm. I invented the character, like my other characters previously, based off people I know - one friend in particularly named Mary with Asperger's who's trail of thinking is something that would astound you with it's brilliancy . I question the notion that you should not do this or not do that with your writing - that you shouldn't base your writing off real people, or that there are specific rules when it comes to writing certain genres. When you are in your teens, you should be reasonable that if this is your first time writing, that doesn't mean that you are going to do well even if you follow the rules. You should not expect your writing to be scrutinized to begin with (mine hardly ever has), nor to be put on the Wattpad popular list. 

Most of the style in Storm was based off James Patterson's advice to write dialogue before you write action and/or description. This left Storm being read more like a movie script than a short story. I would say now to simply focus on the most important aspects of your story - dialogue, characterization, and action - so that you are not focusing on one aspect and then missing action, description, or inner dialogue. Writing it in a notebook, as well, guarantees that the second time you write it - you'll be writing it in greater detail. 

I continued adding onto the story, thinking that it would eventually become a trilogy. It was then, frustrated with the cliches of the characters and depressed, I decided not to finish it. I found Wattpad after this, scoffing at the idea, but nevertheless grateful that it's out there for new writers. I put it on there incompleted just because I could.