This learning cycle was a very interesting one. I enjoyed creating various stories based on the writing prompts provided. Though there’s still much I find I need to work on for my writing, I felt this experience definitely provided my mind with a better knowledge to the writing world.
For the first writing prompt, we had to tell a story in a limit of 500 words. There was much freedom for topic, so I decided to do it based on the witch trials. Of course this was only my base, the broken love story idea coming from a song I once listened to. Using this base of a women getting burned at the stake with her love in an envious woman’s arms led me to create this simple piece. I have great trouble with staying in character, as well as keeping in proper tense. I find that it took me various look overs to determine how exactly I can change it so the tense sounds better, I am still unsure if I managed to improve it properly and hope that learning this helps me better with tense in the future.
The second writing prompt was a challenge. We had to write a creative nonfiction piece based on the hero’s journey, and I had never done anything nonfiction besides things such as essays. So I tend to struggle with nonfiction pieces. I prefer doing fiction as it gives me more room to stretch and not worry as much on the facts. The easiest way for me to try and get anything for this was to go into my life and write a story based on that, though it sounded more like a diary entry. After reading some of what my group members did, I now see how I could have done this piece better. I know this experience will help me with the next creative nonfiction piece I may write in the future.
The third writing prompt was fun. As soon as I was presented with a ‘paper bag’ and given items to choose from to put into a piece. Immediately I thought ‘murder case’ and quickly got to writing out the story that easily flowed into my mind. It taught me a way to use presentenced items which I find can work in the future if I want a certain event or perhaps an ‘easter egg’ into any story I make. I find I could have presented the characters a bit better, though I did do fairly well considering I do struggle when I try to keep and show off a character. I have gotten better at this point then in past pieces I find.
The fourth writing prompt was where we had to use a character we created earlier on, in a task presented before this, and use them in a story piece with dialogue. I had a fun time with this since I had a story idea for the character I made already. I however found myself struggling a bit to make sure to keep on character. As well as slipped with my writing due to having not re-read it properly as I should have. Again I have an issue with tense, something I really need to get a better hold of. I feel I did manage, however, to stay within my character for each character, and provide an interesting piece.
Overall, this learning cycle was really interesting, and I enjoyed doing it. I feel that I have definitely learned something from this cycle, and hope to use it in my future writing. Such as better focus with tenses, better idea of how to make a character etc. I have also found various flaws, such as with tenses, that I hope I can fix with more practice. I also find that a big help during this cycle was the peer edit. I would not have noticed the many mistakes, and it is nice to get someone else’s view on it.