One of the assignments that I have just recently done, that had involved the usage of the creative fluency, was my short story for my humanities class. This short story could be of any genre, as long as it was classroom appropriate. This assignment had a requirement of at least 6 pages, which is about 2000-2500 words to complete, in a decent font size. It had to stay within or close to this range because of what is was, a short story. Later on, we will also have to transform this story into a podcast.

Identify

To be successful in this assignment, there is a definite need for an interesting storyline, characters, and a moral. However, we all know that an interesting storyline, sometimes, doesn’t suffice for a story to feel complete. It requires wording that flows, and that matches the story’s theme or genre. In a story, generally there are 5-7 plot points, used generally to give the story structure. All of these elements require their own distinctiveness in order to effect the story in a positive manner. I feel that the struggles are personalized for each person, but for myself, specifically,  I think that the hardest challenge would be coming up with a raw and authentic story.

Inspire

Before the project commenced, our teacher gave us several examples of short stories, The Veldt, Flowers for Algernon, and The Necklace. They were all of different genre, and each had their own unique storyline and moral. I found myself very drawn to short stories after having been introduced them and even started reading them outside of class, or, what I could find online, rather. When it was time to begin writing, I had a lot of trouble coming up with a storyline that seemed fitting to the prompt that I had thought of. I read several stories, from The Lottery, The Tell-tale Heart, to Harrison Bergeron, and Stephen King’s Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales. After reading all of these stories, I chose one author to follow, Edgar Allan Poe. I read several of his works, and drew out inspiration from there. I loved the way he used 1st person narrative to his advantage, and that he always left very ambiguous endings, or cliffhangers. He also seemed to write a lot of darker themed stories, which I also pursued.

Interpolate

I noticed that Edgar Allen Poe touched upon very touchy subjects, or rather forgotten issues that were found to be taboo. He used his main characters as vessels for each of these issues, and made it brilliant. I loved his use of onomatopoeia, and great imagery, which I tried to incorporate into my story. His characters had little background, however, it worked for him, simply because they didn’t need one. The moral of the story became priority, not the characters background, and if there ever was more to a character, you’d discover throughout the book in the process indirect characterization. What made his stories so successful was his ability to captivate the reader’s attention in great suspense, and outstanding use of language. I found myself always wanting to read more when I had viewed his stories. In short, it was his ability to captivate his audience’s attention.

Imagine

I knew from the moment I had read those books, that I NEEDED to make something similar. I desired to, in a way, recreate an Edgar Allen Poe story, but with my own words and vision for it. At first, I decided to collect my favourite stories, and re-read them, to get into the mood of my story. Then it was just a matter of brainstorming for a prompt I could go off of. Believe it or not, it was a simple prompt. I built my story off of “A deceiving girl, and a mind filled with lies” and then completed my story with a much deeper sentiment than I could’ve imagined. There wasn’t an actual “set” idea for my story as a whole, as I knew I‘d tweak things along the way, but I had the basic prompt of the story, and it was set in stone.

Inspect

I ended up rewriting my story at least 10 times, until I actually found something I liked. I knew the direction I wanted it to take, but I didn’t know how to build up my story towards what I had envisioned for the end to be.  Especially with creative projects, I find myself always redoing them, as I never seem to satisfy myself with JUST what I’ve come up with. Once I finally found something that satisfied me, I started going back and making more detail in places it was deemed necessary. I began the distinguishing of the seven elements, and it lift off from there. So, it did end up taking me quite a while, but in the end I was somewhat satisfied with my work.