Adventuring To The New Styles of Creative Writing

The main goal in taking this creative writing course is to make sure that I can use my ability to persuade the reader and catch their attention. Not only is my main focus in creative writing is to capitvate the reader and get them interested in my writing pieces, I want to make sure that I am able to express my ideas and send a message to my reader. I want to send a message to the reader using the literary elements and new styles of writing to show how much I’ve developed as a writer throughout the semester. In the beginning of the semester, I felt timid, shaking in my boots about writing because I had this fear in my mind that I will not express any bone of creativity in my writing or I will not be able to not write eloquently like successful writers. I also had this fear of believing that I am supposed to come up with ideas in my head quickly, when it takes time to gather ideas together on paper. I had this thought because when it comes to the editing phase, I would think that successful writers are supposed to immediately come up with ideas when asked to create stories or essays—which is actually far away from the truth. Successful writers do have to go through the drafting, editing, revising, and publication phases in order to create the best work. Although, writers do go through a long phase of editing and putting their ideas to light, they have to convince and get their readers to be interested in their work. Not only do I want my readers to be interested in my work, I also want to allow my writing pieces to stand out uniquely and be able to show my views on how I view the world.  

In the beginning of the semester, the class was working on the poetry module and at first, I was anxious about writing in general but when I heard about poetry, I started to get more relieved. Poetry is one of my favorite styles of writing because it is short and you can use rhythm, different styles of literary devices and elements to appease your audience. This first module was pretty straight forward, creative, and simple, if you follow the professor’s requirements of adding literary elements into your writing piece. The professor asked us to make sure we include sensory language, figurative language, imagery, rhythm, and the use of different styles of poetry. For example, the professor would allow us to create five poems such as haiku poem, list poem, chant poem, setting poem, alphabet poem, and along with free verse as well. One of the best poetry pieces that I’ve made was the setting poem, haiku poem and list poem. For my haiku poem, I had to use five to seven to five syllable word count, use sensory language describing nature or setting. In my Haiku poem, I wrote about a stressful day heading to school and my main goal was to show the use of sensory language expressing the stress that I am going through from waking up, leaving the house, and heading to school. One part that I did well on this writing piece is that I displayed the use of imagery using the five senses. I used visual imagery, auditory imagery, olfactory imagery, gustatory imagery, tactile imagery, and kinesthetic imagery to express emotions of stress while heading to school. For example, I used olfactory imagery to show how people smell on the bus, “​​In the musty bus” (Twum). I also used examples of kinesthetic imagery such as the movement of the bus, “The bus resurrects/Glad that we break the traffic/Moves like a cheetah” (Twum). Another example, I used auditory imagery to express the sounds of alarms while waking up to go to school, “Tik Tok, Tik Tok, Tik!/Running fast pacing/Alarms screams everywhere” (Twum).  I feel like this was a fun poem but it was a little difficult at first, when having to watch out for the five-seven-five syllable count and having to find the words that fit in that syllable word count. I also love the fact that I was able to use characterization in my 10 stanza haiku named “What A Stressful Day To Get To School” and displaying setting as well. The haiku starts off with coming out of the house, rushing to take bus transportation, getting on the bus, bus going through a lot of difficulties, and then finally reaching my destination, which is landing at the college campus. For example, I used beginning, middle, and the end in the 10 stanza haiku along with having a plot. 

Another part in this poetry module I did well on is my list poem and my list poem was about betrayal. I made this poem as a dedication to people who are going through a heartbreak, because I went through a heartbreak before and I wanted to express the emotions of what betrayal really is. In this particular poem, I was required to not overly use strict rhythm, but I experimented on trying to make my poem longer and use figurative language along with imagery. During class, I looked at examples from the slides where the professor would give a poem named, “How Do I Love Thee” by Emily Browning and I loved how she turned this poem into imagery of love. So, I wanted to use that example of this list poem as a way of selecting readings from multicultural texts and turning the theme of my list poem into darkness. So I came up with this poem called “Betrayal Cuts Deep.” My poem consists of figurative language such as alliteration, simile, metaphor, and allusion. For example, I used bloody imagery to describe how I feel pain and how the feeling of heartbreak is destroying me into pieces. For example, “Rose petals are falling out, thorns prick my hands harshly with blood gushing out/I feel like I am drowning in blood, blood leaving my body slowly” (Twum). Then I used another form of dark imagery where I talked about how  betrayal feels like death is knocking at my door. I also emphasized, “I feel like I am going to die and vanish from this earth in twenty minutes/Betrayal feels like Black death is coming to door to door to kill all my organs” (Twum). I try to make the use of bloody, horror, and dark imagery stand out to show the reader what betrayal feels like. I was able to also use biblical allusion as well in the poem such as words like “crucified”, “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, and “eternity” (Twum),  to describe the person who betrayed my trust. I was able to express my creativity and uniqueness along with following through the requirements and I loved how I was able to develop expressing my thoughts on paper instead of just saying the basic things. I had to develop as a writer and step out of my comfort zone of saying little to no details. I achieved the course learning objective of adding details in your writing and using descriptive language to describe the senses, trying to make the reader feel the story and visualize the events of the poem. I needed to make sure that my creativity was at work at all times, which I’m glad that I did well in this poetry module phase. 

During the middle of the semester, the professor would allow our peers to give me constructive feedback when looking at our creative work such as poetry module, prose fiction module, and nonfiction module. One thing about getting constructive feedback from my peers is that I love the fact that my peers and professor created our meetings as a way for us to communicate together, give each other feedback, and try to gain new perspectives along with ideas from our peers to help develop improvement in our writing. I also love the fact that the professor created a space in class where peer review meetings is a space for students to get to know each other, give new perspectives without being judgemental and condescending. Our peers were allowed to share their point of view on writing pieces that they are reviewing and they give their feedback whether there’s need for improvement or not. Our peers used the Good fiction feedback sheet to analyze what works well on our writing pieces or what does not work well in our writing pieces and comment on what needs to be improved in the writing pieces. For example, we were in the middle of the prose fiction module and I got a 71 in my prose fiction assignment because I did not develop more on adding imagery, descriptive language, and working on direct characterization. But the professor gave me constructive feedback and I wrote this on my prose fiction cover letter where I addressed most of the professor’s comments and I made improvements based on her requirements. One of her suggestions was that I needed to improve more on using visual imagery, auditory imagery, and showing the five senses for the reader to feel the characters, understand the experiences based on descriptive language. 

I had to assess and push myself towards developing a better prose fiction short story, if I wanted to get a good grade on this assignment. While drafting and editing my short story, it required a lot of self reflection and self assessment. I notice one problem in my editing process that I tend to fixate so much on the word count and also I was worried about exceeding towards the 1000-1500 word count. But I still managed to make more edits and working to revise my paper because my main goal was to make sure that I followed the requirements of creating a good quality short story. For example, in my short story called “Love Is A Beautiful Gift When Two People Come Together” my original first draft, I forgot to include more of setting and visual imagery in my work. “On a sunny day, Davis and Anita are coming from the college campus after completing their calculus exam at 2pm. Anita was getting ready to go meet her parents in a small town in Guadalajara, but Davis stops her and asks her if she wanted to come over to his parents’ mansion” (Twum). The professor wanted me to show that expression of characters falling love such as holding hands, sharing tender looks, and kissing each other. She wanted me to elaborate more on setting of Mexico to have a sense of description to understand the story. This is an example of my revised final draft: “On a warm sunny day, Davis and Anita, while holding hands, are coming from the college campus after completing their calculus exam at 2pm. Anita was getting ready to go meet her parents in a small town called San Bajas in the rural areas of Guadalajara—a peaceful town with fascinating nature full of green grass with the rows of farmers collecting crops. Red, green, pink, and purple farmhouses around the area. The town San Bajas is full of blazing heat of the weather of 89 degrees. Anita’s house is in spoiler with ruins with chicken, pigs, and cows walking around near the poultry boxes. Davis stops her and asks if she wants to come over to his parents’ mansion” (Twum). In the short story, I had to work on building characterization by describing the characters movement, feelings, emotions, and living experience without simply saying that they are doing those things or telling these things. I wanted to show what the characters are doing and setting of places where they are located. I had to improve more on explaining and being more descriptive with my stories instead of just writing basic descriptions where people are not going to relate to the story and they might think that the story lacks creativity. So for this short story, I wanted to make the Anita stands out from her lover Davis and his whole family because Anita comes a background of farmers and she lives in a lower middle class background. But her lover Davis comes from a wealthy upper class background, which drives the tension between Davis’ mother and Anita because of her background. So I wanted to describe the setting of Anita’s house and farming neighborhoods to give the reader a sense of understanding of why there is a tension between the mother, daughter in law and her son. The professor wanted me to work on showing the setting in my writing and I experimented more on describing the setting and places very well to help build the story. Also using characterization to describe the characters can also help build the tension in my story. So I’m very thankful for the professor and my peers for giving me constructive feedback because it helps me self reflect even and make more progress as a writer when it comes storytelling. That is the beauty of peer review and constructive feedback, coming together, give constructive criticism, and give each other encouragement to make massive improvement.  So overall, my short story kind of meet the course learning objectives but I learned to not let the little things such as word counts to prevent me from expressing my creativity and uniqueness in my writing pieces. 

I did a great job producing the major aspects of storytelling which is making sure that I had characterization, setting, voice, tone, and plot in my writing. Compared to my prose fiction story and nonfiction personal essay, I improved in making sure that I worked on adding literary elements and telling my narrative in a clear and concise way. In my prose fiction essay, one learning moments that I gotten from this phase was needing to have a clear plot structure and also showing how to have an identifiable conflict in the story. When I realize the improvements that I needed to make for my prose fiction essay, I made sure that in my nonfiction personal essay, I am going to demonstrate my development as a writer and growth in building storytelling. So for my nonfiction personal essay, I did very well on this essay because I worked on having a plot, characterization, setting, along with describing the growth in self confidence in my identity. For example, In my personal essay, “It’s More Than Skin Color” I describe the festival as an example of showing what it means to be proud of Black African identity and I use that event as a way to show my journey from dealing with self hate, bullying, to loving my skin tone and hair. “I was smiling from ear to ear, opening my eyes wide with joy and shaking people’s hands as I saw the beauty of what blackness is. People dance and listen to music genres such as reggae, traditional West African music, along with Afrobeats. I loved every beat of the African drums, it feels like I am in the heart of the motherland of Africa. Women leave out their beautiful kinky natural hair that resembles the palm trees waving around. Black women rocking their afros side by side, wearing beautiful bright colorful African kentes with traditional golden African jewelry coming from the coast of West Africa. They were wearing pearly bracelets with golden necklaces and colorful waist beads that looked like fruity pebbles attached to their brown skin shining like copper color mixed with chocolate. Men were all lined up like soldiers chanting “I’M BLACK AND BEAUTIFUL”, wearing colorful dashikis, having their dreadlocks out with nice fresh haircuts smelling like bath and body works fragrance, shea butter, and honey. The festival was full of colors that represent the Pan African flag, red, black and green. Black people with all brown and darker shades gather together bringing fresh meals like oxtail soup, jollof rice, deserts, fried rice, with fruits and vegetables. What a wonderful day to be black and someone of African descent” (Twum).  So I used this setting of the Pan African Fesitval to show the greatness of people of African descent and I used this setting to show visual imagery on my journey towards self acceptance and being proud of my identity. I also showed characterization in my story to let the reader have a sense of how my journey of self confidence in my black identity started. For example, I talked about who I was in school and outside of school “Although I was a straight A/B+ student and I was adored and loved by so many people, there were some internal issues I was battling inside with: self hate. I had two different identities in school and outside of school. My close friends would call me a “Oreo” child who speaks white but outside of the layer of the Oreo cookie, I’m considered to be a black darkie who wanted to be white because how I speak English so eloquently. Every time I use my vernacular tongue, I would get treated as the black sheep around my friends, enemies, and unfortunately my teachers as well. I always had this terrible feeling that if I expressed any parts of my black identity, I would be tossed around like a loose chicken ready to get slaughtered in the factory. I felt like a discarded black sheep that wants to pollute the whole entire classroom with my vernacular English. Even though I was born in America and raised in West African household that taught me the most about cultural preservation, I was a whole lost zebra trying to find refuge and acceptance from others” (Twum).   I showed this example of a description of how the way I was preceived by others and I use characterization as a way to show that not only I was a decent student in school, I also had to deal with students and teachers who did not accept the aspects of my black identity. Even though, I express professionalism and use of African American vernacular english, I would still get judged as unworthy in this middle school and I would judge and ridiculed for acting “too black” in class.  I’m glad that the professor allowed to express and talk about our lived experiences and try to let us write down on paper. I was able to express my feelings and being able to show more about lived experiences without feeling judged. One thing that got me interested in this non fiction personal essay phase is that, the professor gave us an example of a unique text called “Being Black In Middle America” and she would this example to show us that we can dive into characterization but also being able to have a honest way of self expression to captivate the reader’s attention. Also, she wanted us to work on trying to make the reader understand our stories and being relate to our stories. She wanted us to talk about our personal experiences without feeling judged, it was more like she wanted us to express us and not feel limited from doing so. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and I love the professor allows us to express our creativity and also allowed us to have room to communicate with each other as well. The professor gives students room to express themselves, develop as writers, and gives a spaces for students to come together and express their joy in creative writing. I feel like one suggestion I would give her is allow students to look more at unique texts that focuses on identity or culture to help students engage more on storytelling. I suggest that she dives more into artists like Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou or biographies of black writers to give students examples on how they can express themselves and talk about their experiences when it comes storytelling. 

Works Cited 

Twum, Hazel. “It’s More Than Skin Color” Personal Narrative Non Fiction Essay 21 Nov 2022. 

Twum, Hazel. “Love Is A Beautiful Gift That Keeps On Giving, When Two People Come Together” Prose Fiction Short Story Essay 4 Nov 2022. 

Twum, Hazel. “What A Stressful Day To Get To School” 10 stanza Haiki Poetry 15 Sept 2022.

 Twum, Hazel. “Betrayal Cuts Deep” List Poem (Poetry) 16 Sept 2022.