Fiction piece 1 is a story detailing the Friday night of an introverted art student named Joseph. I based him off a friend of mine from high school who has a very stoic personality. The Joseph I know did everything slowly, including eating. At lunch everyone would be long done with their food and he’d still be eating while trying to keep up with the conversations. He also speaks in monotone most of the time and can be pretty sarcastic and pessimistic, but he has a sense of humor.
Every day during school, he would work on the graphic novel that would eventually become his portfolio for SCAD. I used that bit of inspiration to make my character an art student. I also used myself as a little bit of inspiration for Joseph because my friend and I are basically the opposite gendered version of one another. I took elements like my sense of style, my personal experience with the A/C, and one of my favorite shows and put them into Joseph’s character.
A major strength in this piece to me is the overall representation of Joseph. I think I do a pretty good job of showing how introverted he is and how he honestly doesn’t care about anything but being comfortable and watching his show on a Friday night. There are a few lines that I am really proud of; first up are the opening sentences that talk about how he spends his Friday nights. He’s fully aware of the work that he has to do, and he knows that he’ll hate having to do it even more on Sunday, but it’s Friday and Friday are a no-work day. I also love the line “It was then that he was fully convinced that Austin Johnson was not human,” because I think that really showcases how he sometimes feels about the person he’s basically forced to live with.
The most challenging aspect of writing this piece was not using dialogue and not having a name initially. There were multiple times where I wanted to use dialogue or give my character thoughts and I just couldn’t, so that was a bit of a slowing factor for me. Not having a name for him was also a bit of an issue for me and since the assignment sheet said, “you do not need to name your character,” I took that as a suggestion and went ahead and named him. I felt like I was using “he” and “him” too much, but at the same time I didn’t want pointless descriptions of him thrown around everywhere like “the art major” or “the 19-year-old.” They just seemed too bulky and fluffy to me.
I think my main weakness stems from the fact that I can’t use dialogue. I really had to focus on detailing someone’s personality and experiences without having their words and thoughts to aid me. I am concerned that I might not have done as much as I could have had I been able to use dialogue. I also tried not to write the piece in complete chronological order like I usually do, and I’m concerned that it might be confusing for the reader. I don’t know if it makes sense to me because I’m the one who wrote it and I know what’s going on, but I hope it makes sense to the reader as well.
