Project Reflection
The Creative Historians project was about World War 1. We researched the causes and affects and read All Quiet on the Western Front. For this project, we were required to write a short fictional story with real historical facts and dates in it. Out of these stories we wrote, we had to pick out a three minute segment (approximately 1 page), and present this to an audience on the 10th of October, thus showing our stories, presenting our look on the truth of war, and gaining public speaking experience all in one exhibition.
My story is overall best with round characters. I really created a character that you would normally hate, but brought his emotions and changes in in such a way as to make you cheer for him by the end of the story. One point where I feel like I really portrayed this was when he realized his past set him apart from the rest of the world, “My experiences have set me apart from the rest of the world, fencing me off al an idem of danger, fencing me off even from myself.” This part is especially beautiful because it is one of his last thoughts before he comes to terms with death and kills himself. Having a round character was so important to my story because I have a character that is not so easy to like, especially in the beginning. I needed to really bring my readers around to see my point of view about war and to look from Sven’s eyes as they read my story.
The part I struggled with most in this project was historical integration. I am good at fiction writing, but sometimes I really struggle with matching up my story to reality and/or history. To make some of these facts clearer, I tried putting in dates and I even re-wrote a part of a historical fiction book (All Quiet on the Western Front) from a different perspective to make it more realistic. My writing has always been more fantastic and embellished than reality so for this project I struggled with putting in even some of the most basic facts of that time period.
The main character of my story was originally going to me native to Russia, not Germany. This revision changed my whole plot line, and made me rethink everything. This revision strengthened the fact that he was “a man with corrupted, twisted, honor” and he ended up being a traitor. This led me to the decision to have Sven commit suicide. I also had to do many major revisions when Oli, Bekah and I decided to write the story together. We had to make sure the plot lines and scenes matched up, and we had a lot of trouble with this aspect. Bekah’s story took a life of its own and ended up giving us some trouble.
I chose to integrate a primary document as my challenge extension. I rewrote a scene from All Quiet on the Western Front. It was the first scene where I truly go into depth about my life as a surgeon. “Chloroform the scoundrel!” This line is used in both the book and my story, but from different perspectives. I spoke the line in my story but in the book, this line was spoken by the surgeon that operated on Paul.
My story is overall best with round characters. I really created a character that you would normally hate, but brought his emotions and changes in in such a way as to make you cheer for him by the end of the story. One point where I feel like I really portrayed this was when he realized his past set him apart from the rest of the world, “My experiences have set me apart from the rest of the world, fencing me off al an idem of danger, fencing me off even from myself.” This part is especially beautiful because it is one of his last thoughts before he comes to terms with death and kills himself. Having a round character was so important to my story because I have a character that is not so easy to like, especially in the beginning. I needed to really bring my readers around to see my point of view about war and to look from Sven’s eyes as they read my story.
The part I struggled with most in this project was historical integration. I am good at fiction writing, but sometimes I really struggle with matching up my story to reality and/or history. To make some of these facts clearer, I tried putting in dates and I even re-wrote a part of a historical fiction book (All Quiet on the Western Front) from a different perspective to make it more realistic. My writing has always been more fantastic and embellished than reality so for this project I struggled with putting in even some of the most basic facts of that time period.
The main character of my story was originally going to me native to Russia, not Germany. This revision changed my whole plot line, and made me rethink everything. This revision strengthened the fact that he was “a man with corrupted, twisted, honor” and he ended up being a traitor. This led me to the decision to have Sven commit suicide. I also had to do many major revisions when Oli, Bekah and I decided to write the story together. We had to make sure the plot lines and scenes matched up, and we had a lot of trouble with this aspect. Bekah’s story took a life of its own and ended up giving us some trouble.
I chose to integrate a primary document as my challenge extension. I rewrote a scene from All Quiet on the Western Front. It was the first scene where I truly go into depth about my life as a surgeon. “Chloroform the scoundrel!” This line is used in both the book and my story, but from different perspectives. I spoke the line in my story but in the book, this line was spoken by the surgeon that operated on Paul.