The process of crafting the character, Cara and my reflection

I enjoyed writing my first fiction for my character (or avatar), Cara. It was more special because I had to write this in female perspective. Therefore, I could not just simply start writing it down. I had to think every single event I made for Cara before I write it down to see if it makes sense in female perspective.

This activity was performed on a forum called “My Life Discussion Forum”, where students are able to post their stories spontaneously. It was very interesting to read other people’s stories as well. Exchanging our characters with other students to continue to write about them was also possible because of this system. Therefore, we could have more creative results in creating our characters.

It is hard to determine whether a woman’s life is more or less real if it arises from a collective of unknown authors. I guess it depends on who are involved in a collaborated work. I honestly had a trouble myself writing about this girl, Cara (because I’d never written a fiction about a girl before). After I wrote about her, I think it sounds very superficial and not real. However, when Allyson Harvest, who continued Cara’s story, picked up where I left to continue writing about her, she made Cara more sounds like a real female character. I was surprised to how my character could improve by a female writer. As I practice to think in female perspective and feminism, I could also write better stories for other character.

When I was creating Cara and continued writing on another character, Corey, I used a lot of my experiences. They are, for example, things that I saw or certain emotions that I felt that I believed other people could feel as well. Writing about Corey, whom Meredith Glantz already created, was easier than writing about Cara. I guess it is because Corey has settled “rules” to follow. I did not need to create more rules to expand Corey’s experience.

This Collaborative writing performance was most valuable time to me this summer. It actually made me think what I learned for past six weeks in this course. Also, My Life discussion forum was the place where I could creatively express and show what I learned in the course.