Addi is a young adult male going through the Creative Writing for Entertainment program at Full Sail University. This blog is his digital journal; a collection of thoughts, experiences, tips, and emotions while embarking on his educational journey and the start of his career. Note: Addi is in no way sponsored or endorsed by Full Sail. He is merely a passionate student and writer, who is eager to share his story. He encourages anyone with questions to ask!
Our prompt for this assignment was to write a story about a Haunted Place that didn't use stereotypical words to describe the setting, such as scary, haunted, ghost, etc.
The steel door slammed shut behind us the instant we walked in.
“That wasn’t me,” Tanya said, her hands up at her shoulders.
Three suspended lights hung from the vaulted ceilings of the hallway, swinging despite the stale, still air. The middle light even flickered a bit like a dysfunctional strobe light trying its hardest to throw off the senses.
I took a few steps forward on the stained linoleum. The click of my heels echoed down the barren hallway. “It’s just an abandoned warehouse, guys. No big deal. Let’s just get the picture and be ----”
The furthest light in the hallway crashed to the ground and reverberated with the sound of Emily’s high-pitch scream. Glass shattered and sparkled in the now dark end of the room.
“That wasn’t me,” Tanya said again.
Emily grabbed my arm. “Kelly, I think we should go.”
I forced a laugh. “Everything’s fine, guys.” I didn’t believe it.
I took another step forward. No click. No echo. Just a step. Another. Silence.
The door in front of us flew open, and a strong gust of wind poured through the hallway. My hair blew behind my shoulders. The bitter cold impaled my lungs and sent shivers down my spine. All at once, the tears in my eyes formed, spilled, and froze.
And just as sudden as it had opened, the door slammed shut again. The sound bounced through the hallway.
For a moment, no one moved. Even Emily seemed to stop shaking. The world was quiet.
SNAP!
The front light crashed to the floor, littering the path in front of us with glittery pieces of its broken light bulb. Emily didn’t even scream.
We stood there, in pure silence, as the middle light flickered in and out, casting out shadows on the moldy walls of a place we shouldn’t have entered.
Unfortunately, as I’m writing this, I’m already aware that the course curriculum has changed. The teacher for the class is a super awesome guy and had told us that he was working on changing some of the assignments. He recently told us that the changes have gone into effect.
Because of this… I’m not sure how relevant my post is going to be for you. But, here it goes anyway.
For the entirety of the month, our assignments revolved around a single story concept, designed to be a video game. Each week focused on a different theme and had large assignments that reflected that theme; however, the last week’s final project was a Game Treatment, that compiled all of the previous assignments and more into a large document about our story.
Along with each theme of the week and large assignments, we had Online Journals and Weekly Reflections to complete for the first three weeks. These were almost like “warm up” assignments that we could eventually apply into the Masterworks that then eventually went into our Game Treatments. Which was kind of awesome… The reflections had us go back and discuss what we learned from the week. What worked, what didn’t work, and how could we apply what we learned or did to future projects down the road.
Week One’s theme was Interactivity and Storytelling, revolving around character growth and arcs. We talked a lot about our own favorite characters in media and why they were successful. Character archetypes and all that jazz were topics we covered, too.
The Online Journal had us answer some basic questions about our protagonist, similar to one of those Social Media profiles you would fill out on MySpace or whatever. (I’m probably aging myself with that reference… oops.) It was your basic 20 Questions type form, we just had to fill it out in regards to our character.
Our ‘Masterwork’ for this week revolved around creating a character profile for our main protagonist and an overall dilemma for him/her that made the game character-driven instead of plot-heavy.
During Week Two, we talked about Mapmaking. Lectures for the class covered the history of map making and the stories that maps could tell. Our professor even brought in a huge pile of his own books that had maps as examples. I know it sounds lame, but it was actually pretty interesting to see the different visual styles and presentations of the maps of the various worlds.
For our Online Journal this week, we had to create a brief encyclopedia entry for our setting, using only objective details in our description. It sounds simple enough, and it was, but the assignment was a great exercise in raising awareness of objective versus subjective descriptions.
Our Masterwork, as you could probably guess, was to create a map of the land where our game took place. I ended up created an entire continent, but the example provided was actually just a map of an actual city hand drawn by the student with important locations pointed out and labeled.
Our theme for Week Three was Civilizations and Secret Societies. This was one of the most interesting weeks, because it was something that I had never truly considered or thought of for my own stories. Although some of the lectures felt like history lessons that kind of drug on and on, there was still a lot of really good information buried in there that I definitely benefited from.
Breaking the tradition of using Online Journals to help our Masterworks, for Week Three we had to do research on an actual Secret Society and deliver our findings. We had a couple key topics to discuss about our choice of secret society, and then we would summarize it, post it, comment, and be done.
The Masterwork assignment for this week was to create a secret society or culture for our storyline. If there wasn’t going to be one in the game we created, we had the option to simply create one for another story, but I was fortunate enough that my storyline revolved around a secret society anyway!
Week Four went a little bit differently than most weeks, because we didn’t have an Online Journal or a Masterwork to complete.
This was awesome, because it gave more time to focus on our Game Treatment itself. While we ended up creating larger documents in later classes, the Game Treatment was one of the largest compilation of works about one story that we had worked on yet.
Essentially, we fused together the previous Masterworks with revisions and made it presentable in a sectioned off document focusing on Story and Character, Actions, and the Civilization. We also had to include a logline and a map.
I was really proud of my final piece, and I definitely plan on adding it to my portfolio. But, I may just post a couple of the pictures on here for your enjoyment. Yay followers.
Outside of simply homework assignments, we did a lot of movie watching in this class. Including 1408, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Frozen, and a fieldtrip to the actual movie theater to watch Captain America: Winter Soldier.
We also did quite a bit of in-class flash fiction writing. Some of the prompts were really awesome and sparked some great ideas. In fact, our professor made note that quite a few students had submitted their results to be published at a few places and have had success.
I’ll admit – I even recently submitted one of these myself to an online literary magazine. So… cross your fingers that I get accepted. (I’ll keep you posted.)
Unfortunately, during this month, my grandpa passed away. Without getting too personal, this really took a lot out of me for the month. But, the professor was such a sweetheart and was completely understanding of the situation going on. He even granted me an extension for some of the assignments (that I thankfully didn’t need).
In the end, I really liked this class. I really connected with the story that I was working on. I loved my final projects. Dr. Begley was an awesome person that I am so glad that I got to know through this course. And I walked away with an A+. So… woohoo.
There’s not much that I can really say about this class, because it’s exactly what you suspect. An online, general education class revolving around scientific terminology and theories…
But, I’ll try to give you a more detailed explanation below.
Each week, we were tasked with assigned readings, a ‘Knowledge Check’ (read: Test), and a Diagram Analysis project all revolving around terminology and theories of the week.
The readings came in the form of downloadable PowerPoint presentations that covered the terms. And then if you were struggling with understanding them, additional videos were provided that went over individual key terms as well.
I’ll be honest; I didn’t ever watch any of the videos.
Knowledge Checks were simple enough. There were often one or two questions that seemed to be worded in attempt to trick you, but ultimately, I was able to come away with 100% scores on all four quizzes. Yay for open book tests.
I will note, that the Knowledge Checks were handled REALLY weird, though. Before you took the test, you downloaded a .pdf PowerPoint presentation that showed a picture and asked the questions on there. It was like a fill-in-the-blank type paragraph, with numbers left for which question answered that blank. Then you had to open the actual test link on the FSO platform to take the test… It was just odd and unnecessary.
The Diagram Analysis projects were the bulk of the week’s work. You’re given a list of terms from the week that you have to describe and find examples of in an image. The image can come from any form of media (tv, movies, games, etc.), but you have to show three of the key terms, site your source, and add little icons to display/diagram what is going on with the terms.
Thankfully, you aren’t limited to what images you can use, so I was able to pick from things that I was actually interested in. That made the assignment a hair more enjoyable…
For not being a science guy, I did struggle with a few of these – but ended up, again, with 100s on all four assignments. So, there’s that.
The last big assignment for the class was the Discussion post. Hey, it’s an online course; discussion posts are always required.
The post topic was to read a section from one of the chapters from the textbook, summarize it, and then provide an additional example that proves the theory behind it. After your initial post, like always, you had to comment on two or more students’ posts.
This assignment, while not difficult, was one of the worst for me (though, I still got a 100, woot!), only because the due date for the assignment was DURING our break. Which was ridiculous.
Either way, I made a point to get the post done BEFORE break, so it was fine and dandy in the end.
Ultimately, like I said above, this is your typical online science class. Sure, you get to apply some of the theories to movies and games and stuff, which I don’t think is a regular thing for most colleges, but it’s still science. And at the end of the day… I’m just not a science-y kind of guy.
Literary Techniques and Story Development: Overview
Literary Techniques and Story Development: Overview
This was my February class… and I’m just now posting about it. I apologize. I won’t promise to “get better about this” or anything, because I never would’ve expected this much time to have passed before I was able to do the synopsis. But, alas, it did. Oops.
I won’t go into too much detail with this class, simply because it’s been a while… But, here you go.
~*~*~*~
Going from Creative Writing Research into Literary Techniques and Story Development was quite the challenge. Essentially, LTS had us doing one major assignment every week, and the rest was handled with in-class discussions of our reading assignments, lectures, and/or movies.
We had two books for the class. Physical books. Thank goodness.
The first is called Adaptations. It is a compilation of short stories that have been adapted into feature length films. A lot of the stories we read I hadn’t seen the movie version… but we would watch the trailers to the movies during our class discussions, and it was really neat to hear about how they differed.
Our second book was the focus of our final week. It is a graphic novel about the Holocaust called Maus. I absolutely hated it, but seemed to be one of the only ones in the class that did. I won’t go into the details on why I didn’t like the book – I could write an entire blog about it, I’m sure – but I will just say that I don’t really like historical or depressing themes in stories… so it wouldn’t have been something that I would’ve picked up off the shelf in a bookstore.
We watched a lot of movies, because our teacher was a film critic.
Which… added a lot of pressure to us, because after doing some research on his reviews… he can be pretty harsh! (Rightfully so, usually… but still! The man can be brutal!)
I hadn’t seen any of the movies that we had watched before, and honestly – I couldn’t tell you the names of all of them. I do remember Children of Men, Royal Tennenbaums, and I think the other movie was Moon? Something like that?
We all really enjoyed the discussions after the movies, and I felt that we were all able to tie the themes and aspects of the movies into the lessons that we were discussing that week.
Each week we also had one writing prompt that we did in class. These assignments were usually quick, half hour to an hour exercises that volunteers would read aloud afterward and we’d discuss what worked and what didn’t. Nothing too exciting.
These all got compiled into a folder at the end of the month and were graded along with our ‘class participation’ score for about 15% of our grade.
We had three assignments for the first three weeks, called Creative Starters. These were meant to be the ‘start of the story’ and often we didn’t even get to the Inciting Incident of our draft.
Each week we had to come up with a NEW story beginning to workshop, and he encouraged us to use different medias that we hadn’t experimented with. Naturally, I did three different formats…
But these assignments were exactly why it was so difficult to transition. CWR was all about honing in on ONE story and immersing ourselves into that one world. LTS focused on being able to dish out idea after idea after idea, because in the real world, we aren’t going to be able to make it off of just one idea.
I really appreciated the hard transition. It added an extra layer of challenge to each week. In fact, by the third week, I was so worried about wanting all of my stories to be different and unique and fleshed out with depth… that I didn’t even start the assignment until the day before the due date! No worries – I got it in on time.
The best part of the class for me was workshopping these projects. Our teacher encouraged us to try scripted formats (instead of prose), so when we would workshop them, we would assign roles and different people would read for different characters. It was awesome, and often hilarious.
The final project was an expansion to one of our previous Creative Starters. Basically, we got to revise and add to one of the three projects we had created for the class.
Unfortunately, we never got to workshop these drafts, but it was a fun assignment all the same.
If I had to say something negative about the class (other than having to read Maus) it would be about the grading. Let me pull out my soapbox…
I pride myself in being a 4.0 student. And this was the first class that my grades didn’t really show that. There was a growth throughout the course, but I don’t think a single person got a 100 in the class… By the end of the class, I had the lowest grade I have gotten at Full Sail – an A.
I fought it. All of the comments on my assignments were positive; not getting an A+ didn’t make sense. So I called and asked for clarification … and the teacher was really understanding, easy to talk to, and helpful. He even changed my grade for an assignment that I should’ve gotten higher marks on – which brought my GPA back to the 4.0 that is should be.
After all of the Hall of Fame festivities, I'm surprised it wasn't hard to get back into the grind of class~! But, I suppose that says a lot to how much I loved this class.
The Interview assignment went well. :)
I got a 99 - so, yahoo!
Our first day back in class, we read over our assigned writing for the week: We had to write a character based on the information that we had obtained through our interview with our classmate, and then combine that info with one of the people we had observed.
Finally, that new character was to interact with our monster character.
All of our stories were really different, so it was really awesome! I also really enjoyed hearing how everyone incorporated different aspects of the interviews and observations to get their final product. Isn't the writing process awesome?!
We also watched the movie Frost/Nixon during class. And, (shocking, I know) I actually liked it.
The point of this was to kind of go hand-in-hand with our interview assignment, and fit really well.
Hands down better than Brazil. Haha.
The next class day, we finished reading our stories, and then we discussed our final two projects of the class: the Final Draft of our Treatment and a Pitch Presentation.
For the Presentation, we had to act as if we were going to pitch the movie to a studio. We had slides for the general setting, specific locations, a handful of the characters, an overview of the story, some class-based slides revolving around our researching and development of the story, and then we had to do some marketing research.
We actually did the Marketing stuff during one of the classes. We had to research similar movies that made double the production budget after the domestic and international box office figures.
He wanted us to keep it within the past five to ten years, so this proved to be a little more challenging than I initially thought - Especially when Tangled didn't make the cut!
But, alas, I was able to find my awesome examples during the class time, and then transfer the information to my presentation.
We also used the day to ask our teacher questions about the industry. About his experiences, his life, and anything writing-based.
This was SO eye-opening. I'm not 100% convinced or set to going into television, but it definitely inspired me to look at the industry even more. But, I'm still trying to keep my options open.
Our next class day was essentially a lab day. We all were required to be there for hours, but were able to use the day to work on our final two projects (the treatment and the presentation).
It was a really awkward class, because everyone was so quiet… But I DID get a lot of work done, so that was nice.
Finally, our last day: The Day of the Presentations.
This went REALLY well~! The presentations were supposed to be about 10 minutes long, but I'm pretty sure everyone went about 15+. For the record, mine was 18. Which, after practing a few times and ending up with presentations almost 30 minutes long…. I'm super stoked about 18. Booyah~!
Everyone's final product were SO different, and it was amazing to hear them! We're all so unique, and it definitely showed in our presentations.
I will say… I was really flattered at the comments that I got for mine. Terrified that I was going to go over the time, I was speed talking at the beginning (so much so that the professor had to stop me to tell me to relax - which I did).
I used my own artwork for the characters and story slides, drawing out some of the scenes. And got a lot of reactions from my classmates as I told my story. People literally gasped at the ending and it was the amazing reaction that I had wanted~!
After the presentation, when I asked if anyone had any questions, everyone just clapped. We had all clapped for EVERYONE'S presentations, of course… but that was the FIRST thing that people did when I finished. Like… Wow. What an amazing feeling.
I honestly didn't get any questions about my story, just praise. The teacher even said that he felt that a movie/story like mine NEEDED to be made, and that "WHEN" I pitched the movie to Disney, he thinks that it would be an amazing fit for the company (or any company), if they were brave enough to take the first steps with an LGBT-themed story.
My friends all seem to say that I had the best presentation out of everyone. I'm not sure I agree; but I was definitely proud of it. And am super excited to add 'Princely' to my portfolio. ^_^
The last project, was the Treatment.
I'll admit, I actually turned in my Treatment a little late. I had intended to review it for grammar once more before submitting it… and went to the Oscars event on campus, and got back after midnight….
So, cross your fingers that it doesn't get counted late! I don't think it will.
I should find out my final grade for the class soon.
But, taking into consideration that the teacher has wanted to use my work as examples in future classes, I think it's safe to assume I will do well. :)
Which, I'm really happy about.
My best advice for the class: He really means it when you need to do a project that you are passionate about. I love my story, and because of that - I put a LOT of work into it.
If you pick something you like, you'll WANT to work on it, and it'll pay off. ^_^
This is the final song that I created for the final instructional podcast.
I'll admit, by this point - I was checked out from this class. I had just spent two and a half weeks of my month going to Disney and Universal every day... My friends were all getting back from their own month away... So I was just kind of in a rush to get it done.
My solution was to just keep it basic, one-instrument only. And I think that it transitions well and still manages to sound nice. Just... no story this time.
This portion, we were supposed to tie the different stages of The Hero's Journey into an event that has happened in our own lives. Mine, naturally, reflects on my vacation to France.
Side Note: If you're interested in reading more specifics about my adventure in France, check out my other blog here. ^_^
In February, my friend Alison announced that she and her then-fiancé would be moving to France in mid-March. Immediately, I was sad that I would no longer be able to spend time with my friend, however Alison invited me to visit them overseas over the summer. This was my “Call to Adventure”: I would be embarking on my first international travel experience.
My “Refusal of the Call” came due to work. I was working near full-time during this, and was also figuring out my enrollment to Full Sail. Ultimately, it came down to the fact that I wanted to go to France, but shortly after I would be starting school. Internally, I was battling myself, unsure if I should even spend the funds going to France when school was going to be so expensive. Maybe I shouldn’t do this…
And then I talked to my parents; my “Supernatural Aid.” Not only did they help encourage me to make the decision to extend my trip to France by putting in my notice at work, but also they reassured me that they would help me financially with my transition down to school after my travels. This knowledge and resource was more than enough to push me forward with my journey, unafraid of any consequences it could have.
“Crossing the First Threshold” would be when I told my work. They had known that I was planning on going to France, but I had spend a few months giving them the impression that I would only be going for the original two weeks that I had requested off. About two months before I was to fly out of the states, I made the announcement that I would be putting in my notice. I explained that I was going to be going to school, and that by having my last day at the beginning of July, I would be able to extend my two-week France trip to an entire month abroad. I think this is the strongest example of “Crossing the First Threshold” because after this point, it was official that I was leaving (for both France and school). My bosses even served as the Threshold Guardians to ‘defeat’ before the new chapter of my life.
Everything continued to go smoothly with my plans, and finally, I got to the airport on my departure date. My flight was canceled: “The Belly of the Whale.” For the night, I pined over how my trip wasn’t going to happen. The airway gave me accommodations for a few free meals and a hotel room for the night, but my spirits were crushed. My phone was dying, I didn’t have my charger; I had one pair of pants to be able to change into, but not an entire outfit to change into. The replacement flight left at the exact same time, the next day. So, I spent the majority of my time in the hotel room, trying to relax by taking a bath (the only implementation of water I can relate to this “Belly of the Whale” example) and finally was able to board the flight.
The “Road of Trials” could be the bulk of my France vacation. While overseas, I presented myself with as many challenges as I could. I made a point to take as many pictures as I could, to try as many “French foods” as I could, to totally immerse myself in the culture. And that was certainly a “series of challenges.” We went sightseeing, shopping, acrobranching, theme parking. We climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower by using the stairs, and not the elevator. I even made a point to wander around the town by myself to feel a sense of adventure.
My “Meeting with a Deity” is probably the hardest to pinpoint. I could say that this would be my initial reunion with Alison at the airport. Being with Alison and Zach (her husband) gave me a sense of strength and comfort in a world that would have intimidated me completely had I been alone. Without the two of them, I would not have had the same experience at all. Alison served as a tour guide, translator, and companion through the entire trip. Zach seemed to be in almost the same boat as I was; he was struggling to learn French (whereas, I was struggling to remember the French I had known from my four years of the language in High School), and was still new to a lot of the sights and experiences. This isn’t the strongest example of a “Meeting with the Deity” moment, however I did “encounter a force who offered otherworldly strength.” So, it fits.
My “Temptation” happened on the last day, and is the same as my “Refusal of the Return”. I won’t lie, and say that the thought definitely came across my mind to try and extend my trip. I easily could have spent another month or longer in France and still have not experienced everything. My temptations were there, but not strong enough to act upon. Especially because I knew that I was going to be starting school in a few weeks after I got back stateside. In fact, I had anticipated my temptation, and planned my Full Sail start date so I knew that I would have to be home.
The “Atonement,” “Apotheosis,” and “Ultimate Boon” all kind of fall under the same ‘event.’ I had spent a month overseas. I was now an international traveler. The “Atonement” is when the Hero is reconciled with a parental figure and their relationship has changed from a child-parent relationship to an adult-adult relationship. I feel this definitely happened when I got home. Neither of my parents have been outside of North America, and this definitely changed our relationships. I was now an experienced adult, able to handle myself on my own, in a foreign country, for a month. This was more than enough to prove to them that I was ready for my transition down to Full Sail just weeks later.
My travels were my first International experiences. This unlocked a new title for me as “International Traveler,” symbolizing my “Apotheosis” moment. I had achieved an elevated status and accomplished something that many of my friends had never done, as well as something I never thought that I would have. This is also an example of my “Ultimate Boon.” My original goal of my trip was to experience the French culture and be able to consider myself an international traveler. I had reached this status, and thus, my “Ultimate Boon.”
As I mentioned above, my “Refusal of the Return” was the same as my “Temptation” moment. I considered extending my stay in France, because I was enjoying myself so much. However, the knowledge that I would be starting Full Sail in a few weeks after returning to the states, I was able to convince myself to board the plane and be happy about my return home.
The “Magic Flight” of my trip could be the actual flight back to the states. I spent the flight attempting to readjust to the awful, non-French food on the flight and the fact that I could understand everyone’s conversations on the plane. Jetlag is also an example of the “remnants of the Shadow” affected me. It took me a few days to get back into a normal routine after landing stateside.
My parents picked me up from the airport in Chicago, and drove me back the three hours to our hometown. This is definitely a “Rescue from Without,” because I know that I wouldn’t have been able to make the trek by myself. I was exhausted after the eight-hour flight, and being able to lay down in the backseat of the car and not think about driving definitely “saved my day.”
Our return home is a literal example of my “Crossing the Return Threshold.” This part of the Hero’s Journey is when they return to their homeland transformed, and this happened to me. I was back home, but I had all of the ‘spoils’ of my journey, the experiences under my belt, and home felt like a foreign place after being away from it for an entire month.
The “Master of Two Worlds” of my quest is shown by my remembrance and learning from my experiences overseas. I went on my journey and have taken things from it and applied it to my lifestyle. I think this is really easy to do when you are exposed to new cultures. You can see things that are done differently, understand why they are done that way, and apply them to your new worldview. And that is true “mastery of two worlds.”
My “Freedom to Live” moment came in the form of getting home and quickly moving down to Florida afterward. I didn’t have enough time to settle back into my “old ways” of life, because I only had a couple weeks to gather my things and it was off to my next adventure of pursuing my passion. Going to Full Sail is definitely an example of living how I want to live, “happily ever after” if you will, so this is a perfect example of the “Freedom to Live” moment of a Hero’s Journey.
One of the rules we learned in Visual Thinking and Writing was to never use adverbs. Ever. Well, okay, sparingly if you have to.
One of our test questions for a take home test was to elaborate and explain WHY this rule is important... so here was my answer.
Why am I so adamant about students not using adverbs?
The concept of not using adverbs revolves around the idea of “showing, not telling.” Adverbs are made to describe how something is done. She smiled, happily. He shouted, angrily. We gazed at each other, lovingly. And, the longer that I let this rule process and roll around in my head, the more I understand why adverbs are awful.
As a writer, the goal should always be to have the reader understand the emotions of the scenes and characters. An efficient writer uses details and subtext to get this across. We are taught in real life to observe body gestures to get a sense of what someone is thinking; I feel this is what this rule is all about. Why spell out that “She smiled, happily” when the fact she is smiling already implies that she is happy? If the scene or character is written well enough, the reader should be able to grasp the context of the situation without having to be told. Adverbs don’t’ give the reader enough credit.
Going back and reviewing my previous works, I’ve found that I do this more than I thought I did. By knowing this rule, and being aware of it now, I can prevent myself from falling into that trap. Visual descriptions and implied gestures produce a much stronger connection to the character or situation. This helps the reader feel the emotion that is being conveyed in a natural way, instead of being told how they should feel.
Here's another one of my Podcast songs. This one I used for the first podcast (not the tutorial).
I tried to have a change of themes every time the video would change events. And tried to have the song tell a story of a journey of some sort. It's strange... but I kind of like it.
This was part of one of our four assignments, where we had to assess our scores for a PMAI quiz we had taken earlier in the month.
We were tasked at giving our top scores, our lowest score, and then explaining how these worked for us as individuals.
For my PMAI results, nothing really surprised me. My highest three archetypes were the Lover, the Creator, and the Caregiver; my lowest ranking archetype was the Destroyer. I feel this is a great assessment of my personality.
I’ll admit, when I first saw that the Lover was my highest ranking (with a score of 30), I was a little taken aback. My initial instinct thought that the Lover was all about sexual relationships, something that I hold in high regards and don’t flaunt on a whim. I had hoped that maybe this was a testament of my hopeless romantic side. However, upon further investigation and understanding, I learned that the Lover is all about making strong individual relationships. These do not have to be romantic or sexual, simply a connection between two individuals. This is a great evaluation of me. I do not consider myself an introvert, however I notice I do much better in one-on-one social situations, and always strive to form solid basis to relationships on individual levels. As my mom always says, “to know me is to love me.”
The Creator was an obvious choice for me; otherwise, I don’t think I would be at Full Sail University. My score of 29 for the Creator archetype is a great reflection of my passion for my craft and my creative insides. My major at school is Creative Writing, which is all about being creative and thinking outside the norm, however I am more than just a writer. I pride myself on my “jack of all trades” creative abilities: I am a performer, and have a strong community theater background from back home; I am an artist, with binders and binders filled with doodles, sketches, and completed work; I am a digital artist, with a DeviantArt account filled with my latest Adobe Illustrator images and cartoons; I am a musician, and am able to play the drums, piano (slightly), and vocals; and I am a designer, with experience in the sewing machine, pattern adaptation, and costume design.
28, my score for the Caregiver archetype, seems like a great fit; even though I’m surprised that it wasn’t higher than the Lover or the Creator! The Caregiver archetype is all about caring for everyone, helping people with their problems even if they aren’t your own, and making the world a gentler place. This is me in a nutshell. I have always considered myself a “White Mage,” which is a Final Fantasy reference meaning that I consider myself a ‘healer’-type character. I tend to always put other people first, hoping to solve their problems and woes before I consider my own. I prefer cooperation to competition in any situation. Had I known the archetypes before taking the quiz, I easily would have allotted this role to myself.
The Destroyer archetype was my lowest PMAI rating at 17. I think this is definitely the most accurate PMAI archetype to be my lowest score. The Destroyer is all about moving on and letting go. I admit that I am really bad at this. I tend to hold on to things that are special to me, and try at extremes to smooth things over before accepting something as finished or worth letting go. Without getting into too much detail, this can be really exemplified with my last relationship. Things had clearly reached a point where we were not romantically attached anymore, but because both of us refused to acknowledge the distance that had formed between us, we drug out the inevitable and didn’t break up until a few months after our feelings for each other had dissipated.
Nearly all of my other PMAI archetypes’ scores were in the mid- to upper-twenties. I think this is pretty accurate, as well. I feel that each role has something that most people can really identify with, so it makes sense that my ‘highest’ ratings weren’t much higher than the rest of the results.
Our very first assignment in Visual Thinking and Writing was to write a sample. Anything. Just write for ten (maybe it was fifteen) minutes. And then submit it.
Here's what I got.
Kenneth’s green eyes sparkled. I couldn’t help myself but see past his innocent gaze; I knew him too well. He was angry. Confused. Scared. Just like I was.
Damarius’s hand was on fire. Burning. A ball, the size of a baseball, rested in his palm covered in flames. The embers flickered in the dark room, illuminating only the small cubicle around us.
“This is too freaky,” Kari said. She pressed herself against the wall. Her brown eyes were fixated on the fire.
The flame vanished as Damarius curled his hand into a fist. “I’ve been training for a few years now.”
“Years?!” My eyes went wide. “You’ve known about this for years?”
Damarius’s head fell, and he stared at his red Converse. His arms crossed in front of his chest. “Yeah.”
I looked at Kenneth. He was fidgety. His fingers bent in odd rhythms and his lip would start bleeding soon if he continued to bite it. I had to comfort him.
“This doesn’t make us freaks,” I said. I focused on Kenneth as I said it. Maybe he’d know I meant him. But his eyes avoided me.
“Not at all!” Damarius said. He flashed me a smile, and I thought I saw a wink in there, too. “This is a gift!”
“Gift?” Kari said. “Please.”
Her sarcasm was enough to break Kenneth. His knees gave out, and in an instant he was sobbing on the floor of the office space. Water leaked out of his eyes, as one would expect, but his fingertips began to waterfall and pool to the ground below.
“Kenneth!” I rushed to his side, and he collapsed into my arms. I glared at Kari.
Taking a quick break from showing you work from the students of Full Sail University to let you know about the free Hall of Fame Music Festival happening next week. Check out the video below for a preview and for more information and set times, go to http://halloffame.fullsail.edu/musicfestival.
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