Group Meetings

Hello!

   This past week has been probably some of the most stressful and anxious weeks of my life! I think I reached a new level of stress over this project then I ever thought was physically possible. The stress of these past couple of days started when I spoke to a friend of mine over a our groups idea. Don't get me wrong I love getting feedback over what I have so far and if it makes sense or not because it only encourages me to change things in order to make it better. When I spoke to my friend about my idea, she started asking me a variety of questions about how and why I was going to do the things I had planned and I had answers for only half of them. I started to look at the whole picture of my project and I realized how many gaps I had in my story and how I didn't know how I was going  to convey the message of fake news and I wanted to cry. My biggest struggle with every project I do is that I put too much pressure on myself when I don't really have to because I have people working with me. After talking to her that day I kind of just shut down and got ridiculously down on myself and on any ideas that came into my mind. I talked to my friends about it they told me to just take a breather and chill out and continue the thoughts on my project the next day. 

     Then came Tuesday, where we met in separate groups in class to talk about our idea. These groups were helpful in so many ways because it helped get different peoples opinions on our project idea and ways to improve it. The amount of weight lifted off my shoulders on Tuesday was incredible. Meeting in groups helped a lot with getting new ideas that would aid in telling the story in a way that made sense to the audience. Something I realized when listening in on other presentations, was that a huge aspect of how we're going to tell our story if its a character introduction is obviously the character. Although we had an idea of who and what we wanted our character to be like, we didn't really give her a story which is obviously the biggest mistake ever. I feel like personally, I was so much more focused on what the symbolic aspects of the opening were going to be and how I was going to show them instead of focusing on the most important aspect: the main character.  As I talked in these groups they challenged my ideas but also helped me come up with ways to face these challenges equally as much. They not only made me feel better about our groups idea and how creative they thought it was, they also helped us come up with better ways to tie it all together in a more effective way. One thing we talked about was how instead of having the blue world represent the absence of news, it would represent truthful news but the absence of this human interaction and relationship. I feel like this was such a good idea because it gave the blue world a sense of truth but equally as much took away from it with the lack of human relationships making it dull and lonely - thus causing our protagonist Violet's struggle. Ultimately these group meetings were so beneficial and made me feel a lot better about our idea and how we were going to tell our story.
     After meeting with them, in my next class I decided to google "what to think about when creating a character biography" and came across an article named "How to Write a Character Biography" and decided why not try to make one now. The amount of gaps doing this filled made me feel like the dumbest person ever for not doing it earlier. In my next post, I will be writing about our main character Violet explaining her backstory and the people that influenced her.
 
    Until next time!
       Jess










"Forums." Show your mood with a gif. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
Grant, Rob. "How to Write a Character Biography." ROB GRANT. N.p., 26 Oct. 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.