Rather than writing two separate stories, I wrote one long story in two parts. My story, Snapped, is about a boy named Anthony. During his childhood, he is subjected to abuse and traumatic events and must cope with them as he grows older. However, when you have no one to turn to and keep your anger and frustration bottled up inside, you might snap under the pressure. I guess Snapped could be considered a horror story, though it doesn't aim to terrify. In my original vision of the story, I didn't really have a set genre, so that unfortunately was transferred to the final version. Since I plan to expand this short story into either a novella or a novel, I will definitely adjust certain elements and probably lean more towards a horror genre. I'm very happy with it as a whole, but I would definitely want to have a more fixed genre and I would change one aspect if given the chance to change the story. It's only lightly touched on in the story, and it's mostly just implied rather than outright stated, but Anthony was originally supposed to be bisexual and that would've been one of the things he struggled with. Due to his hatred for men, this trait was supposed to leave Anthony feeling more confused and contribute to his self-loathing complex. However, when the actual short story was written, I wasn't really sure how necessary this trait was. I didn't want to leave it out, but because I was uncertain, his sexual orientation was rushed and basically skipped over, and his self-loathing seemed to only stem from the fact that he himself was male. So, if I do expand this short story, I think I'll just drop that character trait. I really wish I had for the assignment. I worked on this alone and discovered that I really need to work on my characters' backstories more and not just skip over them, settling for only a few key details. While I may have an idea, or I just know what happened, I found myself stuck while trying to write about Anthony's childhood. I'd never really elaborated on it before, so I felt very lost when trying to come up with several specific events.
Random facts :D
Random facts :D
- Anthony and Gabrielle (Gabbe) were first created while listening to the Breaking Benjamin song "I Will Not Bow."
- In the original draft, Anthony was never taken away from his father and eventually did get revenge by killing him. This was later removed to be made more realistic. Gabbe also died in the original draft, but I felt like that was unnecessary and didn't add much to the story. I also think that keeping her alive led to a much more satisfying ending.
- Scelus was originally going to be a demon (Scelus means "sin" and "crime" in Latin), but was later downgraded to a shadow person to be a little less ominous. I liked the idea of Scelus of being a trickster who was misguiding Anthony because he found it entertaining rather than a dark creature with a hidden agenda.
- Further development of Anthony's character occurred after listening to the song "Monster" by Meg and Dia. Honestly, most of my characters are created while listening to music.
- Anthony's foster mother was named Hannah after the song "Monster."