Submission Date

7-18-2025

Document Type

Paper- Restricted to Campus Access

Department

English

Faculty Mentor

Jon Volkmer

Comments

Presented during the 27th Annual Summer Fellows Symposium, July 18, 2025 at Ursinus College.

Project Description

Originally based on my story titled, ‘Scenes of a Typical Life,’ which I wrote for Professor Kowalski’s Fiction Writing class, I wanted to explore the idea of human experiences and emotions. The original ‘Scenes of a Typical Life’ centered around a character named Bernard Etienne and I imagined what key moments in his life would look like. While I originally planned to continue with this idea, I pivoted toward more general and mature short stories based on experiences from my life. Ultimately, the goal of the project became to examine the humanity of myself and others to effectively convey emotions while causing the audience to question the steps that led to each situation. This also provide me an avenue to experiment with different POVs based on what effect I am trying to achieve.

Alongside the writing, I have also been reviewing texts to further my understanding of the writing craft. Some areas focused on include grammar (‘The Gotham Grammarian’ by Garielle Lutz), structure (‘On Writing’ by Stephen King), and fundamentals (‘Elements of Style’ by William Strunk Jr.).

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