This is my final blog post for my short story, The Whispers, They Scream. In this blog post, I will be reflecting on my short story and it’s writing process to hopefully learn and improve form the experience.
One challenge I overcame during my story project was finding and understanding data for my research posts. Since my story is about relationships and behavioral changes, I focused on the nature of relationships and mental health. A lot of the articles that had information useful to me were really long, really complicated and really hard-to-understand research journals. I found it challenging to find the information I wanted since the journals held a lot of information, and used many specific vocabulary words I did not know the definitions of. Another challenge I overcame was the act of actually writing my story. When I write stories, I tend to really focus on the beginning, putting a lot of thought and effort into the first half, and leaving the end of the story feeling rushed and unfinished.
I overcame the problem of having to read long, annoying research journals by skimming and focusing on the results. Instead of reading the whole thing, I skimmed the journals so I could quickly find the information I wanted, and did not have to read a bunch of irrelevant writing. I also didn’t really focus on the beginning of the journals, their hypothesis, methods and questions; intead, going right to the results where they had the words I wanted. I overcame the challenge of writing my story by trying to plan it out very well ahead of time. I wrote out the most important points and basic structure of my story before writing, so I could make sure I put just as much effort and focus into every part of my story.
Writing and researching this story taught me a lot. I had never really researched or put much thought towards the dynamics of relationships and mental health, so I learned a lot of new information. I have learned a lot about how to indentify signs that people might be going through mental health struggles, making me more aware now to look out for those signs in my loved ones. I have also learned a lot about how to help people talk about their mental health problems, and reduce stigma around mental health, information that has made me more aware and adept in my conversations. Writing my short story was also very challenging. I took a long time, and I almost felt like giving up. Now, I have much more respect for people who have written a, or multiple, books. I realise how big of a feat, and challenge writing a short story is, so I have incredible awe for those who write whole entire books.
I hope that my story will affect people by making them more aware of how their relationships can change, and more observant to perhaps why they change. I really made the story so that people could see how, small, seemingly insignificant, strange habits in their loved ones can actually be big, problematic, habits that can affect people greatly. When others read my story, I hope people get a better comprehension of just what personality is, and how it can be formed and changed. I really don’t know how many will really be affected by my story, but if not all else, I hope others atleast got a good, entertaing read out of my story, and that people at least found the time reading my story well-spent.
