REYES, Nicole Q.

Class Number 27
Grade 11 Room 5 Our Lady of Peace Ms. Lizardo

Actually, the story I submitted was not the first one I made, neither the second, nor the third. It
was a story that came forth after numerous trashed drafts and sleepless nights, but I believe that
it's something that I hold close to my heart. My writing process started utterly slow, taking up an
hour just staring at my screen and trying to come up with something, anything. At that point I've
already made three very different and very much complete stories, but none of them felt anything
worth reading to me.

I have to admit that the story is not a child of my own, taking inspiration from the people who
were around me at the time of its creation. They told me to write and write until I felt like I made
something worth reading, and so I did. I started with listing down things that I like, dogs came
first. The second one was of course horror, but I felt like going beyond my comfort zone and
scratched the entire concept of a macabre piece out. Thus, "Dancing in the Rain" was born. I
wanted a story that was simple but at the same time made the readers connect with my character,
which was the dog. I made their thoughts very much dog-like as much as possible, and showed
their raw emotions for their master, who I decided to leave unnamed and referred to as Master. I
limited my dialogue to a minimum as much as I could, for I wanted to retain the concept of the
story being in the point of view of the dog, who does not speak English. Overall, "Dancing in the
Rain" was something completely different for me, a story that I did not end with a death of a
character or a horrific life-shattering incident.

That was until I heard the feedback of my groupmates. Overall, they commended the world-
building and the usage of a wide vocabulary, but there was one comment that was stated by all. It
felt very anti-climactic. Dull. That lead me to reread my story a dozen more times, until I
retraced my story-making process and went back to my goal, to make something out of my
comfort zone. I realized that I made limitations for myself, and thus I followed their critiques and
made my story a more heartbreaking one, still not in the area of macabre literature, but
something that left the readers staring at the story after the ending, being at a loss of words. One
groupmate also stated that the story had a gloomy aura to it, which I never noticed. My goal
atmosphere was actually the exact opposite, but after reading through it again, I realized that they
were right. I decided not to change it, and thus used it to my advantage to build up the story for
the ending, which I would be revealing once I submit my final story, so stay tuned for that.