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Austin Waeghe

Professor Speckman

EN 219

15 December 2019

Reflection

Introduction to Creative Writing was one of my favorite classes of my junior year. It was

a great class where I had the ability to express myself through writing and in class discussion. In

addition, I was able to find my strengths and weaknesses with writing. I am a finance major and

never had the opportunity to write outside of a business professional template. Creative

Writing taught me that I needed a structure with my writing in order to develop the

introduction, body, and conclusion. The class also did a great job improving my revision skills. I

learned to look for imagery, voice, character, setting, and structure style. I enjoyed giving

feedback to my peers as well as receiving feedback from my professor and classmates.

The first workshop piece I submitted was a 10 page fiction piece titled “It Will Find You.”

The story focused on a young kid named Tommy who moved to a small town in Cape Charles

with his father. The house he was living in was haunted and I showed some of the experiences

that Tommy went through. However, my original draft received a lot of constructive criticism

from my classmates on how to improve it. It was very helpful and showed me what I needed to

improve to create a stronger piece. First, my classmates expressed that I needed stronger

character development. I worked on creating a more round character named Nevin who was

Tommy’s only friend in Cape Charles. I wanted the character to be fearless and someone who

would be by Tommy’s side if anything went wrong. By adding more detail about Nevin, it gave
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more personality and made the audience realize why he was helping Tommy. Next, I had to use

more imagery throughout the paper. I focused more on the haunted mansion Tommy and his

father lived in. At first, I mentioned only a few details on the physical appearance of the house.

After the feedback from my professor and classmates, I decided to add more physical details to

the house to give off a creepy and mysterious vibe. It is important for a scary story to have

multiple stigmas where the audience can think about during the story. Lastly, I decided to

change my ending. My professor and classmates thought it was too direct, so I wanted to leave

the reader wanting to know more. My initial ending was too predictable. I changed it so the

audience will never find out what happened to Tommy, his father, and Nevin. I enjoyed writing

the piece, but I prefer to write non-fiction pieces over fiction.

The second workshop piece I submitted was a 10 page nonfiction piece titled “First

Experience in Europe.” I went to study abroad in Prague, Czech Republic with my girlfriend last

summer and took a course called Operations Management. I wanted to write this piece to show

the experiences I had and what to focus on while studying abroad. The first constructive

criticism I got was character development. The audience wanted to know more about who I

was with. For example, they wanted to know more about my girlfriend as well as the study

abroad group. It was an easy fix in the paper and I just had to introduce the characters earlier.

Second, I needed to revise some of my scenes. I went to the Sex Museum in Prague and the

audience wanted to know more about the experience. At first, I felt uncomfortable sharing the

experience, but the professor said it will add to the humor of the paper if I expand the section.

It was definitely an easier piece to write than the fiction piece because I knew all of the events

that happened because they are real. It was easy to stay on path with the topic and I was able
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to develop imagery and setting to show my experience in Europe. It was a fun piece to work

with and I enjoyed the experience.

Overall, I enjoyed the class and learned a lot from Professor Speckman. Although the

class was focused on image, voice, character, setting, and structure style, it was a great place to

express myself on paper or in class discussion. I was able to step outside of my comfort zone

and focus on something new compared to business classes. The main take away from this

course is to focus on the idea of original piece, constructive criticism, and revision. These three

steps can further my development in any career.