GNxDDD Does Bootcamp!

Maximum Intensity Analysis

Analysis

I'm back with another entry for Bootcamp! Wooh!

I feel as though I'm a bit on a high with this writing roll. Ahhhh, the perks of being finished with exams! Next week I have placement, so I have one day left of enjoying writing freedom and then it's back to extensive work for a week. But anyway, enough about me.

Round 2 jumped up rearing with challenge. I've written a tonne of fanfics (for like 2 fandoms), mostly OC orientated, and I was thrown in the deep-end this time with #noOCs. It meant for me that I had to be particularly attentive in trying to captivate the essence of characters that were not mine. Writing about characters, that aren't yours is just as tough as writing about an original character (if not more!). You have an obligation to do this character justice. Others have an expectation of how this character is meant to be. The responsibility is frightening.

But there was more to this round than just writing about canon characters; we had to make our canon characters face a tense situation and EXCLUDE dialogue (what!?).

I'll be the first to admit that I am truly terrible at finding a balance between narration and dialogue. Dialogue's a bit of a cheat-way to bigger a word count, but it takes from the quality of work. Narration is a must but conveying thoughts and feelings and describing places and people is a complex thing to do (and to do well). It takes practice and an amount of attention in English class. So, what's the point I'm getting to here? The Fanfic profile is doing an excellent job in getting us to pay attention to what they want and in challenging us to step out of our comfort zones. Ah, stepping out of my comfort zone...this leads me to my next point.

I could have continued writing for the Merlin fandom, for this 'pure flash fiction'. I was contemplating it. Merlin has many tense situations he found himself in throughout the series and it would not have been a far stretch to leave him on a cliff-hanger, face to face with Morgana or maybe being caught out using magic (again). It took me a day to really think about what I wanted to write for Merlin, but I was getting nowhere and then it hit me; why not utilize this opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and write something for a series I have loved for over half a decade!

Maximum Ride was perfect for this prompt because poor old Max is always facing tense situations!

When I was little, I was extremely content with believing that somewhere in the universe there was Neverland and thrived on the thought that people could fly. I remember being five years-old and having this really vivid dream where I flew around my little low-set house, maybe a metre or two above the ground and I could feel the wind behind me – it was great! So invested was I into that dream that the very next day, I leapt from my dad's lounge chair to a foot rest, believing that I would fly, that I sprained my ankle really badly when I came crashing down onto the carpet. That was the end of that belief.

Finding a book series about kids (who I was around the same age as at the time) who had wings and could fly was like re-living my pre-schooler dream. The characters seemed so cool and the fictional-biology basis in the books was of interest to me; a small genetics nerd.

It was about time I wrote a tribute to the Maximum Ride series. That's something I've been holding off for years because, in my eyes, the series is so perfect I would not want my writing to taint it.

I think it was 2015 when I read the last book, "Maximum Ride Forever", so I'm probably a bit rusty in knowing the characters. The last line in my fanfic says, "Ari was back." I thought it was a nice tribute to poor seven-year-old Ari who had one hell of a life. He seems to evade death throughout the entire nine books, like seriously, how many times does he come back to life? He deserved a better father than stupid old Jeb (and so did Max, but she was more streetwise than Ari, she could actually look after herself).

Ari seems like such a macabre name to me. I like it, I think it's really cool but it's a bit eerie. I have met someone with the name; a lab technician, but not like the ones in Maximum Ride. This one dealt with cadavers. I remember thinking to myself, "Ah, your name is perfect for your occupation."

Anyway, enough of my ramble. It's 1:50 am. Thank you so much for reading (if you have gotten this far!)