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Synopsis From English 314

For the final product in English 314 one of the things we had to do was right a page long synopsis of our piece that we worked on throughout the quarter despite the fact it isn’t done.  This was a hard thing to do because I knew what I wanted to happen in the end but not necessarily everything that would get it there.  I figured I would share it with you!

Noble by Birth, Warrior by Heart is the story of Quinn Lisong, who grows up the daughter of a nobleman.  Quinn has always craved the life of a knight but the problem is girls are not allowed to be knights and her parents agree.  Stuck at home while her best friend Aurora is training to be a knight Quinn resolves to keep up her training and practices the skills of a warrior by herself.

When Quinn’s hometown is attacked she barely makes it out of the town with her family’s caretaker, Elsia, and her brother.  As they escape Quinn makes her first kill in battle and is surprised by how much of a toll it takes on her mentally.  After getting supplies from where she hides her training gear, Quinn and party try to make an escape but Quinn passes out at the sight of a mysterious fireball.  Elsia carries/drags her threw the forest and when Quinn comes to she lead them to an inn where she runs into Aurora, seemingly by coincidence.

The calm of the inn doesn’t last long.  Another fireball appears in the air, this time Quinn’s reaction isn’t as strong but she knows that she must leave.  Some instinct is telling her to run.  On the run, now with Aurora, Quinn tries to hide her feelings about killing a man until they reach the capitol, get help, and rescue her family.

Since the raiders have spread up towards the capitol, the queen cannot provide help right away.  Angry, disappointed, and sad Quinn goes to her families rooms at the capitol and is surprised to find someone waiting for her.  When she sees him she feels a small buzz in her stomach that she can’t explain.

Aurora doesn’t trust this new stranger but Quinn feels a connection to him.  As she learns about a new magickal world that exists and how many things in the last few days have been planned out, and not coincidence, she finds a way to rescue her family.  Putting all of her emotions aside she must take over the rule of the magickal kingdom that her parents must rule and save the day.

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ENGL-314 Writing Fiction: Longer Forms

My last month or so has been pretty dark posting wise, as in I haven’t posted since May 10th.  Part of the reason was the reduced number of writing prompts in class but it was also due to the fact that is was my final quarter at Seattle University.  That’s right, I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree :).  I felt like along with that I should post a review of the English class that I took in my last quarter.

The title was “English 314 – Writing Fiction: Longer Forms” and was taught by Dr. Susan Meyers, an assistant professor in the English Department.  At first, when the class started, I was worried that I wouldn’t have the experience necessary to be an active part of the class.  Almost everyone in the class appeared to have been an English Major in at least their sophomore year.  Some were even in their senior year and I had only taken a couple of non-required English classes.

After the first critique session my opinion of the class changed though.  I was worried that my piece was too genre based as it was strongly fantasy and no one else’s was that strong, at least so far.  Instead everyone had a lot of helpful suggestions and no one appeared to be completely against it.  No one said it wasn’t worth it or that the piece was rubbish so I felt a lot better.  With the critiques I received on both my chapters of my piece and the materials taught in class I was able to revamp the first section of my work Lady by Birth, Warrior by Heart and improve it significantly.  It is still a work in progress but I feel like this class helped improve it greatly.

If you like creative writing, especially in the longer forms, such as novels or novellas or any of the new long forms and go to Seattle University, check out this class.  You don’t have to be an English Major, it will be better if you know a little bit about writing in the educational world such as the steps of publishing and the likes but even if you don’t know that you should be fine.  This class will help you be a better writer!