Cesar Romero

Professor Hoehne

Fairy Tales and Rewritings

11 September 2019

Death of the President

            “Death of the President”, this title sounded much cooler in my head when I was in fifth grade. It had the mysterious and ominous vibe I wanted to go for in my story, well more like book. The elementary school I attended gave the fifth graders a chance to write an actual book, about 5 pages of writing long, with the other 5 pages used for drawings. Given this opportunity, I wanted to write something out there and unique that I could show to many others in the future.

            My sister had done this same assignment when she was in fifth grade too, she wrote poems. As did many others in my class too. But I wanted to do something way out of the box that it would get the teachers and parents to question my mentality. I wanted to separate myself from the Disney level type of works. I wanted to do something that would really leave the reader in shock, particularly in terms of the drastic thinking I could do. I began to brainstorm, and it hit me, what if I write about an attack on the president? I wanted to write about something everyone knew, and I believe it was fair to say that everyone would know who the president was. I began to look through my knowledge of action films, mystery, and scary stories. I particularly looked at it through an action perspective, as I remember really being into the military around this age. Furthermore, there was a hint of “Scooby-Doo” that I tossed in there for the mystery aspect. Using this, I began to start on the plot, beginning with my main characters. I based my main character on myself, a young Hispanic kid. Next, was his group of friends, which included Peter, Mike, Elizabeth, and Brenda. As a kid, whenever I wrote a story, the characters would also be my age. Thus, the story of a 10-year old child and his friends solving the murder of the president began to take shape. After that I worked on developing the next key characters that would be important in solving the mystery, characters like the sheriff, president, and the killer. I wrote my first few pages, beginning with a short action sequence in which my main character woke up from his sleep at the sound of gunshots.

            I practically stopped writing at that point and began to focus on the drawings I would include in the book. I only had five pages so in my head I began to plan out on which page I would reach certain points of the story I wanted to write. I made sure to include exquisite detail in my drawings, especially in the drawings of humans I was doing. I took my time in drawing 6 kids, a hit list, a cell, and some items that would normally be found on a criminal. I forgot there was a deadline to this assignment. I ended up rushing the rest of the story, which I wasn’t proud of. The mystery story I wanted to write had no suspense in it at all. I also noticed flaws in the situations I had in my story. It turned out that I didn’t put as much effort in the characters as I thought I did. Furthermore, there was really no motivation for the characters to do what they needed to do. I noticed that they just kind of sat there, doing these things because I wrote it down.

            I learned that I put too much effort in the drawings and couldn’t provide a story to back up the drawings. Not only that, but I learned that the plot being rushed wasn’t solely caused by the deadline coming up fast, but because this whole mystery idea wasn’t working out for me. I used this basis for any future writings I would end up doing in my life, particularly in research essays, which many would be about my favorite US topic, WWII. I know now that it’s more important to write about something that is meaningful to myself rather than writing about something that I want to write, if that makes any sense. That it’s important to write for yourself than for your desires.