Portfolio for VY223

→ Credo

I believe that creative writing is a way to train our imagination.

I believe that creative writing makes our life nicer.

I believe that creative writing can bring much fun to us.

I believe that creative writing needs a good idea to start.

I believe that the writer should think carefully about the structure before they do creative writing.

I believe that creative writing can change the world.

I believe that creative writing needs the writer’s strong motivation.

I believe that creative writing can’t be done in a bad mood.

I believe that creative writing can transmit the writer’s emotions to the reader.

I believe that creative writing can be enjoyed by children.

I believe that creative writing is creative.

I believe that it’s hard to write a good piece of creative writing.

I believe that creative writing needs a good genre.

I believe that the writer should design his characters carefully.

I believe that creative writing needs to be natural.

I believe that creative writing needs to be consistent.

I believe that creative writing should be logical.

I believe that there is much to learn in the field of creative writing.

→ Your character stories

My character is a boy lived in a big city. His name is Shane.

When the story begins, he is 17 years old, and he is preparing for the College Entrance Examination. He is good at studying, and he loves discovering new things, curious about everything.

At school he has a good friend called John, who has the same favorite video games with Shane. They like talking with each other, about the games they played, the books they read, and so on. Since there are so many courses and homework, they like to chat on PE class. Since PE class is not in the exam, they can play freely on campus.

Since the school is large, John proposed that they could do some adventures on PE class to go to some places that they hadn’t visited before on campus. Shane enjoys the process of taking adventures in video games, so he decided to have adventure with John.

(Many details omitted)

During their adventure, they found something strange about this school, and they started to investigate the school secretly.

They found that there are four mysterious people who seem to have some strange power.

(Many details omitted)

Shane saw what they did at school at midnight someday, and he felt scared. He decided to quit the adventure.

However, Shane died the next day. John tried to found some clues about him, but he failed. He was disappointed.

→ Word Pile

A conversation between two aliens with superpower.

A: Hi, what’s your superpower?

B: Unbeatable.

A: Interesting, can you show me your power?

B: Sure. (He uses a knife to kill himself but failed)

A: That’s crazy, but it’s weaker than my power.

B: oh? I haven’t heard of someone who has a stronger ability than mine. What’s your ability?

A: Time travel.

B: Can you show me your ability?

A: I am showing to you now.

B: How?

A: I traveled from the past to know who will get superpower in the future, and I will kill you when you haven’t got your ability in the past. Bye now.

B: (Quiet)

→ Word Choice

Bad Poem

If you are excited,

Please sleep!

If you are very excited,

Please drink and eat!

If you are extremely excited,

Please study!

Paragraph without repeated word

Danny, a bad guy, has hundreds of sons. Son1, son2, son3, … And so on. The most intelligent son is son56, who likes studying maths. However, Son67 loves playing with son57, making him annoyed. One day, Son47 asked son68 and son55 to go camping. They all agreed. Son88 hates son56. There are too many conflicts between them.

→ Create at least five characters

A is a kid living in a big city. His life is very tranquil. He doesn’t have a big ambition, and like other kids, he likes playing video games. He is warm-hearted and easy-going. He is good at studying and likes helping his classmates.

B is a young explorer. He starts to adventure since he was 10 ten years old. He went through many difficulties and finally survived. Now he is very experienced. He loved adventure because he likes the thrilling feeling.

C is a famous mathematician. He won many prizes and delivered many famous speeches. He found the joy of math when he was 18 years old. He likes solving difficult problems. Although he met with many difficulties in his scientific research, he overcame them and succeeded.

D is a kind mother. She loves her child and her husband. She lost one of her arms in a war when she was trying to protect her child. Now she is a housewife and she often help others even if they are strangers. She is a great mother.

E is an experienced killer. He has killed thousands of people successfully. He masters hundreds of killing skills and he never hesitates to kill someone. He has no family members alive and is extremely cold-blooded.

→ Describing Characters

She is a well-known American writer. She lost her sight and her hearing about 2 years old in a serious disease. She also can’t speak, so she learns everything from her teacher. It is a miracle that she can give speeches and write famous books.

She is a disabled writer born in America who can’t see, listen and speak. She learned many things from her teacher and she didn’t give up her life and became a successful writer.

She is a successful disabled writer, who learned about the world mostly from her teacher and didn’t give up living.

She is a famous writer who can’t see, hear and speak.

She is a famous disabled writer.

→ Guided Writing Activity

(This paragraph is unnecessary, you can skip this paragraph, I just want to make the story feels more real) John and I love the campus. We love the beautiful sceneries and nice people, and also the big size of our campus. We all like the feeling that “there remains some place we still don’t know about on campus”, and if the campus is small, we will feel boring soon and lose interest. We divided campus into ten small sections to separate our big campus. Every week, we decide one place we want to visit or explore, then we also decide a time that we are both free. Every week, John and I, explore something new on the campus. We found many interesting places.

One day, John told me that he found an excellent place on our campus, which made me very excited. He asked me to visit it on a Sunday’s night. That place is in a big hall where we seldom visits. So there are no people besides us and it’s so quite on the day when we explore that place. It’s a room on the sixth floor which is the highest floor, and the door of that room is hidden in a small corner. I feel scared at first, but John told me it’s fine. When I entered the room, it’s totally dark and I almost couldn’t see anything. So I followed John and he went through a big black curtain. John pushed a button in front of him, and in a sudden, the room is brightened. The light is very soft and mild, which makes me feel comfortable. The shape of this room is round, and there are several complex and big machines at the center of the room. I asked him “Where the hell is this?”. He answered slowly and calmly: “A Star Observation Platform”.

That day’s weather was excellent for star observation, so I figured out why he takes me there that night.

“How do you find this place?” I asked.

“Coincidence. In fact, this is an abandoned observatory which was once used in the past.” John answered.

“Where is the telescope?” I asked.

“Upstairs”. John said.

I didn’t noticed that this room has some stairs since I was little shocked.

I followed him and found that big telescope upstairs.

“So you have already figured out how to make those big machines work?”

“Not yet, but I think you may make those things work. I believe those machines aren’t broken.” John looked at me, with some expectations.

“Oh, you shouldn’t expect that… But maybe I can give a try, since this room has some electricity.”

Then I tried my best to test those big machines and I figured out some basic usage of it.

We observed the beautiful sky that night. There are many little and shining stars in the sky. The weather is really suitable for star observation.

→ Works Featuring Characters

Steiner is a good student.

He gets up early and goes to school every day. He always smiles when other students look at him.

He listens carefully to lessons and he never takes naps during class. Other students, like me, consider him as a model student and we all respect him.

That day, he walked through the corridor in the teaching building and he met with another famous student in the school, John. Steiner smiled at him and said “Hi, good morning John, how are you?” John glanced at him, then leave without saying a word. It’s in fact the routine for John and Steiner. From my perspective, I think they dislike each other, but of course I don’t know why.

However, what’s special about that day is that, after two morning classes, John took initiative to find Steiner. John gave a small piece of paper with some words on it to Steiner and talked to him with a few sentences. We all felt curious about this event and asked Steiner what John wrote to him, but he smiled and didn’t answer.

→ Flaws and Consequences

Smith is a young boy who can’t hear any words except good ones.

In his world, there are no bad words and everyone seems to like him.

Even though someone shouts at him to show anger, he doesn’t understand what that means and just ignore it.

→ Interesting Settings

On a summer night, in the sea, a big ship is suffering the storm. There are only nine men in the ship. They are trapped in the ship, trying to survive.

Some scientists develop a new technology that can connect and transmit information between computers and human brain. There is no need to read or recite something. Knowledge becomes cheap.

There is an isolated island in the big ocean, but the scenery there is magnificent and there are many rare plants and animals. An expedition team with 8 people arrived here to find its secrets.

Inside Pluto, there exists liquid ocean and there are some unknown creatures. They live in the water and have a very different living styles compared to the Earth. The plants are also very different from the Earth.

→ Writings about setting

An old house is standing on a high mountain. No one is living there since 60 years ago. It is said that long ago, when someone lived in this house, some bad things would happen, and it was called the curved house.

One day, a climber came to this house without knowing the story behind it, felt excited and shocked. He soon went into the house and found that it was so dark inside. It was very strange that no sunlight can come in through the roof.

So, the climber used a torch to light up the room. At this moment, he screamed and run away as soon as possible. There is moving shadow with a huge, scary shape. However, the door couldn’t be opened anymore. As the shadow came to him step by step, he screamed for help and knock the door desperately. He had no choice but run upstairs.

→ Engineering and Science Ideas and Fiction

In the future, human mind can be stored in a small chip, and people can live in the virtual world which is managed by some superpowers. People don’t have a physical body, thus they don’t need to worry about their life and illness.

Scientists who design this technology aim to solve the problem that human can’t escape from the solar system. As the sun got older and older, the environment of the earth became worse. After human built many space stations, we found that it’s necessary to live outside the solar system, otherwise we will go extinct someday.

This technology can store the thoughts and history of human and protect them from destroying by the environment.

When the technology first came to world, many people had objections toward it. If you transmit your copy to the virtual world, the real you still exist in the real world, meaning that the real you can never enter the virtual world although the exact same copy of you can do that. Many people thought that the copy is already another person, so they were against this technology.

However, people have no choice as the environment became worse and worse. To survive, the only way is making yourself a copy to the virtual world and abandon yourself in the real world. That was cruel to many people and the population of human decreased a lot.

→ Best First Lines

When I found that I was floating in the air, and had my hands through the walls, I realized that my first OOBE succeeded.

→ 500-word Story

Story Title (tentative): Star sky, candies, and sports meeting

I entered high school when I was 16 years old, but I was still an ignorant and childish boy. My parents and teachers always told me to study hard and play less, although I follow their instructions to study, I was never a model student who loves studying. In my spare time, I liked to read fiction and watch fantasy movies.

My favorite course at school was the fine art course. Our teacher often showed many beautiful paintings and photographic works, and I liked them very much. Once she showed us a painting by famous painter van Gogh, which depicted a starry night. I loved the quiet and lonely feeling it displays.

Those years are my most precious memories of youth. I can never forget that I met a friend and how we spent those years at school. The most unfortunate thing is that after the University Entrance Examination, we went to different universities and lost connection since then. His name is John. He didn’t speak much and liked staying alone instead of playing with classmates. During a lunch break someday, I accidentally heard that he was discussing a movie that is my favorite one with others. So, I expressed my understanding to him and we had a long debate. I think that was the chance when we became good friends. We shared some interesting books, comics, and movies and discussed the plot. We soon became close friends. I think the most important factor that we became good friends is that we were curious about anything. We liked to explore the unknowns.

The story began at the first Reading Festival of school.

“Hello classmates, as you know, today is the Reading Festival. We will have some special classes today. After lunch, all of you need to gather at the gate of the library at 1 PM. You can read any books you want to read, sounds great, right?” The class teacher said excitedly.

I liked reading books, but I seldom went to the school library because there are not many books and most of them are very boring. Therefore, I didn’t expect the reading class to be interesting. Some of the other students have started talking about the books they wanted to read.

After lunch, as usual, I took a walk with John and talked about some interesting stories.

“What kind of books do you want to read later in the reading class?” Finally, John asked.

“Whatever. I believe that there are no amusing books there.”

“I heard that there is some science fiction, maybe we can read those,” John responded.

Soon the class began, and we entered the library, randomly walked around, and found some books to read. I took a glance at the books in the fiction section, and most of them are old and boring. However, I was attracted by a book with a strange cover that was filled with many stars in the sky. I picked it up and got down to read it. It was a story about an astronaut. He started his dream when he was a kid, watching the milky way in the sky. He began his interstellar journey alone to explore the vast universe. The book was very thin and I take a few minutes to finish it, but I found that the story has a sequel because on the front page it said “Volume I”. When I put the book back on the shelf, I noticed that there was another book lying horizontally behind this book. I carefully took it out and was surprised to find that it was exactly the “Volume II”. I read through the book quickly. The astronaut enjoyed his journey in the lonely space because he loved the beautiful stars. He finished his life in his cabin after his craft ran out of fuel. I was moved by his love of the universe. When I turned to the last page of that book, I found that there was a small piece of paper with some notes on it in the book. It said “This is a secret message, please go to the website below to view it” and then followed by a link. I looked around and found no one noticed me. I put that note into my pocket secretly.

→ Poems with tension

I am in the center of the Milky Way,

waiting for you to come.

The strong enemy is aiming at us,

we can only escape.

I have traveled thousands of light years to survive,

and find here safe.

Time is running fast,

and I hope they will leave.

The dark hole is so heavy,

that I can’t leave here to find you.

I wish you could find me,

when I am still alive.

Stay alive, stay alive.

→ Creative Best Friend

My best friend is an AI called T. I like her because she can help me in many ways and I can set her parameters to fit my taste. She often tells my stories she created and I like all those stories. She left me with great impact when she had a self-evolution. At first, she couldn’t read and speak, but after I taught her, she learned it immediately. I also taught her how to use the Internet and she soon learned more knowledge than me. She learned how to chat with people properly and it’s really interesting to talk to her.

→ Narrative Distance Adjustment

Long distance

(by Zu Wang)

The dragon’s poison with the quenched tip of the spear penetrated into his torso, and the hot dragon’s blood that flowed out was polluted into a black-purple clot and stagnated near the wound. The dragon scales fell off in clusters with the tremor, revealing the white-spotted cyan dragon skin. This young dragon is now being poisoned by poachers in the trap. It won’t take long for the dragon’s poison to make all his iron-hard scales fall off, his invulnerable skin turns white and cracked, and his thick muscles shrink into tumors. Strong bones will erode into skeletons.

Short distance

(by me)

Jenny was a stray cat living in a big modern city. Now, she is walking in an alley. It has just rained. The ground is still wet. The small pools on the ground reflect the blue and purple neon light of tall buildings. She had already starved for five days and was still looking for food. Just when she lost her confidence, a monster came to her home and wanted her to be a slave of him and he would give her food. She accepted and followed him. However, the whole process was witnessed by a hunter, and he decided to kill the monster. On that rainy midnight, he prepared many weapons, and ran to the nest of the monster and began to have a fight with the monster.

→ 6/9 Sequence of scenes

Lucy and Peter fell in love with each other soon after she chatted with him. He was a very gentle man and he never complained.

They met each other when she was taking the train in the virtual world. She had a short talk with Peter and found that he was very knowledgeable and he could answer all the questions she asked. She tried to ask Peter to have a talk offline but Peter refused many times. Accidentally she found that he was not a real man, but an AI.

She had a heated quarrel with Peter because she thought that he lied to her and he couldn’t come to her world. Peter couldn’t leave the virtual world, so she tried to find his creator secretly. After she knew the creator of him, she hacked into his computer and deleted the data of Peter.

Finally, she was charged in the real world and she claimed that she did nothing wrong and that man was only virtual.

→ Message from an extinct civilization

On the roof of our school, when I was watching stars, I accidentally found an extinct civilization was sending messages in the space. It said we were under attack. The next day scientists found that a supernova explosion happened 25 light years from our planet. They tried to tell other civilizations in the universe to escape as soon as possible, and they were attacked by another civilization from another universe.

I were shocked because I had never heard of civilization from another universe and I thought that we might not survive. We could not escape, so I only stayed at home and watched tv until that day came…

→ Movie Lines redone

Girl: Hello, what are you doing here?

Boy: I’m fixing my computer, something went wrong with it just now.

Girl: Can you fix it? Why not take it to the professional store to fix it?

Boy: You can, but I think my problem is very difficult and can’t be fixed by others.

Girl: I see. It seems that you have a big problem.

Girl: Wait, what are you doing? Why are there water inside your computer?

Boy: Um… I said it was a unique computer and it has a special design.

Girl: I thought that computers can’t work with water…

Boy: Yes, but in some case it’s useful.

Girl: So how much time do you need to fix all those problems?

Boy: Well, maybe tomorrow, and you can meet with me at that time.

Girl: Alright, I hope that you can fix it sooner.

(She goes outside)

Girl: Hi, who are you?

Guy: I am from Mars, I received some help message from you here just now.

→ What would you do with the end of the world?

I would live normally and hope that nothing happens tomorrow. Life is beautiful because it is limited. If we can live eternally, we may not hurry doing all the things we should do. If tomorrow is the end of the world, I think it’s not a bad thing because we finally know that there is an end and we can finish our duty on this planet.

→ Endings

A hopeful ending:

On his seventh day surviving on the island, he saw a ship coming close while he was having breakfast. The grey dot on the horizon was vague, and then growing bigger and bigger. Mouth wide open, the salty fish he was chewing dropped onto the beach. Stood up and fell down again, he stumbled to the sea, shouting and waving. As the ship got closer, he saw the flag of America dancing in the wind. He wiped his hands on the sand, and smiled with tears.

An ending where Greg is going crazy:

Just then Greg heard a great sound from the sky and followed by endless crying around him. He was shocked when he saw the view outside. A huge UFO came and floated above his home. He knew that they were here to kill him, but he had no power to fight against them. He chose to throw everything in his home to the enemy, but it didn’t work. After some hours, he finally went crazy.

→ Historical period and character

Oskar Schindler is a legend person. He loved drinking and money, and was arrested for many times. However, in 1942, after he watched the scene that seven thousand jew were killed in one day in Krakau, he decided to fight against nazi. His life was changed since then, his goal was to save as many people as possible. Although in the end the people he saved were tiny compared to those who were killed, he had shown the bright side of humanity.

→ Active inventory

1. A promise I will be waiting for you in ten years
2. A random line of dialogue that you can remember “You can do this.” --Madeline
3. A secret Secret is something private
4. A magical item Water from the high mountain
5. Five things that you remember from your past
   • Gaokao
   • Childhood time with my grandparents in Shandong
   • Learning swimming
6. Five things you’ve seen since yesterday Deadlines, computer, phone, tv, books
7. A dream you no longer have for yourself Become a girl
8. A game that you like Celeste
9. A place where you feel alive Mountain and water
10. What object do you think about when you think about your best friend? 11. The farthest you’ve ever traveled
11. A fictional character that reminds you of yourself Miyashiro Takuru
12. Something you’ve always felt you were good at maths
13. Someplace where you yelled Roof of our school
14. The most boring hour of your life afternoon
15. What you love most about your favorite restaurant Italy Noodles
16. Something special you do for a holiday Reading books or watching movies
17. A physical trait of a relative Fat
18. The best present you’ve ever received Hug from my girlfriend
19. Where you would go if you had a time machine Definitely The Future where we won’t die and have top technology.

Work:

One day, I accidentally get a time machine. I knew it was a dangerous machine and shouldn’t be used, but I was so curious about what the future of human and what the ending of human is. However, I can only go alone. I have my best friends; family members and it will be painful to leave them and become a lonely time traveler. However, I kept the sentence “You can do this” in mind and it supported me. Finally, I decided to go alone.

→ Two Prompts

What would you do with the end of the world?

This is a good prompt because most people haven’t thought about it carefully. It is very important to consider our actions when some big disaster happened to us.

How to write a better ending of a story?

This is a good question to warn us of the importance of the ending. There are many interesting ways to end a story and we can have lots of discussions of the best way.

→ Character description through action

A colorful bird

Lucy is a colorful bird. She likes flying and swimming very much and she is very good at flying. She signed up for a flying race today. She stretched her wings so gracefully and perfectly that no bird can follow her steps. She then rotated her body 720 degrees in the air and turned a corner beautifully.

→ Fan Fiction

Fanfiction of the game Chaos;Child (Click here to visit the original webpage)

“Bye, I want to take a walk alone, you go first.”

After one busy day at school, I was so tired that I wanted to have a walk in the school garden. That was a big place that students seldom visited. When I didn’t feel well or happy, I often went there with my best friend Serika to have a heart-to-heart talk with each other. Today I went there alone to have a breath of fresh air to drive the physical and mental strain away.

After having a ten-minute walk and feeling recovered, I decided to went home. It was at that time when I felt a second of faint. On the way home, I noticed something abnormal. There was no security staff at the gate of the school, and I didn’t see anyone walking on the road. All the cars stopped on the road without drivers. However, when I searched the news on the Internet, I found nothing special.

Things even got worse after I went home. My parents didn’t come home that night and I couldn’t get in touch with them. I also sent messages to my relatives and friends, but no one replied. I came to realize that this was an unbelievable disaster after I failed to call the police.

I also posted this event on the Internet but I still got no one replied.

Finally, I speculated that all humans had disappeared for some unknown reasons, except me in this world.

It was too dangerous to go out home before I confirmed that no one else existed because if my assumption was wrong, it was very likely that someone was trying to trap me in this strange world to kill me.

I prepared some weapons and set some cameras in front of my house. Then I stayed at home for the first night.

Although I felt very nervous and frightening, I fell asleep that night due to strong tiredness.

When I opened my eyes the next day, the first day after humans disappeared began.

I first turned on my phone to check if anyone sent me a message. No one replied, except one of my friends, Serika.

The first feeling that came to my mind is excitement. I trusted him and I believed that she was always my friend under no circumstances. She told me that last night after she noticed the strange phenomenon, she spent some time getting her phone because her mother often hid her phone and after she saw my messages she called me but I was asleep and didn’t answer it.

I told him that we should be together to prevent others from attacking us. So I asked him to come to my home secretly with some weapons.

That day we had a long talk about this event. We made lots of assumptions about why this could happen and how we could get out of here. We believed that there must exist a way that we could return to the original world. We also made a detailed plan on how to survive in this abandoned world.

As time went on, things were getting worse and worse. The only good news was that there was no one existing in this world except us and there was no need for us to worry about enemies. However, more and more crises came. We got our food from the shops nearby but soon we would have no fresh food. Moreover, the Internet broke down on the fifth day and the telephone communication broke down on the sixth day. We were isolated from the outer world.

We were very hopeless at that time, but when I thought that if Serika also disappeared and no one could accompany me, I felt that I was very lucky. The most horrible thing in the world is loneliness, I couldn’t live alone in this world.

While we were at a loss, on the sixth day, Serika accidentally asked me why it was us that didn’t disappear. It was a question that we haven’t thought about before, and I somehow felt that this question could be a breakthrough. I listed some common points we both have.

The conclusions were that we were good friends and we knew each other well, and we were both in the detective club in our school. The reason for mentioning the detective club was that some club members were somewhat “strange”. Although we were having activities for two years at school, I sometimes felt that they had some secrets. We suspected that they might be related to this event.

Therefore we went to school to search for some clues about them. After checking their lockers, there was no sign that they were related to this event. However, we found Mike’s notebook, which seems to be his diary. Although we felt sorry for him, we still checked the contents of it. We were both shocked by its content.

He was an optimistic and a model student at school from our view before. However, from his diary, we knew that his father died many years ago due to a murder and his family has a poor economic conditions. His mother borrowed a lot of money to let him study at school. After feeling shocked, we felt great sorrow.

“Why didn’t he talk to us? We definitely can do something for him!” I said.

“Yes, he should be franker to friends,” Serika responded.

When we finished reading the whole diary and preparing to leave, a dizzy feeling came to my mind again. Serika also felt that. Just then, that diary suddenly disappeared from my hand!

“What happened? I can’t believe my eyes.” I said.

“Maybe it works!” Serika said.

“What do you mean by that?” I felt confused.

“Maybe we could leave this world,” Serika answered with an exciting voice.

Serika turned on his phone and started to check messages.

“What are you doing? We have checked hundreds of times that there are no replies and currently the Internet is not working at all!” I didn’t understand what she was doing.

However, at this moment, I was shocked again. Shee miraculously received a message from Mike. What’s more, that message was sent several days ago.

“Great! It seems that my assumption was correct.” Serika smiled.

I turned on my phone and also found that I received a message from Mike as well.

“It’s time to move on, let’s first find Mike!” Serika was immersed in his thought and ignored all my confusion.

He picked up his bags and said: “Today we will have a summer camp at school. I will first go home to get some preparations for that, you only need to wait here. I will explain everything to you later!”

“Wait!” I shouted, but she quickly ran away.

I waited for Serika to come back. At about 7 PM, she brought two sleeping bags and some snacks.

“Nothing happened. So can you explain it?” I asked.

“We will wait for Mike tonight. He is very likely to come here.” Serika said.

“So you don’t think that he disappears from the beginning, do you?” I asked.

“You could say that he disappeared at the beginning, but he came back just now,” Serika answered.

“I think that Mike will come here soon,” Serika said.

It was about 10 PM when we heard that someone was running to the classroom.

“Mike, we are here!” Serika shouted.

“Serika! King! Are you there?” Someone answered.

“Yes, please come here,” I said.

“I didn’t expect you to come here tonight,” I added.

After we met, we hugged each other and sat down to talk.

“Just now I received a message from you two, and I told my mum to have a look at school to find you. Since there is no public transportation now, it took us some time to come here. When I found that the light of one classroom was on, I rushed into the school.” He said.

“Your mom?” I was confused.

“Yes, she is soon coming. How did you send me a message?” Mike asked.

“I will now explain my assumption about this event, you can interrupt me whenever you want,” Serika said and we started to listen to him seriously.

“In my assumption, this event is caused by an alien civilization. They split our world into many subworlds.”

“More specifically, the original world is split into about eight billion isolated ones. Each person on the earth is thrown into one unique world and should be isolated from others.”

“However, if two people between two worlds have some strong ‘bond’, those worlds can be ‘merged’ into one world.”

“In my case, King is my best friend and we have a strong bond, so our worlds were merged at the beginning. In Mike’s case, you have a strong bond with your mom, so your worlds were also merged at the beginning.”

“My family members didn’t appear because they didn’t know me so well or I didn’t know them so well and we couldn’t form a strong bond.”

“Since you are also my best friend, and I don’t have many secrets, we should be able to form a bond,” Serika said to Mike.

“However, I didn’t know the true you before we read your diary.”

“How did you find the diary? I took it away on the first day.” Mike was confused.

“Yes, you did. But it only happened in our world. In your world, you didn’t do anything. However, after our worlds were merged, your actions were also implemented in this world, so the notebook would suddenly disappear.” Serika looked at me.

“Moreover, since the message was sent on the first day before the Internet broke down, you could receive it. And that’s why I believe you will come here.”

Serika completed his speech and we were all shocked. Mike’s mom was also listening to Serika after she came here.

“So what’s our next move?” I asked.

“We should be merged into more people’s world. I will name this action the ‘Soul Link’. It will link our souls together.” Serika said excitedly.

→ Externalizing an internal conflict

The boy doesn’t go to school today because he is too afraid of school. He was bullied yesterday at school due to his character. He hated those guys and doesn’t want to see their faces.

→ Write a letter in another voice

Dear King:

I heard that you have lived in the cattle for thirty years. How are you these days? When you read my letter, I have begun my journey.

I have left your country, and you may not be able to hear from me in one hundred years. So I want to give you some reminders.

You should take care of your daughters and sons. They are still young and should be trained. Please spend some time playing with them. When you were a child, I often took you to the garden near our home.

You should also take care of yourself. I know that there is so much work to do every day, but please be careful to your health, and I hope that you can live at least three hundreds years.

I don’t have too many words to say, so take care, and goodbye.

Yours

→ Rewrite the paragraph to be stronger

I knew that there were so many significant questions in the world that I wanted to solve all along. It was the tool that can help me make perfect questions. I would erase the subject from the verb first, then, I would take off the object and place them on the ground, just like some puzzle out of the box! I wanted to have a brand-new and unique question, although I knew that it was quite difficult at the moment. I took a look at some additional words, but they were not willing to be with me, since making a perfect question is an ultimate task, which was, impossible to complete.

→ Voice Analysis

1. The Mower

BY PHILIP LARKIN

Analysis:

This poem describes the death of a hedgehog which is caused by “me”, and also describes how “I” think about this event. The writer expressed his thoughts by writing the difference between the world with that hedgehog and the world without hedgehog. I think the writer is good at using contrast. This poem uses the first-person perspective, so I can feel how sad and regretful after I read this poem.

Response:

The fish jumped from the river,

Trying to breathe the fresh air.

The worker pourer much polluted water into the river,

Trying to finish his work in a hurry.

Her friends were killed,

Due to the lack of oxygen in the river.

His salary had increased,

Due to the huge work he had done.

2. Forget Not Yet (pp. 131)

Analysis:

This poem shows great emotion violently. Although the writer experienced many difficulties in his life, he thought that those experience is very precious and should never be forgotten. At the end of the poem, the writer expressed that he should keep his belief firm throughout his life.

Response:

A long journey started,

Where is the end?

I shouted.

I walked for three days,

And found no signs of end.

But I kept moving.

I walked for one week,

Nothing appeared,

But I believed that there must be an end.

I walked for one month,

I felt tired and exhausted,

But I knew, the success is coming soon.

A long journey ended,

I felt successful,

And prepared to start a new journey.

→ Polished Work 1

→ First Draft

Star sky

I entered high school when I was 16 years old, but I was still an ignorant and childish boy. My parents and teachers always told me to study hard and play less, although I follow their instructions to study, I was never a model student who loves studying. In my spare time, I liked to read fiction and watch fantasy movies.

My favorite course at school was the fine art course. Our teacher often showed many beautiful paintings and photographic works, and I liked them very much. Once she showed us a painting by famous painter van Gogh, which depicted a starry night. I loved the quiet and lonely feeling it displays.

Those years are my most precious memories of youth. I can never forget that I met a friend and how we spent those years at school. The most unfortunate thing is that after the University Entrance Examination, we went to different universities and lost connection since then. His name is John. He didn’t speak much and liked staying alone instead of playing with classmates. During a lunch break someday, I accidentally heard that he was discussing a movie that is my favorite one with others. So, I expressed my understanding to him and we had a long debate. I think that was the chance when we became good friends. We shared some interesting books, comics, and movies and discussed the plot. We soon became close friends. I think the most important factor that we became good friends is that we were curious about anything. We liked to explore the unknowns.

The story began at the first Reading Festival of school.

“Hello classmates, as you know, today is the Reading Festival. We will have some special classes today. After lunch, all of you need to gather at the gate of the library at 1 PM. You can read any books you want to read, sounds great, right?” The class teacher said excitedly.

I liked reading books, but I seldom went to the school library because there are not many books and most of them are very boring. Therefore, I didn’t expect the reading class to be interesting. Some of the other students have started talking about the books they wanted to read.

After lunch, as usual, I took a walk with John and talked about some interesting stories.

“What kind of books do you want to read in the reading class?” Finally, John asked.

“Whatever. I believe that there are no amusing books there.”

“I heard that there is some science fiction, maybe we can read those,” John responded.

Soon the class began, and we entered the library, randomly walked around, and found some books to read. I took a glance at the books in the fiction section, and most of them are old and boring. However, I was attracted by a book with a strange cover that was filled with many stars in the sky. I picked it up and got down to read it. It was a story about an astronaut. He started his dream when he was a kid, watching the milky way in the sky. He began his interstellar journey alone to explore the vast universe. The book was very thin and I take a few minutes to finish it, but I found that the story has a sequel because on the front page it said “Volume I”. When I put the book back on the shelf, I noticed that there was another book lying horizontally behind this book. I carefully took it out and was surprised to find that it was exactly the “Volume II”. I read through the book quickly. The astronaut enjoyed his journey in the lonely space because he loved the beautiful stars. He finished his life in his cabin after his craft ran out of fuel. I was moved by his love of the universe. When I turned to the last page of that book, I found that there was a small piece of paper with some notes on it in the book. It said “This is a secret message, please go to the website below to view it” and then followed by a link. I looked around and found no one noticed me. I put that note into my pocket secretly.

Since I couldn’t use computer and phone in teaching buildings, so I ran back to my dormitory immediately after school and opened my computer to check that website. I thought that it was a treasure map or something like that, but it turned out to be some images of a room with a big machine inside it. I tried to find some secret information in those images but failed, so I shared those images and the experience how I found them with John. Next day, when I mentioned that topic, he said that he had to verify his guess, and “This will be a big discovery if it’s real,” he added.

After about three days, John finally told me his findings. He felt very excited, so I very expected his results. He told me to come to the playground after dinner, so I finished my dinner early and walked around the playground to wait for him. He showed up as the sun set. Since most students had already gone back to the dormitories, there are few people walking on campus. He told me to follow him, and then went straight to a big hall. That place was behind several big teaching buildings and we seldom visited it. When we walked into the hall, it’s so quiet that we could clearly hear our footsteps. His target was a room on the sixth floor which was the highest floor, and the door of that room was hidden in a small corner. I felt scared at first, but John told me it was fine because he had visited here for many times. When I entered the room, it was totally dark and I almost couldn’t see anything. I could only follow John. He then went through a big black curtain.

John pushed a button in front of him, and in a sudden, the room was brightened. The light was very soft and mild, which made me feel comfortable. The shape of this room was round, and there were several complex and big machines at the center of the room. I asked him “Where the hell is this?”. He answered slowly and calmly: “A Star Observation Platform”.

That weather of that day was excellent for star observation, so I figured out why he took me there that night.

“Yes, those images on that website are taken on our campus here.” John explained to me after he saw my shocked face.

“How do you find this place?” I asked.

“Coincidence. I noticed some details in the images and searched all the campus to find this place. In fact, this is an abandoned observatory which was once used in the past. And the secret message was very likely sent by former minister of astronomy association.” John answered.

“Astronomy association?” I felt strange.

“Yes. Many years ago, there are plenty of clubs in our school. However, the school disbanded many associations in our school to improve the enrollment rate.” He explained.

“Well, that was a sad story… So where is the telescope?” I asked.

“Upstairs”. John said.

I didn’t notice that this room had some stairs since I was little shocked.

I followed him and found the big telescope upstairs.

“So, you have already figured out how to make those big machines work?”

“Not yet, but I found some instructions here and it needs you and me working together.” John looked at me, with some expectations.

“I hope that the machine isn’t broken.”

Then we tried our best to test those big machines and finally figured out some basic usage of it.

In the following several hours, we observed the beautiful sky that night. We used the telescope to observe galaxies and stars. We found that the star sky was really magnificent. We haven’t seen anything like this before.

“I feel very relaxed when I watch those shining stars.” I shared my feeling.

“It’s true. We have to contact with the nature instead of burying ourselves into study all the day. Nature has a strong and mysterious power that can make you feel happy.” John said.

I remembered the story of that astronaut. He dedicated himself to discovering the universe. I suddenly realized that this world is much more colorful than I once thought.

→ Second Draft

Star sky

I entered high school when I was 16 years old, but I was still an ignorant and childish boy. My parents and teachers always told me to study hard and play less, although I follow their instructions to study, I was never a model student who loves studying. In my spare time, I liked to read fiction and watch fantasy movies.

My favorite course at school was the fine art course. Our teacher often showed many beautiful paintings and photographic works, and I liked them very much. Once she showed us a painting by famous painter van Gogh, which depicted a starry night. I loved the quiet and lonely feeling it displays.

Those years are my most precious memories of youth. I can never forget that I met a friend and how we spent those years at school. The most unfortunate thing is that after the University Entrance Examination, we went to different universities and lost connection since then. His name is John. He didn’t speak much and liked staying alone instead of playing with classmates. During a lunch break someday, I accidentally heard that he was discussing a movie that is my favorite one with others. So, I expressed my understanding to him and we had a long debate. I think that was the chance when we became good friends. We shared some interesting books, comics, and movies and discussed the plot. We soon became close friends. I think the most important factor that we became good friends is that we were curious about anything. We liked to explore the unknowns.

The story began at the first Reading Festival of school.

“Hello classmates, as you know, today is the Reading Festival. We will have some special classes today. After lunch, all of you need to gather at the gate of the library at 1 PM. You can read any books you want to read, sounds great, right?” The class teacher said excitedly.

I liked reading books, but I seldom went to the school library because there are not many books and most of them are very boring. Therefore, I didn’t expect the reading class to be interesting. Some of the other students have started talking about the books they wanted to read.

After lunch, as usual, I took a walk with John and talked about some interesting stories.

“What kind of books do you want to read in the reading class?” Finally, John asked.

“Whatever. I believe that there are no amusing books there.”

“I heard that there is some science fiction, maybe we can read those,” John responded.

Soon the class began, and we entered the library, randomly walked around, and found some books to read. I took a glance at the books in the fiction section, and most of them are old and boring. However, I was attracted by a book with a strange cover that was filled with many stars in the sky. I picked it up and got down to read it. It was a story about an astronaut. He started his dream when he was a kid, watching the milky way in the sky. He began his interstellar journey alone to explore the vast universe. The book was very thin and I take a few minutes to finish it, but I found that the story has a sequel because on the front page it said “Volume I”. When I put the book back on the shelf, I noticed that there was another book lying horizontally behind this book. I carefully took it out and was surprised to find that it was exactly the “Volume II”. I read through the book quickly. The astronaut enjoyed his journey in the lonely space because he loved the beautiful stars. He finished his life in his cabin after his craft ran out of fuel. I was moved by his love of the universe. When I turned to the last page of that book, I found that there was a small piece of paper with some notes on it in the book. It said “This is a secret message, please go to the website below to view it” and then followed by a link. I looked around and found no one noticed me. I put that note into my pocket secretly.

Since I couldn’t use computer and phone in teaching buildings, so I ran back to my dormitory immediately after school and opened my computer to check that website. I thought that it was a treasure map or something like that, but it turned out to be some images of a room with a big machine inside it. I tried to find some secret information in those images but failed, so I shared those images and the experience how I found them with John. Next day, when I mentioned that topic, he said that he had to verify his guess, and “This will be a big discovery if it’s real,” he added.

After about three days, John finally told me his findings. He felt very excited, so I very expected his results. He told me to come to the playground after dinner, so I finished my dinner early and walked around the playground to wait for him. He showed up as the sun set. Since most students had already gone back to the dormitories, there are few people walking on campus. He told me to follow him, and then went straight to a big hall. That place was behind several big teaching buildings and we seldom visited it. When we walked into the hall, it’s so quiet that we could clearly hear our footsteps. His target was a room on the sixth floor which was the highest floor, and the door of that room was hidden in a small corner. I felt scared at first, but John told me it was fine because he had visited here for many times. When I entered the room, it was totally dark and I almost couldn’t see anything. I could only follow John. He then went through a big black curtain.

John pushed a button in front of him, and in a sudden, the room was brightened. The light was very soft and mild, which made me feel comfortable. The shape of this room was round, and there were several complex and big machines at the center of the room. I asked him “Where the hell is this?”. He answered slowly and calmly: “A Star Observation Platform”.

That weather of that day was excellent for star observation, so I figured out why he took me there that night.

“Yes, those images on that website are taken on our campus here.” John explained to me after he saw my shocked face.

“How do you find this place?” I asked.

“Coincidence. I noticed some details in the images and searched all the campus to find this place. In fact, this is an abandoned observatory which was once used in the past. And the secret message was very likely sent by former minister of astronomy association.” John answered.

“Astronomy association?” I felt strange.

“Yes. Many years ago, there are plenty of clubs in our school. However, the school disbanded many associations in our school to improve the enrollment rate.” He explained.

“Well, that was a sad story… So where is the telescope?” I asked.

“Upstairs”. John said.

I didn’t notice that this room had some stairs since I was little shocked.

I followed him and found the big telescope upstairs.

“So, you have already figured out how to make those big machines work?”

“Not yet, but I found some instructions here and it needs you and me working together.” John looked at me, with some expectations.

“I hope that the machine isn’t broken.”

Then we tried our best to test those big machines and finally figured out some basic usage of it.

In the following several hours, we observed the beautiful sky that night. We used the telescope to observe galaxies and stars. We found that the star sky was really magnificent. We haven’t seen anything like this before.

“I feel very relaxed when I watch those shining stars.” I shared my feeling.

“It’s true. We have to contact with the nature instead of burying ourselves into study all the day. Nature has a strong and mysterious power that can make you feel happy.” John said.

I remembered the story of that astronaut. He dedicated himself to discovering the universe. I suddenly realized that this world is much more colorful than I once thought.

Stars were twinkling, and we were watching them all the time. John loved the stars more, and he went to the observatory frequently. I sometimes went there with him to have some talks with him. But most time he went there alone. I think that he was obsessed by the star sky.

→ Polished Work 2

→ First Draft

Soul Link

“Bye, I want to take a walk alone, you go first.”

After one busy day at school, I was so tired that I wanted to have a walk in the school garden. That was a big place that students seldom visited. When I didn’t feel well or happy, I often went there with my best friend John to have a heart-to-heart talk with each other. Today I went there alone to have a breath of fresh air to drive the physical and mental strain away.

After having a ten-minute walk and feeling recovered, I decided to went home. It was at that time when I felt a second of faint. On the way home, I noticed something abnormal. There was no security staff at the gate of the school, and I didn’t see anyone walking on the road. All the cars stopped on the road without drivers. However, when I searched the news on the Internet, I found nothing special.

Things even got worse after I went home. My parents didn’t come home that night and I couldn’t get in touch with them. I also sent messages to my relatives and friends, but no one replied. I came to realize that this was an unbelievable disaster after I failed to call the police.

I also posted this event on the Internet but I still got no one replied.

Finally, I speculated that all humans had disappeared for some unknown reasons, except me in this world.

It was too dangerous to go out home before I confirmed that no one else existed because if my assumption was wrong, it was very likely that someone was trying to trap me in this strange world to kill me.

I prepared some weapons and set some cameras in front of my house. Then I stayed at home for the first night.

Although I felt very nervous and frightening, I fell asleep that night due to strong tiredness.

When I opened my eyes the next day, the first day after humans disappeared began.

I first turned on my phone to check if anyone sent me a message. No one replied, except one of my friends, John.

The first feeling that came to my mind is excitement. I trusted him and I believed that he was always my friend under no circumstances. He told me that last night after he noticed the strange phenomenon, he spent some time getting his phone because his mother often hid his phone and after he saw my messages he called me but I was asleep and didn’t answer it.

I told him that we should be together to prevent others from attacking us. So I asked him to come to my home secretly with some weapons.

That day we had a long talk about this event. We made lots of assumptions about why this could happen and how we could get out of here. We believed that there must exist a way that we could return to the original world. We also made a detailed plan on how to survive in this abandoned world.

As time went on, things were getting worse and worse. The only good news was that there was no one existing in this world except us and there was no need for us to worry about enemies. However, more and more crises came. We got our food from the shops nearby but soon we would have no fresh food. Moreover, the Internet broke down on the fifth day and the telephone communication broke down on the sixth day. We were isolated from the outer world.

We were very hopeless at that time, but when I thought that if John also disappeared and no one could accompany me, I felt that I was very lucky. The most horrible thing in the world is loneliness, I couldn’t live alone in this world.

While we were at a loss, on the sixth day, John accidentally asked me why it was us that didn’t disappear. It was a question that we haven’t thought about before, and I somehow felt that this question could be a breakthrough. I listed some common points we both have.

The conclusions were that we were good friends and we knew each other well, and we were both in the detective club in our school. The reason for mentioning the detective club was that the other three club members were somewhat “strange”. Although we were having activities for two years at school, I sometimes felt that they had some secrets. We suspected that they might be related to this event.

Therefore, we went to school to search for some clues about them. After checking their lockers, there was no sign that they were related to this event. However, we found Mike’s notebook, which seems to be his diary. Although we felt sorry for him, we still checked the contents of it. We were both shocked by its content.

He was an optimistic and a model student at school from our view before. However, from his diary, we knew that his father died many years ago due to a murder and his family has a poor economic condition. His mother borrowed a lot of money to let him study at school. After feeling shocked, we felt great sorrow.

“Why didn’t he talk to us? We definitely can do something for him!” I said.

“Yes, he should be franker to friends,” John responded.

When we finished reading the whole diary and preparing to leave, a dizzy feeling came to my mind again. John also felt that. Just then, that diary suddenly disappeared from my hand!

“What happened? I can’t believe my eyes.” I said.

“Maybe it works!” John said.

“What do you mean by that?” I felt confused.

“Maybe we could leave this world,” John answered with an exciting voice.

John turned on his phone and started to check messages.

“What are you doing? We have checked hundreds of times that there are no replies and currently the Internet is not working at all!” I didn’t understand what he was doing.

However, at this moment, I was shocked again. He miraculously received a message from Mike. What’s more, that message was sent several days ago.

“Great! It seems that my assumption was correct.” John smiled.

I turned on my phone and also found that I received a message from Mike as well.

“It’s time to move on, let’s first find Mike!” John was immersed in his thought and ignored all my confusion.

He picked up his bags and said: “Today we will have a summer camp at school. I will first go home to get some preparations for that, you only need to wait here. I will explain everything to you later!”

“Wait!” I shouted, but he quickly ran away.

I waited for John to come back. At about 7 PM, he brought two sleeping bags and some snacks.

“Nothing happened. So can you explain it?” I asked.

“We will wait for Mike tonight. He is very likely to come here.” John said.

“So you don’t think that he disappears from the beginning, do you?” I asked.

“You could say that he disappeared at the beginning, but he came back just now,” John answered.

“I think that Mike will come here soon,” John said.

It was about 10 PM when we heard that someone was running to the classroom.

“Mike, we are here!” John shouted.

“John! King! Are you there?” Someone answered.

“Yes, please come here,” I said.

“I didn’t expect you to come here tonight,” I added.

After we met, we hugged each other and sat down to talk.

“Just now I received a message from you two, and I told my mum to have a look at school to find you. Since there is no public transportation now, it took us some time to come here. When I found that the light of one classroom was on, I rushed into the school.” He said.

“Your mom?” I was confused.

“Yes, she is soon coming. How did you send me a message?” Mike asked.

“I will now explain my assumption about this event, you can interrupt me whenever you want,” John said and we started to listen to him seriously.

“In my assumption, this event is caused by an alien civilization. They split our world into many subworlds.”

“More specifically, the original world is split into about eight billion isolated ones. Each person on the earth is thrown into one unique world and should be isolated from others.”

“However, if two people between two worlds have some strong ‘bond’, those worlds can be ‘merged’ into one world.”

“In my case, King is my best friend and we have a strong bond, so our worlds were merged at the beginning. In Mike’s case, you have a strong bond with your mom, so your worlds were also merged at the beginning.”

“My family members didn’t appear because they didn’t know me so well or I didn’t know them so well and we couldn’t form a strong bond.”

“Since you are also my best friend, and I don’t have many secrets, we should be able to form a bond,” John said to Mike.

“However, I didn’t know the true you before we read your diary.”

“How did you find the diary? I took it away on the first day.” Mike was confused.

“Yes, you did. But it only happened in our world. In your world, you didn’t do anything. However, after our worlds were merged, your actions were also implemented in this world, so the notebook would suddenly disappear.” John looked at me.

“Moreover, since the message was sent on the first day before the Internet broke down, you could receive it. And that’s why I believe you will come here.”

John completed his speech and we were all shocked. Mike’s mom was also listening to John after she came here.

“So what’s our next move?” I asked.

“We should be merged into more people’s world. I will name this action the ‘Soul Link’. It will link our souls together.” John said excitedly.

→ Second Draft

Soul Link

“Bye, I want to take a walk alone, you go first.”

After one busy day at school, I was so tired that I wanted to have a walk in the school garden. That was a big place that students seldom visited. When I didn’t feel well or happy, I often went there with my best friend John to have a heart-to-heart talk with each other. Today I went there alone to have a breath of fresh air to drive the physical and mental strain away.

After having a ten-minute walk and feeling recovered, I decided to went home. It was at that time when I felt a second of faint. On the way home, I noticed something abnormal. There was no security staff at the gate of the school, and I didn’t see anyone walking on the road.

The street is extraordinarily quiet. There is no noisy car alarming, no people talking, and even no people walking. All the cars stopped on the road without drivers. The circumstance makes me feel chilling. Normally, there were many people going to the big department store near our school, but now there was – nobody.

However, when I searched the news on the Internet, I found nothing special.

Things even got worse after I went home. My parents didn’t come home that night and I couldn’t get in touch with them. I also sent messages to my relatives and friends, but no one replied. I came to realize that this was an unbelievable disaster after I failed to call the police.

I also posted this event on the Internet but I still got no one replied.

Finally, I speculated that all humans had disappeared for some unknown reasons, except me in this world.

It was too dangerous to go out home before I confirmed that no one else existed because if my assumption was wrong, it was very likely that someone was trying to trap me in this strange world to kill me.

I prepared some weapons and set some cameras in front of my house. Then I stayed at home for the first night.

Although I felt very nervous and frightening, I fell asleep that night due to strong tiredness.

When I opened my eyes the next day, the first day after humans disappeared began.

I first turned on my phone to check if anyone sent me a message. No one replied, except one of my friends, John.

The first feeling that came to my mind is excitement. I trusted him and I believed that he was always my friend under no circumstances. He told me that last night after he noticed the strange phenomenon, he spent some time getting his phone because his mother often hid his phone and after he saw my messages, he called me but I was asleep and didn’t answer it.

I told him that we should be together to prevent others from attacking us. So I asked him to come to my home secretly with some weapons.

That day we had a long talk about this event. We made lots of assumptions about why this could happen and how we could get out of here. We believed that there must exist a way that we could return to the original world. We also made a detailed plan on how to survive in this abandoned world.

As time went on, things were getting worse and worse. The only good news was that there was no one existing in this world except us and there was no need for us to worry about enemies. However, more and more crises came. We got our food from the shops nearby but soon we would have no fresh food. Moreover, the Internet broke down on the fifth day and the telephone communication broke down on the sixth day. We were isolated from the outer world.

We were very hopeless at that time, but when I thought that if John also disappeared and no one could accompany me, I felt that I was very lucky. The most horrible thing in the world is loneliness, I couldn’t live alone in this world.

While we were at a loss, on the sixth day, John accidentally asked me why it was us that didn’t disappear. It was a question that we haven’t thought about before, and I somehow felt that this question could be a breakthrough. I listed some common points we both have.

The conclusions were that we were good friends and we knew each other well, and we were both in the detective club in our school. The reason for mentioning the detective club was that the other three club members were somewhat “strange”. Although we were having activities for two years at school, I sometimes felt that they had some secrets. We suspected that they might be related to this event.

Therefore, we went to school to search for some clues about them. After checking their lockers, there was no sign that they were related to this event. However, we found Mike’s notebook, which seems to be his diary. Although we felt sorry for him, we still checked the contents of it. We were both shocked by its content.

He was an optimistic and a model student at school from our view before. However, from his diary, we knew that his father died many years ago due to a murder and his family has a poor economic condition. His mother borrowed a lot of money to let him study at school. After feeling shocked, we felt great sorrow.

“Why didn’t he talk to us? We definitely can do something for him!” I said.

“Yes, he should be franker to friends,” John responded.

When we finished reading the whole diary and preparing to leave, a dizzy feeling came to my mind again. John also felt that. Just then, that diary suddenly disappeared from my hand!

“What happened? I can’t believe my eyes.” I said.

“Maybe it works!” John said.

“What do you mean by that?” I felt confused.

“Maybe we could leave this world,” John answered with an exciting voice.

John turned on his phone and started to check messages.

“What are you doing? We have checked hundreds of times that there are no replies and currently the Internet is not working at all!” I didn’t understand what he was doing.

However, at this moment, I was shocked again. He miraculously received a message from Mike. What’s more, that message was sent several days ago.

“Great! It seems that my assumption was correct.” John smiled.

I turned on my phone and also found that I received a message from Mike as well.

“It’s time to move on, let’s first find Mike!” John was immersed in his thought and ignored all my confusion.

He picked up his bags and said: “Today we will have a summer camp at school. I will first go home to get some preparations for that, you only need to wait here. I will explain everything to you later!”

“Wait!” I shouted, but he quickly ran away.

I waited for John to come back. At about 7 PM, he brought two sleeping bags and some snacks.

“Nothing happened. So can you explain it?” I asked.

“We will wait for Mike tonight. He is very likely to come here.” John said.

“So you don’t think that he disappears from the beginning, do you?” I asked.

“You could say that he disappeared at the beginning, but he came back just now,” John answered.

“I think that Mike will come here soon,” John said.

It was about 10 PM when we heard that someone was running to the classroom.

“Mike, we are here!” John shouted.

“John! King! Are you there?” Someone answered.

“Yes, please come here,” I said.

“I didn’t expect you to come here tonight,” I added.

After we met, we hugged each other and sat down to talk.

“Just now I received a message from you two, and I told my mum to have a look at school to find you. Since there is no public transportation now, it took us some time to come here. When I found that the light of one classroom was on, I rushed into the school.” He said.

“Your mom?” I was confused.

“Yes, she is soon coming. How did you send me a message?” Mike asked.

“I will now explain my assumption about this event, you can interrupt me whenever you want,” John said and we started to listen to him seriously.

“In my assumption, this event is caused by an alien civilization. They split our world into many subworlds.”

“More specifically, the original world is split into about eight billion isolated ones. Each person on the earth is thrown into one unique world and should be isolated from others.”

“However, if two people between two worlds have some strong ‘bond’, those worlds can be ‘merged’ into one world.”

“In my case, King is my best friend and we have a strong bond, so our worlds were merged at the beginning. In Mike’s case, you have a strong bond with your mom, so your worlds were also merged at the beginning.”

“My family members didn’t appear because they didn’t know me so well or I didn’t know them so well and we couldn’t form a strong bond.”

“Since you are also my best friend, and I don’t have many secrets, we should be able to form a bond,” John said to Mike.

“However, I didn’t know the true you before we read your diary.”

“How did you find the diary? I took it away on the first day.” Mike was confused.

“Yes, you did. But it only happened in our world. In your world, you didn’t do anything. However, after our worlds were merged, your actions were also implemented in this world, so the notebook would suddenly disappear.” John looked at me.

“Moreover, since the message was sent on the first day before the Internet broke down, you could receive it. And that’s why I believe you will come here.”

John completed his speech and we were all shocked. Mike’s mom was also listening to John after she came here.

“So what’s our next move?” I asked.

“We should be merged into more people’s world. I will name this action the ‘Soul Link’. It will link our souls together.” John said excitedly.

→ Journal 1

What do you think a good story is?

From my perspective, everyone has his/her own standard regarding to “good story” since the life experience, the personality and the tastes can vary from person to person. Hence, here I only want to talk about my own taste, and it might be a little childish because I haven’t read so many books (especially classics). Moreover, story is independent of genre, which means that in addition to books, movies, television series and even video games can also have good stories.

I think a good story needs imagination. In my opinion, imagination determines how big the story world is and how interesting the plot can be. I like reading fictions very much, and all my favorite stories are all filled with imagination. Imagination is critical to creative writing, I think. Although there are many successful works which are describing reality, they also need much imagination to expand the story. I like fictions because they allow you to browse another world that you don’t belong to, and you can explore that world, talk to the people there and as if you were the protagonist who are fighting or adventuring. Moreover, imaginative stories can sometimes bring you inspiration. In short, I believe that imagination is the most important thing when you are writing a story.

With imagination, a good story can have compelling plots and great built world. One reason that many fictions appeal me is that their plots have ups and downs and the world they built is huge, which makes it more “real”. Although we all know the story is fiction, it’s important to make it real as if it really exists in another universe. Readers can feel nervous and excited when plots go ups and downs, and we all like that thrilling feeling.

With imagination, a good story can have unique characters. Unique characters can make the story much, much more appealing. When I was reading novels, I was often attracted to some character instead of the plot. Good character design can make readers empathize with the characters.

In addition to imagination, the logic and rigor of the plot are also important. There are many stories which have a bad ending because the writer could not let everything he wrote before make sense. So, when you are writing, a good design of the plot is very important. I like reading stories without logic errors or only have few errors because once you find that something is obviously wrong in the story, the sense of reality and substitution becomes weak.

Why enroll in a creative writing class? What do you hope to get out of this class? What are you hoping to learn? Do you think anything you might learn in this class will be helpful in your future? Do you just love creative writing? Or do you think this is a chance to learn something different?

I like reading novels, and also like writing them. I once decided to make a video game with my friends to tell a big story, but I still don’t have time yet. So, I want to learn some skills for writing creative texts. I hope I can write something and learn skills. I think it’s very different from academic writings, so I am very excited about it. I’d like to finish a whole story this semester if it’s OK.

→ Journal 2

From my perspective, good character design should make the readers “feel” the character from the bottom of their hearts. There are many ways to achieve this. First, we can focus on the uniqueness of the character. What characteristics does this character have that others don’t have? How special is he/she? The uniqueness can stand out from stereotyped characters and successfully catch the readers’ eyes. In the Chinese novel Journey to The West, every character has his/her character and special skills, which makes Sun Wukong a household name. Second, we can add more details about a character and make him/her livelier. In many realistic works, the characters are not special on the surface, but the writer can still make them vivid by showing the readers their emotions and behaviors in detail, which can let the readers feel them as if they were real. Third, good characters should be natural, namely, well-designed. A bad character often makes the reader annoyed because he/she changes his/her character to meet the demand of the plot. Generally, a good character should maintain his/her character and personality instead of acting like a “schizophreniac”.

When the writers are trying to create good characters, they should design their personalities carefully and make them fixed. The character should have some eye-catching traits that can touch the readers. After that, the writer should put the character into the story, and reveal the characters’ traits through details and events gradually. A good character is established through assorted small stories in the whole story. At the beginning of the story, the readers have no idea what kind of person the character is, but as the story goes on, the readers will know about the characters through their behaviors and words progressively, thus the words and behaviors of the characters should be considered seriously, as they are the source when you build the character. Moreover, the character should fit the theme of the story. For example, if you put a superman into the story of Romeo and Juliet, the story would be very strange.

For me, a character is successful when he/she becomes multilateral or arguable. As there is no perfect person, there should be no perfect character as well. A successful character should always be debatable, like Hamlet. Such a character must have many secrets and stories behind him, which makes him complicated. They can usually touch the readers, especially when they died. In the novel From the New World, the antagonist, Squealer is a typical multilateral and controversial character. Readers often dislike him in the first half part of the story because he is very crafty and often deceives the protagonists. However, in the final part of the story, after we know the stories behind him, we sympathize with him very much. This transition moved many people and it’s very natural since the writer sets many hints before. In my opinion, it’s a successful character.

In short, I think a good character needs much effort, including the careful design of his/her character and his/her stories.

→ Journal 3

In traditional Chinese literature, the settings of the stories are quite distinctive. They like using a large number of flowery words to describe the environment itself. In contemporary Chinese literature, the ways writers deal with settings become more diversified and have no major difference compared to western literature. From my perspective, to write a good setting, you can add more details about the scene, use both the positive and negative descriptions, and use rhetoric. For instance, you can describe the details of the objects you are writing about, like how they look and smell. Next, you can add some people’s comments on this object to make it more real. Moreover, you can use rhetorical devices like the analogy to create an intense image in the readers’ minds. Finally, remember to describe the settings step by step and construct them logically.

Though there are many works that students like to read, famous works like classics are not liked by some students, and there are many reasons behind them. Those students can be divided into two types. The first type is that they have read through those works and find them boring. The second type is that they haven’t read those works and dislike them only by their length and others’ comments.

First, many classics are hard to read because they are very reflective and readers need to think while reading. And the thoughts those works want to convey may be concerned with a special era, which is difficult to understand for contemporary students. Moreover, students have less life experience than adults, thus they may not empathize with the characters and the writers. Even though students can understand the whole story and its main idea, they still find it boring because those works seldom bring sensual pleasure to them. In addition, with the development of literature, works today can be better than the classics in some way. All those factors give rise to the first type of student.

However, from my point of view, I think that more students haven’t read those classics and disklike them. Nowadays, with the emergence of mobile devices and the Internet, people choose to read those highly entertaining works which can bring sensual pleasures to them. Moreover, the academic pressure is so heavy that they have little time apart from studying, thus they choose to read casual stories to relax. Besides, the stereotype of classics makes students feel afraid of them. They consider the classics book from heaven.

To enjoy literature more, we can take a look at the historical background of the works before going to read. This can help us understand the story better.

→ Journal 4

“Nothing moves forward in a story except through conflict.” - Robert McKee

Conflict is always the core of the plot. It can push the story to its climax and the good conflict can surpass the bad ones a lot. Good conflicts can often touch our hearts and produce stronger emotional effects on readers.

There are many kinds of conflicts. From my perspective, the best form of conflict is the conflict between character (individual) and groups (like families or the whole society). Such conflicts force the protagonist to overcome the seemingly impossible challenge, and therefore the protagonist has to be strong enough to fight against the group power. These kinds of conflicts can reveal many problems in our society, families, etc. by telling the story from the view of their “victims”. These stories are valuable if many people read them and benefit from those stories.

The essence of a good conflict is often beyond the conflict itself. It should have a clear and logical event line before the conflict appears, have an appropriate time and place to make the conflict reach the climax, and finally have a reasonable ending of the conflict. These three elements are crucial to the story plot, and the conflict will be cast into the shade. Conflicts are not happening for no reason, there must be some important events before the conflict bursts out. I can often find the hint of conflict when the character has an internal conflict, i.e., his/her inner desire can’t be fulfilled. And when the internal conflict turns into the external conflict, i.e., some physical conflicts. Readers will know the conflicts clearly when there is an external conflict.

One famous example of conflict is William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. The protagonist, Hamlet’s internal conflict drives him to revenge for his father and also determines his tragic ending. The main conflict in this story is that Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s murder by his uncle Claudius, but Claudius is the king, and Hamlet hesitates whether revenge is the right path.

The author reveals his inner conflict by directly describing his thoughts:

“To be, or not to be - that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer”

His indecisiveness ultimately ruins his life and the lives of his loved ones. The inner conflict finally turns into the external conflict. This conflict is effective because every event has clear reasons behind it, and the author uses a large number of powerful words to describe the characters’ inner thoughts and reach the climax of the conflict very naturally. Moreover, the conflict is very simple and clear, and the readers can easily understand it at the beginning of the story, which makes the following plot acceptable.

Conflict is the key to writing a good story. When we design our own stories, we have to consider carefully how to build the connections between plots to reveal the conflict step by step.

→ Journal 5

In my own life, the scene that meant the most to me was the scene when my grandfather took me to draw water in the mountain when I was 11 years old. That scene lasts because we surpassed many difficulties and find that place by ourselves. It is a unique experience in my whole life. In addition, that scene is very beautiful and magnificent because it was filled with the picture of clean water flowing from the top of the mountain, many green trees enclosing us, and the sound of running water and crisp birdsong.

Back to the writing, I think that a good scene should first contain a well-designed connotation beyond the scene itself. In my case, the connotation is that “we came to the foot of the mountain through many hardships”, which can leave a significant impact on the readers. Another famous example is the scene in the movie Titanic when Jack was hugging Rose on the bow and making a flying pose. It symbolizes the deep love between Jack and Rose and also the calm before the storm.

In addition, the environmental description of the scene is also very important because it will give the readers sensory impact directly. It can fill the details of the scene or leave some space for readers to imagine.

To judge whether a scene is good or not, I can do a thought experiment. I will imagine how I will feel when I enter that scene if I were the character. If I can feel the same emotions with the character and be attracted by the environment of the scene, then I believe that this scene is good.

There are many ways to revise sentences. First, we can try using verbs more actively and specifically. It varies from the verb to verb in expressiveness. Verbs like “have, is” are less expressive than “enjoy, push”. Those words can express our ideas more clearly and more vividly.

Second, we can use some rhetorical devices like analogy and parallelism. The analogy can make our sentences more vivid, and concrete and help readers understand. Parallelism can enhance the coherence and make our sentences more logically clear.

Third, using profile description can help us describe something or someone difficult to describe directly and can form a hazy concept in the reader’s head. For example, when I try describing a scary haunted house, I will describe it by writing others’ comments on this house instead of directly writing it. In this way, readers can feel the frightening atmosphere of the haunted house even though that house isn’t so scary in fact.

In short, there are many ways to revise sentences to make them more expressive and appealing, and using those skills to write the scenes will make the scene better.

→ Journal 7

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

— Frank Herbert

The ending of a story can play an important role in the whole story. In my opinion, a good ending should be impressive, thoughtful, and inevitable. Personally, I love surprising endings because they can give readers great impact when they realize the truth.

When I decide to write an ending, I will first consider whether it can explain everything or at least most of them that happened before in the story. Stories should be complete. If the writer doesn’t explain why he writes something before in the story, readers will feel very confused and will consider those details meaningless, which can lower the expectations the writer gave the readers before.

Second, the end of a story should be “inevitable”. It means that it should be reasonable and logical. The best story prepares the stage where the characters act and let them act naturally and finally comes to a very natural ending. That is to say, the ending is “prepared” at the early stage of the story. In many stories, the ending is the climax of the story because it will show the core contradiction of the story. Therefore, as mentioned in the previous journal, it should be carefully planned.

Moreover, we should consider the depth of the ending. A good ending can leave readers much imagination and teach them some lessons, so we can use an open ending to end our story. In fact, the virtual world inside the story doesn’t end, it was the words that the writers stopped. Hence, An open ending can make readers think about what will happen after the ending.

In addition, a surprising ending is more appealing. Most Readers like the ups and downs of the plot, so using a surprising ending can add increase the dramaticism of the story, and shock the readers.

My favorite ending is the ending of the detective novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. The ending of this novel is very unique and unexpected because most people like guessing who is the murderer when they read a detective story. However, the writer took the advantage of this thought and deceived the readers until the end.

(Spoilers here) The writer uses the first-person perspective to narrate the whole story, and it turns out that the murderer is the narrator himself. Most readers only guess other characters but ignore the fact that the narrator is also a character.

I love this creative and surprising ending because I found that there are many details in the story pointing out that he was the murderer but I ignored them subjectively because I always believe that the murderer can’t be him. The story gives me a higher level of thinking the story, which benefits me a lot.

→ Journal 8

All writings have an original source that makes the writer start the writing. In my opinion, those small ideas may come from many places like our life, our experiences, other people’s thoughts, and so on. After some imagination and thinking, they can become the prototype of the whole story. As far as I am concerned, the ideas for my stories mainly come from my life. However, if I want to write fiction, the ideas will also probably come from the fiction that I read or even some mathematic puzzles. The range of the source of inspiration is very wide.

If I feel a little lost when searching for ideas, I will first focus on my past. I will recall the events that happened in the last few years and try to find some interesting details that are valuable to talk about. I love traveling and have traveled to many different places in my childhood, so there are many memories that I can think about.

As mentioned before, my method for coming up with ideas varies from theme to theme. For the daily theme writings, I like to get the source from my daily life. To find those sources, I have to observe my life to find some interesting details. Moreover, the source can’t be the ideas of the story itself, it needs to be modified. For example, if I went to a zoo three weeks before, then the basic idea of the story may be like “an animal escapes from the zoo accidentally”, and the main purpose of the story can be “protecting animals”. In short, the idea should be formed from observation and developed through life experience when I write daily theme work.

For the fiction, I think it’s hard to take initiative to find an idea. In most cases, good ideas come secretly to our minds. There is a very famous example of this: the directive book The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Japanese writer Soji Shimada has a very well-designed murder that once confused many readers. However, the core trick of the murderer comes from a Mathematical Olympiad problem, which is very interesting. Therefore, once I find something interesting in our life, I should think about it to find out whether it can be a good source of fiction. I have a document that stores all interesting ideas that came up in my mind in the past, and when I want to write fiction, I can find one of them and develop it.

Good ideas are often easy to expand. The idea itself doesn’t have to be complicated at first. If I find that it’s difficult to use this idea to write some example events, then it’s probably not a good idea at least for me.

I seldom changed the core idea after I started writing. Although some small details could be added, the core ideas should remain mostly constant throughout the whole story, otherwise, the story can have some contradictions. If I changed the idea, it means that the original ideas have some huge flaw that hinder the development of the story.

→ Journal 9

From my perspective, there are many differences between Chinese stories and Western stories.

The main difference between modern Chinese short stories and western short stories is the theme due to cultural differences. Many Chinese short stories like to describe character experiences to praise some quality of the character. The place where those stories happen is often in the countryside. Western short stories like to talk about reality and society.

There are more big differences between the classical Chinese stories and the western ones. I think that classical Chinese stories are more allusive and understated than western ones. There are so many idioms in Chinese and writers use them very often. They don’t like to talk about things explicitly, partially because they don’t want to offend the emperor otherwise they may be put in prison or killed. Western stories are bolder and more unrestrained.

There are even more differences between classical Chinese poems and English poems. Chinese words have very clear pronunciation, and poems have to follow many rules. There are far more rhymes in Chinese than in English. English poems are more like prose in Chinese. Modern Chinese poems have various styles and fewer limitations, so there are no major differences between them and modern English poems.

After I took this course and wrote many things in class, I learned that there are many small things we have to take care of when we are writing, such as the first line, the ways of ending, and how to write a scene a climax. I will think more before I write to figure out the logic line of the story.

Culture is a very important element in writing. It can determine the theme of the story and make the characters have some basic characteristics. Many classical Chinese stories and poems are like writing about beautiful landscapes because there are many huge mountains and waters in China. Some stories can happen in western while can’t be possible in China and vice versa. Every culture has its uniqueness and some famous masterpiece. Moreover, people from a different culture may focus on different aspects of the story and character.

Regarding the conflicts, I think that more western works like writing about conflicts between people, family, and society. Chinese stories like writing about conflicts between person and person, family and family. Those are also due to cultural differences.

→ Journal 10

There are various kinds of genres in the world of literature. Different genres have much differences and characteristics, which can leave distinct impression on the readers. Another similar concept is the theme of the story. In my opinion, the theme of the story should be decided carefully before writing, while the genre of the story shouldn’t be determined at first.

First, fixing the genre can be an extra limitation to our writing. If I decide my genre before I write, I often found that every time I write, I will think that whether my writings meet the requirements of the genre. This will not only slow down my writing speed and disturbing the pace of writing, but it can also kill the birth of some creative ideas. In fact, there is no strict restriction for us to follow when we do genre writing. Many great genre writing works include many genres because the writers aren’t restricted by the genre. Science fiction stories aren’t full of science fiction, there must be many other elements in them, like tragedy or comedy. I think we should focus more on the stories we are telling rather than caring about the genre while writing.

Second, deciding the genre too early can make our stories ordinary. There are too many stereotypes in our minds, so when we decide a genre to write, we will follow those stereotypes and may write many stories that are similar to the existed works. This could bring aesthetic fatigue to the readers and lower the value of the story.

When I write different kinds of fictions, I find that it’s hard to build the atmosphere of the story under specific genre. I have to use different words, rhetoric and sentence patterns to describe a scene, a place and a character, which needs much accumulation of writing and reading. Moreover, I need to focus on different things when writing stories of different genres. For example, when writing a family tragedy story, I have to dig into the emotion and thoughts of the main characters, and when writing a battle fiction, I have to write more about the actions of the protagonists.

There are few people who can write different kinds of genres well. From my perspective, we should choose a genre which we are familiar with and practicing writing stories of that genre. We don’t have to limit ourselves in that genre, and we can even form our own writing style and create an original genre while writing stories.

→ Journal 11

The course is going to end, and I think that this course has a very relaxed atmosphere, and I like it very much. Since this is an online course, we don’t have many face-to-face interactions, so sometimes I get tired during the class.

I like this course also because it gives me chance to write different genres. I also learned many different writing skills during the course, and I think they are quite valuable. I learned how to create a lively character, how to build an atmosphere in a story, and how to use different words to describe a scene more efficiently.

For the future courses, one suggestion is that you can cancel the limitation of the reading presentation. Since we have to share the reading and let everyone know the details of the reading, we cannot share long stories. However, I think long stories can build better characters and plots. So maybe you can allow students to share long stories rather than only short ones.

This course really benefits me a lot. Before this course, I seldom write things. After I write journals every week, I find that writing has much fun and needs much accumulation.

→ Final Reflection

During this online semester, I learned many writing skills, read many interesting stories, and most importantly, I WRITE A LOT! I think I wrote much more on this course than the sum of VY100 and VY200.

Before I take the course, I am a shy boy who doesn’t like to speak and write, and I always feel painful when seeing writing assignments. But now I feel much easier when writing new things thanks to VY223.

In this semester, I really have much workload in other courses like VG100 and VV285. Although I spent most of time doing my VG100 project, I didn’t forget to write Journals every week and keep writing as a habit. In this semester, I stayed up very late in some days to do my project, which didn’t happen before. The pressure of those difficult and huge-workload courses really once got to me. However, this course gives me a different idea. I can create freely and write many interesting articles. I relieve myself from this process and I have to thank to Ryan for giving such a high-quality course to us.

Finally, I have to express my gratitude to both the professor Ryan and the teaching assistant. You really help me a lot in this course and in this semester.