How do we as writers make our message clear and engaging to an audience?

Hey blog, I haven’t been here for a while, but I finally have a new project to post about: Rise of the Frankenstuffies!

This was a big project, which included me making my own stuffie, a written story about it, and then creating a movie about it. This may be one of the harder project I have done, because of all of the components. 

Let’s start by going over what the actual project was. We started by understanding the driving question, How do we as writers make our message clear and engaging to an audience? We had to create a story that clearly articulates the message/theme, while still being engaging and entertaining. (Purposeful communication, engaging creativity and meaning making, and effective production skills)

The easiest part of this whole process was making the actual stuffie, and reading the book “Leviathan”. The stuffie I created was a teddy bear with some frog legs, and a platypus’s tail and nose. So while we were in the starting process for our stuffie, we read the book “Leviathan”, doing reflections on it every week. “Leviathan”, was the perfect story for us to read, because it has a lot to do about weird creature-mutants, while following the “Hero’s journey” premise. Our reflections of the book helped me understand why the book was successful. Brainstorming for our characters followed, which slowly transitioned into creating characters files and storyboards.


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Then we started writing the actual story. I had a hard time with this because creative writing is really hard for me. It took me a long time to actually start writing, due to me not being able to come up with anything. I wish I would have just started writing, instead of trying to write perfectly the first try. I also wanted to be able to compunicate the idea of my story without writing too much. My first draft was very short, and basically just a chunk of writing describing what was going to happen. It wasn’t written like an engaging “hero’s journey”, but instead a brainstorm for what a hero’s journey would look like.

My second draft was a a lot stronger, a story I’m actually really proud of.  I feel like this story is really entertaining, and something I would actually read in real life.

Now that my written form of this project was complete, I needed to make my digital media representation. Through this movie I needed to show my production skills, which I think I did very well. The platforms I used to create it were Keynote and iMovie. When looking at my storyboard, you can see there are many scenes(138 to be exact) and I animated around that many slides to complete my movie. Then I put it into iMovie to add sound. I think my movie is very detailed, and has strong animation. I feel like my movie doesn’t really tell the audience what I wanted it to. The message I wanted to convey was something along the lines of “Don’t let your fears/pains stop you from getting what you want”. 


From a producing point-of-view, I really struggled with was finishing it by deadlines. The way I chose to make it took me a long time, and because it was a new way for me to create, I had to learn along the way. 

Overall, this project taught me a lot of things. I got to work on my creative writing skills, communication skills through different media, media creating skills, and also a personal growth: time management. Because of how big but fast-moving this project was, when I noticed myself leaving things to the last minute, or handing things in late, it got harder every time to get back on track. I have a better understanding of the importance of meeting deadlines.

I hope you have liked my story, in both media forms! To give me direct feedback, click the link below! It will take you to a platform that you can give me direct feedback, make a comment, or ask a question!

https://padlet.com/alexc70/rise-of-the-frankenstuffies-rtx6osksmqz8i1ud

Check out my movie on my YouTube! ⬇️