In my life, I’ve explored a range of subjects, but writing was the only one I ever felt truly engaged with.
Ideas are always floating around in my head, either stemming from existing creative works or the starts of original projects. In secondary school, I felt like there was never enough focus on creative writing, so I began to write these ideas down – one story filled several notebooks and I ended up writing more than 50 chapters! It was at this point that I realised I wanted to fully pursue writing and that it was a need for me to start planning my future in order to achieve my goals.
While at AUB, I found that these goals shifted. Within BA (Hons) Creative Writing, I began to learn about other forms of writing in addition to fiction, such as screenwriting, poetry and creative non-fiction. This was when I realised my love for screenwriting, and I haven’t looked back since.
As a screenwriter, I’m always mindful of the close relationship between writing and its end product: the creative combination of 'audio' and ‘visual’ within film or TV. Therefore, in order to bring my vision to life, I like to create visual mood boards for the aesthetic of the piece I want to create, as this inspires me to think about how the characters interact with their environment, and how this might impact the narrative. After this, I consider what themes I want to tackle in my piece, and what sort of characters are needed to convey these storylines. From here, I begin to pin down actual plot points to create a general structure and then start writing!
The Creative Writing course at AUB has been extremely helpful to me throughout my creative journey, as I have always felt supported when making personal creative decisions, and I’ve never been discouraged from pursuing any of my ideas. I have had some great lecturers, especially those with industry experience, as I’ve been taught how to polish and edit my work to a higher standard. I feel especially proud of my final major project, titled Tune You Out, as I believe this is the strongest piece of work I have created throughout my entire writing experience and a project that I plan to take forward beyond university.
Within my final year, I have spent most of my time creating this – the script for a young adult television show following the experiences of a girl struggling with self-identity and loss whilst navigating her family’s transatlantic move to Oregon. Within my writing, I find it important to tackle topics that are underrepresented in media; I want to create the kind of work I wish I could’ve seen when I was younger. Therefore, my work often includes narratives surrounding sexuality and gender identity, as well as journeys of self-acceptance and diverse character relationships. Representation is so important, and I believe everyone should be able to have the chance to see themselves in the shows they watch.
Another project I worked on this year was a collaborative project with some of my close friends on the course. This focused on teaching primary school children the basics of screenwriting, sharing our knowledge so that they could go forward and create their own pieces of work. Our thinking behind this project was that if we even inspired one person to go forward and try out screenwriting beyond the session, then we had achieved something. I enjoyed this collaboration, as we worked hard and carried out some great creative sessions with the children.
In my free time, I am an avid gamer, and even this has been something I have been able to explore at AUB. During my second year, I was paired with an industry professional in the games industry, where I was supported in developing an interactive narrative for a hypothetical game project. This allowed me to combine my passion for writing with my interest in gaming and it gave me the opportunity to forge another pathway for my future in the screenwriting industry.
After graduation, my aim is to begin a career in screenwriting, either in television or gaming. I hope that one day I will be part of a wide-scale project, such as writing for a television series or a major games production company. I have loved working in AUB’s community, gaining new experiences and skills, and I’m now excited to take the next step in my creative journey!
