By Julian Finholm
All my life, I have loved stories. When I fell in love with Batman’s compassionate crusade against evil and pain at sevenyears-old, I realized that I wanted to be a writer. I filled notebooks with doodles and scribbles of stories. Telling a story allows me to express myself in ways I can’t verbalize otherwise.
Storytelling is how I showcase my love of fiction. I simply love creating. I love writing stories about heroes going on adventures or silly people eating food together which makes me laugh so much. And the best part is that it doesn’t have to be grounded or realistic. No word is law in the worlds I create except for mine. I feel the most free in the sense of making whatever story I choose.
I write stories at school, at home, wherever I can. I’m constantly thinking of what I create when I’m out and about. The storytelling process is quite hard yet fun. First things first is the plot. After that there’s the setting, tone, characters, and goals that characters drive the story forward to. But there’s creativity next. Again, here in my writing craft, anything goes.
The stories that I’ve written have also helped me in more personal ways. One instance of them helping me is with compassion. I often worry about others and fear not knowing what to do when I want to help them. Inspired by Batman, my characters often try to reach others driven to evil by sad pasts. This is through talking with these antagonists, finding common ground, or fighting them to save these people from themselves. If they can use their tragedies as motivation to get through to others, then so can I. I can empathize with people through our shared pains and do what I can to help them solve their problems
However, just because it’s helped me help others doesn’t mean that it’s never helped me personally. It’s gotten me through so much tribulation in my life. When I was sad, I imagined myself as my Alta Heroes characters. I imagined I was one of them fighting bad guys, going on adventures, and finding joy in the little things. This is where I learned another great lesson. I’m not alone. I’m never alone when I’m surrounded by many who are struggling and that I can always find a way to manage those struggles the best I can.
As a writer, I’m proud of how productive I am when I am creating these stories. I’m also proud of what I can give myself and what I can give to others. It’s almost like making beautiful paintings. Of course, they’re never perfect, but they’re mine. And I just can’t wait to see what I can create next.