Photo by Sebastian Isaac-Gooden

By Sebastian Isaac-Gooden

One of the first creative writing projects that I was proud of happened when I was in the fourth grade. We had to write a story (though I can’t quite remember the criteria), and it was around the time my infatuation with superheroes had begun. It was around 2014-15 and my parents had gradually been letting me watch Marvel movies. I had also been reading dozens of comic books and even more novels. This is important because my final draft read like an artificial intelligence writing an action movie. The writing wasn’t stilted, but when I think about it, the absolute melting pot of clichés I had created reads as the ravings of an AI, as I had taken and put a spin on ideas I had seen without fine tuning them at all. The main character lived in a mansion in New York, and had his house blown up and his parents killed by criminals (I didn’t know what organized crime was at the time, but that’s what it was in essence). He then trained, gaining ninja skills, and took down the boss, deflecting bullets with his swords and driving a motorbike. I even drew a stick figure with absurdly detailed characteristics. Looking back, I’m embarrassed that I had written something both so cliché and wildly over-the-top, but at the time, I couldn’t have been more proud. Once my English teacher at the time read it, she laughed and said that I should be a screenwriter. At the time, I had no interest in doing so, but as time went on, I would slowly gravitate towards it.

Throughout the entirety of my sixth-grade English class, I had been told to purposefully use words that were infrequently used by others. I used words like dynamic and riposte regularly, and a thesaurus was always within reach. I like to think that was the year I became a good writer. I wrote a lot that year, but near the end, we had to write a short story, and as per usual, I went with a high-concept sci-fi dystopian novel of a setup. In this world, hell had taken over everything and the only people really left were the Greek god Poseidon and the main character, a teenager (I had read The Maze Runner and the Percy Jackson series the year before, thus the teen/Greek god combo). I went approximately double the word length and had to cut most of it out, but again, I got a good grade on the project. With all that surplus, I decided to turn it into a book. I even got a few more paragraphs in before completely forgetting about it. The unconventional language I incorporated into my writing and the use of my thesaurus did decline after that year, but it’s still something I consistently try to bring into my work.

Though I knew I enjoyed writing around the time I was twelve, and knew I was good enough to write on my own, I didn’t write outside of school for quite some time. I began a number of projects, but never got far enough to finish a first draft. What I did do, however, was throw everything I had into creative writing projects at school. In fact, for the next few years, most of the time that I spent reading and writing was for school. I would occasionally read a book or write something else, but those occasions were few and far between. In grade 9, I began writing stand-up comedy, but things really kicked into high gear during the middle of the pandemic. 

Many things happened in my life during the pandemic, but one of the most important was I began hurtling toward my goal, which was to become a writer/director. I knew I should get some screenplay writing experience and practice, so I began work on a practice adaptation of a comic book/graphic novel series I had been reading, The Immortal Hulk. This was going to be big. It was the culmination of all my time reading, writing, and watching. I got to work, and a few months later… my computer was wiped and I lost everything.

It wasn’t great having this happen, but I wasn’t so far into it that it was a devastating loss. So quite some time later, I thought “Eh, whatever. I’ll write my own idea.” And the work on what will be my first properly finished fully fleshed-out screenplay began. Instead of continuously checking my source material for reference, I picked an idea that I had been thinking about for some time, a take on the concept of Body Snatchers mixed with my own satirical edge. What is it about? Well, you’ll have to see.

The screenplay still isn’t finished, but I’ve not stopped working on it. It may be the most in-depth, subtext-filled thing I’ll have written. I’ve spent lots of time writing, and lots of time reading, but until recently I haven’t thought about how much it took to get me to where I am now. And the best part is, I’m only getting started.