If I Were to Write a Book... by Micah

If I Were to Write a Book... by Micah - June 2014 Scholarship Essay

A thousand times I sat down to write, and a thousand times I hit that writer's block. It's not that I didn't know what to write, rather I didn't know how to express my imagination as purely as I've seen it in my head. The story could be phenomenal, but to me, there was no point in writing it if all I succeeded in doing was entertaining.

There was so much more to a book than a heart racing with suspense or the fascination for the characters. I wanted something more. I wanted the reader to think, to feel, to wonder. But more than that, I wanted the reader to gain. After he or she had finished the last page, as they sat pondering what they'd just read, I wanted the windows of perspective to open, and a fire of inspiration to burn within.

For me, there was no better way of accomplishing this that to write about two things close to our hearts: family and hope.

In a futuristic distopia, a family is torn apart and the members are sold into slavery. The plot would evolve around their struggle to overcome adversity and escape, all the while holding onto the hope that one day they would see one other again.

We live in an age of realists, where hope is replaced with logic. We live in an age of independence, where family is replaced with individuality. Neither logic nor individuality are wrong, in fact they both are helping us as a society develop and go beyond our limits. However, I want this novel to serve as a reminder of the importance of two values that are being underestimated. The power that family and hope hold in the face of adversity is unequivocal.

I want my novel to appeal to my readers emotionally, which I find is the best way to engross them into the plot while exposing them to my message. The greatest novels are the ones we learn from and though I don't seek to be the greatest, I do hope to teach. Every reader will come with his or her preconceived ideas about family and about hope. Maybe I can offer some perspective through the characters, and their challenges. By making the characters more tangible to the reader, by making their pains felt and their joys evident, perhaps the reader will be able to relate. If this can be accomplished, then the reader will be open to perspective.

The central reason, however, to writing this specific novel, would be that I'd be able to offer apart of who I am and where I come from. By writing about the importance of family and hope, I'd be addressing my personal experiences. Those hard nights that hope walked me through, those difficult days where family stood by side, these would be the underlying foundation that the novel would be built on. This would be a story where I invested myself. As long as I was doing that, I wouldn't have to worry about writer's block.