Ashes Of Power

The objective of this project was to write a creative work using a theme found in an American writer's literary text studied throughout the course and create a visual and/or auditory piece. By doing this, students can further interpret the literary texts, themes, and genres found in American Literature. For my short story, “Ashes of Power,” I chose to focus on the theme of “powerlessness” found in the 1985 play Fences written by August Wilson. The story is told through the point of view of a young and strong woman, Xena, and is set in a fantasy world that is entirely fictional. Throughout the story the audience will see the trials and challenges that Xena faces and how she must overcome them. Powerlessness is a common theme I see presented in the types of books I read, especially with the female protagonists. After deciding to write a short story about this theme, I knew I wanted the setting to take place in a fantasy world, so I could play with the dynamic of the main character being physically powerless as well as circumstantially powerless. When deciding what I wanted the visual/auditory format of my story to be, I immediately knew I wanted to create an audiobook. Because my story is fantasy, it has words, names, and phrases that are made up and could be confusing or hard to pronounce for the reader. By creating an audio version, the reader or listener can focus more on what’s happening in the story than getting stuck on how to pronounce certain words. I listened to a dramatized audiobook titled Fourth Wing, and I loved how different it was from the other audiobooks that I’ve listened to. The things that stood out to me were that each character in the story had a different voice actor to play the role, there was background music, and sound effects that really brought the story to life. I felt like I was watching a movie in my own head, and I was inspired by that to create my own dramatized audiobook for my short story. *Note: all the images and music featured in the student's audiobook are open resources found via Google.