Dear Reader, 



​

The mode I chose for my inquiry 3 was a mix of a personal narrative with a creative piece through a website. I know I can make really creative and strong sites so I figured I would use that ability to my advantage. The website itself is a fake website that I am a New York Times bestselling author, and that my books I wrote are each about a different experience I encountered involving my fear.

Some of the examples I looked at were author's websites and book covers. I wanted to make sure my website looked as realistic as possible, and not a website made by a college freshman. I also looked back on my past website creations for English 111 to see how I formatted my website. I learned that I can still make my website and book covers look credible and realistic without having the capabilities as most bestselling authors do. I



I knew from the beginning of inquiry 3 discussion that I wanted to create a website. My problem was that I was unsure what I wanted to put within the website. As time went on I figured out that I wanted to make the website like the final draft you are now looking at. I made each book about a different experience I encountered in my lifetime that had touched upon my fear. Therefore, I created two books "excerpts" which tell of two different stories of my fear in third person narrative. The "excerpts" are full stories, but they typically tend to focus on the lead up to the actual event because in those situations, it was the anticipation of what I did not know was coming that scared me the most. The third book is more of a visual statement that I may encounter my fear again, but that I feel I am slowly overcoming it.

​

My biggest challenge with this inquiry was trying my best to ensure that my personal narrative didn't sound corny or cheesy. Through this inquiry, I narrowed down my fear to not being able to foresee or anticipate the immediate future. I have never been comfortable with uncertainty in certain situations such as haunted houses and some aspects of halloween, like the inability to see someones face behind a creepy facade. Although my fears of haunted houses and Halloween scare me, they may sound frivolous and silly to others. Therefore, I used word choice that would create a brief, vivid imagine and give others insight into my emotion and feelings on the subject. The conference helped show me that I was on the right path with my inquiry and that my website was definitely believable.



My mode of using the website added to the believability of my personal narrative. It also added to the visualization of the narrative because I added pictures so that others could see what I saw as I experienced each instance. Because my summaries of the books had to be relatively short, some of the visualization came into play with those images and book covers.



My project can be close read as to better understand what really scares me about those haunted houses and scary instances. My fear is of the unknown, going into a situation not fully knowing the outcome or what to expect. I was afraid of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney World because I wouldn't know when the "elevator" would drop or what would lie beyond at each floor. Furthermore, I was (and still am) scared of haunted houses not because of the characters (scareactors) appearance, but because I did not know when one would be waiting to scare me. I still feel uncomfortable in those situations because I am not able to predict the outcome, or when something will happen. I included historical context by making the release date of the books around the time I would have experienced the instance. As well the cultural context can be implied through word choice, pictures, and the mention of Disney World, even though it is essentially the 21st century, or present day.


My favorite part of this project was making the websites and book covers. The creative aspects of my inquiry 3 were the first parts I had completed, because I found them to be the most enjoyable. Therefore, I plan to showcase my work to our English 112 class because I am not as afraid of my fears as I used to be and also I am proud of my work on inquiry 3.