My retelling of “The Gift of the Magi” differs a bit from the original. I chose to change the setting, characters, and situation. I wrote about two teenagers, who are neighbors, best friends, and fall in love. They each make a great sacrifice, per the original story. 

I learned that it is ok as a creative to change elements, but have to ultimately stay true to the story with adaptations. If there is no element that has a shadow of the original, it is not an adaptation. 

This project meshes with my goals as a writer in that I wanted to experience and try my hand at various writing skills/formats. I love reading comics because they are different from novels but still allow to get sucked in like novels. Writing comics is different from writing a screenplay in that you are limited with what action you can show, but you are limited even more with comics. Panel descriptions are your way of showing action and the image you want to create. Each panel can only show one action, so again limitations. The dialogue parameters are limited as well with comics. I enjoyed forcing myself to stay within the limits that I had because it forced me to tell the story concisely with the images that I saw in my head. I cannot think of any other projects that I would like to adapt, but I would like to write more comics. 

Image credits: 

Regenwolke0. (2014, October 31). Weeping Willow, Pasture, Baumm. Retrieved May 27, 2018, from https://pixabay.com/en/weeping-willow-pasture-baumm-509886/