Blue stars and a world of contrasts

By Ms. Camille Diola

This article, originally titled “SMN student writes winning children’s story: Blue stars and a world of contrasts,” first appeared in the July 2012 print issue of Universitas. The author used to work with the Corporate Communications Office of UA&P.

 

 

You probably didn’t think someone could easily be the persona of a famous line from Walt Whitman’s poem—“Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself”—until you’ve met Francesca Nicole “Frankie” Chan Torres.

Her fast-talking, theatrical and zealous manners wildly differ from her writing’s solemn and lingering tone. She’s also a management student who’s deeply artistic, even openly proud of having received UA&P’s brand of liberal education.

“(In) this generation, it’s not the lawyers, the doctors, the engineers who will change the world; it’s the artists. This is why I encourage people to write; I encourage people to be renaissance people,” Frankie said, relating an idea from a management thinker with the University’s aspiration to breed man-centered professionals.

Befitting these contrasts, Frankie transformed her mature wit into a bedtime story, an effort that won her the Romeo Forbes’ Children’s Storywriting Competition, which she joined amid “abundant” school papers and in an effort to shake off writer’s block.

“A thousand or so words aren’t a lot compared to the workload at UA&P. We’re used to it,” she said. “What I like about UA&P is it encourages you to write a lot, a lot, a lot.”

Her 1,300-word entry “Blue Stars” was borne from a untitled surreal painting by young Filipino artist Liv Vinluan, whom not-for-profit art center CANVAS commissioned for the contest. Frankie named the painting’s main subject Nadia, a young girl who tends to a garden of flowers that remind village folk of hope in a time of war.

Putting away childish things

What attracted Frankie to join was CANVAS’ reputation for creating free, downloadable children’s stories that don’t begin with “once upon a time,” and depart from the typical childhood themes found in similar books.

“You don’t just write a kid’s story for kids,” she said, while expressing contempt for the young adult section in bookstores where “every other book is about vampires” in the tradition of the popular Twilight series.

Frankie believes that literature for young people should “grow” with the reader so that it can still capture the imagination and intellect of even more advanced readers.

“Children’s books are some of the most mature things I’ve ever read in my life. When you’re an adult, you want to revisit the story of your childhood and (see) if it still means something to you,” Frankie said.

The writer’s inherent thoughtfulness for the reader is probably what made “Blue Stars” successful as a written piece. It’s clear that Frankie does not succumb to the tendency of many young writers to compose for themselves, often to the point of obscurity.

Big things in small

“I wrote it by thinking of the person I’m writing for, which is my (future) daughter or son,” the first-time interviewee said. Before the start of the interview, Frankie’s “purity ring” flew across the ACB lobby. After picking it up, she gushed and confessed it was inspired by a True Love Waits seminar back in high school.

Faintly inscribed on the ring are the words “faith, hope, and love.” But since she’s not the type to write about an “obvious” literary topic as love, she chose hope as her story’s main message. Somehow though, Frankie also managed to lay the abstract themes of faith and love in the simple story.

“It is a story about one of the most powerful things on earth,” the second line of her story goes. The power of hope, however, shines through the loving, unspectacular acts of little Nadia, whose day-to-day faithfulness in reviving the flower garden makes her a true hero.

While heroism through simple actions does sound like yet another contrast, Frankie’s winning story reveals how any man—not just the author or the main character—can play the part in Whitman’s poem. As long as one tries to reconcile apparent contradictions with a magnanimous spirit, he can continue the verse in first person: “I am large, I contain multitudes.”#

Banner photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.