RUMFORD — A common topic of conversation during the first few weeks of school is “what did you do over the summer?” Some students travel. Other students work. Some hang out with friends. A handful created their own world.

Mountain Valley High School sophomores Alanna McGinty and Ronnie Russell and senior Travis Ford joined forces with Lea Nolette, a junior at Dirigo High School, Abigayle Johnson, a Dirigo senior, and Mariah Haggan, freshman at University of Maine at Farmington majoring in English. With directions and suggestions from English teacher Meg Doughty, the students spent a week in August creating characters and a world where those characters could interact.

Ford created “Rorthal, a broad shouldered blacksmith who served in the army during the magical crusade. He was a little too trusting and loyal but it didn’t come out to bite him too much.”

“My character was a magic caster with the ability to control people through voodoo,” explained Nolette. “She was really socially awkward, and very much in her own little world most of the time.”

Haggen added, “My character was named Phineas Sprague, an aging and graying inventor with a bit of a gambling problem. He was very socially awkward, and yet his misfortune still managed to bring him a sizable band of other skilled people to help him on his quest. Phineas remained set in his ways to the very end, never fully learning to connect with those around him. He was always very cross or very quiet.”

After the characters were created, Doughty and the students discussed how they would interact in their world. One discussion involved how and when to kill a character.

Doughty read the prologue from “Redshirts,” by John Scalzi. Star Trek fans may recall a redshirt is an expendable person who is often killed to prove how dangerous an alien planet is to life.

Noting the importance of planning during creative writing, Ford added, “It’s hard to kill off a character in our story because others have characters that are interacting with your character.”

“Sometimes you don’t have to kill off someone, doing horrible things to them can change them,” Russell observed.

Nolette said, “When the pet owl, Hedwig, dies in Harry Potter, it symbolizes the death of Harry’s childhood.”

As the week went on, the writers saw their characters evolve and learn life lessons.

Just as the characters changed and learned from their quest, the young writers also improved their understanding of creative writing.

“While watching Phineas evolve, as slowly as he did,” Haggan said. “I learned that when you have a character who is old and set in his ways, he doesn’t tend to like changing at all!”

Nolette learned “how you just need to roll with the punches, and stay true to your character.”

Ford added, “Sometimes you’re conflicted on what your character would do in situations. Your opinion on your character might be very different than other people’s opinions on your character.”

Russell summarized the entire week. “I found creative writing camp to be a great experience that furthered my insight into writing and showed me the advantages to writing for pleasure.”