Hero’s Origin: Why I Started Writing and the Power of Cartoons

How old were you when you wrote your first story? Why did you want or need to write it? I share my own origins to reclaim the limitless magic from childhood.

Like most kids, I grew up on cartoons. But unlike most of my classmates, I didn’t transition to Disney or Nickelodeon sitcoms when I hit my preteens. For one, my siblings and I weren’t allowed because my mom didn’t want us watching white kids call their parents by their first names, and for two, I loved cartoons too much to care. In fact, my love of cartoons led to the very first story I ever wrote.

For the first seven years of my life, my younger brother and I were homeschooled. This was not in any official capacity with a formal curriculum but more so my mom making sure we could read and write. After we moved out of my grandparents’ house, we were enrolled into a K-12 private Christian academy. Of course, at the age of seven, I didn’t know what any of those words meant. What I did know was I was going to be around kids my age for the first time and learning all day. I was stoked, but also unaware that by second grade, liking school was already lame.

My brother and I on our first day of school (2005)

I quickly discovered this excitement was not shared by my peers, and that it only drew their annoyed attention. Still, I was determined to make friends. So, I wrote (and illustrated, because I loved to draw) a story.

The story was titled The Four Brave Heroes, and it starred myself and three other girls I wanted to be friends with. The premise was uncomplicated: we each had different abilities and came together through the power of friendship to fight evil. I had the power of water, another had the power to control nature, the third had the power to control the weather, and the last had the power of speed. By some great miracle, the girls didn’t think I was a major weirdo as much anymore. They loved the story, and we’d reenact scenes during recess.

In third grade, I upgraded to original plays and roped in a couple other girls I wanted to be friends with. I was fortunate to have a supportive teacher who let us practice in her classroom during recess and even perform for the entire class when we had free time.

It’s quite a convoluted strategy to make friends, I know, but let’s call it manifestation through the written word. And I’m still best friends with most of these girls today so my plan ultimately succeeded.

High school graduation (2017) and our first wedding (2023)

These stories were heavily influenced by my love of cartoons, whose themes usually centered around a group of kids with powers working together to save the world. I grew up during a pretty peak period in animation with shows such as Avatar: The Last Airbender, American Dragon: Jake Long, Totally Spies, Adventure Time, and Winx Club (which I snuck to watch because witchcraft was outlawed in my house). My brother and I even enjoyed lesser known shows such as Xiaolin Showdown, Code Lyoko, and W.I.T.C.H. This fervid love extended to anime with foundational shows such as Dragon Ball, Pokemon, Sailor Moon, and of course, Naruto.

Looking at all these series lined up like this, I understand why the stories I write feature large casts and, more often than not, something magical, supernatural, or slightly strange. Sometimes, I get caught up in the logistics of the story, the cogs of the flying machine. This is especially true the more I learn about writing and the more I read with the intent to reverse engineer a writer’s technique. But just because I know how the magic trick is done doesn’t mean I have to lose that childish fascination and wonder.

And, in a way, I still write to connect with others, even if it’s not as obvious anymore as directly inserting my friends with their full government names into my stories. Now, they and the cartoon characters I grew up with are baked into my characters as loosely inspired thumbnail sketches. I want the characters I write to come alive and jump from the page, much like the protagonists I loved jumped from the screen and remain vividly memorable, even after all these years.

To do this, I flip my incessant need to know why to the childish freedom of why not? When I’m tangled in the mechanics and the fixing of the thing, I remind myself this is all play in the end. Play prioritizes fun and joy and hope. Cartoons prioritize friends, the power and determination within oneself, suspending your disbelief from the stars, defeating even the greatest evil and looking cool as hell while doing it. Every writing rule is conditional and debatable, but these are my personal rules, my guiding principles. I had to return to the beginning, to my origin story to remember this.

P.S. This was inspired by a short video essay by Nathan Zed that made me cry this week. Check it out!