Dade County Student’s Creative Writing Takes Her To Beta Club Nationals

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

Ellie Burick earned sixth place at the 2024 National Beta Club Convention this June in the creative writing category. Her success helped keep Dade County High School’s Beta momentum going—last summer, a group of DCHS Betas earned ninth place for their performance of the “Sweeney Todd” opening act.

Burick, a DCHS junior, attended the state convention in Savannah, Ga. where she qualified for the June national competition. For nationals, she submitted her piece online at the end of May and was pleasantly surprised to hear from Ashley Harrison (Beta Club sponsor) later in the summer that she had earned sixth place.

Beta students competing in the creative writing category have 30 minutes to write up to a thousand words in response to a prompt. At state, the prompt asked students to write about a tradition from their community, so Burick wrote about Dade County’s 1945 Fair. She used creative writing to walk the reader through the fairgrounds, describing the people, place, and activities. She also included the history behind the fair and why it’s named after the year 1945.

For the national competition, students were prompted to write about an adventure on a hot day. Drawing from her love of fantasy and adventure stories, Burick wrote a swashbuckling tale about pirates and a kidnapped princess.

Writing from the first-person perspective of her main character, Burick crafted a tale of two girls who end up on the wrong ship—a pirate ship. The pirates think the girls are princesses, but the girls deny this. They fight their way to freedom and return home, and in the end, Burick reveals that her main character is, indeed, the princess.

She said, “I wanted adventure, and I wanted a fantasy setting, but the details and sensory elements came along as I wrote.” Helping readers feel like they’re in the story is important to Burick. She cited one of her favorite authors, Erin Morgenstern, who focuses less on plot and more about character interactions and beautiful imagery. “Her books are so atmospheric. When reading ‘The Night Circus,’ you really feel like you’re in this magical circus. I can smell the popcorn. I feel like I’m walking around and meeting these characters.”

World building and character development are Burick’s favorite parts of writing. “It’s very interesting to show how people interact with their environment. I can create somebody who is completely opposite to how I am. I can cause people to have certain emotions based on the personality traits I give them and how I make them act.”

The Beta Club competition’s word limit was a challenge for Burick. “I would make the plot twist better if I went back and revised it,” she said. “I had to wrap it up in just a few words, but I tend to be long-winded. I often hit the word limit and have to see what I can shorten.”

She enjoyed having a prompt. “It was open-ended enough that I could create my own story but not so open-ended that I had no idea what to write about.”

In addition to writing for school, Burick writes for fun when she can find the time. She’ll spend a few weeks to a few months on a piece, so the competition’s time limit was a switch from her usual process. “Normally, I like to let it sit. I’ll write something and put it away and let it sit in my head for a couple days.”

Burick believes that reading good books makes you a better writer. Long-form pieces, especially creative nonfiction and fiction, are her strengths, but she was also proud of an opinion piece from a class assignment.

She’s building a portfolio of her best work, writing pieces for scholarship applications, and she’s even submitted a nonfiction piece to a literary magazine. (Sadly, it wasn’t selected.)

As for college, Burick plans to study chemistry, earn a doctorate in chemistry, and pursue laboratory research. “Writing is more like a hobby,” she said. “I’ll keep writing because it’s fun.” She hopes to see some of her creative pieces eventually published in magazines, but she believes that writing will help her be a well-rounded scientist and creative thinker.

Through the Beta competition, Burick learned how to be concise, how to come up with ideas quickly, and the importance of being as prepared as possible. “For the 1945 Fair piece, I thought it would be fiction, but it turned into nonfiction. You have to be well-rounded before you start writing so you can think on the fly.”

Harrison said Burick is part of the Beta Club leadership team. “She’s very responsible. She always does everything to perfection. We feel blessed that she’s a Beta member.”

This October, the DCHS Beta Club added 38 new members. Harrison said, “We encourage all of our members to compete. There are multiple categories, like performing arts, visual arts, academics, engineering, robotics, speech, marketing, team building. We’ve been very successful at the state level even though we’re just this little bitty county.”

Dade Beta students will be competing across the board in academic categories as well as the performing arts, engineering, robotics, and quiz bowl. Burick has once again been selected to compete in the creative writing category. We look forward to more successes and learning experiences from Burick and the DCHS Betas.