Writing Sample

    The story that I wrote that I thought was my work was my plot and character paper. This is actually the most recent one that we have completed, and mine is about a spoiled, popular girl named Haylee that got in trouble at school and was forced to go to a long weekend at a cabin with her sworn enemy, Jake. During this trip, they discover some of the more important things in life and actually start to not hate each other as much. The two enemies start to bond over the trip even after going through some tough obstacles.

The Fog Covered Cabin

            I stared out the fogged window as the row of colored houses got smaller and smaller. I was trying to prepare myself for the worst possible weekend ever. I still couldn’t believe that the counselor was going to make us spend an entire weekend together in some remote cabin just because we got in a tiny little argument at school. This cabin better be nice, was all I thought as I listened to weird, nerdy, Jake, my sworn enemy since the fifth grade,  hum the words to some country song. The chorus to the banjo-dominated song came on, and Jake’s hums became loud, pitchy words. When I just couldn’t handle it anymore, I shouted, “Can you shut up? God, its bad enough that I have to spend a weekend with you, don’t make it worse by being annoying!”

            He silenced his singing after that and looked back at the directions to our house. Everything within view was rustic and old. The house directly where the road turned into two different directions was disgusting. It was covered in fog, but you could tell that it was built of strong sturdy wood once, but after a good seventy years, the wood was in dangerous condition and could probably break at any second. As we drove closer and closer, and the fog grew thicker and thicker, and it began to seem as if we were entering the beginning scene of a horror movie. Good thing we would be turning away from it soon, I thought to myself. But Jake never turned the blinker on to make a turn away from this awful house. We couldn’t stay there. I won’t do it. I bet it’s infested with spiders and crawling with other insects. All of these thoughts rushed into my head as our car bumped into the driveway.

            Jake parked the car, grabbed his black duffle, and looked at me expectantly. “Well?” he said. “Are you gonna come inside? Or is it too scary for you?”

            “There is no way, I will be sleeping in that repulsive thing you call a house,” I said sassily as I scrunched my nose in disgust.

            “But it’s almost dark! Where are you planning on sleeping, the car?” Jake laughed as if that was a joke, but stopped when he understood that was my plan.

            Jake looked at me as if I was a stubborn puppy that couldn’t decide whether he wanted to play inside or out. I guess he just couldn’t understand that I wasn’t about to sleep with a ghost, or in the same house as him. I grabbed the fuzzy, zebra print blanket out of my hot pink suitcase and laid down against the cool, back seat, to try and get some rest.

            BANG BANG BANG!!! I screamed bloody murder as I woke with a start to the banging on the window. I looked outside and what I saw made me at least eight times as mad as I already was. Standing in the dewy morning grass was a tall, skinny, brown haired, green eyed, boy was buckled over laughing in blue Hawaiian-print swim trunks and a grey top. The boy was Jake. “I thought I ought to give you a taste of what you missed out last night,” Jake said with a smirk glued to his face.

            I ran my hand through my long, messy, blonde hair, and let out an uncomfortable half-laugh, half-sigh, as he ran away from the car, shouting something about checking out the dock and lake. I reached for my phone, but then decided that maybe I should put my swim suit on and at least try to have a little fun. After all, the weather looked gorgeous and we were at a lake!

            As I ran towards the water in my new Pink bathing suit, Jake stared at me in exaggerated shock. I sprinted past him, onto the dock, and jumped right into the blue-green water. The cool rush that the water gave off felt amazing. I smiled bigger than I have in a very long time while I swam away from the dock so Jake could jump in and enjoy this slice of heaven too. I laughed while I was splashed with water as the boy that made me so furious this morning cannon balled near me. For the first time ever, Jake and I had no reason to yell at each other or hate each other. We were both perfectly content and were actually beginning to connect. Maybe the dumb counselor that made us come here actually had a good reason behind his punishment.

            We swam around the lake for a while, and after we both had exhausted legs from treading water, we grabbed towels and headed to the car to find a restaurant for some lunch. The shorter time in the car wasn’t the only thing that was different during this ride. The atmosphere felt altered, like something more personal than the distance to our destination changed. We kept a conversation the entire half hour it took to get to a McDonalds. Even once we got there we kept talking! Not necessarily about anything in particular, it was just goofy, random words to fill the silence that was usually filled with hatred. This little thing was all ruined though, when I noticed the “FREE WIFI” sign and immediately whipped out my phone.

            “Um, what are you doing?” Jake asked me as if he was surprised.

            “Checking Twitter to see how fun the party that I had to miss out on was,” I snapped back at him without even looking up.

            “Can I see that for a minute?”

            “Yeah sure,” I said without hesitating, as I handed him my phone.

            I watched him carefully as he removed the lid to his Diet Coke. He placed the lid on the table and casually drowned my iPhone in the fizzy drink. Even though my phone was already cracked beyond repair, the fact that it couldn’t even turn on now was enough to send me over the edge. I dramatically gasped and reached for his cup. Jake shooed my hand away, stood up, and carried the drink and ruined phone into the men’s restroom. I sat outside the door, both tears and anger bubbling up inside of me. Jake came out a few seconds later, with my destroyed phone in his hand. He handed it to me and walked outside and got in the car like nothing had happened. I slowly got up and stomped my way to the car, taking my time to perfect my scowl, just so he knew how angry I was.

            The entire car ride home was so silent, it was almost painful. I was trying to give him the silent treatment, but I guess it wasn’t working out since he wasn’t event trying to make conversation. At least the silence gave me a lot of time to think about all sorts of mean things that I could say either to him or about him. By the time we pulled into the driveway around 4ish, I had thought of at least thirty seven different scenarios in which I would have an amazing comeback for whatever he said.

            Jake parked our car into the cracked driveway, and turned the ignition off without glancing at me, or my phone. He got out and walked directly to the front door and strutted inside without any hesitation. I sat in the old, worn down car for a little longer and thought. I thought about how although the house was completely and utterly distasteful, the lake was gorgeous, and I really shouldn’t be complaining. Maybe Jake actually had a purpose behind practically destroying my entire life, or in other words, my iPhone. Maybe he was trying to tell me something that I wouldn’t have heard otherwise. I eventually realized that it was probably something like live the life that’s surrounding you and don’t regret the things that you missed out on. I decided that this was a good enough reason to put my phone through its final misery, and hopped out of the car to look for Jake. Maybe, just maybe, the counselor was right for once.

    As I said before, this was my plot and character writing. I feel that throughout this story, the two characters, Jake and Haylee, both bonded and really began to connect while going through the many issues that the plot created. The plot structure that I used was the "W" plot. I believe that this was the right structure to use because it shows how two enemies went through some ups and downs, but were still able to make it through the story okay. I think that I really connected the characters to the plot that I used and was able to successfully create an interesting story with very clear characters.

Character

Many of us have seen, or at least heard of the movie, Finding Nemo. The character Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, is one of the main fish in this story. Dory is a hyperactive blue and yellow fish that is extremely forgetful. She loves to be a part of everything, but she always forgets what she is doing when she gets to become part of it. An example in the movie Finding Nemo, where you can really see Dory's true personality, is when she first meets Marlin and is trying to help direct him to which way the boat had gone, but she keeps forgetting what she was supposed to be doing while she was doing it.

 



I believe that this scene is a good representation of character because it really shows some important aspects of the character Dory's personality. One of the most important parts was when she told Marlin that she suffers from short term memory loss, because her short term memory plays a key part throughout the rest of the movie. I believe that Dory is very funny in this movie since she is always so enthusiastic about everything, but then she just forgets entirely and when she is reminded of what she was doing again, she is just as enthusiastic about it as she was the first time she began to do it. I think that whoever wrote this scene of the movie had given us viewers a very clear vision of what Dory was going to be like for the duration of the movie. He showed us her appearance and personality vividly and left us with a lasting impression of Dory the fish.

Specificity

    The scene that I chose to use for this blog is one from the movie Endless Love. In this scene, the main male character, David, goes into a house fire to save his true love's father. This scene took place near the ending of the movie, and from the very beginning, Jade's dad has never had much sympathy for David, and didn't really like him at all. The house fire was started by a knocked over candle in Jade's dead brother's room, and the dad was trying to save some of his lost sons things from being burnt to ashes, when he seemed to get trapped within the flames. Right when David arrived at the scene, he immediately sprinted inside of the house to try and save Jade's dad. After a ton of flame dodging, both of them managed to get out of the fire almost unharmed, excluding a few minor burns.

    I really enjoyed this scene because it made you feel a ton of emotions and was extremely suspenseful. It gave you a jolt of shock and surprise as you watched David go inside the burning house to save his true love's dad, that he had never really liked in the first place. This scene also made you kind of sad because every 30 seconds or so of watching David and the dad trying to escape the house, you would see Jade standing in the front yard screaming and crying hysterically. From the way Jade was acting in this scene, it almost made you think that David was not going to survive or be able to get out without getting seriously injured fatally. I really like it when specific scenes have a lot of suspense, such as this one did, since it makes you want to find out what happens and you can not stop watching or reading it.

The Walk

 “I think they’re thirsty,” called my best friend from behind.

It was a burning hot day in Mason and the sun was searing down on us as we walked my two dogs, Max and Morgan. Both of their tongues were hanging out and dripping with slobber. “We should go and get them water.”

            “Okay! Do you want to go to your house or mine?” I replied.

            “Well, I think we should just go to UDF. It’s closer than our houses,” Leyton suggested.

            We continued on the sidewalk, to the very front of the neighborhood. I looked out, onto the street full of loud and busy cars and thought that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t the best idea ever. But, I blew that thought away, as I got distracted by our odd little 5-year-old conversations. A large, silver minivan vroomed past us with a labradoodle’s head hanging out of the window. We were trying to figure out what it would be like to be a dog sticking their head out the window, with ears and tongues flapping in the wind.

            By the time we had gotten to UDF at the end of Mason Montgomery, our conversation had converted to whether or not they would give us free water for the dogs and ice cream for us. It may seem like something stupid to hope for, but we didn’t know better. And, we were dripping with sweat it was so hot, so they had to, right?

            Wrong. The four of us marched across the parking lot to the front doors (after looking both left and right for cars, of course). As my little fingers gripped the door handle and pulled the door open, I could feel a sweep of cool air attack us. It felt amazing. Our tiny herd strutted inside and passed by a few “awwwhh”-ing strangers up to the counter. The man that greeted us there was very tall and had a grumpy look plastered onto his face. While others had pet the dogs and called us adorable, he looked at us like we were stealing candy off of the shelves. “No dogs allowed in this store,” the scary man said with a monotone voice. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave immediately.”

            Leyton and I looked at each other with sad and defeated expressions. But then, I got the idea that she could wait outside the gas station store with the two dogs, and I would stay inside and ask for some water and ice cream. This plan, was flawless. It had to work. I handed her the leash that I had been holding and she walked outside to wait for me. The line in front of me grew shorter and shorter, and eventually, I was at the very front. I had to stand all the way up on my tippy toes to see over the counter and with my cutest and most delightful voice I could do, I said, “Hi! My friend Leyton and I were wondering if we could have some free water and ice cream for the dogs and us, please?”

            The man looked at me sternly and sighed, “I’m really sorry kid, but I am not allowed to just give you this stuff for free. Maybe next time, you should bring a parent, or at least some money to buy it.”

            I began to tread outside, to break the bad news about our failed plan to Leyton. After a few minutes of sulking on the walk down the busy road home, Leyton remembered that her mom had bought some ice cream the other day and it was in their freezer! We ran home as fast as our little legs would carry us to get a cold, delicious treat and tell her mom all about the adventure that we took Max and Morgan on. Mrs. Gina was not as happy or impressed with our trip as we were, and she lectured us on why five-year-olds should not walk to the gas station to get some free water and ice cream. The ice cream we got after was totally worth the lecture though.

         I think that in this writing, I used a lot of really good diction to describe what I was trying to say. I added detail by putting in a lot of examples of what I saw, tasted, smelt, touched, and heard that day. Most of the details that I had used in my ill-advised moment writing, were supported and further described with some of the more complex and describing words that I had used.