blog post number four

For my good writing example I chose my character writing. In the story the main character Jessica is going to her boyfriends house to  meet his mom for the first time. But his mom is really strict, so if she doesn't like Jessica then Jessica cant go to prom with her boyfriend, Jack.

The Fight for Prom

I shuffled through my lip gloss drawer and found the perfect one. I swiped the wand across my lips and took one last look at myself in the mirror. My black skirt was almost to mid- thigh, and I was wearing my favorite pink top. I really hoped Jack’s mom likes me, if she doesn’t like me I wouldn’t have a date to prom. When my Jack asked me to prom I thought that was the end of it and we were going together- but I guess not. Now his mom has to agree to let him take me to. So I have to impress her. But I’m not nervous how she could not like me? I grabbed my keys and walked down stairs to my Mercedes Benz waiting in the garage. I hopped into the driver’s seat, opened the garage door, and pulled out into the road.

I knew exactly where to go, I have been in his house plenty of times, she just never knew about it. When I pulled into their driveway I saw Jack’s Jeep sitting in the driveway and parked next to it. I stepped out of my car and walked up to the front door. The house was nowhere near the size of mine, but it was a cute brick house. I knocked on the door and waited. A short time later an older women opened the door I introduced myself with a warm smile.

“Hi I’m Jessica!” I said and waited for her response.

“I’m Shelby, Jack’s mother. But you can call me, Ms. Smith.” She gave me a look of pure hatred, I don’t know what I did already to make her hate me, but I started to get slightly nervous. “Please come in.” I followed her past the door and looked around the familiar room. “The dining room is this way.”

“I know,” I blurted out before I could even think twice about what I had just said. She shot me a questioning look. That’s it I ruined it. I don’t know what to do. I’ll just keep trying to get her to like me and hope for the best.

…..

“Well this this is nice, the two girls in my life… just, uh, hanging out,” Jack looks awkwardly between the two of us. He is so adorable, and he’s the nicest guy I have ever dated. Not to mention this is the most serious relationship I have ever had. Now his evil witch of a mom is trying to ruin it. By the way he looks at us I can tell he can already knows that we don’t like each other.

“The food... tastes great,” I lied. The chicken is dry, the mashed potatoes to buttery, and I think these croissant rolls came out of the can! I cannot stand this woman already, and I have known her less than an hour! She tends to ignore things I say, and she won’t even look at me most the time.

“Thank you,” she replied without looking up from her plate. I stared down at my food; I don’t know what else to say, so I just won’t say anything. I ate slowly but mostly just pushed the rest of my food around on the plate.

Shelby and Jack carried on conversation as if I wasn’t there. Eventually she got up and started gathering dished and brought them into the kitchen, when she left the room Jack leaned over to me.

“I am so sorry about my mom! I don’t know why she is being so rude, I’m going to talk to her after you leave and see why she’s acting like this. But until then can you just try to be nice, and ignore anything mean she says.” He looked at me as he reached over and grabbed my hand. “Please she still might let me take you to prom.”

“I’ll try and not say anything,” He smiled at me just as Shelby walked back in. He quickly pulled his hand away and sat up straight again.

“Are you done?” She pointed at Jack’s empty plate. He nodded and handed it to her. She grabbed everything else off of the table except my dishes, and went back into the kitchen.

“Is she not going to take my dishes?” I asked.

“I don’t know, if not just don’t say anything and I’ll take care of them.” He smiled, clearly trying to comfort me.

Shelby walked back in, took one look at the mostly empty table and walked back out of the room, not too much later I heard the TV in the other room turn on and Jack looked back at me. He stood up and grabbed my plate and utensils off of the table. As he started to walk out of the room, I stood up and followed him. I watched as he cleaned off my dishes, and put them in the dish washer. When he was finished he turned and looked at me.

“We need to go talk to her- together,” I groaned internally. I don’t want to see her ever again- let alone talk to her.

“Do we have to?” I whined. 

“Yes, if we both go in there and talk to her we might be able to convince her to let me take you.”

“Come on; let’s just get this over with.”

As we walked into the living room his mom turned her head quickly to look at us then went back to watching the news. Jack cleared his throat and was about to speak when Shelby finally said something.

“Look I know why you came in here Jack, but my mind is made up about that girl and you are not to see her anymore.” She stared at Jack with such a mean expression any normal person would have backed down. But I could see the dedication on his face and I knew he wasn’t giving up that easily.

“No mom you don’t even know her, you have no right to tell me that I can’t see her anymore. I’m eighteen now and I can make my own decisions.” He stared back at her with a similar look she gave to him. I’m starting to think this isn’t even about him taking me to prom anymore, I think he is trying to prove a point to his mom.

“Jack, I am not trying to control you. I’m trying to help you avoid making the mistake of taking a piece of trash girl to prom.” Just then she turned her head at me and gave me a nasty look. Before Jack could even say anything I had to defend myself.

“You have no right to say that! You don’t even know me! You need to see that me and your

son really like each other, and were not doing this in spite of you.” I stared at her as she stood and started walking towards me.

“You better watch your mouth, Jack I still living under my roof so I still can tell him what he can and cannot do, and as of right now you are on the cannot list.” She point at me for emphasis then turned to Jack, “Jack, honey I’m looking out for you. I’m trying to do what is best. You need a better girl for Prom and we can wait until you find the right one.” 

“No, Mom you did this junior year to. You forced me to go to prom alone because you didn’t approve of the girl I wanted to take. But now I realize that, to you, no girl will ever be good enough. You need to understand that I’m growing up, and part of that is me dating. I’m taking Jessica to prom and that is final.” Jack put his arm around me. His mom started to cry and walked out of the room.

“Jack I am so disappointed in you.” she said just before exiting.

“Jessica, I am so sorry you had to deal with this,” Jack looked into my eyes, and it almost looked like he was about to cry.

“No I definitely still want to go to prom with you. I want to go even more now because of the way you stood up to your mom.” I smiled up at him waiting for what he was going to say next.

“It was worth it,” I smiled and he leaned down to kissed me.

…

Four weeks later Jack and I went to prom together. We took the pictures at my house, and they turned out beautiful. We had an amazing time and his mom did eventually find us after prom and said we looked nice. But sadly things didn’t work out between me and Jack and about a month after prom we broke up. I’m still a little sad about the break up, but I am thankful that his crazy mother is out of my life.

......

Explanation:

I originally wrote this story for the character writing, but then revised it for the plot story writing. So i think the main character Jessica is well developed, but the other two characters aren't really, but that is mostly due to it being from Jessica's point of view. Also I think the intro is good because it helps develop the main character.  The climax is good because it is all dialogue and it helps the reader understand what all of the characters are thinking. Lastly, I think my conclusion is good because it isn't the expected happy ending, and it ties up all of the loose ends of the story.

Character

 

I think a really good scene showing character and conflict is in the Hunger Games when Rue dies and Katniss puts flowers around her. Before this scene Rue and Katniss are working together and trying to blow up the resources of their top enemy, the career tributes. In the midst of setting fires to distract the other tributes, rue gets caught by one of the Careers and they kill her. When Katniss sees this she kills the person that killed Rue and once he is dead that is when my scene starts.

I think this scene really shows Katniss's character in the story because of how she takes care of Rue's body after she dies. This shows that Katniss is a caring person and really wanted to help Rue. You can see this through her actions when she puts flowers around Rue's body that she was being sentamental and trying to make up for Rue dying. Before this scene in the movie you knew Katniss was caring because she volenteered for her sister, but this scene shows that even in terrible situations she could still be caring for someone who she barely knows.

Specificity
My favorite scene was from the book Divergent by Veronica Ross. I liked the part where Tobias is throwing knives at Tris. He did this because Tris stood up for her friend. I really liked this specific scene because it shows how brave Tris is, and it is described really well. In the book Tobias was my favorite character so I really like this scene because it involved him.

Bad Influence

Kindall Quackenbush

Ms. Bruewer

Creative writing

19 March 2014

Bad Influence

    When I was younger probably around 5 at the time, both of my parents worked so during the day they left me and my two brothers Mason, and Dalton with my Aunt Dorris and my Cousin Chloe. My family wasn’t the best influence on me and my brothers. Both my aunt and my cousin cussed and my aunt smoked. Their house smelled like smoke and wet dog. All of their furniture was worn down and completely mismatched. Passing the threshold into their house, their four dogs would jump on me and push me down.

There was a lot to do at my Aunt’s house but we always decided to watch the one tiny TV nestled against the wall in the kitchen. Although me and my brothers could all decide to watch TV, we couldn’t ever agree on what to watch. Dalton wanted to watch Pokémon, Mason’s vote was for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But I never really cared what we watched so I was always the deal breaker, and if I chose wrong, that could possibly make one of my brothers hate me for the rest of the day.  One day my aunt went to the store and we were left with just my cousin watching us. We fought over what to watch just like every other day but this time my cousin turned the TV off and just stared at us.  

“Look you guys do this every day, and I’m sick of it, go into the living room.” My cousin looked at us and waited for us to get up and make our way into the living room.

“Okay Mason, go to that corner, Dalton that one, and Kindall go over there.” I was assigned the dusty corner in the back of the room next to the couch, Mason had a chair in his corner, and Dalton’s corner was closest to Chloe. We each moved to where we were told and sat down. The room was extremely quiet and we could hear one of the dogs breathing in the other room. My cousin looked at us for a while then finally said something. “Okay sit down, we’re going to settle this fighting once and for all” I looked at her like she was crazy, was she going to make us fight each other? I am at least half the size of my brother this isn’t fair! “You guys are going to argue with each other, and you can cuss, I won’t tell your mom I promise.” That’s it, she has lost her mind. I have never cussed before, I know what the cuss words are, but I’ve never said them. Dalton cussed once in the grocery store, and he was grounded for two weeks. I definitely don’t want that to be me next time.

“No I don’t want to we’re get in trouble.” Everyone just looked at me for while, what I can’t be the only one thinking that! 

“You won’t, no one will tell your mom, now just do it.” My cousin ordered us and my brothers listened obediently.

They both began to insult each other and curse at each other. I couldn’t handle it, I was so confused as to why they would listen to her, this was a terrible idea. I was frozen I didn’t move or say anything. My brothers didn’t just insult each other, they insulted and cursed at me to, but I was still too dumfounded to move, let alone say anything back to them.

Finally I had dealt with enough and I snapped. I don’t remember what I said, or if it was even bad. Maybe just that I said anything at all shocked everyone. But I just remember everyone stopping and looking at me. It was only for a second though then my brothers went back at it. I didn’t say anything the rest of the time. Just sat and listened, I didn’t have anything to say. After awhile my cousin decided she had enjoyed the situation enough and told Mason and Dalton to stop. 

Right when she told them to stop I looked up at her. She was holding her old video camera. We shouldn’t have trusted her I knew it was a bad idea. My face turned red with either anger or embarrassment, I couldn’t tell which. She noticed me staring and my brothers started to notice the camera to.

“Look, I told you I wouldn’t say anything to your mom, so I won’t. This is just for me so I can laugh about this later!” Chloe barely managed that sentence before laughing again. I looked over to where Dalton was supposed to be and he wasn’t there. Just then I heard the theme song from Pokémon. Well, that entire argument clearly wasn’t productive. I just really hoped Chloe never told my mom.

My mom didn’t say anything to me about the video, until a year ago, almost ten years after it originally happened. Of course I found it funny now, and my mom still does to. She never even got mad and that surprised me. Mostly she just thought it was hilarious. I think this story is a prime example of just how weird my family is, and why I shouldn’t trust my cousin anymore. 

In this writing I think that my description is good. During most of the story I provide good description for the different places, and things going on inside of my Aunts house.