An Attempt at Fan Fiction

Seeing that we will be looking at online writing in this upcoming week, including Fan Fiction, I thought I'd try my hand at it. A lot of students in my grade nine classes love fanfiction.net, and this is a genre that I've never really explored.

I decided to experiment with writing a fan fiction piece inspired by the book The Fault in Our Stars that my grade ten students are studying right now:

Image Courtesy: http://www.stmichaelandallangels.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/fault-in-our-stars.jpg

A quick summary of the plot can be found at:

 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11870085-the-fault-in-our-stars

The following is my fan fiction attempt, inspired by the minor character of Kaitlyn:

Kaitlyn positioned her fist into front of Hazel’s door, ready to knock a bit harder the second time. She glanced back at Mrs. Lancaster who was nodding encouragingly. Kaitlyn was rarely ever in this position; she was not what you would call a hesitant person. She knew that Hazel was behind her bedroom door, likely sitting in her closet as she had done when she was upset as a kid, falling apart. It had been nine days since Augustus’s funeral.

Kaitlyn focused her gaze downwards on her Mary Janes, knocked again, and took a sharp intake of breath; something she knew Hazel couldn’t do. Mrs. Lancaster had whispered urgently in the kitchen moments earlier about how worried she was about Hazel’s health, how she hadn’t been able to check on her with any regularity since locking herself in her room. Girls with cancer shouldn’t lock themselves in their rooms. She’d only been allowed to check her oxygen and help her with her medication sporadically, and she seemed to think that Kaitlyn, Hazel’s spirited childhood friend, was her last resort to help and pull her daughter out of her crippling grief.

“Open up, darling; it’s Kaitlyn,” she tried. No response, no sound of life at all. “Let me in to Hazelverse. I’m worried about you, sweetie.”

Mrs. Lancaster seemed to be hiding down the hall, cowering near the corner to the stairs, ready to disappear if the door cracked open. After what felt like five years, it did.

Kaitlyn took a tentative step inside, peering around the door to survey her bedroom.

“Down here, Kait,” Hazel murmured from her seated position on the ground by the door. As she looked up, Kaitlyn could see that her usually gaunt face was uncharacteristically puffy from crying. The tip of her nose and her eyes were all red.

“Distract me, won’t you?” she rasped, her breath short, oxygen tank nowhere in sight. “Tell me about all the edible young bachelors at school that you’ve been feasting your eyes on.”

Kaitlyn blinked back stinging tears and slid down the doorframe to join her on the pink carpet.

An Exercise in Dialogue

The inspiration for this post came from this photograph: 

Source: http://d1r5i20o8cadcu.cloudfront.net/designs/images/94732/original/diner.jpg

She let out a laugh at what I assume was my confused expression.  “We just got off the night shift at Wal-Mart, stocking shelves. We need dinner, not breakfast. Is that a problem?”

The other woman, looking about as tired as I felt with disheveled long, stringy- black hair and puffy bags under her eyes added, “If not, we’ll be happy with coffee and some toast. You do toast, right?”

“Of course!” I assured her, definitely too loudly.

“Well Doris, I don’t know about you, but I’m jonesing for a burger. A bacon burger. With cheese and fried onions. Can you do that?” she asked me as she shut her eyes and stretched her arms above her, as if she were just sitting up in bed.

“Yes, of course, no problem” I replied. “Do you want the fries or something?”

“No. No fries. Too many calories. I’m being bad enough as it is. Doris, what do you feel like?”

“Toast. Brown toast. No butter,” Doris requested, leaning her head against the back of the booth and sticking her chin out at me.

“Toast?” the other woman exclaimed. “Don’t make me feel guilty! Surely you’ve got to be hungrier than that after that Campbell’s soup shipment we just stocked! Jesus Christ, eat something substantial. Aren’t I right?” She asked, looking at me.

“I’d be happy to prepare anything that’s on the menu for you” I offered weakly. 

Doris closed her eyes. “I’ll have a burger too. The same way Vera’s having it.”

“Thattta girl” Vera rasped, her voice sounding much like Kathleen Turner’s in her later years.

“Ok” I said as I pulled out my order pad and pen. “Do you both want all the other toppings on the burgers? Ketchup, mustard, all those?”

“Everything.”

“Everything.”

“Alright, coming right up,” I say, scribbling down the order in short form. “And do you want any drinks with that?”

“Cokes.” They said in unison, their heads now resting against the backs of their booths, eyes closed.

Haikubes

This past weekend, I went to Seattle for a mini vacation and found this gem on Capitol Hill:

I had to buy them for my classroom. Last night I decided to play with them before I bring them out for my students to experiment with. I spread them out on my coffee table:

I read the instructions: 

I rolled the dice:

I decided I didn't want to write about either of those topics and started playing around:

I decided I didn't like this poem so I brought the box with me to work today and tried to write another poem over lunch: 

I decided this was worse, especially because Mike said that he 'didn't get it.' I thought about just nixing the entire blog entry, but then I decided to just post it and be a bit vulnerable! It's what I ask of my students everyday. 

Commenting Online

Although there have been a few moments in my life when I've wanted to leave a comment on an online forum, I've never had the courage to do so. However, this week there has been a lot of discussion about the movement to change our national anthem so that it is gender-neutral. Many Canadian women including Margaret Atwood and Kim Campbell support this cause and if anyone is interested in learning more, here is the website:

http://www.restoreouranthem.ca

I decided to leave my two cents on the issue on the Global Calgary 'polldaddy' website:

If anyone else wants to join the conversation, here's the link:

http://polldaddy.com/poll/7441009/?msg=commentAdd#comment1747003