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.