Christopher Burning
English 101-5:30
Dr. Sonia Begert
10/15/15
The Discovery of Roderick
The year? 2014. The place? North Kitsap High School. The subject? My future. We all have a point in our lives in which we discover that we either like, or dislike something. Whether that be a fruit, activity, TV show, types of books or anything really, we’ve all been there. I was at a tipping point in my life which would decide whether I would, or wouldn't continue to enjoy writing, or English classes as it were, at all anymore.
To this point in my life writing and English in general didn’t catch my interest too much. It has always been about writing literary essays and analyses which was the same thing time and time again. I found it a bore, having to sit there and read the text again and again until your eyes strained to even focus on the words. It was the only thing that I could remember doing in my English classes all of high school and middle school. However this day was different, today was the day I discovered the type of writing that kept my interest in English.
The class received a new writing assignment. You could hear the shuffling of the stack of papers being moved around the room and the students shifting in their seats anxiously waiting to see what they has to do next. Sighs could be heard circling the room as each student got the assignment and read it. Admittedly, I was one of them. As soon I heard the other students sighing I did too. However halfway through my sigh I actually finished reading the assignment and realized, I was excited about it.
The topic was to write a story of a character who is taken from the 1980’s and transported into our current day and age. How one got this character to the future was up to the students. I didn’t want to use the overworked stories of aliens and teleportation machines. Let’s face it, there’s enough of those out there. I wanted mine to be different, something new, something that would make you want to read it because it made you wonder how.
As the teacher explained to the class what was expected my mind was off brainstorming my new story that the teacher would hopefully thoroughly enjoyed. Once the teacher told us to get to work I immediately began to scramble to write down all my thoughts, almost faster than I knew I could write. My mind raced with potential and excitement. I had a spider web of ideas by the time the bell rang, ranging from possible character names to potentially half of the plot. Thankfully I was able to get away from the girl who had an overwhelming amount of perfume on next to me, which at times made me lose concentration. I gleefully went about the rest of my day excited for what my imagination had in store for me later on that night.
Once I finished all my other homework I began what I really wanted to do. I poured myself a nice cold glass of root beer, which was oh so delectable, grabbed my sheet of ideas and finally began the one writing assignment that had caught my attention in many years. I began typing down the main character. His name was Roderick Ledford. A respectable man, in his 30’s, cleanly shaven, well dressed, mannered, except when angered, who was dedicated to his job as a photographer for a magazine company. I then began to ponder where Roderick lived and worked. I initially figured I would end up using some small city but in the end he worked and lived in New York City. I kept writing and writing and by the end of the day I had a good block of text that included a majority of my thoughts and so I decided to call it a night. I ate my dinner of pork chops and mashed potatoes, watched two episodes of House M.D. and went to bed.
The next school day came and I went about it as usual. For a majority of the day I wasn’t bothered by the thought of my story too much since I had down what I wanted for the most part. However there was one thing I needed to figure out about my story which is a crucial piece. I needed to figure out how Roderick was to get from the past to the current day. All of the day and night before and even into the current day I wasn’t able to figure out a feasible way to have him transported besides the exhausted ways aforementioned.
Then it hit me. It hit me like a truck, funnily enough that’s how he was to be transported from the past to the present. He was to be sent on a job to get pictures for a new magazine edition and had to travel cross country. On his journey he had to refill for gas and he goes into the gas station to pay for his gas but the power goes out, the doors lock and he passes out only to wake years later with his truck all rusted and decrepit. I went home and quickly added it to the story and it began to really blossom from there.
Over the next week I constantly developed, revised and added to my story. In total the creative story ended up being over five thousand words in length and had an interesting plot. I knew this because I had many people read it for me a give me feedback and it was all positive.
This narrative doesn’t end here though. The next week I printed out two copies of my paper and walked to class with a skip in my step and excitement in my heart. In my hands I had the one piece of writing that I couldn’t stop thinking about and constantly improving over the last week. It was the first piece of writing I was very proud of in my entire middle school and high school career. I walked into class, placed my masterpiece down on top of the others and then sat.
Later in the class my English teacher called me to her desk.
“Chris…this story was supposed to be around five hundred words” she said.
“Yes, I know, but this was the first piece of writing that spoke to me and I didn’t want to stop writing” I replied with a grin on my face.
“Okay, well… can you make me a shorter edition so I can still grade it? If I find it interesting enough I’ll read the full version and if I deem it worthy I might add some extra credit to it.”
“Yes I can do that.”
“You’re one of my star students and you’ve improved leaps and bounds since the start of the year and if anything you deserve it.”
“Thank you very much, I appreciate that.”
I went home and created a shorter version but tried to not sacrifice any plot development or detail. I brought it in the next day happy with what I had managed in 500 words, presented it and received a perfect score and later extra credit for my good work. You should find what you enjoy, find what keeps you sane and what you have fun with. This assignment gave me hope for the rest of my high school English classes. I had finally managed to find the type of writing that was interesting to me and in which, I enjoyed it. I now knew that I could have fun with writing and that it all wasn’t a bore after all.
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