Category: Handful of Course Work

Checklists · Handful of Course Work · Point of View

POV Planning + Checklist

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POV Checklist

 

The writer should be aware of the narrative distance between the telling narrator and the experiencing narrator.

 

  • The tone of voice in the narrator, the story depends on his trust and wisdom.
  • Remove filtering words, (saw, heard, felt, etc)
  • Be direct and immediate!
  • Use the tone of voice to pull readers into the plot
  • Sensory: what the character see’s, feels, hears, smells and tastes
  • Don’t name emotions, instead describe what the character feels through sensations or thoughts
  • Summarize current locations for the reader to remember what they are in the story.
  • Tell rather than show processes.

 

Process:

  • My POV story is going to be challenging for me, I always immediately write in first or second person and writing neither as well as describing the pov through a person will be hard, but I am going to try and make it work.
  • The idea I had for this story was weird, I’m going to have a bright young boy pass out during school and during his fainting spell, he is going to experience something weird. He is going to shrink down to a pea-sized version of himself and be placed in between the pages of an older mom (who never reads) book. He won’t be freed until the pages are opened.
  • I am going to have multiple POV’s through the boy and the woman and it will go back in forth between them. I plan on really focussing on describing emotions and feelings rather than strictly naming them.
Checklists · Handful of Course Work · Setting

Setting Planning + Checklist

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How To Build A Fictional World Ted Talk

  • Authors of science fiction/fantasy build their own worlds which sprout many stories, so readers can understand the worlds better, sometimes more than the real world.
  • Books make us feel emotions
  • Your imagination is all you need to write a novel
  • How does the world shape the individuals who live in it?

 

Key question:  What knowledge and skills do I have, so I think I need, to best tell a story?  Voice, literal and physical and figurative

  • Start with a basic place and time
  • What do they eat, treat things, what lives there, who lives there
  • Ask yourself about your own story first – so you can strengthen it = reader will not be confused
  • Make timeline – from character’s pov or from the beginning of that universe
  • Decide time (past, present, future) and then expand – flashback?  Time travel ….
  • Make laws, govt, formal structure of this society
  • What does society value?  The people value? (individuals)
  • Demographics – race, religion, creed
  • Inhabit your world – figuratively live in your world

SETTING

  • Genre – science fiction, fantasy
  • Figure out when (time specific, era past present future)
  • Weather
  • Who is in control – govt, society ‘s set up
  • How the world was created
  • Relationships
  • What conflicts will arise for characters in this world because of the elements of this world
  • What does this world, society value
  • What the inhabitants are doing
  • Animal mineral plant
  • Urban-rural
  • Atmosphere
  • Goes along with the plot
  • Details to show accuracy
  • Weather
  • Time
  • Date
  • 5 Senses (what can be heard, felt, or seen?)

 

Process:

For my unit 2 summative for the setting I really want to have a place that is full of surprises, details and things to describe. Sounds, Smells, Textures, etc. Because to me, the setting is all about what’s around you and how it fits into the story.

For this particular story, I want it to be a ‘cabin in the woods’ type of feel. The ones where wood lines the walls and floors..yet it is so nice and decorated with items that fit the particular character’s attributes. I am going to have a couple, going away on a retreat to get some time away from their parents during winter break whom they both still live with, as they wanted a cheaper place to stay for university.

I plan on describing so much, from how the place looks, the weather outside to the date and time. I also want this story to end with a nice, happy and joyful ending as I feel like my previous stories do not.  

 

Character · Checklists · Handful of Course Work

Character Planning + Checklist

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Name, Sex, Race, etc

Hair, Eye, Skin, colours

Tattoos? Glasses? Scars?

Family, Friends, Pets?

Personality Traits (Mean, Nice, Kind, Evil, Rude)

Quirks

Attitude

How they view themselves (self–perception)

Gestures

Actions

Clothing

Overheard conversation’s

Accents

Facial Expressions

Necessary to identify who is speaking at the time

Pay attention to the level of diction

Sentence Structure

Rhythm

Idea of place

Signature phrases

Present mood and purpose

Techniques to reveal your character to the reader:

  1. What you tell the reader directly
  2. What he tells about himself, or thinks
  3. What others in the story say about him or her
  4. What actions and reactions you supply so readers can come to there own conclusions

Process:

The setting my character is going to be living in will be a graveyard. It is where my character goes to find a peace of mind and silence, she loves hanging out there so she moved there. This graveyard is located in a town called ‘Rutherglen’, and the town is as mysterious as it sounds. The town is always dark, gloomy and every animal living there is bigger than normal aka 10x the size of humans, this had never been a problem for my character until one day in the graveyard.
My characters name is Alex Williams, she is 18 years old. She is a what you would call ‘emo’ character. She is very shy, yet evil on the inside. She loves everything gothic and to wear black, watch horror movies and try to summon demons. She has a pale complexion covered by two full sleeve length tattoos as well as a face tattoo. She also has many ear, nose, lip and eyebrow piercings. She has deep green eyes and long brown hair. She is anything but religious and she moved out at 16 years old all by herself so her family disowned her and she has no friends but her white cat, Chilly. She is a very rude person, she does things how she likes it which can be very selfish at times, she hates people and hates interaction, she has a snobby, no-it-all attitude and views herself as the smartest, best person in the world.  

Handful of Course Work

Writing Forward

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Madison’s Writing Forward

To me, writing is all about focusing on the setting and character, I really believe that those two aspects truly make up a novel or short story. Just by putting small details into the character that make the reader really get a good idea in their heads of how this person or thing looks. To me, getting ideas for setting from inspirational past stories I have read or simply by looking outside or around me seem the best. I focus my stories on fictional events and they always have endings that I could add onto in the future. I keep the tone in my stories fairly ‘quiet’ and I never will ever be seen writing a horror novel.

 

Writing is a beautiful thing, introducing raw ideas from the tip of your brain by pouring them out onto paper or typing them on a computer to eventually reach someone else’s brain or minds. Using setting, point of view and creating amazingly detailed characters to show people something new, out of the ordinary or something that we have seen before to create a story off of. Writing brings happiness to those who read it and creates new beginnings or ideas for bigger things such as movies or television. Something must be so powerful to make someone feel better by just reading letters on paper and that something is writing.

Handful of Course Work · Point of View

Point of View Summative

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“Dylan’s Imagination”

Dylan was a quiet, young boy. It was obvious he was a bit different then the other kids in school, but nobody really paid too much attention to him. Until one day, all eyes where in fact, on Dylan. He was running around the schoolyard at recess pretending to fly an imaginary paper airplane. Which was one of his favorite things to do, he loved to imagine anything he could and he had a huge imagination that is for sure. When all of a sudden a loud bomb echoed across the school yard and bounced off the concrete walls surrounding the outside of the building. Teachers on duty scrambled around to find Dylan head first into the grass, with a small patch of blood that slowly dripped down the tree merely in front of where he was laying. A teacher screamed as she ran back to get the first aid box as another quickly dialed 911. Dylan must’ve lost track of where he was running with his airplane and gone straight into the tall, very wide tree trunk.

 

Dylan felt cold, scared yet at peace. It was dark and he could not see anything for as long as he looked. It was so quiet, he didn’t know who he was or where he was anymore. He started putting his hands out around him searching for anything, he slowly stepped up to fall right down again as he felt he was being pushed by a force. He heard a faint noise in the distance, it sounded like wind whooshing along the leaves of a tree. He felt as though he was in the middle of air, flying or floating while moving, when all of a sudden it all stopped. Dylan sunk down as if he was floating and fell, but it didn’t hurt he felt as though he landed on a pile of marshmallows. Dylan continued to look around, he started to see something in the side of his path of vision, like a circle of bright light which continued to get brighter and bigger very quickly, until it was daylight.

Dylan looked around and beneath his feet, he saw words lining the floor and what looked like a giant window in front of him as well as a huge cup of tea. He looked some more to realize that the floor he is standing on is in fact a page of a book and he was inside the very words. Dylan tried to jump out but he could not, it was like he was a figure inside of a snowglobe and the glass would not let him out, but he could not see any barrier. He had a puzzled look on his face and began to sit down. He looked as though he had given up and thought he’d never get out of this strange place, tears streamed down his face and wet the pages, smearing the letters beneath.

You could not recall the last time you’d picked up a book and actually sat down to read it. So when you purchased a book from the story it was extremely rare, it was a new year and you wanted some change, from work to balancing your kids it gets very time consuming yet boring and you felt the need to spice things up. Although it is funny because you said the same thing last year, when you first bought this book off the self and never opened it. You had just boiled a pot of water and poured it onto a fresh bag of natural chamomile tea leaves and had sat it down alongside your book to steap. You stepped away for a moment to make sure your daughter, Evelyn was asleep as you returned you almost had to just giggle to yourself seeing the tea and book open on the coffee table beside the couch, you felt so old and it was just funny knowing you’d finally get some relaxation time.

As you sat on the couch and began to pick up your book you noticed something odd, two drops of water smeared a word on the book, you thought it might have been your tea as your brought it over and you ignored it and started reading.

 

A few minutes passed and you have already found yourself to be yawning and getting sleepy just by reading the book, you wanted to at least get a chapter done thought so you continue and flip a page. As you do so, you hear a tiny scream almost like a windchime in the distance. You look into the baby monitor to see your daughter fast asleep, and you do not seem to see anything around your home or outside the window. You glance down at your book again and what you see shocks you, making you believe you are hallucinating. It looked almost like a small bug, which is what you thought at first but came to quickly realize it was a very tiny almost microscopic little boy. You swore to yourself as you slammed the book close and quickly threw it into the fireplace. You run upstairs and tuck yourself into bed and under your covers, thinking to yourself why you have never read and why you will continue to never read again.

Just as Dylan could comprehend what he had just seen of the giant looking, brunette woman he felt a hard hit directly on his small, sensitive face. Time felt as though it moved in slow motion he felt strong pressure as though the book was being picked up and carried away, Dylan could barely process what has happened this entire time before he felt the strongest heat on his body he had ever felt, it almost felt like he was being crisped alive yet he did not scream nor wince. Blackness all turned into bright, amber light and Dylan felt so at peace yet deep down really scared. He heard a buzzing and he closed his eyes because it was so loud. When Dylan finally got the courage to open his eyes, the first thing he saw was his mom and a weird looking man in hospital clothing. He looked around to see the buzzed was from his vital machine and he was indeed in a hospital. Dylan looked so comfortable and pain free which surprised the surrounding nurses and doctors, they had just witnessed this young boy wake up from a year long coma. If Dylan had woken up any second later, he would’ve been pronounced brain dead and taken off his machine.   

Character · Handful of Course Work

Character Summative

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“Alex is Scared of Nothing”

It was another dark and rainy October night in the small town of Rutherglen. Rutherglen was a town of extreme mystery and horror, it was always dark and the sun would never shine again, it had once, a while ago but nobody from that time is alive to tell the tale. This explains the remains of dead trees and plants.  Nobody in the town really knew the cause of this, all they knew is if they would leave Rutherglen, they would die instantly. It was a complete mystery as to how they were still living in the darkness or how they had the access to electricity as they did. But the residents have never known what it is like to live outside of darkness, and they do not want to find out anytime soon.

 

The streets were all perfectly aligned with small, black townhouses side by side and the air shivered with a cold breeze, as always. The people who lived in the town loved it here, the quietness, the mystery, the all the time suspense of never knowing who or what can be behind you. Alex was one of those people.

 

Alex was a cocky 18-year-old, she was very tall with dark brown hair and green eyes as deep as the forest. She had an extremely pale complexion that was almost all covered up by tattoos that lined each of her arms perfectly and lacked any source of colour. Her outfit suited her tattoos, no source of colour at all. She wore a black, loose dress and dark black fishnet tights with a long locket necklace that held a photo of her precious, white cat Chilly. She was and has always been a very rude person, Alex does things the way she wants or nothing at all, she hates interaction and views herself as the smartest person on the planet.

 

Alex’s parents kicked her out of the house for this very reason, she acts like a snobby, know-it-all brat and would never follow her parent’s strict rules that most parents in Rutherglen are. Rutherglen is very dangerous so many children find themselves wanting to explore and most parents do not agree because they know what’s out there. Alex is one of the few children under 20 years old that does…

 

It was December 29, 1999, the very day Alex’s parent’s kicked her out of the house.

“You are such a selfish brat, you do nothing around here and always sneak around our rules!” Alex’s mom was screaming at the top of her lungs.

“This is why I hate you, I hate you all!” Alex screamed back.

“If you hate us so much then why don’t you get out!” Alex’s mom replied.

“Finally, I can get out of this house!” Alex said, slamming the door quickly after.

 

Alex ran as fast as she could through the dark street until she reached a forest, she almost stopped herself, but she couldn’t she just kept running, knowing that this was the most dangerously claimed forest in all of Rutherglen. The leafless trees stood as tall as mountains and you could hear a faint howling in the distance. She just kept running, until, she heard something. It was almost like loud footsteps approaching her, the loudest footsteps she’s ever heard. Alex quickly tried to run away but found herself unable to move from her current tracks. As the footsteps got louder and louder Alex saw a giant white figure approach her, slower than she expected.

“Is that a giant cat?” She thought, rubbing her eyes to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating from all the physical activity she had done more of in 5 minutes then her whole life.

It was still there. It purred, very loudly as it sat down next to her made a huge thud that the trees and ground shook beneath her. It was a beautiful white cat, with bright blue eyes and sharp teeth whom Alex decided to name Chilly since at that moment she was in fact freezing.

 

Before this moment nobody under 20 had ever seen anything like this, we have seen pictures of animals like cats and dogs online from other, ‘normal’ towns but for some reason, our town lacked them, and we always wondered why we assumed it was because of our lack of sun and oxygen. But this cat did not look like the pictures Alex had seen, it was about 10 times as big as her. Parent’s knew and that’s why they kept their children home. Alex, on the other hand, was now homeless, so she did not have that rule, and she had seen something so amazing.

 

It was now 3 years later, and Chilly was Alex’s best friend and partner in crime. Alex had built a home for herself in the old funeral home at her favourite graveyard, the place she’d always come to for a peace of mind or some quiet time away from her annoying family she hated so much. The funeral home had tall ceilings and smelt of the wood that lined the walls and baseboards, Alex laid a huge black rug in the center, where the benches used to be and put trinkets and pictures on the shelves which used to be the home for caskets. She had spread dainty lights all over and put new light bulbs in the beautiful chandelier that hung from the ceiling. The room was dark but glistened from the moonlight that shined through the stained-glass windows at the stroke of midnight. Alex collected these things she found in the streets, thrift stores and that Chilly dragged home and made a wonderful life for herself. She has not seen her family since she was kicked out and even though Alex still had her phone they never tried to contact her.

 

Every night, around the same time she found Chilly Alex wanders out into the deep woods in hopes to find a new creature. It has been three years and no such a luck, until one day Alex decides it is hopeless and not to go.

 

It was exactly midnight and Alex was just tucking herself into her bed, which by a bed, was a mattress on the floor in the corner of the funeral home, covered by an old duvet sheet she found in the dumpster. When all of a sudden Alex starts to hear the same thumping she heard when she found Chilly. Alex quickly sits up out of her laid position and looks around and out the windows. She notices Chilly clawing at the back door which leads to the forest, Alex slowly gets up out of bed and approaches the door, on her way grabbing an old broomstick that had been there when she moved in. Alex heard the footsteps getting louder and closer as seconds went on, for a second she felt her heart start to race faster than normal, but only for a second as Alex was not scared of anything. She heard the footsteps stop suddenly.

“Huh?” Alex looked confused when all of a sudden,

“RRRRRRRRRRRR”

Alex could not bear the sound which she could not even identify what it was or what it sounded like. She screamed and covered her ears, dropping the broom.

The door slammed open, and what Alex saw made her scared, for the first time in her life,

Alex was scared.

 

Handful of Course Work

Humans of New York Dialogue

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It was a warm, summer afternoon. Taye was just called into his school guidance office for an unknown reason. It was the last day of his senior year.

Taye: He..llo?

Office Receptionist: Taye! So amazing to see you, have a seat and Marie will see you in a moment.
Taye wondered why she sounded so happy, he thought he was in trouble.

Marie: Taye?

Taye: That’s me.

Marie: Oh, good, good. Come on in!

Taye slowly got up from the chair beneath him and stepped over to her office just a few metres away from where he was sat. He plopped into her comfy chair and cracked his knuckles nervously.

Marie: Well, Taye have I got some amazing news for you.

Taye felt a huge sigh of relief in his chest.

Taye: Oh..what is it?
Taye didn’t have anything special come to mind.

Marie: Remember how you applied to Mac State college a few months back?

Taye: Yes..

Taye could not believe it, was she going to say he got accepted? He applied but never in a million years would think he’d get in. His grades weren’t bad but weren’t amazing either.

Marie: Well, you got in! They loved your resume, and all the work you’ve done for yourself, family and community!

Taye: Oh my god! That is amazing! Will I be studying photography?

Marie: Yes, and you were one of two students in the whole school to get accepted! You should feel very proud!

Taye was proud, this was his dream to be going to get a proper education and move up in life.

Taye: I am more than proud!

Marie: Ok sweetie, that’s what I wanted to tell you. Come back here tomorrow at the same time and we will help you get some other information settled for the college.

Taye: Thank you so much!

Marie: Don’t thank me, thank yourself for doing an amazing job!

And with that Taye strolled out of Marie’s room with the biggest grin he had ever worn on his face. The students laughed and glared at him as he walked up to class, but what did he care he just got accepted to college!

Handful of Course Work · Setting

Constructing Setting

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Stormy Seas Against Rocky Shore Photo:

Waves hitting against rocky, grassy hill. The sound of the waves is loud and fills the ears you can feel the splashing of the cold, misty water on your face. It was a very dark day, sky full of clouds and a cool breeze passes by. The water feels dark and very deep it almost has an eerie feeling to it, like anything that falls in will sink in and never be found again. Birds from the top of the hill are squeaking and chirping so loudly like they know a storm is approaching, they fly around and get their wings caught in the harsh blowing winds to be sent back down to the ground again.

Country Kitchen:

I was woken up by the largest bang I had ever heard coming from downstairs. I sprung quickly out of bed and ran as fast as I could to see what the noise was all about. I was home alone that night with only my small dog and I knew she could not make such a bang as loud as the one I had just heard. As I reached the hallway with the white, wooden banister facing above the kitchen I took a peak to see what the noise was. I looked downstairs sitting near to overhung banister, the kitchen still looked clean and not like anything had been moved. I saw the rays of sun glistening inside of the house from the window, all the white chairs at the wooden dining table still in place as well as all the plants still upwards and where they had been left beforehand. One thing I did notice was the chandelier above the dining table was swaying to the side a bit.

 

“What could that bang have been?” I said quietly to myself.

As I did I heard Rosie, my puppy coming up behind me, she was shaking and had a scared look in her eye.

“What’s wrong baby?” I said softly

Rosie whimpered and looked to the front door. I immediately got up and started walking to the hallway in front of the door to see if I could look out the peephole. On my way I grabbed an umbrella in the hallway just in case. I quietly approached the peephole and slowly looked outside. What I saw I was not expecting. It was the mailman. I opened the door.

“Hello” He said.

“Sorry about the loud bang, I accidentally fell walking up your steps!”

Country Doctor

My name is Anthony Charles, I work hard but like to have my fair share of fun. I like to drink and smoke as well, which I know as a doctor should be forbidden, but breaking the rules is so much more fun. I have a lovely wife, Marie-Lou and three wonderful children, Carrie, Johnny and Louise. I live on a huge farm where after work I like to tend to. We have cows, chickens, pigs and much more. We grow corn and other crops and sell them to the local grocer. That is what Marie-Lou does in the day time when the kids are in school and I am at work. Overall I like my life, work can be very stressful at times but coming home with a good paycheck and to a lovely dinner cooked by my lovely wife and hearing about my kids days make it all worth it.

Handful of Course Work

Art of Giving Feedback

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“A Critic’s Manifesto”

Summarize: The overall drama of critics involves expertise and taste. These writers above all are similar to teachers, and like all good teachers they teach by example. Knowledge was a crucial component in the drama of criticism. The glimpses these writers gave you of their tastes and passions revealed what art and culture are supposed to do for a person. By dramatizing their own thinking on the page, by revealing the basis of their judgments and letting you glimpse the mechanisms by which they exercised their own personal taste, all these critics were implying that you could arrive at your own, quite different judgments. What you really can learn from a critic is how to think. For all criticism is based on that equation: knowledge + taste = meaningful judgment.

 

Evaluate: I agree on what was said about critics in this article, they’re very wise and knowledgeable on what they critique and have such strong passions for what they do and how they do it. Critics may seem like mean, angry people sometimes but really they’re so invested in what they do and have such strong tastes. Critics truly do teach you how to think critically and that not everything in life is perfect and people need judgement to improve.



“It’s Tartt – But Is It Art?”       

Summarize: “Its tone, language, and story belong in children’s literature,” wrote critic James Wood, in The New Yorker. “Nowadays, even The New York Times Book Review is afraid to say when a popular book is crap,” Stein says. No novel gets uniformly enthusiastic reviews, but the polarized responses to The Goldfinch lead to the long-debated questions: What makes a work literature, and who gets to decide? From the beginning Tartt’s work confuserd critics and often they left horrible reviews.

 

Evaluate: I have not read the authors novel(s) but I agree with what the writer is saying about how a novel is considered bad and who gets to decide it is bad. Who gets to decide a work is considered good literature? I believe every book is not horrible and that every author should get a chance before they’re faced with hard critics. On the other hand,  if Tartt has had amazing books it doesn’t mean they’re always going to have great reads that appeal to everyone.

Response to the Critic

My connection and extension:

I will be writing my own response piece to the role of the critic from this article:

(The Shame of the #MeToo Men)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/opinion/columnists/metoo-movement-franken-hockenberry-macdonald.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fsunday&action=click&contentCollection=sunday&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

In my opinion, this article is very disrespectful, crazy and wrong in so many ways. The Me Too movement is the upcoming, powerful movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault, especially in the workplace. Many woman have came out and said ‘Me Too’ as in they have also been sexually harassed. I realize that some woman have also came out and falsely accused men of sexual assault when they in fact had not done anything which, yes, obviously is wrong but that is not what was mentioned in the article. What was mentioned is how the writer feels bad for the ‘less powerful’ ‘less overtly predatory’ men being accused. Just because they’re not well known men or don’t seem like predators does not mean they could not have committed sexual assault! Anyone can do such a horrible act and they don’t need to have fame or money to do so. The writer of the article also mentions that the men “whose gross behavior was tacitly accepted by those around them until, suddenly, it wasn’t. I can only imagine how disorienting it must be to have the rules change on you so fast, to have your reputation obliterated in an instant, to be suddenly unable to do the work that gives you your identity.” Their behaviour should never have been accepted by anyone around them, that is what makes this statement even worse. These men deserve punishment and they deserve more than just losing some friends and a job! Imagine feeling bad for a rapist for losing their job and being disoriented by the lifestyle changes that come with committing such a horrible act. Terrible.

Handful of Course Work

Why Food Matters in Fiction

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4 Purposes of food in fiction:

  1. food that is served by an author to characters who are not expected to taste it
  2. food that is served by an author to characters in order to show who they are
  3. food that an author cooks for characters in order to eat it with them
  4. food that an author cooks for characters but actually serves to the reader

My Favourite Recipe:

Food Story: Ellie’s First Bite

It was the morning of Christmas Eve, Ellie had just woken up to loud voices coming from the kitchen downstairs which sounded like her Grandma and Papa. She was so excited to spend her first Christmas in an actual home, with her actual family. For her whole eight years of life she has been in and out of group homes and foster families with other children. She has never been able to enjoy a holiday because of her constant worry if she will finally get to have a family of her own and this year she has. She was so excited she jumped out of her warm, twin bed and slipped into her fuzzy bunny slippers and ran out her door to say hello to her family.

“Good Morning Ellie!” Teresa, her mother exclaimed

“Morning Mamma!” Ellie replied.

Ellie noticed all the green and red Christmas decorations and the huge tree in the living room.

Mom had the biggest smile on her face.

“Go say hi to grandma and papa, they’re in the living room”

Ellie ran over and began hugging her grandma and papa and said hello, everyone looked so happy and cheerful which made Ellie ecstatic. As Ellie sat on the big fuzzy couch between her new grandparents she couldn’t help but notice the amazing smell in the room.

“Mom!” She yelled.

“What is that smell?!”

“I am making my famous brownies, you will fall in love when you try them!” Mom replied from the kitchen.

Brownies? Ellie wondered. She’d never heard that word or type of food before, she was so used to just eating soup, bread and granola bars given to her at the group homes she stayed in. It sounded exotic and she expected not to like them.

 

A few hours have passed and Ellie has done nothing but talk to her grandparents about their lives and how her mom was as a child, it was so fun for Ellie to finally experience what a real family lives like, she couldn’t help but giggle every second. Ellie learned her mother was a very shy kid and never really made any close friends or had a boyfriend until she was older, but Ellie liked that and felt she related to her in many ways. Ellie was also shy and never made good friends either, she liked to be on her own most of the time, even in the group homes where she felt the loneliest and saddest. Ellie also learned her mom was single right now and had just separated with her husband of 5 years. Ellie knew going into her new home she would only have a mom and not a dad which was fine with her, but she never knew why. Apparently mom’s husband did not want any children, so he left. This made Ellie sad, but she knew she still had a mom and a forever home, so she didn’t let it get her down.

“Okay, I think that’s enough stories for one day, let us save more for later!” Grandma explained.

“Why don’t we go see what your mom is up to in the kitchen, shall we?”

Ellie sprung up and ran over to the kitchen, mom was stood over the stove mixing a pot.

“What’s that!” Ellie asked, being the curious eight-year old she was.

“It’s the vegetables cooking to put into the stuffing” Mom laughed.

Ellie was looking around when she saw the brown filled pan behind her.

“Ew! What is that, it looks like poop!” Ellie said.

“Ellie! What’re you talking about those are my brownies, they’re made with chocolate, so they’re brown not poop coloured!” Mom replied and you could hear Ellie’s grandparents laughing from the other room.

Mom bent down to be at Ellie’s height.

“Ellie?” She asked.

“Have you never tried brownies or chocolate?”

Ellie had never heard those two words before it was all so confusing, she wondered if she had she just didn’t know the words or meaning of what she had eaten.

“No. I-i don’t think so mamma.” Ellie replied in a low voice.

This made mom look so sad, a frown appeared upon her lips and her eyes began to well up with water.

“Oh, Ellie dear.” Mom said.

“Chocolate is delicious, it is one of many children and adults favourite things, it is sweet and yummy but not good for you, that is what makes it so good!”

Mom wondered how she could explain this brown looking stuff was actually really delicious to a child that had never heard of it before.

“Just try some Ellie, I promise you’ll like it!”

Ellie didn’t want to try it, to her it looked gross.

“No, it’s ok. It doesn’t look good.” Ellie replied.

“Please Ellie I wouldn’t lie to you darling.” Said mom.

Ellie had to trust her new mother and after all she had been stuck in group homes her entire life eating nothing but bread and such, maybe it would be good she thought.

“Ok mamma but only a small piece”.

Mom smiled, as she cut a little piece of brownie out of the pan. They were supposed to be saved for dessert but this was more important, a little girl never having tried chocolate. She handed Ellie the small brown chunk of brownie and Ellie inspected it for a while before placing it in her mouth. She held it there and bit down. Mom was so worried, would she spit it out or would she love it.

As Ellie chewed a bunch of emotions and thoughts ran through her head. How amazing this food tasted and how sad it was that she’d never tried it before.

“Mamma! This is so so good!” Ellie laughed.

“Yay, I’m so happy to hear that! See I would never lie to you!” Mom replied.

“Mamma, I have one question though.” Ellie said quietly.

“Yes, Ellie?” Mom smiled.

“Can I have more?” Ellie replied.

Mom laughed and thought to herself about what she has done.

“No Ellie, we have to save this for the rest of our guests!”

“Aw man!” Said Ellie as mom came in to give her a hug.

“I love you Ellie”.

“I love you too mamma.”