Young Writers Society

This is an essay I wrote in eigth grade and is basically the story of my life. The assignment was to "write an essay about the most emotional experience you ever had." Well, this currently isn't THE most emotional, but it's well up there.

Please, I want to know what everyone thinks. Thanks.




I was living the average six-year-old life. I had a father, a mother, a brother, and a sister, and I loved them, all of them. And they loved me. Well, most of them.
Then She stepped in. I won't mention her name, part because I don't want to, and part because everyone always says it's better not to, but nonetheless, she came. My mother tells me that my father met her on e-Harmony.com. What he was doing there, I can only imagine.
Anyways, she stepped in, and pulled him out, and he went willingly. All the way to Texas.
Mom says that the first time he told us he was leaving, I cried my eyes out, begging him not to, but by the time he stopped bluffing, and actually left, I was done crying.
I can remember the night almost clearly. Mom and Dad were sitting on the couch crying. Now that I think on it, he wasn't sorry that he was leaving, so he had no reason to cry. Mom did. They sent us three kids up the stairs of the pink apartment building that we lived in at the time, to our friend Mikey's apartment on the top floor, promising to tell us what the matter was when we returned. I don't remember much after that, but he left in less than a week afterwards. My Mom knows the story in greater detail, but I was only six, and don't remember very much, just bits and pieces here and there. The point is, he left, and we moved from Brandon, Florida, to Bath, New Hampshire.
I was in first grade when I enrolled in the Bath Public School. I had a couple fast friends, two of whom were very popular, which made me popular also.
I survived the next four years paying regular visits to the guidance counselor at Bath, while battling with stress-caused hives in my lungs. You can probably guess why I had them in the first place.
Church also helped. We lived with my Mom's parents in Bath, which is right near all the rest of my Mom's family, and it was nice to have cousins to play with. We went to church in Benton, about seven to ten or so miles away. There, I had another friend, the pastor's daughter. She and I are both horribly imaginative. When I went over to her house, we played make-believe. She almost always got hurt (in pretend, of course), which meant, in our imaginary land, I had to help her get to safety, before the bad-guys found us. She was always the older sister. I guess that's because in real life she's the youngest in her family (even though she's two years older than me!), and she really doesn't like it.
The wound left by the heartbreak still raw, and chafing, I found that I sought approval from everyone around me, everyone except myself. I wore the latest style, talked and acted like, and hung with the Popular kids, and if I wasn't good enough for them, I wasn't good enough for myself.
In my spare time, I managed to find out a little bit of who I was. I found that I loved swimming, animals (especially horses!), drawing, and most of all reading. In a book, I could lose myself for hours, even when I wasn't actually reading it. Books opened up new worlds for me, new worlds that I was more interested in exploring than the one I lived in. I could go somewhere else, be someone else. I didn't have to live up to anyone's standards, just my own.
I watched my Mom drift in and out of relationships, but I guess she was still hurting too. As she did, I would envision her coming home from work one day and be making supper as my father's white van pulled into the parking lot. In my daydream, he would beg for forgiveness, and my Mom would accept, and they'd be married again, and everything would be the way it was supposed to be.
But that's not the way it was going to be. I found out that my father had married the woman that took him away from me. My heart broke again.
And to top it all off, my one unpopular friend moved. Nobody liked her except for me. A few months after she left, she was killed in a car accident. My heart broke a third time.
A line from a song in the movie Chitty, Chitty, Bang Bang, says “From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success.” I guess that's kinda what happened next. My Mom met a man, and soon they got married. We, as a family, had moved on.
Well I was in 5th grade when we moved to Chelsea, just in time to be in DeRoss' class. That year was probably one of the best in my life. I made new friends, and some of them were boys, which really surprised me. But sometimes boys make better friends than girls do. I became friends with the two other girls in the class instantly. I had a whole mess of new cousins, and one of them was actually my age! That was really nice.
I consider my Mom's new husband my Dad. I don't call him by his first name, or “step-dad,” I call him Dad. After all, what's a Dad anyways? Is it someone who abandons you? No way. A dad loves you. He is my Dad.
Four years since they got married, and I've jumped from one out of three children, to one out of seven. That's a huge change, but I wouldn't trade them or my new life for all the money in the world.
Throughout my experiences, I became who I am. By having my heart broken, I learned not to trust just anyone. Sometimes that makes me distant and unfriendly, but I'm not willing to take any risks; it hurts enough the first time around. By trying to be like everyone else, I realized that I didn't want to be. I seem to make friends with people who won't judge me for dressing or acting different, and people who have gone through similar experiences. By experiencing the power of books and imagination, I decided who I want to be when I grow up; a librarian and an author.
I'm content with my lot in life. It's been eight years since I've seen my father, and I still get depressed, have my off-days, and for a while I felt contempt towards him. I still get up and face the day, and tolerate it when he tells me he loves me, because now I know he doesn't and that he never truly did. Love isn't an emotion. Love isn't a temporary infatuation. Love goes through the strongest storms and comes out the other side as strong, if not stronger than ever. It was the love of my family, and the love of my God that kept me from giving up entirely. There were so many times that I considered giving up, that I thought it wasn't worth it to keep struggling (No, I wasn't thinking suicide!). Life felt like swimming up river until your heart is ready to burst and your bones ready to break, and the only thing keeping you afloat is the will to live, the faces of the ones you love before you, and the ever so distant shore that promises happiness. In the end, I realized that it's love that makes it worth the struggle. Not the mushy, gushy love like in movies, but hard core love that lasts, like family.

it's good but it doesn't have the thing to make you want to read on more (i don't mean to be mean) but if you added a few tweeks like adding History and people speaking like recapping the sence from your dad leaving if you know what i am trying to say. And also ading in what the writter would think, say at the time you were writting.

Tell the reader you mean children when you say "Four years since they got married, and I've jumped from one out of three, to one out of seven. That's a huge change, but I wouldn't trade them or my new life for all the money in the world."

say it like "Four years since they got married, and I've jumped from one out of three(kids, children, siblings), to one out of seven (Kids, children, siblings). That's a huge change, but I wouldn't trade them or my new life for all the money in the world."

Other than that, your story was amazing. I hope you get your wish, being a librarian is fun, take it from me! Being an author is really cool too, why dont you be both?

Not to sound like a sap or anything, but this actually brought me to tears. I had much the same thing happen to me, though there was a few variances, and I want to say I totally agree with this.

But anyways, now with the actual review.

There was a person above who stated that you should add dialogue and history and such things is wrong. This is an essay, it is not a story. It is not meant to be that enteraining so no such measures are needed for that would take it out of its actual format. Which brings me to one of my main points. I am not sure what kind of format they teach you for essays in grade eight, but I would classify this more as a memoir then anything else. From the formatting and such that I have learned about essays, this clear doesnt match up to anything. And essay usually maintains a format more like this;

You probably know that by know, but just in case.

The second thing I would like to point out is this;

The assignment was to "write an essay about the most emotional experience you ever had."

This not part of the story, but you stated the assignment. Thats all good and it is good that you did that. But what I want to tell you is that I don't think you necessarily answered the question. You stated that it was when your father left. That was not a singular moment as in what the question asks. Then you went on to tell about the after affect of it all and you summarized the rest of the years of your life. Above and beyond, but not in the necessarily wanted way. And that brings me back to one of my other points. This is more like a memoir or a reflection and I would classfy it as such.

My last portion that I am going to comment on is your comma splices.

If you dont know what a comma splice is; it is when you have a sentence and you pause to add another thing. It appears like this, and such, and yah. That 'and such' was a comma splice. You have them frequently in one sentence. Comma splices are alright for the most part but it kind of takes away from the flow of the writing. It makes it feel abbrieviated and brief and it kind of gets annoying. I myself and guilty for much the same thing, and I am slowly working on it. I will pick out a sentence for you so you can see what I mean;

I had a father, a mother, a brother, and a sister, and I loved them, all of them. And they loved me, well, most of them.

That appears fine and dandy, but if you pause all the time there is a comma, it kind of gets severely annoying. But you followed proper protocol for using commas, am I right? We yes, and unfortunately you can't avoid using commas when listing things. But using more then three commas in a short sentence is kind of pushing it. Just make it nice and simple. Just state;

'I had a father, a mother, a brother and a sister who I all loved.'

I also picked up that second line. That line is really impacting to me and I don't want to take away the emotion of that. What I would do for that one instead would be;

'And they loved me. Well, most of them.'

It still has the dramatic pausing, but it gets you away from the comma splicing so its all good.

So here is a couple strategies when you think you over spliced things. Look at the sentence to see if the words are really necessary. Next you can see if you can add the additional information you were trying to put in there in another sentence. Trust me, you wont lose the effect if you do that. The last is to get somebody to read it over and suggest adjustments for even if you dont notice you are doing it, others certainly will. Go through your piece and just look it over to figure out where you can fix it up.

Overall, I really liked it, and I want you to know there are other people who went through similar things. I enjoyed it greatly. (:
~Incognito