English 2204

Samples for the Creative Rewrite Paper

Note: The six samples that follow are the first pages only from papers submitted for English 2204, Summer Session 2007. Use them for ideas and/or inspiration. The most common approach was to rewrite the story from a different point of view, but don't feel limited to that. Take a risk. Add a scene. Change a scene. Add a character. Change the ending.

“The Story of an Hour” Creatively Re-written

Knowing that I was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to me as gently as possible the news of my husband’s death.

It was my sister Josephine who told me, in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.  My husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near me.  It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with my husband’s name, Brently Mallard, leading the list of “killed.”  Richards had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

I did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance.  I wept at once, with a sudden, wild abandonment, in my sister’s arms.  When the storm of grief had spent itself I went away to my room alone.  I would not let anyone follow me.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair.  Into this I sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted my body and seemed to reach into my soul.

I could see in the open square before my house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.  The delicious breath of rain was in the air. . . .

Creative Rewrite of “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin

My name is Elizabeth Marie Mallard.  Mrs. Mallard is what I have been called for such a long while, since the day my father met a prosperous young man he thought I should marry.  A man who could take care of me and give me the lifestyle my father expected for me.  My father had decided I should marry Brently Mallard and that is what I did.  My name, my given name is Elizabeth.  Please call me Elizabeth.

Several months ago my sister Josephine delivered news that would change my life forever.  Brently’s closest friend Richards had been at the newspaper office when the telegram came over the wire; he waited too for the second telegram which confirmed the accident and the victims and hastened to our home to bring the terrible news.  Both dear friends, knowing that I had been afflicted with a debilitating heart condition for some years now, took great care when delivering the message of the train accident and my husband’s subsequent death.  Josephine took such great care.  It was at that moment that time seemed to stop.  I was watching the scene at the bottom of the stairs in our home from outside my body, looking down upon the events as I fell to my knees where I was wracked with sobs.  My whole world stood still as I was overwhelmed with intense pain and convulsive sobs.  Eventually I returned to my body.  I needed to be alone.  I begged Josephine to let me retire to my room to rest and regain my composure.

I sank into my chair, its warmth and comfort encompassing me. . . .

Creative Rewrite of "The Storm"

The day of the storm was the first time in my life that I felt like the woman I was made to be.  Due to the struggle with my arranged marriage to Bobinot, a fat, selfish, unaffectionate pig, it is understandable why my affair with Alcee made me feel complete.  It all began one humid afternoon when I was doing my daily household chores.  As I sat at my sewing machine in a foul mood I noticed the dark clouds rolling in and scurried to close the doors and windows.  When I reached the front door I saw my laundry and darted out the door to retrieve it.  However, I stopped short, as the love of my life, Alcee Lavalliere, rode his horse through my front gate.  Alcee had been my boyfriend for many years before I was married, but due to our difference in social standings I was forced to marry a poor peasant while he was a rich snob.  As I gazed at him through the rain I felt a surge of excitement because this was the first time we had been alone since my marriage.  Then I heard his deep, kind, and enchanting voice, the voice I had missed every day since our last parting.

“May I come and wait on your gallery till the storm is over, Calixta?”  When he spoke my name I felt my heart warmed and without thinking motioned him closer.   He expressed his intention of staying outside but with a little convincing and some help from the cold rain I persuaded him to come inside.  Immediately after we entered my house we secured the door and thrust bagging in the crack beneath the door. . . .

Creative Rewrite of Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart”

The Room Next Door

I awoke to the sound of thumping from the room next door.  Was this my father?  He had moved his bed closer to the wall that separated us.  But what could possibly be this loud?  I hated my father for one reason.  He had an eye that was different than anything I had ever seen.  His left eye was so pale, so blue, so disgusting that it was scary.  To make it even more disturbing, it had a film of some sort over the top of it that made it seem like a shield for his eyeball.  I would tell people that I did not know this man when they asked me.  I did not want them to associate me with him.  Many nights I have dreamed that I moved out of this place, out of the same home as “the freak.”  But the way things were, there was no way that that would be possible.  I had no money, and the job market was swarmed with people more talented than I.  So I was stuck to live here.  There was only one last thing I could ever do.

Over the next few months, I devised a plan so evil that it made my heart stop when I thought of it.  But yet, at the same time, it made me feel relieved that I had thought of a solution.  For about another month, I struggled with myself trying to figure out if this would be worth it.  No person other than me knew my plan; I would have gotten thrown into prison just for thinking of something of this nature.  Am I crazy?  Am I crazy for hating my own father for something that he cannot fix?  Maybe . . . but even so, I wanted to fix this problem in one way or another.

It was just me and my father alone in our house, as my mother had died five years before because she could not take the look of his eye anymore.  At least, that’s what I thought. . . .

Creative Rewrite of Staggerford

For this paper I choose the book, Staggerford, by Jon Hassler.  I’ve decided to write a new scene for the epilogue and to base it on the one year anniversary of Miles’ death.  Also I am going to change the narration of the story, one because Miles is dead in the story, and two because of his death I felt a lot of changes came about from the character, and their thoughts and ideas were not shown in the book as much as I would have liked.  This is how the story would go in my opinion.

Epilogue:  Once year later.

Beverly sat in Miss McGee’s car; they were getting ready to go out into the cemetery where Miles Pruitt, her high school teacher, was buried.  She still felt the guilty conscience of herself somehow thinking this could still be her fault, even though a year had passed and it wasn’t her fault.  Miss McGee sitting next to her in the car could practically read her thoughts by the look on her face and all she could say to console her was, “You know this was not your fault and what you did you did for a good reason.”

Beverly replied remorsefully, “I know, but I miss him.”

As Beverly and Miss McGee sit in the car, three cars pull into the cemetery parking lot, one of these being Superintendent Stevenson and his wife. . . .

Creative Rewrite of Staggerford

For my paper I chose to rewrite the ending to Staggerford by Jon Hassler.  The reason that I chose this story is because I was shocked at how Miles died at the end of the story.

“Come out with your hands up, Bonewoman,” the Giant yells into a bullhorn.

Miles comes racing up the drive with Agatha and sees National Guard and trooper vehicles surrounding the house.  “What is going on here?” states Miles.

“Well, we believe that the Bonewoman is holding her daughter, Beverly, hostage,” the Giant replies.  “She found out that Beverly told you all about how her mother, not her father, had shot the sales guy.  We believe that Bonewoman is fearful that she is going to end up in jail and her daughter will have nowhere to go.  She will not cooperate and turn herself in or release Beverly into our custody.  We fear that she is going to harm Beverly.”

Miles notices in the window behind the curtains the Bonewoman is peeking her head out.  The curtains draw back and she is pointing a rifle through a hole in the glass at them.  A member of the National Guard notices the same thing and fears that she is going to shoot at them.  He opens fire at the window and the Bonewoman goes tumbling to the floor. . . .