Hanna- 100 Word Scene

Hanna sat at the dinner table with Beth and her father. Three people at a rectangular table was an awkward number, always left an open space that should have been filled. When Graham visited he filled that space.

“How was school?”

The perfunctory question came from her father, too tired from a long day to come up with something a little more original. They were the first words he’d spoken to her since arriving home. Beth had called her to dinner.

“Fine,” she answered, putting as little thought into her answer as he had the question. “It was fine.”

Hanna- Setting

Hanna stood alone in her kitchen. The window above the sink let bright light stream in, illuminating the dishes that had been left there from breakfast. The counters were clear and bare of any food or utensils. The cabinet doors were all shut tight, except for the one with the crooked door that hung off kilter from the rest.

Hanna sank into one of the wooden chairs around the table. It stood straight and sturdy with a stiff back that she couldn’t comfortably lean against. The table was covered in a blue tablecloth and the cereal box from her breakfast hadn’t been put away yet.

No one had been there since she’d left that morning and it was late afternoon. Hanna glanced toward the refrigerator, the only part of the room with any kind of personality. It was covered in magnets, some hers from her childhood and some belonging to her older stepbrother who lived across the country. There were pictures too, but only one of the whole family together. It had been taken at the wedding four years before. Graham had been twenty and he had his hands on twelve year old Hanna’s shoulders. Beth and her father stood on either side of them and all were smiling. A seashell magnet obscured part of Beth’s dress.

Sighing, Hanna stood. She needed to clean out the sink before anyone else came home.

Indirect Characterization- Hanna

Hanna was at the pool with all her friends and she was worried. She hadn’t left a note and her father was getting off of work soon. He didn’t like it when she went out with her friends and didn’t let anyone else know. He was strict in that way and Lacey never seemed to understand that.

Hanna didn’t like making her father upset, especially after a long day at work. It would be best for everyone if she managed to convince Lacey to take her home early, but it seemed no matter how hard she tried Lacey was just too stubborn.

Hanna could be stubborn too when she wanted to be. Having Beks or Ashton to back her up would have helped, but they both spent their days at the pool flirting with any cute guys they could find. She was often on her own when it came to arguing her own side.

After a bit of arguing she convinced Lacey to drive her back home, although Lacey didn’t seem too happy about it. All Hanna wanted was to get home and avoid getting into trouble. She never understood why her friends didn’t get things like that. It made her feel isolated sometimes.

Direct Characterization- Hanna

Hanna bit her lip. “I think I should go,” she said, her voice quiet.

“What? No! We’ve got loads of time.” Lacey leaned back on the towel, dark shades covering much of her face.

“Dad will be home soon and he doesn’t like it when I go without leaving a note.”

“That’s crap. You’re sixteen. Plenty old enough to come down to the pool with us.” Us included Beks and Ashton, both flirting in the pool with a group of senior boys.

“I don’t- I should just go, okay?”

Lacey shrugged. “Suit yourself. Have fun walking.”

“You have a car. It’ll take ten minutes. Won’t you just drive me?”

There was a break in the conversation. Then- “Let’s go see the boys. I bet one or two of them can change your mind.”

“That’s not- Lace, don’t! Just drive me? You don’t even have to get dressed. You’ll be back before they notice you’re gone.”

Lacey looked at the pool, then back at Hanna. She sighed. “Your Dad’s really gonna flip?”

Hanna nodded.

“Fine. But I swear, tomorrow I’m not letting you bail early.” She grabbed her keys and Hanna breathed a small sigh of relief.

“Anything,” Hanna promised.

Character- Hanna

Character name: Hanna Jocelyn McDowell

Date of Birth: January 13, 1997 (age 16)

Place of Birth: Simsbury, Connecticut

Physical attributes: 5’4, 140 pounds, straight auburn hair, pale skin with many freckles covering her face and body, not very athletic, dark brown eyes, thin lips, small nose

Some likes: Pop music, watching the day fade into night from her window, summer, history is her best class because it’s straightforward without requiring the same problem solving strategies as math

Some dislikes: Sports, being left out, falling behind, asking for help, being alone, her red hair, loud rock/punk/metal, English class because she feels it’s too convoluted and complicated with all kinds of metaphors and symbols

What is the one thing in this world (or realm) that this character wants more than anything?

Hanna wants to be something more than average. She wants to stand out, be the best at something. She wants to be the prettiest or the smartest or even the most charismatic, but finds herself lacking and coming in third or fourth best. Hanna sees other people’s strengths, but not her own.
She regrets never finding a true best friend or someone to whom she can be number one. Within her core group of friends she often feels like a fifth wheel and thinks that she gets left out when they spend time together individually or hang out in pairs instead of the whole group.

What is the one thing in this world (or realm) that this character regrets more than anything?She regrets never finding a true best friend or someone to whom she can be number one. Within her core group of friends she often feels like a fifth wheel and thinks that she gets left out when they spend time together individually or hang out in pairs instead of the whole group.

Nightmares

The Prompt: In this dream I was...

In this dream I was screaming. The walls of fire surrounded me, cutting off any route of escape. The heat of the flames seared my skin as they burned closer. My body felt painfully dry and tight and all I wanted was to escape. But the fire was a circle around me and there was no way out. I was trapped. So I continued to scream.

“Peyton, wake up already!”

I jolted up in my bed and stared at my roommate with shock on my face. When the realization sunk in, I reddened from embarrassment. “Sorry,” I muttered, wiping the sleep from my eyes. It was early afternoon and all I had wanted was a quick nap since I hadn’t been sleeping well at night. I’d been plagued with nightmares for the past two weeks and the circles under my eyes showed it. I needed some restful sleep.

“You okay?” Michaela asked. “That sounded…rough.”

I hadn’t thought it was possible, but my face got even redder. I’d been screaming in the dream, I remembered that much, but I sincerely hoped I hadn’t actually been screaming. “Was it really that loud?”

“Uh…” Michaela seemed hesitant to answer. “I’m sure no one could hear you outside of the room.”

Great. That was just what I needed. For our entire hall, scratch that, entire floor to know I was a psycho with nightmares all the time. I’d have to figure out some way to stop them. Just bloody brilliant. Exactly what I needed the week before midterms.

“You gonna be okay?” Michaela asked. She sounded worried and I nodded, plastering a smile on my face.

“Sure. Just have to study. All this stress is playing with my head.” That might have even been true. I’d never really had nightmares before, but it was my first set of midterms in college ever. Maybe it really was just the stress. If I spent more time studying and worried less the nightmares might go away. That made perfect sense.

“I think I’ll go to the library,” I said, ignoring Michaela’s questioning look. “Quieter. Better for studying. Have to ace chem..”

“Right.” She nodded.

I packed up my bag, grabbing both lab books and textbooks for the library. I didn’t really prefer studying in the library, but I also didn’t want see Michaela anymore. I was too embarrassed to be around her. This was the second time in a week that she’d woken me up screaming from a nightmare. I sincerely hoped it would be last, but I couldn’t face her now. Going to the library was just an easy excuse.

“Good luck,” she said. “You know, with the studying and stuff.”

After two months we still weren’t close friends and a bit awkward around each other so I ducked my head. “Yeah, thanks.”

“And uh, it’s okay, you know. About the nightmares and stuff.” My faced burned. “Yeah, I know. Just—studying calls. Gotta hit the books.” I stumbled out of the room red in the face and closed my eyes in relief. I had to find a way to make the nightmares stop. Somehow.

Underwater

The Prompt: They came out under water.

It was the summer before they turned seventeen, in the pool in Lia’s backyard. Their skins were a deep golden brown from the weeks spent tanning. Together they swam and laughed, acting like the best of friends. And they were.

But in that moment, in the blue water that smelled vaguely of chlorine, they were more. They took hands almost instinctively, staring into each other’s eyes with a feeling neither could define, but both recognized. It was less than love, but more—different—than friendship.

Words between the two didn’t need to be spoken. They just understood. Their eyes open under the surface they could see what the other felt in a clear way they never could on dry land. It filtered out the lies, their facades, and left just them, naked to each other. Their fingers wove together and they drew nearer, intrigued by the new feelings. The lust and desire. They didn’t need to reason, talk things over. They just knew. They just felt. The just were.

Closer and closer their faces came as they drifted under the water. Their hair rose and circled their heads, one brown and one red. They were free, free to experience everything they truly felt away from judgment and fear.

But the chlorine began to burn their eyes. The water felt heavy over their heads as the pressure built. Their chests felt like they were going to burst from lack of air and they pulled apart, disentangling their hands as they did. They both pushed against the bottom and shot up, breaking the surface of the pool as they gasped for breath and gratefully filled their lungs with oxygen.

Once more they were separate, not touching or even looking at each other, but no longer quite the same. The moment was over, but they hadn’t ended. It wasn’t the same as it was before. The one moment, alone under the water, had changed everything. Even as they breathed in deep gulps of oxygen, so distant from the blue depths below, they had changed. They didn’t take hands again, but as they moved around the pool their fingers brushed.

Words were never exchanged, not a one, but they weren’t needed. The girls just understand each other.

They left the pool completely, hair dripping as they returned to their towels and lay out in the bright summer sun. As their hair began to dry the girls turned to each other, their smiles shy and small across their faces. They could see through the other’s walls now, see what they really felt since the moment under the water, but it was muted, no longer blaringly obvious. Softer in a way.

And they reached out with their hands as they lay side by side and wove their fingers together. The innocent gesture was all they needed as they closed their eyes against the bright glare and continued on with their lives, the rest of the world oblivious to the moment that had just passed under the water.

So Sorry

The Prompt: The phone rings and rings and rings in the middle of the night.  It keeps ringing after the machine picks up.  Finally you answer it—groggy, irritated, and befuddled.  It’s the call we all dread and yet know will come more than once in our lives … The narrator’s (closest friend, lover, parent, brother, sister, you decide who to kill…) was in an accident, is at the hospital, and will not last until morning.  He or she dresses furiously, jumps in his or her car, get to the hospital, cursing at the slowness of traffic, and the stupidity of parking attendants, and arrives at the person’s bedside.  What happens next?  

He had been running, speeding, doing everything at top speed to get there as fast as possible, but he slowed the moment he reached the door. He shut it softly behind him before even looking at the bed.

She was there, just as they said she’d be. It took a moment for the recognition to hit. There were so many tubes, IVs, just things sticking out of her that beeped at regular intervals. He wasn’t a doctor, didn’t know the medical equipment, but even he could tell that it looked bad. It looked really bad.

“Jamie, are—” His voice cracked as he hurried to the side of the bed.

Her eyes were closed and she didn’t rouse at the sound of his voice. She just continued to lay there, unmoving. His hands found hers, one of the only parts of her body not marred in some way from the accident. Her face was cut and bruised, everything visible in some way hindered. But her hand was clear.

She seemed so small and fragile in the bed, the machines dwarfed her. He stroked her hand gently, his thumb over the back. “Oh god, Jamie,” he murmured quietly.

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if he even should say anything. If she could hear him. In movies didn’t they always say the unconscious patients could hear what was said? He didn’t know, but it couldn’t hurt.

“Jamie, it’s me. It’s—it’s Ben. I’m here.” He stopped. There was no response. It wasn’t as though he’d been expecting one, but one-sided conversations didn’t often workl. There was always going to be that pause. The pause where a response should have been.

“I’ll be here, okay? For as long as you’re here, I will be too.”

He meant in the hospital, but the second meaning hit him hard. They’d said on the phone she wouldn’t last until morning, but doctors were wrong all the time, weren’t they? Miracles happened. He wasn’t much the praying type, but he knelt his head beside the bed and said a silent prayer in his head. If Jamie could hear what he said, he didn’t want her to know how close she was to the edge.

When he finished he looked back at her, no sign of a change. The steady beeping continued. A tear trickled down his cheek and he wiped it away. He was the strong one, the shoulder to cry on. He had to be strong for her.

“You’re going to get through this,” he whispered fiercely. It wasn’t a lie, he didn’t see it as such. He was going to pull her through this with everything it took. “You’re going to be fine.”

Her eyelids fluttered and his heart jolted with hope, but the steady beeping of the machine evened out into a single long note.

He jerked at the sudden noise. A few nurses hurried into the room and he was pushed out of the way. “What—what’s going on?” He asked desperately.

The question was ignored as he pulled back to the door. “Is she—she’s okay right? She’s got to be okay.”

He didn’t know what the nurses were doing, but they stopped after a minute. One turned to him with pity in her eyes and he shook his head. “She’s gotta be okay. She just—she has to be.”

“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, shaking her head.

His stomach sank and for a moment he couldn’t think, couldn’t even feel his extremities. His whole body felt numb. “Jamie,” he murmured under his breath. He couldn’t look at the bed. Didn’t want to see her like that. “I’m so sorry.”

Letting Go

The prompt: You come home late at night, after a hard day. The message light on the answering machine is blinking. You press play and listen. "Dumping you on graduation day was the worst mistake of my life. Terry and I didn’t work out—Terry—was the second worst mistake. I will be at La Petite tonight at eight. I asked the chef to prepare a lemon soufflé, and to put white tulips—your favorites—on the table. Please, please, come."

I froze, my hand hovering over the phone to delete the message. It had been years since I’d heard from Lynn. We hadn’t spoken since graduation day itself which had been one of the worst days of my life. And now to have it all coming back three years later, after I’d moved on and made a new life.

“So..” Anna stood in the doorway, the dark shadows obscuring her face. I looked at her in surprise. None of the lights had been on in our apartment and I hadn’t known she was standing there until she spoke. I hoped she hadn’t heard the message, or at least all of it.

Lynn hadn’t been her favorite person back when she and I were a couple, but after she’d broken up with me at graduation Anna’s feelings had grown stronger. “Hey!” I said, pasting a smile on my face. If Anna hadn’t heard I wasn’t going to tell her. It would only make things worse between us.

She frowned and glanced at the machine. My stomach churned. “Are you gonna go?”

So she had heard the whole thing. Or at least enough of it to get the gist. “What? Things with Lynn aren’t- I mean we haven’t spoken in-” I stumbled over my words trying to find a way to tell Anna what I was thinking. It was especially difficult considering even I didn’t know what I was thinking. Everything happened so quickly. I hadn’t had the chance to process yet. And Lynn, I’d been in love with Lynn. It was all those years ago, but I couldn’t quite shake the strength of what I felt for her.

“You’re going to go, aren’t you?” Anna sounded sad, not upset but resigned to the fact that it was out of her control.

That made my decision. “She dumped me at graduation, left me with mascara streaks on all my pictures and a summer that was suddenly too open. I’m not going back to her. I wouldn’t ever leave you for her.”

Anna took a step closer to me, coming out of the shadows and looked up into my eyes. “I don’t want to keep you from her if she’s going to make you happy. I don’t want to be that girlfriend, to guilt you into staying.”

“You’re not!” I burst out. I calmed myself and continued in a lower tone. “I want to be with you and I made that decision a year ago. I didn’t choose you as my backup.” In an attempt to convince her I pushed the delete button on the answering machine, clearing away Lynn’s voice for good. “There, see? It’s all gone.”

Anna smiled gratefully and her face relaxed for the first time that evening. I was glad that she was happy, but I couldn’t help but feel a slight twinge. For so long I had wanted nothing more than to receive a phone call like that, for Lynn to beg my forgiveness. It wasn’t what I wanted anymore, but still hard to let go completely.

I pushed these thoughts out of my head and matched Anna’s smile with my own. That was all in the past. I was happy here and now with Anna. That was all that mattered.

Study Break

The Prompt: Eavesdrop on a conversation and write what happens later.

She hastily brushed her thin brown hair out of her eyes as she bent over the book, intent on her studies. There was a test on Wednesday and she couldn’t seem to focus on the vocabulary. The words were beginning to swim together in her head. It didn’t help that whatever idiots lived on the floor above her were blasting some kind of heavy metal, the words dulled by the walls until nothing but the thumping bass remained. It wasn’t so much that she minded the music itself, she just wanted a break from it while she studied. It was apparent that they didn’t have a test any time in the near future, or at least they didn’t care if they did. Meghan didn’t have that luxury. French was one of the hardest classes she’d ever had to take, followed shortly by biology. This was her last semester of French, but biology was going to follow her for the next two years unless she managed to stand up to her father.

“Okay, you definitely need a break,” Jackie said. She pulled out her headphones and moved away from her computer. “I know that sigh.”

“What sigh?” Meghan asked. She hadn’t been aware of making any noise.

Jackie ignored the question. “Your dad called again, didn’t he?”

Meghan shrugged and glanced back down at her notes. “I just have to focus on this French tonight. I can’t afford to, well, you know.” Formulating the word ‘fail’ was sometimes too much for her. She’d done well enough in high school, but college classes were different. Freshman year was the first time she’d ever failed anything in her life. Now she was constantly worried about French and biology. She’d done poorly enough on some tests and labs already. She had to shape up or risk her GPA.

“You’re stressing too much. Don’t psych yourself out. Take an hour and unwind.” Jackie surveyed her roommate with a critical eye. “And get your damn father out of your head.”

“I had my unwinding time earlier when I went to dinner. Now it’s time to focus.” Meghan smoothed the edges of her vocabulary list and read the first line over again. She just needed to get these words down so she could move onto verb tenses and prepare for her bio lab on Thursday. The paper was pulled from out of her grasp and Meghan shot out of her chair, a scowl on her face. “Oy!”

“You are going to relax for exactly one hour before I give this back, capiche?” Jackie held the paper over her head and Meghan rolled her eyes. It was more than a touch dramatic, although Jackie had tendencies towards melodrama. “One hour of your life, it’s not a lot in the long run.”

“Go to hell,” Meghan muttered. She could have easily switched to studying verb tenses or even to her bio lab, but it irked her to leave a task unfinished.

“Just an hour, I swear. Put all this school stuff out of your mind and enjoy a Friday night for once,” Jackie pleaded. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

The offer should have been tempting, but all Meghan wanted was to move on with her studying. There were more important things than an evening of relaxing alone. Classes, for one. “Give it back. Now.” Her tone was harsh, but there was a long moment when she thought Jackie would keep the vocabulary hostage. Instead her roommate shrugged and let go, allowing the paper to fall back to the desk and land askew on the textbook.

“Fine. Be an old stick the mud boring adult.” Jackie jammed her headphones back on and turned up her music so loud Meghan could hear it from across the room. She sighed once more and shook her head. Maybe she was a boring adult, but Jackie could sure act the immature child at times. Yet still she managed grades that were at least as good as Meghan’s. Some people didn’t have to work as hard as others.

She fixed the paper on her desk, laying it straight before she went back to memorizing the words. There would be time for fun later, Meghan promised herself. After the test.

Starting Over

The Prompt: Describe a lake or river as seen by a young man or woman who has just committed a murder. Do not mention the murder.


It was early still. The sun shone high in the sky and reflected across the calm surface of the lake. It beat down on her, warming her skin until beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. She slid off her shoes and dangled her feet over the edge of the rough wooden dock, her toes just barely grazing the water. It was murky beneath the dock, impossible to see more than a few inches below the surface, not that she tried very hard. She preferred to ignore the uglier depths that lay just out of sight. Straining to see something that would mar the beauty of the lake seemed pointless to her.

She allowed her gaze to drift across to the opposite shore. The edge of the ground blended into the lake, but she couldn’t see just where the change from water to land occurred. Trees dotted the earth around the rim and plants grew dark and thick into the water itself. That was where they blurred together. She couldn’t discern a difference, couldn’t separate them. They wove together and intermingled until her eyes grew weary of staring and she was forced to blink and look away. That was how people changed too. Slowly, imperceptible to anyone watching, then suddenly they were a different person. Looking back, that one moment where he stopped being himself was lost in a sea of other memories.

A duck glided across the water and sent ripples toward the docks. She toed the water, sending a small splash in its direction, but the duck was too far away to even acknowledge the intrusion. The simple, playful act brought a small smile to her lips. She should have been more affected by everything that had happened, at the very least shouldn’t she feel some remorse? Guilt? She felt nothing except a sick sense of relief. It had been a long time coming. And now she was here, watching the lake as the day slowly passed. The gentle movement of the water kept her calm and relaxed, perhaps for the first time in years. There were others around, families with young children, and yet she felt secure on her perch on the dock. No one looked at her and saw anything other than a woman simply enjoying the view. The past was ancient history now. She could start over as the woman by the lake, let her new identity reflect its own image. The lake would be her fresh start. A new life. Calm and put together like the gentle lapping of the water at the shore, the ripples that danced across the surface. Her murky past hidden underneath. No longer scared, she could draw her strength from the lake.

She drew her feet out of the water and stood, the splintered wood of the dock coarse against her bare feet. In just a few steps she had moved to the cooler grass. Her toes dug into the soft ground and a smile played across her face once again. Things would be okay now. She had taken control for the first time and now she was safe. Things would be okay.