Author Study - Sarah Dessen

8/7/2019 Author Study - Sarah Dessen

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Kierstin Patton Creative Writing October 27, 2009

Lock and Key

Sarah Dessen

Realistic fiction

1. I chose to read the book Lock and Key because one day my friend and I were

wandering through Target and decided to go look at books. The name of the

book caught my eye and I started to read the first couple lines of it; I wanted

to read the next line and then the one after that. I decided I had to buy the

book and I finished it by the next day.

2.

While reading this book I hoped that I could use the style of writing Sarah

Dessen used. I like how she writes dialogue and then will put a thought andthen continues the dialogue. I liked how unique the story was, it didn·t sound

like any book I have read. I also liked how I could relate to the story in a little

way, it kept me wanting to read.

a. F rom this story I learned that home is where you want it to be. In the

book the main character Ruby struggles with being taken away from her

house and forced to live with her long lost sister, after her mother

abandons her. I also learned how to write the dialogue of what the

character is saying and then what they are thinking to themselves.

3. When Sarah Dessen was little and she would write she was given a manual

typewriter in the corner of the den in her house. When she wrote she was

forced to stare at the wall so she could concentrate on the story and wouldn·t

be distracted. When Dessen moved into her own house she wrote in her

upstairs office. Instead of facing the wall she faced a window. She thought it

would be hard because she was so use to staring at a wall. Dessen found it not

as hard as she thought because she lived in the woods and there wasn·t much to

see outside of her window (Dessen).

4. I like how Dessen changes up her sentence lengths. She writes long sentences

and really short sentences to emphasize her point.




´I realized³as it finally lit up, and fast³that I was furious. No: heart-

pounding, can·t-even-think-straight pissed off. When I got inside the

elevator, the doors closed, mirroring my reflection back at me. This time,

I looked at myself full-on.µ (Dessen 302)

I like how Dessen doesn·t have to be overly descriptive to paint the image in

your mind. She gives a few good descriptions and that is all she uses.

´He just stood there, looking at me, and I had this flash of us, here in

this little garage apartment, in the middle of the night. F rom up above, in

a plane passing over, you·d just see one little light in all this dark, with no

idea of the lives that were being lived within it, and in the house beside,

and beside that one. So much happening in the world, night and day,

hour by hour. It was no wonder we were meant to sleep, if only to check

out of it for a little while.µ (Dessen 266)

I like the very first couple of lines in this book. After reading them you want to

read more of the book. I think the first line is what determines if you are going

to read the book or not.

´The e-mail always began the same way. / Hi Auden!! / It was the extra

exclamation point that got me. My mother would call it extraneous,

overblown, exuberant. To me, it was simply annoying, just like everything

else about my stepmother, Heidi.µ (Dessen 1)

5. One technique that I like about Dessen is she isn·t extremely descriptive, but

you can still picture the image. I think that sometimes if you are too descriptive

it can take away from the image; sometimes being simple can paint a better

image.

´There·s something about living at the beach in the summer. You get so

used to the sun and sand that it gets hard to remember what the rest of

the world, and the year, is like. When I opened the front door to anoutright downpour a couple of days later, I just stood there for a

moment, realizing that I·d forgotten all about rainy days.µ (Dessen 113)

Another technique I liked how the author did the dialogue in this book.

Throughout the story Dessen uses a variety of dialogue. I think that dialogue is




hard to use so I admire how she uses it. She will use dialogue, put a thought,

and then finish the dialogue. Also she will have someone talking and have that

person quote another person.

´¶People don·t change. If anything, you get more set in your ways as youget older, not less.· She shook her head. ¶ I remember I used to sit in our

bedroom, with Hollis screaming, and just wish that once the door would

open, and you father would come in and say ¶Here, give him to me. You go

rest.· Eventually, it wasn·t· even your dad I wanted, just anybody. Anybody

at all.·µ (Dessen 14)

6. The passage I decided to copy is when Auden has just learned to ride a bicycleand is jumping a curb.

´It only lasted a few seconds, and then I was coming down hard, the bike

hitting the pavement with a bang beneath me, even as it kept moving

forward. I felt the shock all the way from my fingertips to my elbows as I

tried to control the handlebars, hanging on for dear life as the tires

skidded, trying to fall over sideways. This was the point where I·d always

given into the crash, squeezing my eyes shut as the garbage can or bushes

came closer, closer, closer. But now, I kept them wide open and just heldon, and after a spray of sand, I was somehow back upright, and moving

on.µ (Dessen 373)

´The trees began to blur as I flew by them, the next one flying by faster

than the last, I only had a few seconds to choose, pick a path that didn·t

run me into a tree. With white knuckles as the handlebars tried to slip

away, the adrenaline started from my toes, it crept until my hands started

to tingle. This is when it always happened, I·d let off the throttle going

slower, slower, slower. Not this time, I pulled down on the throttle ashard as I could, the engine roared, I could see the top, I was getting

closer.µ

Author Study - Sarah Dessen

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