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Identification of Author’s Style
Marie Lu is known for her fast-paced, dystopian style stories with high stakes. She loves to have the futuristic setting where the power, control, and inequality of the society shape the characters’ lives drastically. She loves to include moral conflict within her books where the protagonist must decide between what is right and wrong. She also loves rebellion and a character finding their true identity. The main characters in her books are usually highly intelligent and skilled but have emotional conflict within them. For example, Bruce Wayne in her Batman Nightwalker book is very smart and always tries to do what is morally right. However, he has the emotional conflict of his parents death and all that went wrong for him in that book.Her settings are very detailed. They are usually futuristic with fancy technology. Her plots are usually action packed with very intense scenes. She likes to switch between characters to build tension and show different viewpoints. Marie Lu is very descriptive with her words to emphasize danger. She likes to connect figurative language to the characters' emotions. She has a very serious, suspenseful tone. Her sentence structure is fast paced to create suspense and high stakes.
Emulation of Author’s Style
The crowd roared as the time on the clock ticked down.
The quarterback stood on the sideline, helmet off, starting at the field like his life depended on it. The scoreboard read 27-25.
Five seconds left. The ball was spotted on their opponents 25 yard line.
The coach voice cut through the crowd noise “Field goal unit! Go win this thing!”
This was it. The moment of my life. My chest tightened.
All season I had just been a kicker. The guy who goes in for a few seconds kicks the ball and jogged off like it was nothing. Nobody cared about the extra points or the kickoffs. They only remembered the misses.
However, everyone would remember this one. I sprinted onto the field. Each step got heavier and heavier. The sprint onto the field felt like a marathon. I tried to control my breath. Calm myself down for the moment. My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. All my training and work had led up to this moment.
I got up to the spot and my holder tapped me on the shoulder and said “you got this.”
“Ice him” the opposing coach said as he called a timeout.
I exhaled slowly, starting at the goalposts. They looked narrower than usual. They felt as if they were shrinking as I looked upon them.
I did a practice swing with my leg then relined up. I took one last deep breath ready to kick the ball.
My holder flashed his hands
The ball was snapped.
The ball was caught. My holder put it down perfectly.
I took my first step followed by another then planted my foot and swung my leg through the ball.
The whole season relying on this ball going through these yellow posts.
For a split second everything went silent.
The ball rose into the air, springing end over end and climbing higher and higher.
The noise suddenly came back louder than ever.
The referee’s arms shot up.
The kick was good!
The crowd erupted. The ball went right down the middle and I just stood there relieved.
The season would not end tonight.
The whole team swarmed me. Lifting me up off my feet shouting. We would be advancing to the next round of the playoffs. I felt on top of the world.
Explanation of Student Emulation
Pacing: I used short, quick sentences like “five seconds left.” and “the ball was snapped.” to emulate the pacing of the story. Marie Lu loves to use quick, poppy sentences during intense moments to make the action feel very suspenseful. I broke each action into smaller steps, for example each movement of the kick, to slow down time in the very important moment to build tension.
Character emotions: I wrote my story in first person just like Marie Lu does for most of her books so the reader can experience the events through the thoughts and view of the protagonist. You could tell that the kicker has been training and kicking all season long but despite that he is still nervous. This is shown in lines such as “My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest.” Marie Lu does this with her characters when they are put in a situation where they are going to struggle.
Tone: The tone is serious and suspenseful throughout the whole writing. Everything builds toward the moment of the kick. This is how Marie Lu build her high-stake moments.
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