a strange or unexpected encounter essay

A Strange Encounter

It was a conventional evening at the Gladwyne Pharmacy. Preparing for our closure, I was organizing the register receipts from the day to save myself from ancillary labor the following morning. 6:57PM: only three more minutes before I can finally return home after an extensive, demanding afternoon. Contrary to the ordinary occurrence, our regular last-minute customers were not swarming in the door. Initially, I took this as a good sign: today may mark the first time I get off work punctually. But, lo and behold, my expectations did not match the true exposition.

A man walks in: at least my height, possibly taller, and significantly stronger. He was completely unfamiliar to me; I assumed he must not be from the area. He flounced his way in my direction as if under heavy influence of drugs or alcohol. A strong scent of whiskey filled the air as he neared. Instantaneously, I knew this man would be a problem. “Give me these drugs now! ” he clamors as he slams his gargantuan fist on the counter. It unfurls to reveal a crumpled sticky note with a short list of narcotics written upon it in pencil.

I briskly replied with the standard protocol response for a situation such as this: “These drugs require a proper doctor-written prescription for us to give them to you. ” I could ascertain that he was not satisfied with my rejoinder. This is where my once-regular day at work began to look more on the abysmal side. With an even more irate expression on his face than before, the man reached with his other hand towards his waist. At this point he was obviously insinuating towards his possession of a weapon. Unreasonably, he demanded to speak to one of our administrators.

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I informed him that none of them were present, but if he so wished I could contact them via telephone and have him speak directly to them. This was outrageous to the man, and for some reason engendered even further aggravation from him. Our only pharmacist on duty that night had been eavesdropping from the beginning, and thought it necessary to call our owner. She came out and politely handed the man the phone with our owner on the line. A second later, the phone was in pieces on the ground. The man approached me again, this time with a newfound ambition in his eyes.

Noticing that both of our register drawers were ajar, he enjoined that I give him all of their contents. “I’ll take all of the money or all of these drugs, or you will have a problem! ” I rapidly fabricated this retort: “You, sir, are the one with a problem: the local police are en route as we speak. ” Without hesitation, the man bolted out of the pharmacy, and was arrested later that night for DUI. I was commended and received a pay-raise for my bravery. That improbable night I learned never to succumb to another person’s demands, even if your life depends on it.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, unusual circumstances essay: how to write about it.

I'm working on my college essays, and some of the prompts ask about 'unusual circumstances' that have impacted my life. I've had some unique experiences but I'm not sure how to write about them. Any advice on how to showcase them well in my essay?

When writing about unusual circumstances, the key is to present them in a way that highlights your resilience, personal growth, and how they've shaped you. Here are some tips on how to showcase your unique experiences effectively:

1. Focus on the story: Begin with a brief but compelling narrative that illustrates the unusual circumstance you faced. Make sure to use vivid, engaging language that pulls the reader into your experience. Avoid simply listing facts; instead, aim to create a snapshot of that moment in your life.

2. Show personal growth: Explain how overcoming or dealing with the unusual circumstance led to significant personal growth or development. Discuss the specific skills or attributes you gained as a result of this experience. Perhaps the situation forced you to think creatively, taught you the importance of empathy, or helped you develop leadership abilities.

3. Highlight resilience: Demonstrate how your unusual circumstances required adaptability, strength, or perseverance. By showing that you were able to rebound from adverse events, you'll be illustrating your ability to handle challenges and succeed under pressure.

4. Connect to long-term goals: Tie your experience to your academic and professional goals. For instance, if your unusual circumstance spurred your interest in a particular subject or career field, elaborate on how it solidified your passion and commitment to pursuing this path.

5. Reflect: Lastly, make sure to spend some time reflecting on the impact of your unique experience on your overall character and worldview. Would you be the same person without this experience? How did it change your perspective on life? Share this introspection with your reader, as it will help foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of your story.

Check out this helpful CollegeVine article for more advice on tackling exceptional personal circumstances in an essay: https://blog.collegevine.com/how-to-explain-exceptional-personal-circumstances-on-applications

Remember, the goal is not simply to narrate your experience, but to share the insights, growth, and wisdom you've gained as a result. By incorporating these tips into your essay, you will give admissions officers a clear and genuine understanding of the unusual circumstance that affected you and the person you've become because of it.

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

How to Write a Narrative Essay or Speech (With Topic Ideas)

• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

A narrative essay or speech tells a story, often one based on personal experience. The narrative is a genre of writing that comprises works of nonfiction, stories that stick closely to facts and follow a logical chronological progression of events. In narratives, writers often use anecdotes to relate their experiences and engage the reader. In doing so, writers give their stories a level of emotional appeal. A narrative can be serious or humorous, but some kind of emotional appeal is essential to provide an audience with a way to connect to the story.

Below is an overview of how to construct a narrative essay or speech and some topic ideas for your next piece of narrative writing.

The most successful narrative essays usually share these three basic traits:

• They make a central point.
• They contain  specific details in support  of that point.
• They are clearly  organized in time .

Constructing the Essay

Magazines like the New Yorker and websites like Vice are known for the pages-long narrative essays they publish, sometimes called long-format journalism. But an effective narrative essay can be as short as five paragraphs. As with other kinds of essay writing, narratives follow the same basic outline:

• Introduction: This is the opening paragraph of your essay. It contains the hook, which is used to grab the reader's attention, and the thesis or topic, which you'll detail in the next section.
• Body: This is the heart of your essay, usually three to five paragraphs in length. Each paragraph should contain one example, such as a personal anecdote or noteworthy event, that supports your larger topic.
• Conclusion: This is the final paragraph of your essay. In it, you'll sum up the main points of the body and bring your narrative to an end. Writers sometimes embellish the conclusion with an epilogue or a takeaway.

Narrative Essay Topics

Choosing the topic for your narrative essay may be the hardest part. What you should be looking for in a topic is a particular incident you can recount in a well-developed and organized essay  or speech . Here are a few ideas to help you brainstorm topics. They're quite broad, but something should spark an idea.

• An embarrassing experience
• A memorable wedding or funeral
• An exciting minute or two of a football game (or another sporting event)
• Your first or last day at a job or new school
• A disastrous date
• A memorable moment of failure or success
• An encounter that changed your life or taught you a lesson
• An experience that led to a renewed faith
• A strange or unexpected encounter
• An experience of how technology is more trouble than it's worth
• An experience that left you disillusioned
• A frightening or dangerous experience
• A memorable journey
• An encounter with someone you were in awe of or afraid of
• An occasion when you experienced rejection
• Your first visit to the countryside (or to a large city)
• The circumstances that led to the breakup of a friendship
• An experience that showed that you should be careful of what you wish for
• A significant or comic misunderstanding
• An experience that showed how appearances can be deceiving
• An account of a difficult decision that you had to make
• An event that marked a turning point in your life
• An experience that changed your viewpoint on a controversial issue
• A memorable encounter with someone in authority
• An act of heroism or cowardice
• An imaginary encounter with a real person
• A rebellious act
• A brush with greatness or death
• A time that you took a stand on an important issue
• An experience that altered your view of someone
• A trip that you would like to take
• A vacation trip from your childhood
• An account of a visit to a fictional place or time
• Your first time away from home
• Two different versions of the same event
• A day when everything went right or wrong
• An experience that made you laugh until you cried
• The experience of being lost
• Surviving a natural disaster
• An important discovery
• An eyewitness account of an important event
• An experience that helped you grow up
• A description of your secret place
• An account of what it would be like to live as a particular animal
• Your dream job and what it would be like
• An invention you'd like to create
• A time when you realized your parents were right
• An account of your earliest memory
• Your reaction when you heard the best news of your life
• A description of the one thing you can't live without

Other Types of Essays

Narrative essays are one of the major essay types. Others include:

• Argumentative: In argumentative essays , the writer makes the case for a specific opinion on a topic, using research and analysis to persuade the reader.
• Descriptive: This kind of writing relies on detail to describe or define a person, place, thing, or experience. Writing may be either objective or subjective.
• Expository: Like argumentative essays, expository writing requires research and analysis in order to expound upon a subject. Unlike argumentative essays, the intention is not to change the readers' opinion but to inform the readers.
• Angelli, Elizabeth; Baker, Jack; and Brizee, Allen. " Essay Writing ." Perdue.edu. 9 February 2018.
• Beck, Kate. " Instructions to Write a Narrative Essay. " SeattlePI.com.
• Santa Barbara City College staff. "Structure of a Personal Narrative Essay." SBCC.edu.
• How to Write a Personal Narrative
• 501 Topic Suggestions for Writing Essays and Speeches
• What Is Expository Writing?
• Writing an Opinion Essay
• How to Use Anecdotes to Nail Your Next Speech
• Tips on How to Write an Argumentative Essay
• How to Write a Great Process Essay
• How to Write a Good Thesis Statement
• Essay Assignment: Descriptive and Informative Profile
• 50 Argumentative Essay Topics
• 100 Persuasive Essay Topics
• Write an Attention-Grabbing Opening Sentence for an Essay
• The Ultimate Guide to the 5-Paragraph Essay
• Overused and Tired Words
• How to Start an Essay: 13 Engaging Strategies
• How to Write a Response Paper

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Home Essay Samples Life Life Changing Experience

The Moment That Changed Everything: an Unpredictable Nature of Life

Table of contents, the unpredictability of life, the power of revelation, the domino effect of change, the lessons we carry forward, the journey forward.

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13.7 Cosmos & Culture

When the mysterious and inexplicable happens.

Marcelo Gleiser

Nearly everyone has had weird experiences, things that happen in life that seem to defy any sort of rational explanation.

It could be strange sightings, events that apparently challenge the laws of nature, that evoke the supernatural, or feelings of being possessed by some kind of universal awe, that elicit a connectedness with something grander, timeless.

What are these events — and what are they trying to tell us, if anything?

For a rationalist, the usual response is one of dismissal, based on the law of large numbers: When there are billions of people experiencing billions of different events every day, chances are that some will encounter events that are so rare that they are deemed, on the surface, as unexplainable. Tanya Luhrmann, a professor of anthropology at Stanford and an expert on what could be called the experience of the sacred, has written extensively on the subject in The New York Times as an op-ed contributor , in books for the general public , and in more academic settings . When she was a graduate student in England, she had one such experience that left her wondering. She was on a train, going to interview with a group of people that practiced a form of powerful magic, when she felt strange :

"I was reading a book by a man they called an 'adept' — someone they regarded as deeply knowledgeable and powerful... And as I strained to imagine what the author thought it would be like to be that vehicle, I began to feel power in my veins — to really feel it, not to imagine it. I grew hot. I became completely alert, more awake than I usually am, and I felt so alive. It seemed that power coursed through me like water through a chute. I wanted to sing. And then wisps of smoke came out of my backpack, in which I had tossed my bicycle lights. One of them was melting."

She writes of the experience:

"I walked off that train with a new respect for why people believed in magic, not a new understanding of reality. Sometimes people have remarkable experiences, and then tuck them away as events they can't explain."

Luhrmann mentions how Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and a notable rationalist, had one such experience that defied any sense of logic and left him stunned . I know Michael and can attest to his rock-solid convictions. A few weeks before his wedding, his German bride-to-be shipped many of her belongings to their home in California. Among them was an old radio that belonged to her dear grandfather, the closest father figure she had growing up. The transistor radio had been broken for years and Shermer's attempts to fix it failed. They tucked it into a drawer in their bedroom and forgot about it. On their wedding day, they were surprised to hear music coming from upstairs. After searching for possible sources, they were amazed to see that it was the transistor radio, as if it had come back to life on its own. "My grandfather is here with us," Shermer's wife Jennifer said, tearfully. "I'm not alone." The radio stopped playing the next day, as mysteriously as it had started.

I also have had one such experience (actually more than one), that I relate in detail in my recent book The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected , under the chapter heading "The Witch of Copacabana." Here is a brief summary:

When I was growing up in Rio, my parents loved hosting dinner parties. My father, a dentist, had welcomed to his practice many of the Portuguese immigrants that flooded Brazil after the Carnation Revolution of 1974. One day, he invited the former Minister of Justice (a sort of attorney general) and other friends to dinner. He offered the minister a whisky. After taking a sip, the minister gave my father a perplexed look. "Izaac, this is tea, not whisky." My father's mouth dropped. He ran to the closet where he stored his liquor and confirmed that the open whisky bottle had been filled with tea. The same with every open bottle with amber-colored liquid. My father ran to the kitchen to find our cook Maria, a small black lady in her 50s with pitch-dark beady eyes. We knew she was a high priestess of the Macumba, a widespread religious practice mixing elements of African black magic and fetishism with Catholicism. Maria confessed immediately, as if what she had done had been obvious. My father was furious, and fired her on the spot. Maria looked him in the eye and cursed the house: "Something bad will happen to this house." I was horrified. Maria tried to comfort me. "Don't worry, boy, you have 'corpo fechado' (closed body), and nothing will harm you."

My father, a superstitious man, took his precautions, filling his pockets with garlic and the house with branches of rue, a plant that many in Brazil believe is a sort of chlorophyllous evil barometer that shrivels when harm is near. A month passed and nothing happened. We went back to our routines and hired a new cook. One day, as I was studying for an exam, I felt a compulsion to go to the dining room. Our rococo-style dining table was flanked on both ends by furniture containing fine crystal. Behind my father's seat at the head of the table was a closet with glass doors and three glass shelves, where my parents stored beautiful wineglasses made of Bohemian crystal. At the opposite end of the table was a brass beverage trolley, with a top glass shelf covered with crystal bottles filled with port, sherry and liqueurs of all colors, each labeled with a small silver necklace.

I was standing by the dining table in a strange sort of daze when something, maybe a subtle noise, made me turn toward the closet. At that very moment, the top shelf broke in half, and all the heavy glasses came crashing down onto the second shelf, which in turn collapsed onto the first shelf in a horrifying waterfall of shattering crystal. Dozens of priceless antique glasses were instantly destroyed. I hardly had time to blink, when another cracking noise made me turn toward the trolley at the other end of the table. In a flash, the top shelf collapsed, taking all the crystal bottles to the floor with it. The noise was deafening. Shards of glass flew everywhere. I was paralyzed. The new cook came running from the kitchen and crossed herself. She packed her things and vanished that same night, never to be seen again.

Shaking uncontrollably, I phoned my father at his office. "It's the curse, dad. She did it! Everything crashed, right in front of me. The closet and the trolley, practically at the same time!"

I spent a long time trying to come up with a reasonable explanation: a supersonic boom; an earthquake; maybe I was in a hypnotic trance and did it myself. Nothing added up though. To have both events in almost synchrony was deeply perplexing. And it involved drinking, as it should. This is a mysterious event that remains unexplained.

People react differently when faced with such situations. Some feel it as convincing evidence of the supernatural and embrace a religion (a conversion event) or a mystical practice. Others, perhaps in fear for what such event may represent to their worldview, vigorously push it aside as an odd coincidence. Or they honestly think of such stories as some of life's bizarre twists, without any opening to otherworldly dimensions.

In my case, I remain agnostic. Being a scientist, I'm well-aware that nature tends to follow precise rules, some of which we have managed to understand and to describe. However, I'm also well-aware of our limitations, of the fact that we are surrounded by mystery and by what we don't understand.

Science's purpose is to crack open some of these mysteries, and it does so magnificently. But science can't crack them all. And that's okay. A bit of the unexplained is good, as it keeps us a little unsettled. We must keep an open mind as we peel layer after layer of reality, prepared to be surprised at every step — and humbled by what we can't know.

Marcelo Gleiser is a theoretical physicist and writer — and a professor of natural philosophy, physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. He is the director of the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth , co-founder of 13.7 and an active promoter of science to the general public. His latest book is The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected: A Natural Philosopher's Quest for Trout and the Meaning of Everything . You can keep up with Marcelo on Facebook and Twitter: @mgleiser

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Essay on An Incident That Changed My Life

Students are often asked to write an essay on An Incident That Changed My Life in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on An Incident That Changed My Life

Introduction.

Life is a series of events. Some leave a deep impact on us. For me, it was my first camping trip that changed my life.

The Incident

That incident made me brave. I learned to face challenges head-on. It also ignited a love for nature in me.

That camping trip was a turning point in my life. It taught me resilience and made me a better person.

250 Words Essay on An Incident That Changed My Life

A day at the shelter.

One cold winter’s day, I found myself in a bustling homeless shelter, surrounded by faces marked with hardship and resilience. The shelter, a beacon of hope for many, was a place where the less fortunate could find warmth, food, and a sense of community. My task was simple: serve meals and engage in conversation.

The Encounter

Among the many people I met, one man’s story struck a chord. A former engineer, he had fallen victim to circumstances beyond his control and lost everything. Despite his dire situation, he radiated positivity and hope. Our conversation was a stark reminder of life’s unpredictability, and it shattered my preconceived notions about homelessness.

Life-altering Realizations

The encounter made me reflect on my privileges and the transient nature of success. I realized that compassion and understanding were more valuable than material wealth. It also unveiled my passion for social work and ignited a desire to contribute to society more actively.

The day at the shelter was an incident that profoundly changed my life. It taught me to value humanity over materialism, and it guided me towards a path of social service. Life is indeed unpredictable, but it’s these unexpected moments that hold the power to redefine our purpose and transform our lives.

500 Words Essay on An Incident That Changed My Life

Life is a series of events, some ordinary and others extraordinary. Often, it is the extraordinary incidents that have the power to transform our lives completely. This essay delves into one such incident that not only changed my perspective but also my life’s trajectory.

The Unexpected Encounter

A lesson in resilience.

John was a retired teacher who had lost everything due to a series of unfortunate events. Despite his circumstances, he never lost his spirit or his love for teaching. He would gather the children in the shelter every evening and teach them with an enthusiasm that was truly inspiring. His resilience in the face of adversity was a lesson in itself.

The Life-Changing Conversation

One day, I mustered the courage to ask John how he managed to remain positive. His reply was simple yet profound, “Life is not about what happens to you, but how you respond to it.” He explained that he chose to focus on the things within his control, like his attitude and actions, rather than dwelling on his misfortunes.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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PSLE English Composition tips: Two ways to plot ‘An unexpected discovery’ & model composition

August has been a very busy month for our P6 students. Aside from rigorously preparing for the PSLE Oral examination, we have also been preparing for the Preliminary examinations.

Aside from our weekly writing practices , to prepare them further, I will also plan out the list of the SA1 compositions with my classes.

This will allow them to be confident should a similar theme come out for the prelim. It is also a way for us to see how we can manipulate past plots into new themes.

My students have been lucky this year for the Paper 1 Preliminary themes . Some of the themes not on the list such as friendship and perseverance were done this year in class while others had themes that were in the SA1 list!

In my next post, I will put up the list of the Preliminary Composition themes that my students had so that you too can plan at home.

However, today, I will write about a theme that many schools had for their SA1. The theme of something ‘unexpected’ seemed to have been a common theme in many schools. From a surprise to an unexpected discovery , students had to write about being surprised.

I decided to use this as one of our compositions topics in August.

We discussed two possible ways to write this story. One was to discover a physical object unexpectedly, such as money or weapons. This would be a story with suspense and descriptive action.

The second way was to discover something unexpectedly about a family member or yourself such as adoption papers or a family secret. This composition would be more emotional and would require the use of characterisation.

While the second way may seem more difficult, both compositions, when written well, can garner a good score.

Below is Sarah’s, one of my P6 students, composition. She has been working hard all year to achieve her PSLE English goal and watching the effort she has put in to improve all year, makes me sure that she will meet the target for the PSLE.

I am happy to feature her composition on the blog today. She chose to write the second way suggested – discovering a family secret. Sarah’s story is emotional and yet she has made sure to use the theme.

PSLE English Composition model on the theme of ‘ An Unexpected Discovery ‘

Note to students

The model compositions in this blog are to help students generate ideas and to be used as a guide. Students are not allowed to copy the model compositions and then pass them off as their own work, especially in school. It is called plagiarism.

“$4000? Father only left us $4000? What did he do with the rest of the money that he had?” I exclaimed, after my father’s funeral.

A million different possibilities raced through my mind. Could he have had another secret family? I thought to myself.

“Sally, trust your father. I am sure that he had done something good with the money that he had,” my mother said giving me a pat on my back.

              It did not matter what my mother said. I resented my father ever since then. To me, he was not a good father. He was selfish and greedy. What kind of a father would leave his daughter and wife $4000 after his death? Before my father’s death, he was the sole breadwinner of the family. However, after his unexpected death, my mother had to take up the responsibility of being the sole breadwinner just to support the family, put food on the table and pay the bills.

              One day, when I arrived home from school, I asked my mother where my old report book was kept.

“Mrs. Tan, my English teacher needs the old report book by tomorrow for administration purposes,” I told my mother as she was preparing to rush off for her afternoon shift at work.

“The basement!” called my mother as she hurried out of the door.

Why is my report book kept in the basement? I wondered. I put down my bag, took out our torchlight, and made my way down to the basement. I opened the wooden door leading to the basement. Walking down the flight of old stairs, it creaked beneath me. I switched on the torchlight in my hand to make my way around. There were cobwebs and dust everywhere due to the lack of maintenance. The bulbs in the lamps needed to be changed too.  The basement was filled with boxes of my father’s belongings, placed there after his death.  I walked around the basement looking through the boxes for my report book.

“Where can my report book be?” I muttered under my breath.

One of the boxes caught my eye. The box was sealed tightly like it was protecting a secret. I compared it to the other boxes around and it was the only sealed box. What could be inside? I thought to myself, making my way to the box. Dusting off the layer of white dust on the top, I used a penknife on the shelf to open it up. Sweat trickled down my forehead as I cut through the last piece of tape. What could be inside this box that had to be taped up?  What would I   discover about my father? I wondered.

              “1, 2, 3,” I counted to myself before finally opening the box. Peering inside, I  discovered  that there were many different letters. Picking them out one by one, I read through them. They were all addressed to my father and they were from different organisations and people. Each letter was filled with words of gratitude, thanking my father for his kind donation. Orphans wrote about how grateful they were that my father had helped them with their school fees and sick people thanked my father for helping to pay for the medical bills that they could not afford. I could not believe my eyes! Finding these letters was truly an unexpected discovery. I then understood why there were so many people I did not know at my father’s funeral. They must have been the people to whom he had donated his money to.

Tears welled up in my eyes. Had I really known my father? The more I read the letters, the more I started to understand him. My father was not a selfish and greedy man. Instead, he was a generous and selfless man. He had donated his money to those who needed it more than him.

After a long time in the basement reading each of those letters, I closed up the box again . Finding out my father’s true personality was an unexpected discovery.  I learnt one of the most important lessons of my life that day and I promised to always remember him for the generous man that he was.

Check the other articles from this section

• P6 2021 SA1 List of Composition Themes
• P6 English Composition model: Being punished
• SOTA Primary 6 Creative Writing Competition 2021
• PSLE Composition Reminders
• Phrases to describe pride and embarrassment
• List of 2023 Preliminary Composition themes & model on ‘kicking a bad habit’
• Phrases to describe ‘A Narrow Escape’
• 4 Steps to Plan out Your Composition & A 2022 Preliminary Composition Model on the Theme Of An Opportunity
• Creative Similes – How to use them and score in your PSLE compositions
• 4 ways to score in the PSLE 2023 Composition & a Model Composition on the theme of ‘A change for the Better’
• PSLE 2022 Paper 1 : Unpacking the Situational Writing Component
• List of 2021 Preliminary Composition Themes
• P6 English Composition: 3 ways to help students score above 33 for their examinations
• PSLE English 2022 Paper 1: Check what AL1 and AL2 English scorers wrote about
• List of 2022 Preliminary Themes
• 2022 English Prelim and Composition Model – A change in attitude
• PSLE Composition A Crime you were involved in
• P6 English Composition model An Unwelcomed Guest
• P6 Composition A Memorable Occasion & taking risks in plots
• P6 SA1 2018 List of Composition Themes
• P6 Composition Theme Something Unexpected that Happened to You
• Primary 6 Composition A dangerous situation
• P6 Situational Writing
• PSLE English Composition Theme – A Considerate Act
• P6 Writing: City Underground & SOTA Primary 6 Creative Writing Competition 2020
• P6 Model composition – A Dangerous situation
• List of P6 2020 English composition Preliminary Themes
• P6 Composition Being Late
• List of 2018 PSLE Compo themes
• PSLE Composition Theme An Unusual Incident
• P6 Composition An Adventure
• 2019 Preliminary Composition Themes
• P6 English Composition A Secret
• P6 Composition model on Achieving a goal & how to score well
• Primary 6 English Composition: A Changed Behaviour & PSLE 2019 results
• P6 SA1 Composition Themes 2019
• P6 English: An unforgettable event composition

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How to Write Unexpected Story Events

Stories are all pretty much the same. Something happens that inspires something else to happen that inspires a resolution of some sort. With all the billions of stories out there, it’s no surprise we see the same plot elements recycled frequently. But don’t let the frequency of blasé, expected plot events become an excuse. Instead, focus on how to write unexpected story events.

How do you do that? There are two keys.

1. You must be aware of what  is expected by readers.

2. You must look for the unexpected in the heart of your characters’ motivations .

Sounds easy, right? And yet when you sit down to make it happen in your own story, it’s surprising how often and how easy it is to cop to the same old formulae.

How to Write Unexpected Story Events? First, Write Unexpected Characters

If your characters are doing and saying the same ol’ thing in every scene, it’s probably not because you’re a bad or unimaginative writer. It’s probably because the character himself is the same ol’ thing. You can’t milk unusual or electrifying events from a character who is always true to type.

Unexpected story events arise from the heart of characters who have complicated motivations and unique methods.  Justi f ied consistently offers exceptionally smart writing and unexpected events for the simple reason that its characters—especially rogue Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens—don’t play by the standard rules of the genre.

Raylan is the story’s hero, the “good” guy, and yet he breaks the rules by consistently taking the law into his own hands. This in itself isn’t necessarily unexpected. Rogue lawmen who circumvent bureaucracy to do the right thing are as old as the classic western. But Raylan consistently pushes the envelope in ways that (up through Season 2, at any rate) subvert expectations  without forcing him into a position that makes him either unduly “bad” or unduly stupid.

Raylan Givens plays the game by his own rules—which means people come to expect the unexpected. And his unexpected actions still conform to the consistency of character motivations. ( Justified (2010-15), FX.)

For example, consider the storyline in which he discovers his ex-wife’s ex-husband—the idiotic, corrupt, but usually well-meaning Gary—has sunk himself in deep with the mobster Duffy in an attempt to whack Raylan. Raylan loads Gary and Duffy’s spy into the car and takes them all out to confront Duffy.

What’s he going to do? Raylan is ever unpredictable—bouncing between reckless but decisive action and lawful restraint. Under the circumstances, it isn’t too unexpected when he responds to Gary’s query (about why he doesn’t call in in his fellow marshals as backup) by saying calmly: “Oh, they’ll just arrest him.”

Gary, who continues to believe himself a law-abiding citizen, is, of course, shocked. Viewers who have seen Raylan get away with executing deserving bad guys before aren’t too surprised.

Then comes the unexpected—not once, but twice.

Characters with complicated motivations and a strong conflict between outer Want and inner Need can provide plausible story events that are unexpected, simply because the story could reasonably go in either direction. ( Justified (2010-15), FX.)

Once they arrive at Duffy’s, Raylan not only reveals he never  intended to shoot the deserving Duffy, but he then pulls a “double switcheroo.” Viewers may initially be surprised Raylan would hand Duffy over to a law system that would inevitably release him, but they’re even more surprised when Raylan then uses the ploy of leaving a vengeful Duffy alive in order to force Gary on the run “never to return.”

Didn’t see that one coming? (And you gotta know there will be consequences .)

3 Ways to Seek Out Unexpected Story Events

Although unexpected events will often occur to you in the spur of the moment when writing a scene, they are never born  of that scene. They are always the result of how you have set up your readers’ expectations in all the scenes leading up to this one.

If you lead readers to expect your rogue-but-usually-lawful lawman may occasionally shoot the deserving bad guy, you have created for yourself the opportunity to surprise them when you then give that character a good reason to behave in exactly the opposite way.

To make this work, you must first:

1. Set reader expectations in previous scenes.

Use both foreshadowing (Raylan is a loose cannon) and misdirection (Raylan’s outright indication he’s going to kill Duffy and thereby save Gary).

Write unexpected story events by creating a foundation of inner conflict within your character, right from the start. ( Justified (2010-15), FX.)

2. Create complicated motivations and realistically flawed morals for your characters.

Let their Wants and Needs pull them in opposite directions and force them into lose-lose decisions, no matter what they choose.

3. Build scenes in which it  makes sense for the character to play against type and do the unexpected.

You can’t have the character do what’s unexpected simply  because it’s unexpected. Even when the outcome is a gamble and even when the character faces long-term consequences, he must have a sensible motivation in the moment and reasonable cause to believe he’s making the better choice .

Figuring out how to write unexpected story events can be a turning point in the “smartness” and originality of your fiction. Fortunately, as with so much of fiction, it’s all about getting your foundation right: write solid and complex characters , and the unexpected story events will practically create themselves.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What were the last unexpected story events in your work-in-progress? Tell me in the comments!

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K.M. Weiland is the award-winning and internationally-published author of the acclaimed writing guides Outlining Your Novel , Structuring Your Novel , and Creating Character Arcs . A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and fantasy novels and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

Thanks for that posting. I love this sort of situation, and I’ve used it many times.

The following is something of a spoiler.

The setup is that the technology behind faster than light travel is very secret:

(Jane) ‘Really. I found out how the drive works while I was sixteen years old, and still a citizen of the Mercia colony.’ ‘And how does it work?’ She smiled and shook her head. ‘I think you know that’s the one question that I’ll never answer. In fact it’s my job to die rather than answer it, if needs be.’ The trouble was that the answer was dangerously simple—she could have explained it to Alan in ten minutes. ‘Look around you and you’ll see why.’

Arthur (Antagonist) later captures Jane. He is determined to get the information out of Jane, but his first two attempts at interrogation fail. The first time Jane puts the torturer in hospital, the second time Arthur tries to do the torturing himself until she makes him throw up.

Then comes the third interrogation:

And then she knew what she must do. ‘All right,’ she said between gasps, ‘I’ll do it. I’ll build you a drive. Now stop, I don’t want to die.’ She felt pressure on her arm. ‘For God’s sake, Arthur,’ she screamed, ‘I’ve given in. Don’t! No! Stop! I’ll do it! Damn you, I’ll build the drive!’ then all she was aware of was the stinging sensation as the injector discharged into her arm. That, and her own agonised, wordless, scream of pure terror.

So has Jane of unlimited courage and resource actually cracked under interrogation? Nobody who really knows her thinks so.

She is playing a deeper, deadlier game. She must trust the people who know her to believe in what she is doing, but as for Arthur:

(Senior officer) ‘They’ve almost finished building it,’ he said, ‘although I’m still having trouble believing what happened. You told Arthur that it was an orthodynamic drive, and he swallowed it.’ (Jane) ‘Hook, line, sinker and a three-hour angling video. He’d no idea what the drive looked like, and he so desperately wanted to believe that he’d dragged it out of me, that he fooled himself. It’s sometimes easier that way.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘There’s no deception like self-deception. Once he’d convinced himself that he’d broken me, he believed every word I said.’

The point is of course that because Arthur doesn’t know what the FTL drive looks like (it’s secret) Jane can get away with selling him anything as a drive. Jane has done something out of character with a good reason, and thereby dealt with Arthur.

Ooh, I love that. Self-deception or reverse psychology sometimes works wonders for bringing the unexpected out of characters. This is something I still need to work on in my own fiction. Thanks for your example!

This is a great line: “Hook, line, sinker and a three-hour angling video.”

Another excellent post.

One of my favorite examples of this unexpectedness is the Will Smith movie “Enemy of the State” where he manages to wrap things up nicely at the end. One of the axioms I’ve learned from reading military space opera is, “If you have one problem, it’s hard to find a solution, but if you have two problems, they sometimes solve each other.”

Great job. Keep up the good work.

Haven’t seen that one, but now you make me want to!

Awesome and thought-provoking post, Katie! I think you’re right in that well-developed characters with complicated inner dichotomies between Want and Need will practically create their own surprises. I’ll have to keep a more sharp eye out for opportunities to exploit this technique for originality in my outlines/drafts!

If you dig deep enough, you realize all plot developments start with character. The unexpected is never *truly* unexpected, because it’s rooted deep within the established possibilities for the character.

I saw the Raylan picture and immediately knew I was going to love this. I love it when characters “take a third option.” I insist on having the bad guys react that way, too, especially when my heroes have managed to maneuver them into a lose-lose situation. It keeps the heroes on their toes and it makes the villains a worthy challenge.

Partly I do that because I have this “people aren’t chess pieces” mantra — I am never quite convinced by scenarios where one mastermind sets up a situation to force his targets to do X, Y, and Z — and every one of his targets cooperates by reacting the way he expects them to. A Raylan Givens character throws an awesome monkey wrench.

Agreed. Given a stark choice of A or B mine will consider C, decide that D and E don’t really work and do F.

Excellent mantra! Stories are like chess, in a lot of ways, but if we fail to get down to the characters’ level and see it from their perspective (where it certainlky is *not* a chess match), then the whole thing just ends up feeling mechanical.

Neat. Instead of doing the first thing that pops to mind, I’m going to try to dig a little deeper and see what my MC comes up with. Thanks for these great tips!

Yep, sometimes it’s the second or third options that get really interesting.

I really like what you’re saying here. Unexpected events keep the story interested and the reader reading. There’s also a huge difference between a properly written unexpected story event and a surprise plot twist ending (which may not always make sense or even fit in with the rest of the story.)

Nothing is worse than an improperly set-up plot twist. It rarely does what the author is hoping and just yanks the readers’ chain instead. But when the twist is organic within the character and the plot–whooee, that’s hard to beat!

I like this idea. It’s something I’ve tried, but still need to work on. Your tips will be very helpful. Thanks for posting.

When in doubt, go back to the source: the characters.

One that I remember is Jabba the Hutt. In the original Star Wars, Jabba was this mysterious figure that had something against Han Solo. The fact that we didn’t actually see him only added to that. (By the way, Greedo never fired in the original. Solo just shot him to keep him quiet.) When we finally did meet Jabba, it was a revelation. When George Lucas added the footage to the rerelease in 1997, it ruined things. I could see why he cut it originally. Also, the scene where Greedo shot first ruined it as well. If those scenes had been in the original movie, it wouldn’t have been the hit it was.

I agree. The new footage of Jabba doesn’t even look like the same character.

Justified has been one of my guilty pleasure shows because it was so well written and the characters crafted so well. It also knew when to quit.

That last is especially good to hear. TV shows that overstay their welcome are one of my pet peeves.

That’s a great example, and illustrates that real people often have hierarchies of enemies (and goals, and rules, etc) which are not necessarily what you’d expect. I can think of examples from my own life where I might have done something unexpected by the people around me, because my hierarchy wasn’t necessarily what they expected.

The key here is a real (as opposed to ‘realistic’, which I submit conforms to expectations) character.

John Truby talks about four-cornered conflict. Instead of just a one-on-one conflict between protagonist and antagonist, you have everyone in conflict with everyone. Consequences galore!

This is very true. I try to have every one of my characters supplied with their own agenda, something they want to achieve, which is at an angle to the main plot. There is one scene where Jane persuades two of Arthur’s black-hats to take off their helmets. Inside we find not highly-trained stormtroopers but a pair of acne-ridden adolescents who only got into black-hatting because there were no other jobs to be had.

Their agenda revolves around getting paid and going home to mum safely at the end of the shift.

Jane refuses to be frightened of them even though they have the guns. She offers to teach them enough about engineering to get sensible jobs elsewhere.

The antagonist’s dreams of galactic conquest turn on an army of spotty herberts. This is not going to end well.

It’s fun, too, when characters turn out to be the opposite of what is expected–as with your teenage guns for hire.

Absolutely. I do a lot of what I call “inversion scenes” where what is going on is the opposite of what you would expect. Jane needs to find Arthur before any more nukes go off, because he has his finger on the button. So she needs to be kidnapped by his minions and taken to him but, you’ve guessed it, the minions are so incompetent that she has to give them quite a lot of help. So we have the minions who are trying to avoid kidnapping her for various reasons, and Jane trying to get them to do it. This is enormous fun to write, and my readers like it.

Sounds fun!

I like listening to your podcasts sometimes.

Thanks, Amy! I’m glad you enjoy them.

I am commenting for the giveaway you are having. My protagonist’s name is Mary, and through my book her character arc is that she gets better at trusting in God.

This comment should still count on Rafflecopter, but you’re actually supposed to comment on the drawing post . Sorry if that wasn’t clear! 🙂

I’ve been trying to come up with ideas to make my story and my character more interesting, using “what if” scenarios and such…I’m working on a young adult contemporary story and I’ve found it’s kind of hard to figure out events without the story seeming boring (but that’s just me)…do you have any advise to keep the reader reading even though the story isn’t “action” packed? I know John Green and so many others have done it but it’s hard! lol

“Action” in a story doesn’t have to mean guns blazing. It just means the character is doing something to move toward his story goal on a scene by scene basis. Think about how the characters in Fault in Our Stars are always *doing* something, and it’s always plot-pertinent to their end goal of dealing with their cancer and meeting the author of their favorite book.

Okay…yeah, I’m still working on what the “end goal” is so I guess once I figure that out, things will slowly start falling into place. Your “Outlining” book has really helped me a lot in figuring out some things for my story though!

Not all writers need to know the end goal when they start writing, but I always find it helpful in avoiding dead ends and discovering the best possible routes for the story to take.

Very helpful!

I love Raylan, he’s such a great, complicated character. Excellent points. Got me thinking about the protagonist in the book I’m starting and realizing he could stand to be more complicated.

I agree. One of the best.

I’ve been having trouble with writing unexpected things, as well as foreshadowing and such, since my particular form of Asperger’s doesn’t exactly lean towards “der sottle stuff” as a Jäger from Girl Genius would put it (in a similar vein, I almost never see plot twists coming).

I may have stumbled upon a method that could help, though: envisioning the plot as though it’s told by a dramatic movie trailer. With one of my book ideas I struggled to come up with a reason for the protagonist to choose a certain action, but when I imagined it as a trailer an answer presented itself. Maybe this way I’ll be able to come up with unexpected actions that are still in-character.

Max, That sounds like a good idea. Having worked in television myself I tend to “see” scenes visually, then write them down.

Actually, this is a great little trick. I do it myself. It’s a great way to find all the juicy stuff in an idea.

In a story I’m planning, the characters are in a haunted house to see what seems to be holograms, but either the holograms end up not being holograms, or the holograms activate things around the house.

Hey KM, I am having a trouble. How do i get ideas about a sequel I want to write? I have used all ideas in the first book and didnt think I could write another one. It is a fantasy novel;its about fantasy world that i have created. Please help as soon as possible. Pls direct me to a post or write a post about this.

Got just the post for you: How to Write a Sequel That’s Better Than the First Book .

My pleasure!

Hello, K. M. Weiland! I am almost finished with my debut novel, but I have a slight problem: the abyss of darkness right before the climax is not nearly deep enough. The main character, Alynn, is 13 and lives in a tenth-century monastery that is about to be attacked by Barbarians. Her Barbarian source tells her that the invasion had been planned (and fortunately cancelled) for that morning. They later have a falling out, and he insists that he will no longer help her. Later, when Alynn is telling her monastic mentor Lukas about the failed invasion, he has an uncharacteristic flash of fear that manifests through even less characteristic anger. The fiasco ends as follows: Suddenly, he slammed his fist on the table so vehemently the entire monastery seemed to shake. “God bless it!” he cried. He looked up at Alynn, who was staring back at him with perfectly round, terrified eyes, and turned to leave. Alynn dejectedly buried her head in her arms as the sound of Lukas’s boots faded down the hallway towards the chapel. “Oh, Lord,” she sighed, “what did I do wrong?” It’s alright— “No, no, no, it’s not alright! I’ve nivver seen Lukas that angry! Now, Drostan’s not going to warn us o’ the invasion, I’m not ready, an’ we are all—going—to—die.”

Immediately afterwards, an arrow is shot through the window, containing a poem that warns of the invasion coming the next morning. What are your thoughts? Thanks so much for your advice!

M. J. Piazza

Although the ultimate decision of whether the dark moment of the Third Plot Point is “dark enough” will depend on the surrounding tenor of the rest of the book, this looks just fine to me. It’s a threat of death that’s going to swing you right around into the final confrontations of the Third Act.

can this information work for Early Edition fanfiction as well

Sure. Stories are stories. 🙂

[…] For writers who like to shake up their readers, Zoe M. McCarthy advises writers to wake up readers with irony, while K. M. Weiland explains how to write unexpected story events. […]

[…] maintain the sequence of ideas and events in your story.  Keep thinking and as soon as you come up with an idea, write it down.  Write down all the ideas […]

[…] How to Write Unexpected Story Events […]

[…] female motorcyclists in France? Not very likely. This is excellent because contrarian thinking is unexpected and will surprise readers. Besides, readers are always on the lookout for interesting […]

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A Personal Narrative on a Strange Encounter with an Old Woman

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Strange Encounters

Essays by Ned

A fter months of delay, I’m finally writing this piece. I needed time to sincerely understand what happened to me. When your heart is in love, you’re floating weightlessly above the atmosphere. When you lose that love, you must re-enter the atmosphere, and it can get pretty rough as you’re bouncing through all kinds of particles. You will keep bouncing around until you connect with another heart who’s also bouncing around; it’s only then that you will be able to slowly float again. My landing wasn’t smooth, but I finally made it. Here’s the story:

I was invited to attend a party last winter. For the first half of the party, I was simply enjoying myself and dancing to the music. It was a Congolese culture themed night and the DJ was blasting most ’90s and early 2000s classics, which instantly put me in a nostalgic mood. After dancing and sweating for more than an hour, I took a seat to cool down. While seated, I noticed a beautiful girl seated across the table. For some reason, she was declining dance offers from many guys, so I didn’t bother to even talk to her. After cooling down, I went back on the dance floor for my second round of Zumba workout. At the end of the round, the DJ played a slow song and she was standing near my group of friends. So, I walked toward her and offered a dance. She stared me from head to toe, by far the longest five seconds of my life, and then agreed to dance with me. I was pleased…and sweating like a pig. We danced nevertheless, and that was it.

At the end of the night, my friends and I drove back to another friend of ours place. The first thing I noticed when I walked in the room was her. What was she doing there? I wasn’t sure, but I thought that was a good opportunity to talk to her and get to know her a bit more. No success: she was busy taking selfies all night and didn’t even pay attention to people in the room. As I was leaving the house, my friend (the host) asked me if I could drop his cousin at her place on my way home. I agreed; little did I know that she was the cousin. When I saw her walking toward the car, I was honestly happy I had my one-on-one moment. During the drive, we chatted, exchanged numbers and flirted a bit. I liked her right away and couldn’t wait to talk to her the next morning.

We started texting each other daily, from the moment I woke up to when I went to bed. She seemed to wake up early and go to bed late; I’m not sure how she functioned. But I liked having someone to talk to all day. It was strange. We had only met once. There was always something to say, something to agree or disagree on. Little did I know that I was slowly falling for her. When we talked about dating, she was hesitant, explaining that she didn’t want to be hurt again. I didn’t quite understand the implication of that statement, so I assured her that I was different and would never hurt her. Without fully being aware of it, I was signing up to heal a heart I didn’t break. I imagined a future with her as my better half, and I was excited.

I was so excited by the idea of what we could become together that I lost my mind… wait, no… I fell in love…hmm… no, I became insane…Okay, call it whatever you want. Love increases dopamine levels and the latter can make you go crazy. I didn’t think I was in love at the time, but I became silly, for sure. I didn’t know much about her, but I could already picture a wonderful future, full of success stories and beautiful moments. So, I decided to commit and make her the happiest woman on Earth. There were some things about her that I didn’t like, but I didn’t care; after all, I thought, I could change her.

“Will you still love me when I’m sixty?” I used to ask.

“I will love you forever,” she used to reply.

Fast forward to last summer, when I went through the toughest breakup of my life, so far.

What happened?

Remember when I said that I was signing up to heal a heart I didn’t break? It turned out to be extremely difficult. The experience took a lot of energy out of me, almost ruined some friendships and made me cry a lot. I didn’t know at the time why I stayed in the relationship for that long. I now have the answer: I had hope. I was hoping things would get better; hoping we would stop fighting; hoping she would trust me more; hoping she would get along with my friends; hoping we could just be happy; hoping for a better tomorrow. The issue with hope is that when you have every reason to stop the train, hope is the little voice you hear whispering “maybe.” Maybe things will improve, maybe we will stop fighting, maybe tomorrow will be better.

Hope keeps people going when the road gets tough. Unfortunately, when you’re in love, hope can be dangerous. There is even a common acronym for hope: Hold On, Pain Ends. Abraham Miller said: a man begins to die when he ceases to expect anything from tomorrow. This is also true for relationships. The moment I lost hope for a better future with her was the moment the relationship died, and I have never looked back. Putting the pain aside, I couldn’t help but be amazed by how powerful being in love can be.

Quite frankly, it made me more cautious about relationships. Feeling connected to someone that deep is scary. They become a part of you; you can feel their pains, joys, needs and desires. You open up to them like a book. You share your dreams, ambitions and secrets. You even allow yourself to become vulnerable and share your fears and anxieties. What I didn’t like the most was the fact that I wasn’t thinking rationally anymore. The high was quite intense for me to handle. Despite all of that, it still felt like the best feeling ever. Waking up in the morning with that one person in mind. Stopping by her place before going home, just to see her face. Spending the weekend together or just lying in bed and fantasizing about how the future would be if we stayed together for life. That part of love was amazing, and I missed her.

Last weekend, I was a groomsman at one of my closest friends’ wedding. When I was asked to join the bridal party, my only request was to be matched with the prettiest bridesmaid. They were all pretty, but I got matched with the most jaw-dropping one of them. I didn’t know much about her, but I thought she was quite friendly when we went shopping in Montreal. The weekend before the wedding, we had a dance practice. I don’t know what happened that day, but when I saw her, I was mentally frozen. I knew she was pretty, but I wasn’t expecting her to be THAT pretty. That day, I nicknamed her “The Bomb,” because I didn’t know much about her besides the fact that she was incredibly sexy. I made sure to text her throughout the week prior to the wedding to build some chemistry.

The day of the wedding, though, I have no idea what happened, but her presence made me feel at peace. It wasn’t her body. The bridesmaid dress hid most of her bodily features. Her presence was all that I needed; she didn’t even have to talk. The strangest part about it is that it didn’t feel like I was falling in love; it felt like I was already in love with her…and had been for years. Before the wedding day, I would have described her as hot. The day of the wedding, I described her as beautiful. She was the full package. I’m not sure how to explain it, but she was just perfect.

My back to reality moment didn’t happen until Monday afternoon, when after a short conversation with her, I realized that nothing would happen between us as she was already involved with someone else. Her moral standards made her even more attractive, which didn’t help. Despite the minuscule degree of sadness — okay, not minuscule — the small degree of sadness. Well, maybe it was big, or should I say devastating sadness? I’m kidding. Let’s call it a tiny setback. Despite the tiny setback, it still felt incredible. Feeling like the luckiest man on Earth sitting next to a beautiful woman doesn’t happen to a man every day. So, I had to ask myself, what the hell happened?

Remember how I described the feeling of love? When your heart is in love, you’re floating weightlessly above the atmosphere. When you lose that love, you must re-enter the atmosphere and it can get pretty rough as you’re bouncing through all kinds of particles. You will keep bouncing around until you connect with another heart who’s also bouncing. Only then will you be able to slowly float again.

I think I had a simulation of that feeling last weekend, hence the reason the landing wasn’t painful. Perhaps that’s my heart’s way of letting me know that I am ready to love again? I can’t tell. One thing is sure: we don’t meet people by accident. There’s always a reason, a lesson or a blessing.

I write about my experiences and philosophy on medium , and tweet at @NedNadima .

Written by Ned

Founder, CEO at Rosa Ventures ⚡️

Text to speech

English Essay on “A Strange Incident” English Essay-Paragraph-Speech for Class 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 CBSE Students and competitive Examination.

A Strange Incident

One evening while returning home from school, a strange incident took place.

As my annual examinations were approaching, I had begun to attend extra classes.

As you know, evenings in hill stations are very misty. On this particular evening too, a mist lay thick all over. It was impossible to see clearly, so I got off my bicycle and began walking with it.

There was not a single person on the street but suddenly in the distance, I saw the figure of a man. I started walking faster but as I approached him, I noticed something odd. He seemed to be floating in the air! His feet were not even touching the ground! Afraid, yet fascinated, I just could not take my eyes off him.

Soon I got this strange feeling that the man had stopped and was waiting for me to pass. Beads of perspiration trickled down my face while my heart pounded loudly with fear. Then, as I crossed his path, the stranger held out a hand and said, “Go home quickly son. Don’t waste your time.” Not daring to look at his face, I sped home as fast as I could. I cycled as though ten tigers were chasing me!

At my house, I found my mother talking to a crowd of people outside. Breathless, I ran to her. She hugged me and wept, “Thank goodness you’ve come! Your father has had a heart attack, and we’re taking him to hospital. Now, be a brave girl and give him a smile.”

Holding my father’s hand on the way to the hospital, I remembered the strange man who had given me such an important message on this cold, misty evening. Silently, I thanked him for speeding me on my way to be with my family, in their hour of need.

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A Strange Encounter

Published by hnfu in category Childhood and Kids with tag friend | kidnap

Kids Short Story – A Strange Encounter

Kids Short Story – A Strange Encounter Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com

I am about to share an experience of mine of a frightening encounter. It is somehow unbelievable and you may not believe me, but I hope you will listen and treat it as a story.

It all happened a year ago, when I was still very naughty, naïve and spent a lot of time wasting on television, video games and chatting with friends.

One day, my friends suggested us going out for a walk at a park outside the house of one of my friends. We agreed as we were bored and had nothing to do. Time was not early and the sun was about to set, despite that, we went out to stroll while eating our snacks and were fooling around. We were enjoying our time and we didn’t notice the weather had changed bad. Suddenly, rain fell on our heads like a storm in the blue and it became heavy in brink time.

We managed to find a shelter in a cave as quickly as possible. However, we were all soaked wet and it became to get cold. Night was approaching and before that we hadn’t know how long we had gone out to play and our parents must have been worried sick. It had been raining like cats and dogs and it seemed to be impenetrable for us to brave the rain.

We decided to wait for a little longer, then out of expected, three figures came from inner of the cave and attacked each of us with some weapons. I was astonished and didn’t know how to react and before seconds I was stunned and my world went black. It was impossible to know how long before I regained my senses. I saw only blackness and I was frightened, soon I realized I was masked.

I had a thought of being kidnapped, and this hurt my feelings a lot. I was worried and regretted coming to that place. After a while I heard two voices talking. I mentioned as two voices because the languages they talked I couldn’t recognize. To the truth I hardly believe there was such a language in the world. I wanted to know where I was, actually we were, and who they were. I wanted to know what on earth was happening.

I shouted loudly at them, but I was afraid they were going to hurt me and I kept silent. They spent some time before answering in Mandarin that they comforted me not to be afraid and everything was all right. I was surprised they spoke my language and later I asked quite a few questions and they answered them honestly. They seemed to be friendly and not harmful, but they didn’t tell who they are and where we were.

They eventually had a strange request “What is your hope at this time besides of getting released? We will release you but promise me not to tell anyone about this incident. We have done  mistakes and getting you and your friends here is just an accident and we apologies. Say, what do you want?”

It was a strange question and I didn’t know how to answer. They spoke more gently and said just treated as a general talking with friends. At that time I told them I would like to be a better student and had more respect to my parents and other people in my life. They laughed and praised me a good boy. I was soon released and sent back to the park where we came from. They unmasked me and went away. I could only see them in black uniform or suits and had their faces covered with masks. I thought they were all tall and slim and they drove a strange motor van and left.

I talked to my friends but they seemed to know nothing and remained what it was like when we were playing. I discovered they really didn’t recall what has happened and asked me to go home. I felt terrible and upset. Strangely, it seemed this incident took not a long time but we still got scolded for getting home late. I felt confused about this incident afterwards, thinking about myself being imaginative and crazy. Till the end I believed myself, and I didn’t think I had done wrong.

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Have You Ever Had a Memorable Encounter in Your City or Community?

An illustrated story from the Metropolitan Diary series tells of a random act of kindness by a stranger. Have you had a chance meeting that surprised, delighted or inspired you?

By Jeremy Engle and Natalie Proulx

Have you ever had a strange, funny or memorable chance encounter?

Maybe you bumped into a friend or a stranger at a candy store, in a skate park, in a classroom or online, like in a video game chat?

In “ Then I Felt a Tap on My Shoulder ,” Grace Kim writes about an unexpected interaction with a stranger at a bus stop after a breakup with her boyfriend earlier in the day.

‘Then I Felt a Tap on My Shoulder’

Dear Diary: At around 6:30 on an unusually warm October evening, I was standing near the QM2 bus stop at 55th Street and Sixth Avenue. I was holding a bouquet of flowers I had bought for my grandmother’s 82nd birthday.

Read this entry from Metropolitan Diary →

That morning, my boyfriend — no, ex — and I had parted ways at the Lexington Avenue Station. He transferred to the No. 4 toward the World Trade Center. I stayed on the N. As breakups go, it was amicable. We expressed our mutual appreciation, lamented the poor timing and wished each other well.

I buzzed at work that day, knocking out task after task, taking a long lunchtime stroll through Central Park with my favorite colleague and celebrating my newfound freedom as a single 23-year-old.

But as dusk fell in its deceptively vibrant blue, the finality of our goodbye settled over me, and my tears started to fall as I stood at the bus stop.

Amid the passing headlights and evening commuters, I did not try to hold them back.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and an older man stepped up to the curb.

“Don’t cry, miss,” he said, leaning on his cane. “The bus will be here soon.”

— Grace Kim

Read the rest of this week’s Metropolitan Diary and submit your own .

More Metropolitan Diary:

Students, click through and read the entire story , then tell us:

Have you ever had a memorable encounter in your city or community that surprised, delighted or inspired you? If so, tell us about it.

What did you learn from your chance meeting? What do you think the experience says about human nature, the world we live in or the place where you live?

What is your reaction to Ms. Kim’s story? What does reading the story make you think or feel? Does it relate to your life in any way?

Ms. Kim’s story ends with the older man sharing kind and comforting words with the narrator. Do you wish more people showed kindness to strangers? Do you think the world would be a better place if they did?

Visit the Metropolitan Diary column to read more examples of these short reader tales from the city.

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column . Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

Natalie Proulx joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2017 after working as an English language arts teacher and curriculum writer. More about Natalie Proulx

My Story: Unexpected Encounter

Touchstone 1: Narrative Essay ASSIGNMENT: Write a narrative essay using the techniques and elements of narrative writing that you have learned in this unit. Your essay must be approximately 500-800 words long. Sample Narrative Essay In order to foster learning and growth, all essays you submit must be newly written specifically for this course. Any recycled work will be sent back with a 0, and you will be given one attempt to redo the Touchstone. A. Instructions Choose a topic that enables you to tell a short, interesting personal story. Your story can be funny, suspenseful, meaningful, or exciting, but it must focus on one event. For example, if you decide to write about traveling to Denmark, you should not write about the entire trip. Choose one event (e.g., an afternoon you spent bicycling on an island, or your first taste of smoked herring, or your visit to the childhood home of Hans Christian Anderson) and tell a detailed story that focuses on that event. The following are some ideas that can help you to select a topic for your story: Firsts: Think of a "first" in your life and describe that moment in detail. Proud Moment: Choose a moment when you felt proud about an accomplishment. Adversity: Describe a time when you had to think or act quickly to overcome a challenge. Travel: Recall a memorable experience you had while visiting an interesting place. B. Think About Your Writing Below your completed narrative, include answers to all of the following reflection questions: 1. Which narrative techniques did you use to bring your story to life? (2-3 sentences) Sophia says: Did you use vivid description, sensory details, and/or dialogue to engage readers? Provide two examples from your essay in which you “show” readers rather than “tell” them. EXAMPLE: A sentence such as "I glanced at the clock, grabbed my briefcase, and sprinted for the elevator" uses more descriptive language than simply saying, "I was running late for the meeting." 2. How did your purpose and audience shape the way in which you wrote your narrative? (3-4 sentences) Sophia says: Your hypothetical audience extends beyond the people who will evaluate your narrative. Which individuals or groups were you addressing when you wrote your narrative, and how did consideration of your audience and your purpose influence the way in which you wrote it? 3. Provide a concrete example from your narrative that shows how you have written specifically for this audience and purpose. (3-5 sentences) Sophia says: Consider including a quotation from your essay and explaining how it was written to appeal to your audience, and to accomplish your purpose. Alternatively, you might describe a theme, tone, or narrative technique that you used and explain how it was intended to appeal to your audience and achieve your purpose. C. Narrative Guidelines DIRECTIONS: Refer to the checklist below throughout the writing process. Do not submit your Touchstone until your essay meets all of the guidelines. Narrative Focus and Flow ❒ Are all of the details in your story relevant to your purpose? ❒ Are the events presented in a logical order that is easy to follow? ❒ Is your story 500-800 words in length? If not, which details do you need to add or subtract? Narrative Structure ❒ Is there an opening paragraph that introduces the setting, characters, and situation? ❒ Are there middle paragraphs that describe the progression of events? ❒ Is there a closing paragraph that provides a thorough resolution to the story? Narrative Language and Techniques ❒ Have you incorporated narrative language and techniques (e.g., figurative language, concrete and sensory details, dialogue, and vivid description)? ❒ Can examples of narrative language and techniques be found throughout your story, or are they only evident in some places? Conventions ❒ Have you double-checked for correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, formatting, and capitalization? ❒ Have you proofread to find and correct typos? Before You Submit ❒ Have you included your name, date, and course in the top left corner of the page? ❒ Have you answered all of the “Think About Your Writing” questions? ❒ Is your essay between 500 and 800 words in length (2-3 pages)? D. Scoring Your composition and reflection will be scored according to the Touchstone 1 Rubric, which evaluates the narrative focus, narrative flow, narrative structure, narrative language and techniques, use of conventions (grammar, punctuation, etc.), and your answers to the “Think About your Writing” questions above. E. Rubric Advanced (100%) Proficient (85%) Acceptable (75%) Needs Improvement (50%) Non-Performance (0%) Narrative Focus Present a focused, meaningful narrative. The composition is consistently focused, and details are relevant and specific. The composition is focused and details are relevant and specific. However, a few details and descriptions detract slightly from the focus. The composition is mostly focused and the majority of details are relevant and specific. However, there are several details and descriptions that detract from the focus. The composition does not have a consistent focus. The composition exhibits no evidence of a focus. Narrative Flow Tell the story using a logical, smooth sequence of events. The sequence of events and details is logical and easy to follow throughout the composition. The sequence of events and details is logical and easy to follow throughout the composition, with a few minor exceptions. The sequence of events and details is easy to follow throughout most of the composition; however, some areas are poorly sequenced or confusing. The events and details are primarily poorly sequenced and difficult to follow. The sequence of events and details is illogical. Readers cannot follow the progression of the composition. Narrative Structure Develop a clear beginning, middle, and end. The composition has a clear and well-developed beginning, middle, and end. The opening paragraph(s) thoroughly introduce the setting, characters, and situation. The middle paragraphs thoroughly describe the progression of events. The closing paragraph(s) provide a thorough resolution to the narrative. The composition has a clear and sufficiently developed beginning, middle, and end. The opening paragraph(s) adequately introduce the setting, characters, and situation. The middle paragraphs adequately describe the progression of events. The closing paragraph(s) provide an adequate resolution to the narrative. The composition has a clear beginning, middle, and end; however, one of the three sections is minimally developed. The composition lacks a clear beginning, middle, or end; or, two of the three sections are minimally developed. The composition lacks a clear beginning, middle, and end; or, all three sections are minimally developed. Narrative Language and Techniques Use narrative language and techniques competently. Uses narrative language and techniques (e.g., concrete and sensory details, figurative language, vivid description, dialogue, pacing, and plot development) effectively throughout the composition. Uses narrative language and techniques (e.g., concrete and sensory details, figurative language, vivid description, dialogue, pacing, and plot development) effectively in the majority of the composition. Uses narrative language and techniques (e.g., concrete and sensory details, figurative language, vivid description, dialogue, pacing, and plot development) effectively in some parts of the composition. Uses narrative language and techniques (e.g., concrete and sensory details, figurative language, vivid description, dialogue, pacing, and plot development) rarely in the composition. Does not use narrative language and techniques (e.g., concrete and sensory details, figurative language, vivid description, dialogue, pacing, and plot development) in the composition. Conventions Demonstrate command of standard English grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and usage. There are few, if any, negligible errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. There are occasional minor errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. There are some significant errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. There are frequent significant errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. There are consistent significant errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. Think About Your Writing Reply to reflection questions thoroughly and thoughtfully. Demonstrates thoughtful reflection; consistently includes insights, observations, and/or examples in all responses. Answers all reflection questions effectively, following or exceeding response length guidelines. Demonstrates thoughtful reflection; includes multiple insights, observations, and/or examples. Answers all reflection questions effectively, following response length guidelines. Primarily demonstrates thoughtful reflection, but some responses are lacking in detail or insight. Answers all reflection questions, primarily following response length guidelines. Shows limited reflection; the majority of responses are lacking in detail or insight. Answers reflection questions inadequately; may not answer all of the questions and/or may not follow response length guidelines. Does not answer the majority of reflection questions, or the majority of answers do not follow response length guidelines. F. Requirements Your narrative must be 500 to 800 words (approximately 2-3 pages) in length. Assignment guidelines must be followed or your submission will not be graded. Double-space the essay and use one-inch margins. Use an easily-readable 12-point font. All writing must be appropriate for an academic context. Your narrative must be original and written for this assignment. Plagiarism of any kind is strictly prohibited. Your submission must include your name, the name of the course, the date, and the title of your composition. Your submission must include both your narrative and your answers to the "Think About Your Writing" questions. Submit only a single file that contains all of the assignment components. Acceptable file formats are .doc and .docx.

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Francine Prose on Her Encounters with the Literary Strange

Francine prose reads bolaño, erpenbeck, tutuola, and more.

Some of our most exciting and memorable reading experiences occur when we discover a story or novel, essay, play or poem that seems to us so original, so unexpected, so apparently unaware of—or unconcerned by—past models, conventions and clichés, and yet so steadily faithful to a guiding principle all its own that, regardless of how much else we may have read, we think: This is something new. I didn’t know that a writer could do that.

In Roberto Bolaño’s novel, 2666 , he devotes a dozen pages of the novel’s third section to a speech delivered by a character named Barry Seaman, a figure apparently based on the Black Panther leader and 60s activist Bobby Seale. Barry Seaman’s brilliant, rambling monologue covers subjects ranging from money to danger to food to stars (movie stars, star athletes, and the Milky Way) to the usefulness of the sun. (“From up close it’s hell, but from far away you’d have to be a vampire not to see how useful it is, how beautiful.”) He compares the value of a cigarette and a jar of strawberry jam in the various prisons in which he was incarcerated, and he tells the story of how pork chops saved his life.

Until I read Bolaño’s novel, I hadn’t realized that a writer could interrupt a narrative to include a lengthy sermon, though in fact I should have known: It’s been suggested that Barry Seaman’s lecture was partly inspired by Father Mapple’s sermon in Melville’s Moby-Dick , a novel Bolaño admired and which itself is structured in a way we might not have imagined. Who would have suspected what Melville has made us see: that a writer could alternate a vivid whaling yarn with long, digressive chapters on cetology, the scientific study of whales; that these lessons would teach us everything that was known at the time about whales; and that this information would only deepen the mystery of the white whale that Captain Ahab is chasing.

Until I read Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel, End of Days , I didn’t know that a book could begin with something that happened and then devote the rest of the book to what might have happened, a gamut of unrealized possibilities that range over much of modern European history. Before I became a fan of the work of Ivy Compton-Burnett it had never crossed my mind that one could write 20 novels that all feature (that indeed focus on) a seemingly proper British family chatting or quarreling around a breakfast or dinner table.

Until I read Amos Tutuola’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts , I didn’t know you could leap over 20 years without telling the reader about it, or decide to bring the wandering home without a journey—and just because you want to.

I’m not sure that anyone can learn to be original. But if that possibility flickers, ever so dimly, within us, it can be fanned into flame when we witness the skill and grace and nerve with which a writer has broken new ground. Even if we have no desire to write, every encounter with literary uniqueness is a reminder of human uniqueness. Reading something that seems new to us can help us see the world in new ways. I am always grateful for anything that makes me less certain, less convinced, less rigid in my judgments.

Over time, the strange books I’m drawn to are less likely to promise (or threaten) to test my patience or my attention span. I want the same things from strange books that I want from any book: the pleasures of language, of character, plot, expression, invention, imagination, observation.

In the Fall of 2010, and again in 2016, I taught an undergraduate literature class at Bard College that I called Strange Books and the Human Condition . I added the phrase “the Human Condition” so that I could cross-list the course with the Human Rights department, which tends to attract some of the college’s most interesting students. “And the human condition” might otherwise seem redundant, since it could be tacked on to any literature course—Icelandic Epics and the Human Condition, Romantic Poetry and the Human Condition. It is rare that literature doesn’t tell us something about the human condition, besides which the human condition is one of those phrases which, if you repeat it often enough, dissolves into senseless babble.

Strange was the point, not that I wanted to spend the semester defining what and my students I meant by strange . What I had in mind was a combination of qualities and virtues: books that seemed original, eccentric, unusual, brilliant. Odd. To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous ruling on pornography: You know strangeness when you see it. I would have included Kafka’s Metamorphosis , a foundational strange book, but I knew that most of my students had read it in the college’s first-year seminar.

In compiling the list, I looked for books that few people would think of as “experimental,” but which even fewer would classify as “conventional.” I joked that I was choosing books by authors who were either institutionalized or who would have been, had they lived at another time.

But that wasn’t true. These writers were not all outsiders, even the ones who were obliged to withdraw, periodically or permanently, from the world. Some were as strange as (or stranger than) their books: harmless, gifted, peculiar. My personal pantheon of strange writers comforts me though I’m not sure why it should. Many of them suffered greatly but left us extraordinary evidence of what they thought and endured, imagined and created.

Is it a coincidence that so many of them didn’t have “happy lives”?

Robert Walser, whose novel Jakob van Gunten we read, spent time in a mental hospital, in Switzerland, the kind of place that Walser called, in one story,” a sanatorium for people who were mentally not altogether at their best.” When a visiting friend asked Walser if he was getting any writing done in the asylum, he replied, “I am not here to write. I am here to be a mental patient”—a statement that I have always wanted to have embroidered on a sampler that could hang over my desk. In fact, he was writing poetic texts in microscript, a minuscule orthography that was thought to be a secret code but which was later discovered to have been a variant of medieval Swabian. These texts have been collected in a handsomely produced book entitled Microscripts , translated by Susan Bernofsky and illustrated with facsimile reproductions of the obsessively miniaturized originals.

Jane Bowles, whose novel, Two Serious Ladies we read in the first class, and whose story, “Camp Cataract,” we studied in its second iteration, died in a convent/clinic in Malaga; her confinement was the result of a series of strokes, though she seems to have been one of those fantastic birds of paradise who couldn’t have lived an ordinary life or held down a job. Nikolai Gogol and Heinrich von Kleist both seem to have been troubled. Kleist, the German Romantic genius, spent time in a clinic in Würzburg, “for a removal of an impediment to marriage,” though it is unclear whether his problem was physical or psychological. He ended his life in the most famous double suicide in literary history.

A Jew in Nazi-occupied Poland, Bruno Schulz—we read his Street of Crocodiles —would likely have been incarcerated, or worse, had he not been shot on the street by an SS officer with a grudge against another officer who was Schulz’s patron.  Schulz, also a visual artist, decorated the nursery of his patron’s children with murals populated by his anxious, tormented, erotic Expressionist figures, highly unsuitable for children.

Other writers we read led something closer to a so-called “normal life.” Henry Green (we read his novel, Nothing ), was the son of an industrialist. He managed his family’s beer bottling plant, became chairman of the British Chemical Plant Manufacturers, and worked for the commercial storage supplier, H. Pontifex and Sons. But Green also had his quirks; a serial and (some might say) compulsive adulterer, he refused, all his life, to have his picture taken, except from the back. Felisberto Hernandez (“The Daisy Dolls”) made his living as a pianist, a “musical illustrator,” accompanying silent films throughout Uruguay and Argentina. Married four times, unable to leave his mother, Felisberto believed that the souls of thin people are reincarnated only once, while those of the overweight divide themselves among several newborns. He compared writing stories to helping a plant “growing in a corner of myself.”

Patterns emerged. Many of these authors were loners and eccentrics. Several were openly or secretly gay at times when homosexuality was, in their cultures, a sin. Others had unclear, taboo or nonexistent romantic terrors and desires. Several succumbed to intense religious obsessions. Today some might be seen as “on the spectrum.” Invited for a brief visit to the London home of his friend and admirer, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen stayed five weeks. Dickens never spoke to him again.

Many learned not to expect approval or understanding. A review of Heinrich von Kleist’s Marquise of O (1808)—“Even to summarize the plot is to banish it from polite circles”—sounds like the notice that Jane Bowles’s first and last novel got in the New York Times Book Review in 1943. “To attempt to unravel the plot of Two Serious Ladies would be to risk, I am sure, one’s own sanity.”

There were happier correspondences, threads that tie these writers together. Robert Walser was not only (like Kafka) a fan of Heinrich von Kleist’s but he wrote an extraordinary story entitled “Kleist in Thun.” Reading the end of the story feels, to me, like touching a burning hot surface: painful yet exalting until the pain sets in for real.

In Walser’s story, Kleist has come to the town of Thun to write. The place is marvelously scenic—and consequently distracting. Unable to write, Kleist falls ill. And this is how Walser imagine Kleist’s state of mind:

“Weeks pass. Kleist has destroyed one work, two works, three works. He wants the highest mastery, good good. What’s that? Not sure? Tear it up. Something new, wilder, more beautiful… The good fortune to be a sensibly balanced man with simple feelings he sees burst into fragments, crash and rattle like boulders collapsing down the landslip of his life… He wants to abandon himself to the entire catastrophe of being a poet; the best thing is for me to be destroyed as quickly as possible.”

One reason I know so much about these writers’ lives is because in my 2010 Strange Books course, I asked students to take turns researching, writing, and reading aloud mini-biographies of the authors we were reading that week. Sometimes biography is just a gossipy footnote, but in this case it seemed important, though I chose not to do this the second time I taught the course, maybe because students so often focused on the most grisly and lurid episodes in their subjects’ lives.

I never meant to stage a literary freak show, parading deranged writers in front of my horrified students.   I did say that few writers on our list could have functioned in the culture that, today, sees literature as a profession for which you prepare like any other: going to the right school, meeting the right people. The right internships, finding the right agent, orchestrating a career just as in law or finance, though writing may seem more glamorous though the average wage per hour is substantially lower. I reminded my students that writing is a calling and not a job, a vocation and not a business, a compulsion and not a hobby. It has to be worth the time and trouble, the work, the obsessive commitment to helping that plant to grow in the corner of the self, the plant that survives for centuries and still seems beautiful—and strange.

Francine Prose

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