Writing Samples for Real Python Application

Here are a couple of pieces I've written recently. They demonstrate storytelling and organizational thinking.

Despereaux Mini Essay

Expo

During a recent move, I was taking an inventory of all of our belongings and came across some long-forgotten books, including the children's story The Tale of Despereaux. I was practicing some speed-reading skills--the ability to advance through written works in a short amount of time while not sacrificing meaning or clarity--so I decided to try to read it quickly and produce a short essay as a test of recall and understanding. If memory serves, the final version (shown below) was the third revision, so the fourth version.

A Heart Which, Crooked, Mends

Chiaroscuro, a name which plays on the duality of light and darkness, is the antagonist of The Tale of Despereaux. His character follows the pattern of the other main characters, being defined by a sliver of good persevering through an abundant and contradictory counterpart. In Despereaux, it is despair surrounded by hope. In Miggery Sow, it is a desire to be heard despite others ignoring her desires. In Chiaroscuro, it is a fascination with light accompanied by the idea that light brings pain.

For Chiaroscuro, light is the core of life and the originator of meaning.“‘I think,’ said Roscuro, ‘that the meaning of life is light.’” As a rat, he is informed that meaning should be found elsewhere; his friend, Boticelli, offers that meaning comes from causing others to suffer. Boticelli, being the window to the ideals of rats, embodies a mixture of nihilism and absurdism, and may be captured in the phrase “For no good can come of this life, my purpose is to revel in the damage that I can do to others.” The idea which DiCamillo offers through Chiaroscuro is that there can be no reconciliation between absurdism and the presence of truth.

The flaw of Chiaroscuro’s character is that he does not want to accept all of the revelation which comes from the light. He encounters it for the first time when Gregory, the castle’s jailer, lights a match and burns off his whiskers. At this point, he is presented for the first time with light—a symbol of truth—and must come to terms with objective truth.

When disappointed by his attempt to find meaning in the way that rats were supposedly meant to, he is further convinced that the light was what he was after. Being now founded in the belief that light gave a meaning that he had not yet fully been able to experience, he pursued it.

Without divulging too much unnecessary detail, Chiaroscuro eventually creates a panic which stops the heart of the Queen. The Princess Pea came to resent Chiaroscuro because of this. Chiaroscuro seemed to understand the revelatory nature of light up to this point in the story. But, after his negative experience with the Queen and the Princess, he was not willing to accept all which the light had to reveal.

Failing to come to terms with unpleasant revelations about his nature caused Chiaroscuro to search for a new source of meaning. This culminates in his orchestration of the kidnapping of the Princess, which resulted in an apparently perfect intersection of Chiaroscuro’s desires: simultaneously attempt to appease his nature in causing another’s suffering, and stealing for himself a little light of his own (since the Princess is, in a literary sense, light).

Chiaroscuro’s attempt to find a new way eventually crumbled when forgiven by the Princess, something that rats would typically feign to taunt the suffering. Chiaroscuro, now the recipient of true forgiveness never before experienced by his kind, is now convinced of the goodness of light. He comes to realize that if he wants any of the light, he must have it all; even if it may be difficult to accept. Here, at the high-point of the story, Chiaroscuro understands the impossibility of living in obscurity and yearning for truth.

Chiaroscuro’s character posits that, despite being born in a group which may embody harmful ideals, one can know that there is a moral order revealed by truth, and that the light will reveal both the good and bad, and one who searches for truth must be prepared to accept that.

Descriptive Writing Samples

Expo

I had been reading a lot of Hemingway in the past year or so and was interested in writing short stories of my own. I completed one which I was very proud of, but it has since been lost to time (and to the fresh install of Linux on the machine it was on... I thought I had another copy saved somewhere!). However, some things that survived were my exercises in descriptive writing, something which Hemmingway himself described as a "Five Finger" writing exercise. Here are some of them.

Exercise 1

Even something as ordinarily dull as sitting in an office will turn into a battleground of tension given the circumstances. Mitch internalized this as the stiff, aged carpet absorbed the sweat of his nervous feet. Psychologists do say they always tell the painful truth. He swept his hand across the rugged pages to remove debris and dandruff, leaving contrails of ink and sticky, blue reminders on the edge of his hand and little finger. Gripping his pen was already a challenge – the tremors had been getting worse the past few months. And now he was playing a waiting game which stretched his nerves and the clock, which he glanced at every ten minutes. Every five. Two. His heart radiated a pulsing message which was received by his fingers, throbbing and aching as blood surged in and out, lessening his legibility with each stroke. Whether it could be read or not was not an issue – he was just biding his time.

There was a knock on the door.

Waiting for a buddy (Dramatized for no reason) – (2025)

Exercise 2

Thoughts dissipated from his head as Mitch trod onto the road from his house leading to the forested walking path. His house was only a 30 seconds walk to it. The invisible furry rodents made their presence known in the rustling of bushes and branches. Standing before him today, however, were two rabbits on both sides of the road, curling themselves up to appear as innocuous as possible. After a pause, Mitch sliced through the still, humid air, slowing gradually to meet the creatures before they bounced off. But, for such jumpy things, they remained motionless. Maybe they’re too afraid to move, he thought. I’ve been there. Awe enveloped him with each step, slower now, focused with the utmost precision. There was a thin crack, a songbird beckoning another, and the spell was broken. One was out of sight as it ducked back into the thicket, and the other pranced off, quick, quiet and panicked. I wish I could have stayed the whole afternoon in this one moment, he thought. But they’re prey, and another second of an approaching animal would ordinarily spell death. 30 seconds turned into 60, and it felt like an hour. They weren’t there when he returned.

Rabbits by the Path – (2025)