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Writing Evolution Challenge

I was nominated by Darker_X to do this challenge in which I will share samples from my early work, my latest work, and work from an in-between period. I've read this challenge from a few other users, which seemed to focus on works from Wattpad or elsewhere on the internet and bemoaned their lack of writing skills in their early sample. Well, the early samples I read have nothing on mine. I decided to go back to the first piece of writing that I considered to be serious. I believe I wrote it sometime in junior high, which would have made me perhaps a couple years younger than Wattpad's minimum of age of thirteen. Fun fact: this is the story from which I take my user name, although it really comes from the second or third rewrite of it. And, yes, I really did format the paragraphs that way. And have all of those mistakes.

Early Sample:

I shall never forget the day when our family took in stray cats nor any of the events that followed. Maybe I should go back to the beginning.

It was a lovely Friday afternoon in late summer and I was playing in my yard peacefully. Suddenly out of nowhere two cats appeared and began rubbing against my legs and purring. Even more suddenly than the cats, my parents came out of our house to see what I was doing. They spotted the cats, which were now leaning against my legs, still purring. My parents exclaimed "What cute cats! Whom do they belong to?"

"I don't know," I responded " They came out of no where."

"Well, they don't have collars" my parents said slowly, " I suppose it would be alright if we keep them for awhile then find them another permanent home." And so we did.

The middle sample I decided on is a piece that I entered into a contest in my senior year of high school. I'm sure you'll be able to see a huge improvement. I would certainly hope so.

Middle Sample:

The sun shone brightly overhead, a clean sphere casting out perfectly linear rays of light.

The plate-diamond walls of the city glinted sharply as the light reflected off of them. Hero's eyelids shifted to shield his eyes from the intensity.

In the next second, the light had faded. The earth's rotation had changed the angle of the gap in the skyline in relation to the sun.

The city machine was operating as it was programmed: the light from the sun met with the solar components poised atop the buildings to harness its energy, a few travelers zipped past in the high speed lanes of the road in their frictionless shoes, and the rest of the 25.487 million human pieces were hidden from view, busily performing their assigned tasks. They continued to function as if nothing was different about today compared to any other day.

Of course, Hero knew that, contrary to appearances, not everyone in the city was going about business as usual, and that gave him hope.

He grinned and continued to walk along purposefully. He had chosen not to make use of the frictionless capabilities of his own shoes. He was in no hurry, and he wanted to make a statement. Besides, the name "frictionless" was too overused; the shoes needed at least some friction in order to control a person's movement properly. Also, as Hero was proving, they worked perfectly well for walking in addition to their other capabilities.

Finally, I've included the beginning of the first chapter of Chica's Story, which is my latest work here on Wattpad.

Current Sample:

Deep in the most secluded part of the woods, Chica practiced alone. Her breath heaved in and out, the emerald green leaf atop her head pulsed in time to the beating of her heart, and her huge oval eyes flattened into circles as she glared at her target: the stem of a dandelion.

It had long ago gone to seed, the little white tufts catching to the air like miniature parasols on the breeze. There was nothing left now but green leaves the shape of a Tropius's wing and a single delicate stem sticking out high above.

Chica was tired. The muscular part of her body had pumped out so much sweat over the past two hours that even the velvety covering of plant that grew over her entire body couldn't bear to have its roots suck in another drop. Moisture was running down her stumpy legs now, moistening the dried leaves beneath her dainty white toenails. She was desperately thirsty, but she refused to stop until she had pushed her body to its very limit. Today could be the day.

She cured the pulsing of her leaf by swaying it back and forth across her head, exercising only those muscles nearest to the stem. She moved into spinning it in a slow circle, then used the momentum to speed it up, faster and faster.

"Grow!" she shouted to herself, as she stimulated just that ability. At supercharged rates, an extra leaf sprouted up beside her permanent one, and, on the next go round, she used that permanent leaf to knock away the temporary one with all her might. It flew through the air as her eyes followed, urging it on faster, faster!

The side of the sickle-shaped leaf hit the dandelion stem straight on! And fluttered to the ground like a broken kite. The dandelion stem was still standing. There was not nearly enough razor to that leaf.

Chica wailed.

I think that the progression between these three samples is obvious. The first contains many obvious errors in grammar, punctuation, formatting, etc. Worse than that, the language is awkward and stilted, it tells far more than it shows, and the pacing is far too rapid. All of my early writing was like that, and it took me a lot of practice to learn how to slow down and take time to write each scene in detail. The middle piece is better mechanically and in terms of pace and detail. In this piece, I was going for a particular effect with the formal and exact style, but it's a bit inconsistent, which makes it seem unnatural. This piece comes from the time when I was still trying to find my own writing style. That writing style is something that I hope you can see in the final sample, which is much more smooth, natural, and balanced.

I challenge Scarlet_Regnar and PokeBroncoFan because I think they would both have a marked improvement between their early work and their latest that would be really interesting to see.