Even at home i seem invisible, Dad's always too busy fighting with my brother. And mum's always too drunk too take any notice. So it's always me on my own. I spend 90% of the day locked in my room trying to block the outside world. Life seemed to stink, like the dustbin I landed in yesterday breaktime.
I had already made five attempts to end this torture. Yet I always did it at the wrong time. My mum came in from the pub and barged into the room, the slits starting to show on my neck. James kicked his football through my window and and nocked the bottle of pills over.
Everyday things get worse, it started with names, then threats but then it happened, the slaps, the kicks, the punches across my face. No one noticed when I wasn't at school from a broken arm, and no one noticed when I would bunk to try and get away from them, to everyone at school I was known as the freak. Even the teachers didn't know who I was.
If I'd known today was going to be the last that I would have to suffer I would have made something special of it. On my way home, the burn from their punch this breaktime made my face feel like it was on fire. I would always try to be as far away from them as I could. Seeing them at the end of the road made me panic.Without thinking, I ran across the road, not seeing the big double decker bus in my way.
Hello Giggly_Angel,
ReplyDeleteThe thing I liked best in this story is the subtlety in your writing, which you show especially well in the 3rd paragraph. It’s great how you show your readers what’s happening by saying “the slits started to show” rather than saying ‘I was cutting myself.’ Same with the football knocking the pills over – it shows us that the narrator planned to poison herself without saying ‘I wanted to take pills.’ By giving these details and showing the action rather than telling it, you make your story stronger.
I love the line “Life seemed to stink, like the dustbin I landed in yesterday break time” because it is a great description of how the narrator feels about her life. It also shows an example of how her classmates treat her.
Although you are good at using details in some places in your story, other parts could use more details, too. Like the very first sentence “They’re there again.” I would suggest saying “They’re there again, in the corridor” or something like that because it gives me some kind of setting and some kind of visual image to begin with.
Also in the first paragraph, the narrator “hides in a corner reading a book.” It would be great to hear what type of book she’s reading. Give a specific title or a specific author – even a detail this small gives your readers a huge insight into your character’s personality. I would get a different image of a character who reads comic books versus one who reads Plato.
The 4th paragraph confuses me just a bit because I'm not sure who is abusing the narrator – is it her family or her classmates? It seems like it could be either, but I’d like to know more. This is another place you could add more details, like what names was she called or what types of threats did she receive.
I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions about what I’ve written.
Keep writing!
Like Orange, I was a little confused by the source of your narrator's abuse - perhaps partly because of the specifics of the task which asked you to focus on family conflict. However, in the end, I think it is a story about bullying - and, although that is not the task set (which is a shame), nonetheless you approach your tale with considerable skill. I especially like the roundabout way you casually step over the details of previous suicide attempts in Paragraph 3 - and the irony of her eventual end is powerfully done.
ReplyDeleteDear G.,
ReplyDeleteThis is good and I enjoyed reading it – although I wonder if you may have got the wrong end of the stick about the assignment? As I understand it was supposed to be about a domestic row, not about a girl being bullied – that was just an example to look at. Also, I’m not sure what you have chosen to do ‘differently’ in this assignment. This isn’t a problem – still a great read! – but it means that my comments will end up being a bit more on the general side.
You have a nice sense of structure: how you start with the immediate scene of the narrator being confronted by these four girls, followed by an explanation of the school life – then you go into a bit of back-story, one paragraph on the family situation, one paragraph on her depression, and then back to the present. I think, though, each of these things is worth spending a bit more time on. You don’t need to rush through it - the reader might like a bit more 'follow-through'. To my mind, rushing the bit about her depression and attempts at suicide, especially, may make it seem overly casual and unemotional. Of course, people suffering severe depression can become de-sensitised and ‘unemotional’, but we have seen from the first paragraph that this narrator is emotional: she’s miserable and afraid.
Also, certain aspects might need some explanation if we’re going to ‘buy in’ to the story. This girl has attempted suicide five times – this is huge; have her parents ignored this? Didn’t they have some reaction? Wouldn’t they tell the school, leading to her being more closely watched during school hours? I don’t mean the idea behind this piece is necessarily unrealistic, but your readers are going to wonder about these questions, and if there are reasons/answers – ‘they thought I was just doing it for attention, and told me to stop showing off’, or ‘they didn’t want the social services coming round again’, etc. - you should let us know!
You’ve set this piece in the present tense, which I like. Either can work fine, obviously, but I think for intense scenes like this with a lot of action, present tense works well and makes it seem more intense & immediate. But be careful to keep it consistent: at the end of para 2, you slip into the past: ‘life seemed to stink’ instead of ‘life seems to stink’, and then, ‘I had already made…’ instead of ‘I have already made…’
The piece builds up the tension effectively, plunging us straight into the situation, and leading up to the fact that this is the ‘last day’ and how she runs across the road. I like that you start with a mention of ‘them’ but don’t explain yet who they are – it’s good to withhold things like this from your reader and let the information out bit by bit, and you use this well.