Both sides of the road are lined with row after row of sickeningly perfect houses with identical hedges flawlessly trimmed out-front. It's at that hour in time when it is neither day nor night and she asks herself, “is the sun setting or is the moon rising?”
The slight chill of autumn permeates her little red anorak, and she pulls it tightly against her small frame hoping that it will shield her from the harsh reality of life.
This realisation reverberates through her like the echo of crashing cymbals; numbing all emotion, slowly anaesthetising all feeling.
Her mind is at war with her heart and she struggles to decide who is right. Logic tells her to face the truth and move on; instinct tells her to run and hide.
Dejected familiar figures clothed in black give way, allowing her to pay her final respects. And as they lower her mother’s casket eight feet into the earth, a cool soothing breeze drifts by, assuring her that although things weren’t going to be easy, they would somehow be ok.
Hi Scarlet
ReplyDeleteThought this quite a moving piece of writing. The opening was good - I like it that something is being observed, then in the next sentence, we are in the mind of the person who is observing.
I think that your descriptions of things will have greater strength if you edit out some of the adverbs.
So., 'sickeningly perfect' hedges...you could have 'perfect hedges' and go on to say how they seem so perfect. Her black patent leather shoes - just stay with black shoes. The mournful autumn leaves - just stay with the leaves falling and what they look like to her. The strength of this piece is that it is written through observation, and through observation we have realisation. So extra adverbs and melodramatic writing - especially the bit about her anorak protecting her from the harsh realities of life - is always going to seem jarring. You should show how she protects herself from the cold, and let the reader see her discomfort. Let us find out what awaits her!
And when she sees the 'dejected familiar figures', just say what they look like and how their faces show her they are dejected.
You also need a stronger ending. This could be along the lines of WHY she thinks everything is o.k. Is there something she is about to go onto? Is there a feeling she now has that she didn't have before? This is an area worth exploring, and you could explore why her mum died, and even how, and how this affected your narrator's life. Was her mum ill for a long while and is now free from pain? Was your narrator reconciled with her mum before her mum died? Was it all a tragic accident? You don't need to have any of this written into this work, but exploring how the death happened would give you the chance to write a stronger ending and show us how your narrator feels that things are going to be allright for her.
Hope this helps.
Best wishes
ann g
Hello hello.
ReplyDeleteI think that this piece (as with them all for this task) needs to be looked at from two perspectives, firstly as writing informed by music and that functions/relates to the sound, and secondly as a self contained text.
I think you have captured and conveyed something from the mood of the music, apprehension, tension, in a good way. Your scene seems to sit quite well with the sounds, the autumnal breeze, the hedges, even the character's dilemma as the rational and emotional sides of her character clash.
I didn't react as strongly to 'sickeningly perfect' as Ann but perhaps it is a little bit too much.
The reverberating realisation and crashing cymbals were excellent, though you spoil the effect and originality by throwing in such a bad cliche and limp word as 'echo'!
I did agree that there wasn't enough back story or material for a full narrative, and you need to create a solid ending, that wasn't the point of this excercise however, you now have the basis to build an interesting story which will need these extras to turn it into something that has a life of its own without the music.
A couple of other thoughts. I liked the interplay of all the red things against the drab background but did wonder whether those sorts of images are a little tired or cliched now. Something for you to think about.
This section bothered me: "It's at that hour in time when it is neither day nor night and she asks herself, “is the sun setting or is the moon rising?”" - That would be dawn or twilight then! Just say that instead of being overly wordy.
That was a bit scattershot but I hope you find it useful. Good work.
S.
I do think you veer towards melodrama and gratuitous adverbs sometimes (which is always going to be a risk for someone of your skill and gift for language) - you need to experiment with simplicity and raw, naked prose to counterbalance the more florid parts - but I still think this often works really well, and I like the sentence about the shoes A LOT.
ReplyDeleteI also think you have interpreted this piece of music very aptly, and the setting fits perfectly. And I like the impersonality of the whole piece, with the third person pronoun used throughout. Excellent.
That said, I do think the ending is, perhaps, something of an anticlimax (although, if that is the case, then so is the ending of my exemplar too). Most of all though, it is the equilibrium between complex/ornate and simple/bare which will take you to the next level (and the top grades!).