Task 1- From Big Sur
I chose Big Sur as i felt it engaged the reader and made them think. This is shown by the main characters own confusion ("...all's well again.i still cant understand it"). I also like the way Kerouac keeps refering to things being golden which encapsulates the thoughts of the characters feelings and optimism. And finally I think the way in which we are always told the characters thoughts and feelings gives us a sense of understanding as to how they think and the reasons behind what they think.
Task 2
It was Valentines day and i had decided to treat my wife to breakfast in bed. Jill hadn't been well recently and i felt now was the perfect time to treat her. I had woken early in order to prepare this, yet somehow the toast was still burnt and there was no milk. Regardless, a collection of cereals and several cartons of fruit juice now meant I had something which resembled a breakfast.
The distinctive smell and brilliant white walls greeted me as I reached the top of the stairs, and gazed into the room infront of me. All appeared calm, yet the breeze still lingered and rippled through my hair as I stood there, steadying my anxiety with a reassuring smile before opening the door. the bed, table I placed the tray of food on the end of her bed before resuming my position beside her, it was then i realised I had forgotten the tea. Leaning over, I kissed her cheek. Her face felt cold, yet i thought nothing of it at the time and returned to the kitchen without a second though. The kettle had just began to howl when a loud scream erupted. I dropped the mug and ran several steps up at a time when nurses from every ward began to scurry into a room, like mice fleeing a deranged woman carrying a mop. When I reached the top I saw them surrounding a lifless body as though mourners at a funeral. It was Jill. My eyes suddenly began to swell as water slowly leaked from them I could no longer hear the crys or smell the disenfectent. My wife was gone. What had meant to be a routine check up was now the end; the end of our marriage, the end of my wife and the end of me. A white screen was now projected in my mind and i suddenly felt the roller-coaster affect as my body tumbled backwards...
When i was told, we would have to live at the hospital while my wife recieved her chemotherapy i never expected that it would be where we would both die for it symbolized hope. Yet clearly the strain of the treatment had been to much for her, and the shock of her death to much for me. It seemed cupid had struck his bow of love directly at my heart as I now had my final wish: to be with my wife. My heart attack was quick and as for the blood from my fall down the stairs, i think some Vanish should get rid of that.
Hi Sparky, I'm not officially one of your mods but I thought I'd give you a quick comment.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your observation in part 1 that "Kerouac keeps refering to things being golden which encapsulates the thoughts of the characters feelings and optimism". This is a really good observation.
As for the story, I thought it was a very original and emotive idea. You could benefit from going over the text a few times to make sure you don't have any typos, and making sure all the sentences flow smoothly (try reading it out loud to yourself and see if it sounds natural).
I thought perhaps you could give the reader more clues about the couple's situation throughout the text, instead of having an explainatory summery at the end. This would give it a bit more subtlty and power, I think.
Nice effort, though.
Hi Sparky,
ReplyDeleteAnother solid piece of writing this task, well done!
I agree with Sophie that you could put a few more clues throughout the text to help the reader along, and to imply that something is a little out of the ordinary will keep the readers hanging on to your words.
I laughed at the final clause, you can inject humour into the darkest situations so I appluad you for that. In the last paragraph, whilst i'm not a massive fan of the saummary, you do mix a lot of emotions pretty well but i think that they could be spread out a bit more in your piece; hope, shock, the sadness and despair of cancer, and when they died on the same day the Cupid imagery is really sweet because they love each other so much, I'm then I'm laughing at some poor cleaner who has to scrub blood off the floor. It's a little bit busy, but you've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about your piece in order to get them all in there, so good job!
I think my favourite line is "mice fleeing a deranged woman with a mop" - very unusual, humourous and visual.
I'm really looking forward to reading your next post! Frances
Hey,
ReplyDeleteYou’re developing an assured voice that is measured and believable, as evidenced in the opening paragraph. The economy of phrases like “I had woken early in order to prepare this, yet somehow the toast was still burnt and there was no milk” is really good; you are just let down in places by some punctuation and capitalisation slip-ups. Do watch these: they can make something that would otherwise read as pretty professional look a bit haphazard.
There are just a few words here and there, too, which are superfluous and which threaten the elegance of the writing. I think a sentence like “Jill hadn’t been well – I felt now was the perfect time to treat her” sounds a bit more economical than the phrase as it currently stands: I’d suggest going through and jettisoning every word that isn’t quite earning its keep.
Further into the story, there’s a bit more of a tendency to overwrite and rely on more clichéd phrases. (I’m thinking about “the breeze still lingered and rippled through my hair” and “the roller-coaster effect” in particular). There’s some sloppy writing in the next sentence, too: “the bed, table I placed the tray of food on the end of her bed before resuming my position beside her, it was then i realised I had forgotten the tea.” We lose the sense of what you mean because the grammar isn’t up to scratch.
There’s also a problem of location: the reader has no clue this is set in a hospital until the nurses appear. The reader really needs to be PLACED in the story in order to feel comfortable. I think you also rush us through the last denouement of the narrator’s death; I certainly felt a bit short-changed by the speed with which we passed over this! And while I personally really like the darkly comic last sentence, it doesn’t fit with the rest of the piece; my advice would be to make sure this tone is present throughout, because when done properly, this sort of humour is very compelling, and you clearly have a great faculty for humour.
Well done – just tidy up some of the rough edges and this will start looking much more polished.
Penny