Part 1-A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers
I found this extract quite funny. I liked the way Xiaolu Guo has written this piece. Hi style of writing is quite amusing and makes you want to read more. I think the way Xiaolu Guo has added spelling mistakes really gives us the feeling that the character does not know English. I also liked the way how he has taken a perfectly normal situation and turned it into something funny. This extract was fun to read.
The End...
I stared at the man who would snatch my life away from me. The man who thought he had the right to go against god and do as he pleased. The very creature who also killed my friend 5 minutes ago. He smiled a vile, crooked smile. “Where is the box?” he asked. He had asked this very same question before he killed my friend. I hesitated then answered, “I will never tell a filthy scum like you! Never do you hear me? I’d rather die!” My voice came out in a mumbled scream. The man laughed and then spoke again, “Oh come on sweet pea. It would be such a waste to kill a beautiful little thing like you. Go on tell me where the box is.” I stared at him with blatant disgust. How could he say such a thing?
My silence got the better of him. “Just tell me where the damn box is or I’ll shoot!” he shouted. I kept quiet. The other men had huge grins glued to their faces. I suppose it was because I was going to die and they sensed my fear. Fear was the key to keeping them happy, that and whatever else they wanted. My mind was in two places, indecision. I could tell them where the box was and live or I could not tell them and definitely die. If I did tell them where it was, innocent people would die. Die because of me.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I will not tell you. I will never tell you. I am the only surviving person who knows where it is, and if you do not kill me I will,” I said slowly and clearly. The time ticked on, and then he finally answered coldly, “Fine.” With that, he drew out his gun. I guessed that if he was not going to get what he wanted, then he would kill me himself out of pure anger. I closed my eyes once again. The last thing I heard was the bullet pierce through my heart. I saw my vision blur then turn black. I felt myself leaving my body, felt the pain from each bullet. I saw my life flash before my eyes. Then I knew I was dead. This was the end.
Sabz,
ReplyDeleteWow. What a way to end the semester. This is a chilling piece, but well done.
My one big comment here has to do with tension. You have loads of it from the very beginning, what with the first sentence, but in order to sustain tension you need to keep RAISING it.
As it stands, your 3-paragraph piece is exploring different ways of asking/answering the same question: "Where is the box?" "I'll never tell." In order to RAISE tension in your piece, we need something more than a gun and a threat and a refusal to tell.
For example: maybe the man with a gun knows a secret about the narrator, and he will tell this secret if the narrator does not reveal the location of the box. Or maybe the narrator realizes they have a weapon in their pocket, and they are thinking about how to use it. Or you could use the "other" men somehow - maybe they are jeering at the narrator, making their own little threats, etc. Do you see? We need more.
I'd also like to see more subtext - just a little bit, so that we have hints about who these people are and what their relationships to each other are what is in the box. No explanations, just hints.
Good job, though. You are great at establishing tension and mystery, and the piece definitely grabbed my attention.
Thanks for all your work this year!!! :)
All the best,
Maria
PART 1
ReplyDeleteGood observations, but a little short.
PART 2
I see that you didn't use the extract to influence your writing here! But that's ok. This is a great piece of prose, smoothly written.
Something that people often pick out in this kind of piece is... technically, you can't have a first person narrative in the past tense if the protagonist dies at the end. Otherwise, how would they recount the story? This is just a minor point to consider for the future.
Sometimes I think you could have benefited from condensing your writing a little. For example:
"The other men had huge grins glued to their faces. I suppose it was because I was going to die and they sensed my fear. Fear was the key to keeping them happy"
I love the phrase 'glued to their faces' - it makes them seem very macabre. I think you could cut the middle sentence completely, as it is already obvious to the reader, and maybe slightly re-phrase the next sentence:
"The other men had huge grins glued to their faces. My fear was the key to keeping them happy."
I think this way it has more of a punch.
You could go over the piece with a fine tooth comb, making sure every sentence is well balanced and is not repeating anything unnecessary. Other than that, I thought this was very good.
Hi Sabz,
ReplyDeleteI think I'd like to see a little bit more from your analysis, you say that it's funny and enjoyable but you don't really go into any technicalities. It doesn't seem to influence your own piece either.
Saying that, I enjoyed reading it. Like Maria said, it starts with a lot of tension, the opening lines really grabbed me. Maybe you could do a paragrapgh by paragraph plan so you can plot where you are going to have your 'reveals'.
Whilst it's good to have mystery, I think that you could give us another hint about what is in the box. You've told us that it could kill many people, so I'm assuming a bomb? but maybe give us another hint, and why the captors want it so badly - why does the narrator have it? What was she going to do with it? i know the word limit is short, but a sentence or two could probably satisfy my curiosity.
I think that this piece is strong, and I like the ending where the blurry vision the bullet "piercing my heart" are described - although "life flash before my eyes" is a little bit cliched.
Good luck with your next task,
Frances
Hi Sabz,
ReplyDeleteThis is a highly charged piece of work. It conveys a strong sense of violence and fear in its atmosphere, and I think it illustrates that you can create an extreme atmosphere successfully within your writing.
If you wanted to make this into a longer story it would be necessary for there to be a progressive build-up to this scene. We'd have to know a little more about the narrator. The repeated phrase 'What's in the box,' is a great hook, because it becomes the motive for the narrator's eventual end. We also never found out its contents. It is interesting that you wrote this in the first person. It might lend itself better to the third. But, if we suspend disbelief, it is successful...
Very best
Liz