She will be standing there, on that hot summer day, thinking it will be the best day of her life. She had planned this day ever since she was nine and she had wanted it to be perfect. The venue was the same church her parents had got married in. She would wear the same dress her mum had worn so many years ago. She would grip onto the same type of flowers that accompanied her mum as she walked down the aisle. She planned this day and expected it to be perfect, like any other young girl would. She would act out the scene with little barbie dolls. In fact, the only thing she hadn't planned was the vows. She had even thought of the caterers and all the various types of canapes they would offer. She wanted all the bridesmaids to wear beautiful lilac dresses with big, puffy skirts. The image of her dream wedding never changed from when she was 12 until now.
Soon, this day that she has waited for will come and all her plans will come into action. Little does she know of what her future holds. That the man she thought she knew and loved, would turn out to be something completely different, something she will be terrified of. Almost immediately, she will acknowledge the fact that her life is in ruins.And in next to no time, she will realise that the mistakes she made are irreversible. "If only," she'll wish "I could travel back in time." But unfortunately for her, she can't.
At the moment, she is completely unaware of what will take place and she thinks she is living the perfect life. She has a stunning spacious apartment in the middle of the hustle and bustle of New York City. She has the job she's always dreamed of and is planning to have a baby. In her eyes, life couldn't be any better. But as time will go on, inopportune events will take place in her life and she will be put in a situation where she will have to brutally murder a loved one to save another. But as she doesn't know of this yet, she is happy and doesn't have a care in the world.
As she imagines her future, her wedding day, an image of happiness and tranquility comes to mind. However she is yet to be surprised by the strange twist of events after her wedding day.
Very interesting piece. I love the way you have played with tenses here. It works really well. Well done on having the guts to try out something bold like this!
ReplyDeleteI'm not too sure about the last line, though. In fact, I think it would work much better if the last paragraph was deleted. It seems a bit to much of a summery. The end of the penultimate paragraph is much stronger to me:
'But as time will go on, inopportune events will take place in her life and she will be put in a situation where she will have to brutally murder a loved one to save another. But as she doesn't know of this yet, she is happy and doesn't have a care in the world.'
You've got the great shock-factor of the upcoming murder, but you've also got the present happiness and ignorance. That balance is great and very effective.
I'd be careful of over-using the word 'had'. When you start to write chunks of text that is in the past perfect, it becomes quite dense and distracting. Often, you can remove it without changing the meaning of the text.
She had (you need this one) planned this day ever since she was nine and she (you can removed 'had' here and it still makes sense) wanted it to be perfect.
The venue was the same church her parents married in. She would wear the same dress her mum wore so many years ago.
(See the difference? I personally think it flows a bit better.)
Anyway, I think this is a very interesting piece. Well done :)
Yeah, the last paragraph was just something i threw in there 'cause i thought i hadn't written enough.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advise!
:)
An effective, wistful tone is established in the first few sentences of your piece – the future tense lends itself really well to this.
ReplyDeleteThere’s a slight confusion over tense, however, when you go back in time to the past continuous tense with “[s]he would act out the scene with little Barbie dolls” – in the context, this also suggests that it will take place in the future, as a hope she has! My suggestion would be to change it to “She had acted out the scene…” See how it clears up the ambiguity? There’s another blurry bit of logic with “[t]he image of her dream wedding never changed from when she was 12 until now”. The “until now” suggests that now her plans have started to change, whereas what you mean is “The image of her dream wedding hadn’t changed since she was twelve”.
The next paragraph is interesting in that it addresses directly the future as it will be, rather than as it hypothetically could be. I’m not sure the transition is completely ambiguity-free, however, and you lapse into slightly more cliché-driven writing: phrases like “Little does she know”, “life is in ruins” and “next to no time” obscure the clarity of your purpose. It can be hard to avoid well-worn phrases precisely because they sound as though they belong to dramatic or emotional writing – but they along “belong” there as long as they are propagated by further writing. Take time to think about what each phrase really means, and then look for your own, original alternative for that phrase. You are an original writer, and I know that the products of this will be surprising and quotable, rather than merely familiar.
You’ve taken the darker of the options for the image, so perhaps it would be interesting to see a lighter touch in another piece of work. Overall, though, this is well-crafted; I am impressed with the elegance of the machinery of your phrases. Well done, and keep pushing your boundaries of originality.
Penny
Hello again, I really must apologise for my lateness, but even more than this I must apologise for the fact that, after this lateness, I have little to say about your story than to repeat almost verbatim what my fellow moderators have already posted.
ReplyDeleteI was extremely impressed by this story, I really feel you took all of Matthew's suggestions (and they were only suggestions, not obligations) and challenged yourself to an ambitious, multi-faceted piece of work which, by and large, works remarkably well.
The tale of a supposedly harmonious marriage which soon descends into domestic abuse, is a hackneyed and oft-repeated tale, both in fiction AND fact, but your eschewing of a conventional linear narrative is what makes the piece really stand out. The reader, even if suspecting that this harmonious marriage sounds too good to be true, at least expects a slow and gradual descent, but then, incredibly suddenly, the narrator tugs the rug from under our feet and, in a very jarring manner wholly appropriate for domestic abuse, reveals blatantly and nakedly the real state of play. Therefore it becomes apparent that the drama is to come from our knowing what the leading lady does not, and the tragedy of our helplessness in preventing her from embarking on her own descent.
Indeed the figure of the narrator is the most fascinating facet of this piece. Due to having the power and knowledge to blur and transform the tenses at will, it is clear that this narrator is omniscient, but also displays some measure of personality, as proven by the purposeful teasing of the reader when only sharing certain information about the characters. Indeed this narrator seems to have little sympathy for the leading lady, and therefore could potentially prove to be an unreliable narrator and, worse still, on the side of the abusive husband.
These are all only possible avenues you could take, but the fact that they all present themselves at all demonstrates how intriguing and multi-faceted a précis you have presented.
But in any case, I think you should definitely stick with this piece and see where it leads as I sure you will find it very rewarding,
Well done,
Eoghan