I look at myself in the mirror. I am completely dressed in white, couldn’t have looked any prettier. Yet, I would give up all my beauty just to skip this day, this day which would lead me to my doom. The incident when my step father locked me in my room for a whole week and practically starved me in order to make me fit into my wedding dress constantly plays in my head. Why did my mother turn a blind eye to all these events? Am not her own flesh and blood? “ You do as I say or stay in there forever! You might as well remain a spinster for the rest of your life, you don’t deserve a man! Refusing to follow the orders of the man who provided for you!!”, those were his last words as he slammed the door right at my face. Provided for me? All that he’s done was to give me food and enrol me to a public school with the worst discipline ever.
I don’t crave to marry some one whom I love, all I want is a respectable man who would care for me and raise our children properly. But who do I get? A man who has a past criminal record, is very much older than me and a chain smoker! How could a parent, step parent or not wish such a thing for his or her child. This man whom I’m being forced to marry is one of my father’s best friends, his wife died just recently and he is extremely wealthy. He promise my father a large sum in return for my hand. “ Are you sure that it just her hand that you want Jonathon?”, I over heard my step dad joke after agreeing to Jonathon’s request.
“ Catherine its time , come out now love”, I hear granny call out to me from behind the closed door. I was completely wrapped up in my thoughts that I had forgotten why I came back into the dressing room. I am also completely unable to remember it. Giving up all hopes of life I make my way to the beginning of the aisle. A thick veil is dropped over my face which completely conceals it.
I begin to walk down the aisle as I hear the opening notes of the wedding march. My mind is in complete tatters. Tears make there way across my cheek smudging my make up, as I think of the happy married life that I’ll never have. I finally reach the alter, my tear stained face is revealed to my husband-to-be. Huh! That look he gave me as he saw my face lit a little flame of triumph in my heart.
The priest began his speech , and we said our vows, my mind left my body and west in search of the most irrelevant things to keep itself occupied. When it returned to my body all that I was able to grasp was a dead silence from the crowd and priest. I turn behind to see what’s happening. My father was fuming at me. What have I done wrong? I look back at him with a questioning look, “ I do”, he mouthed . “
“Oooh, I do”, I say after realising the cause for the pin-drop silence. I hear a series of stifled giggles coming from the girls. Suddenly, my eyes turn into fountains of tears, they gush out uncontrollably, the horror of my situations dawns to me all over again. All I can do is the impossible - to enjoy my doomsday and not think of the future. It will carve itself without my assistance. But the thought of the carvings being fiendish never slips my mind.
Hey there! Welcome to WordVoodoo. Before I begin, may I just say how much I adore your penname? She’s one of my favourites from Shakespeare (alongside Iago – you can tell I like the twisted ones!) and ‘Macbeth’ is probably my favourite of his plays.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good first attempt with excellent premise and I must say that I can’t wait to read more of your work. I’m going to start with the parts you could work on (so that we can get the boring bits out of the way!) and then move onto the stronger parts of this piece, where I’ll tell you what I loved about your writing styles.
There are a lot of grammatical errors within this piece, but from their places in the text and the fact that they are not consistent errors, I get the impression that they aren’t based on genuine misunderstanding on your part, but rather they are errors that have resulted from typos or perhaps rushed work. This is hopefully quite reassuring for you because it means you don’t have to sit down and learn a whole lot of grammar, you just might benefit from rereading your writing a few times before submitting it (and just so you know you’re not alone, I’m nineteen and I’m STILL being told to do this).
I won’t go through each of your mistakes individually, but if I give you a few reminders on common mistakes, hopefully you’ll be able to find them yourself. :o) The first one is a mistake I think you only made once, but just a quick reminder that if you are abbreviating the word ‘it is’, you need to use an apostrophe where the missing letter would be. So as we’re losing the second ‘i’, it becomes: ‘it’s’. Whilst you’re searching for this, see if you can spot a few typos and a few places where commas might help the flow. Next is just to remind you that when you are starting a new piece of dialogue, you need to start on a new line. Lastly, don’t forget that all questions, including rhetorical ones, need question marks following them! It might be annoying, but it certainly clears things up for the reader. You got all of these thing right on the whole, and like I said, once you’ve reread this a couple of times you’ll be able to perfect it.
Talking of rhetorical questions, you have used them excellently to build up your persona’s point of view. With questions like ‘Am not her own flesh and blood?’ you really let the reader sympathise with her and you make what perhaps might be percieved to be too dramtic more realistic. The reader really wants to jump in and stand up for her!
Your imagination is great too. It’s almost like Cinderella, but the wrong way around – the evil step parent is locking up the daughter to force her to (rather than prevent her from) marrying the guy (who seems like the exact opposite to Prince Charming)! I’d really love to see where you take this…a twisted fairytale for a twisted moderator? Yes please! Very well done.
~ Avani
Hi Lady_Macbeth!
ReplyDeleteJust a quick note to say I have read this, and I have written a comment for it, but unfortunately I left it on my memory stick at my house, which has no internet at the moment, so will try and get into the library to post it tomorrow for you!
Hope you had a good summer!
Katie
Hi Lady Macbeth! I’m Katie, one of your moderators; I’m excited to be working with you!
ReplyDeleteI’m really impressed with this first piece; you clearly have creative flair and the ability to grasp a complex emotion and prolong it throughout a piece, deepening it as you continue. I love how you’ve started with her wanting to skip this day, and moving on to her gushing with tears and considering it as her doomsday.
You’ve taken an original spin on the wedding day photo, by turning it on its head, which works well. You use some really pithy, poignant phrases too that really add depth to your work. I particularly light the phrase “it will carve itself without my assistance.” You have a clear beginning, middle and end too, which is so important, but can be hard to do when writing something so short.
Watch out for grammatical and spelling mistakes, though, as you’ve included quite a few. Perhaps you could get a friend or parent to read through things just to double check before you upload, as it’s sometimes really hard to spot mistakes in your own work. For example, you’ve typed “west” instead of “went”, and “there” instead of “their. For future reference, usually if you use the word “which”, you need a comma before it (this should come up as underlined in green if you forget when you’re using Word), and in England, we use single speech marks, such as: ‘Come to dinner,’ Mum said. We only use double quote marks when quoting from something, such as I’ve done to show the words you’ve used. It’s the other way round in America, and as we all read a lot of American books it gets confusing at times!
You’ve used the present tense, which can be hard to make effective, but you’ve made it work really well here, to add to the tension. However, be careful that you don’t mix up you’re tenses, as you’ve done that a few times, particularly in the third paragraph. I really like the first paragraph, though, when you start in the present tense and flash back to how she got in that situation; this is a really effective device and is particularly moving here (as well as informative).
This is a great piece, and I really look forward to reading more of your work soon!
Hey,
ReplyDeleteGlad to be moderating you!
This first piece of yours has a strong, convincing voice, and a mature tone. There’s a slight tendency towards melodrama, but it’s fixed easily enough. It’s always difficult to judge the fine line between “drama” and “melodrama”, anyway, particularly when the subject is as taut as the one you’ve got here. Often, it’s simply a case of removing slightly archaic expressions and replacing them with more “speech-like” ones: consider the word “yet” in the second sentence. It’s old-fashioned, and followed with the comma lends itself to a “dramatic pause”, which is telling the reader too much what to expect of the piece – and we’re only a sentence in! This, and other words like “crave” and “remain”, jar slightly with more modern turns-of-phrase like “the worst discipline ever” – the word “ever” here gives the speaker a fresher, younger voice. It’s just about finding the balance…
…which is something you’ve accomplished neatly in the second paragraph. There’s a light touch with humour here, and you allow your own original voice to shine through with phrases like “But who do I get? A man who has a past criminal record, is very much older than me and a chain smoker!” (On a side-note, amid your otherwise very good punctuation, you’ve missed a question mark after “How could a parent…” Make sure to double-check for typos; often we read what we THINK we’ve written, rather than what’s actually there. And later you’ve confused “there” for “their”.)
Some very nice touches with the interjectory “Huh!” and a pleasing mix of established phrases with “My mind is in complete tatters” (which, of course, demonstrates the very ‘tatteredness’ of the speaker’s mind!). My advice for your next piece is to go with your gut instinct a little more – the writing is at its strongest and most convincing when it is true to life. It’s a joy to see phrases like “Oooh, I do”, and they are much more potent than more clichéd phrases like “fountains of tears”.
This is really promising, and I look forward to seeing your next piece.
Penny