We all know life is hard, and sometimes you can be all alone. But there is one thing that everyone has to come to reality with, and thats complication.
Have you heard of the story "The lost Boy"? Well, that's me then. I'm lost. The only thing I have is this grotty old orphanage and that just seems to be going too. I bet you're wandering why I'm stuck here. My life is complicated, but here I am. Bad luck boy they call me. Everything I touch, everything I say, anything I do is jinxed or so I believe.
The dead end to my world started like this.
It was a wednesday. 8 o'clock as I remember, I just finished having beens on toast, then I heard them shout. Was it my fault I had made them lat? Hell no, they were the ones who didn't know what to wear and now they're getting all bothered about my sloppiness! Anyway, I made them late I dont know why I started crying but I did. 9 o'clock, this really wasn't good timing for me.
They rushed out of the door, and before they left me their words, their final words "We are leaving" pained me, I knew what it meant but it pained me in a different way.
Oh gosh. Their...their accident was reported an hour after leaving. It was all my fault, I made them late, I made them want to hurry, I caused their deaths. I didnt know what to think anymore, its like what they said before they went came true. They really left me that day.
Well I think we all know what happens next. There were no realtives even willing to look after me, so they dumped me.
Orvani Street Orphanage. Dead end. This was my stop, at the end of a dark street the orphanage was built. I guess it wasn't that bad, but how they try and make out on T.V that it's haven. It's not, it's anything far from that. It's hell- that's as simple as I can put it.
We wake up, eat breakfast maybe go out and play or just sit and waste our lives until their finished, and then eat lunch again waste time. Sleep. Thats my life so far if not simpler. Five more years of this torture then I'm free. 11 years of age and 7 months in counting.
Oh, birthdays. That's another subject. Mines on August 5th. Summer thats the best time, not really. Not for me it isn't. They say people that are born in the summer laugh alot. I don't, I cry. I guess I should have been born in the winter, or maybe not have even been born!
The days of our births our nothing special, unless getting a cake and a few measly presents form your mates inside the house- which by the way get stuff from your own room and say they bought it for you is special.
Life here isn't really all that special, but at least someone's looking after you. We dont get all the treats the outside kids get. We don't get all the privilliges. We may not have money, or a proper home. We may not even have parents, but we have faith, and people that can help us belive once again. Everyone will come o that stage where they think they are going to fall, but someone is always going to catch them. My life is full of complication.
Life is hard, life can be unfair, it can suprise you and it can devastate you, but there is always one thing that it can make. It can make your life alot more.
Complicated.
As usual, I’ll start with spelling and grammar. In recent tasks I’ve been really happy to watch your proof reading improving – but unfortunately you’ve lapsed back into bad habits with this task! Spelling mistakes include: ‘wandering’ (for wondering); ‘beens’ (for beans); ‘lat’; ‘realtives’; and ‘our’ (for are – ‘our births our nothing special). You also need to go back over the rules regarding apostrophes. Mistakes like these make it seem like the author doesn’t care about his or her work, which makes it tricky for the reader to care, too.
ReplyDeleteI get a fairly strong sense of character from this story. The narrator is a child with a short attention span, whose assertiveness and self-justifying works to cover up his sadness. I think the self contradictions (the car accident is/isn’t his fault; the orphanage is awful/alright) in this voice work, as they show his mixed up nature.
To reveal your plot you use a flashback structure. Initially, we learn that our narrator is in an orphanage. Why?, the reader asks. You then go back in time to reveal why, and then move forwards again to tell us more about orphanage life. I’m not sure if this is the best structure for you, as once you have answered that central ‘why?’ the reader might be disinclined to read on.
You also risk losing the reader’s interest because your narrative lacks clarity regarding to what is happening to whom. Because you don’t establish or introduce the parents, the reader is mystified as to whom ‘they’ and ‘them’ are. As such, we do not feel emotional about their deaths – just confused!
Also: ‘I guess it wasn't that bad, but how they try and make out on T.V that it's haven.’ Does TV suggest orphanages are havens? I only ever see them as settings for horror films or gritty urban dramas…
A few details I did particularly enjoy: the way the details suddenly become sharper and more specific when the narrator recalls the moments before his parents die. This description suggests the importance of the memory to our narrator (because it’s being remembered with such clarity), and possibly that he has spent the years since replaying it, solidifying it. As such, this description gives us a WHAT and a WHERE, but also tells us a fair but about WHO the narrator is, and WHY he is the way he is. A subtle bit of writing – well done!
‘Orvani Street Orphanage. Dead end. This was my stop, at the end of a dark street the orphanage was built’ was another passage that really caught my ear. It’s got a great rhythm – the use of fragments rather than sentences mimicking the ‘dead end’ or ‘stop’ that the narrator has come to – and I like the image of life being like a bus or taxi ride, too.
In conclusion: you’ve got a strong voice that SHOWS us a lot about our narrator, and a strong kernel of an idea. However, your plotting and proof reading needs work. All the best!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI think you've got something cool going on with the attention to voice in your piece. I can see that you're using devices, especially informal slang and stuff like that, to make this feel like we're being addressed by a real person.
Let's take this section:
Oh, birthdays. That's another subject. Mines on August 5th. Summer thats the best time, not really. Not for me it isn't. They say people that are born in the summer laugh alot. I don't, I cry. I guess I should have been born in the winter, or maybe not have even been born!
It sounds ace - you've got this miserable, but charmingly dry voice developing. It's a bit Catcher in the Rye (read it if you haven't already).
One thing that section also shows is a slight overstatement, which detracts from the real sense of voice. To say: 'I guess I should have been born in the winter,' is weirdly more powerful than saying 'or maybe not been born at all!'
I know that might seem strange, but it's about making the reader work a bit for what they're understanding. If you state misery, or self pity, you don't get any sympathty from a reader. If you hint at it, especially in a funny way, they'll be totally on your character's side.
Practice dancing around issues in a way that allows the reader to see what's really going on. Say the opposite of what's true sometimes. So if your narrator says 'I guess if they hadn't been late they wouldn't have died. But I don't think about that. Not really' we know that really they are thinking about it, and they do feel bad.
Hope that's useful. It's a cool concept, and has the potential to create a great character, so I'd play around with it if you get chance.
It was great to read this. Take care,
Andy
Well, I've arrived late to the blog, I'm afraid. Andy and Sarah have already made many excellent comments. I can only reinforce what they have said.
ReplyDeleteI, too, found the typos quite distracting. It is very important to read your work through carefully. And it's not cheating to let someone else read it through, too. Sometimes we are 'blind' to our own writing and cannot see little mistakes, and a fresh pair of eyes can help us pick them out before we submit a piece of writing.
I thought you had a strong sense of character in this piece. But the structure of your story could have been stronger. If you plot out the basics of each paragraph, you'll see that the structure is not quite as tight as it should be in such a short story. Sometimes it is better to focus on just one event.
You opened with a mystery ('Why is the boy in the orphanage?'), and you continue on and answer that with the flash-back. But I found it difficult to know what time period I was in throughout the piece as it jumped around a bit. You talk a bit too generally about the orphanage, and because of that, you aren't focusing on the action of the story.
I think a stronger structure would have been something like this:
- Opening in the orphanage. Read wonders why character is here.
- The morning his parents were killed. Perhaps it could have been on his birthday?
- Back in the orphanage. Perhaps it was his birthday again, a year on, and he is reflecting on the differences between his old birthdays and his new birthdays in the orphanage.
Do you see how you can make the structure simple, but still contain more complex elements?
I loved the line 'They say people that are born in the summer laugh alot. I don't, I cry.' That's very beautiful and subtle. I agree with Andy that the next part of the paragraph is a bit 'overstated'. Sometimes, by saying LESS, you have a greater effect.
Overall, I think this piece has great potential - it just needs a little tightening up.