GOING OUT WITH A BANG

As you might have guessed, due to the lack of activity on the site at the moment, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to make sure, every month, that ALL students post on time (and to the best of their ability), and that all moderators comment on time (and in detail).

Nobody is to blame for this - sometimes life just gets in the way. And it is important to remember that the Wordvoodoo project has been going for almost 3 years now, during which dozens of students have benefited from the experience, and I have seen such a vast array of amazing writing from so many of you all.

However, all good things come to an end eventually, and I have taken the decision that Wordvoodoo has now passed its 'best before date'. Therefore, the blog will soon close, tasks will no longer be set, and moderation will terminate.

BUT... it is essential that it does not just fizzle out; rather, I would like us to go out with a BANG!!!

We are going to finish the project with a COMPETITION - with all entries to be posted on the blog itself.

All submissions will be open to moderation from ALL/ANY of the moderators who are able to do so.

The moderators and I will privately judge/score each entry, and, together, decide on whom to offer a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize.

The prizes will be as follows:

• 1st place = £75 book tokens
• 2nd place = £50 book tokens
• 3rd place = £25 book tokens
• 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizewinners will also each be assigned a Wordvoodoo moderator to act as a 'writing e-buddy' for at least a year, giving you someone with whom you can share your own creative writing during this time, and to whom you can go for advice and guidance as you develop further as a writer yourself.
• ALL blog members will be given a certificate to celebrate their contributions to the blog, which can be kept as a souvenir and also included in any portfolio or Record of Achievement in the future.

And the task for this final competition?

Well - no fancy rules this time...

Title: Complicated

Word count: 600-1000 words

And just use this opportunity to show how competent and stylish a writer you have become, and how much you have learnt from ALL the comments you and others have received over the months/years.

I would like ALL submissions to be posted on the blog NO LATER THAN Saturday 13th February. I will endeavour to ensure that all prizewinners are be notified by Monday 1st March.

Any questions, just ask.

Let's make this the most EXTRAORDINARY piece of writing you have EVER produced!!!

Final Task for 2009

Personally, I had SO much fun with Task 43, I would like you to have another chance at it for your final task of 2009.

As Sophie pointed out, technically speaking, a story with precisely 100 words (including the title) is called a DRABBLE. Click here to read a bit more about drabbles.

Please choose one of the following titles (and try to cover all of them between you if you can?):

1. Time
2. Rain
3. Moon
4. Glass
5. Wings
6. Night
7. Fire
8. Silk
9. Sleep
10. Chance

Then write your own drabble (i.e. title + 99 words).

Before you start planning or drafting your drabble, it is essential that you:

• look again at Task 43, to remind yourself of the instructions I gave you then
• read every drabble produced by other students for Task 43
• read every comment the different moderators wrote on each of those drabbles
• list the main, most useful suggestions the moderators gave in response to Task 43
• use all this information to ensure your Task 43 drabble is the best yet!

You can start planning and drafting your drabble straight away; your finished product, however, MUST be posted by midnight on Sunday 13th December.

Task 43: An Exemplar

Roxanne

A mannequin stares out my front window, her arm raised indeterminately towards the street. This evening, she wears a dress – a thigh-shy sequined shift which turns her torso into a crimson constellation. Passers-by all see stars; even the traffic lights go red.

I had always dreamed of a room with a view – until she moved in. Now I want for nothing. When I touch her, she does not reciprocate; but nor does she complain.

My friends do not understand; they linger outside, like customers, when they leave. I close the curtains and then we are alone. Love is simpler like this.

Task 43: 101 Words

Dan Rhodes is one Britain's most innovative young writers (although, given that he was born two years before me, I guess I am flattering myself to call him "young"!). Anyway, you can read more about him on contemporary writers here, and his own website can be found here.

And you can read some other interesting articles about and interviews with him here:

• 2003 interview with 3:AM Magazine
• 2007 interview with 3:AM Magazine
• Interview with Stet Press
• Interview with Spike Magazine

Between 1997-8, whilst spending his days fruit-picking on a farm, he wrote a collection of short stories called Anthropology.

The bold and interesting thing about this collection was not that it consisted of lots of short stories - many writers have done the same. The difference was that each and every one of these stories was written in precisely 101 words.

[You can read some of the stories here; and you can even view a series of short films inspired by some of them here.]

Many POETIC forms make incredible demands of the poet, essentially commanding them to write something PROFOUND, DURABLE, IMAGINATIVE, BRAVE and EXPERIMENTAL whilst also strictly obeying a strict set of rules - whether it be the HAIKU's 5-7-5 syllables, or the SONNET's octave/sestet of iambic pentameters.

But it is more rare for a prose writer to work within such confines - and Rhodes' Anthropology tales are, therefore, a unique experiment in balancing the restrictions of form with the potential of imaginative language and content.

Done well, therefore, these 101-word stories should be able to achieve all that a longer story could do, but with greater impact and power due to its distilled, concentrated form: kind of like boiling the essence of a good story down into its purest form.

What makes a good story? In short...

• A tight structure, with a strategic start and end and use of tension in between.
• A reliance on metaphor over literality (i.e. show not tell).
• A rejection of cliche and overused vocabulary in favour of something bolder and braver.
  
• An engagement and 'hooking' of the reader into the story's world.

And to achieve these three things in 101 words is one hell of a feat! In fact, more than in any other piece of writing, the writer needs to consider each and every ONE of these 101 words with interminable care and discretion: any wastage or poor choice is a missed opportunity.

As you have probably guessed by now, your task for Task 43 is to write your own story in 101 words.

To be honest, I do not mind what you choose as your title - so be creative and original. But your THEME should be something along the lines of RELATIONSHIPS.

What I want the moderators and me to see is an ambitious, meticulous approach to narrative distillation: a perfect story which makes no compromises due to its brevity, and achieves all I have mentioned above regardless.

A lazy blogger could rush this task off in a few minutes. But, in truth, I believe that, done properly, this task is actually the MOST DIFFICULT task you have been set to date; and, also, I believe that, done properly, it will actually take MORE time than any other task to date too.

So good luck - and rest assured that I shall also be attempting this myself, and will post my attempt shortly.

The deadline for your OWN attempt is midnight on Saturday 31st October. PLEASE make sure we have 100% prompt posts this time! :)

P.S. By now, NONE of you should be making ANY careless spelling/punctuation/grammar mistakes - so make sure you don't embarrass yourself or the rest of us by posting anything which hasn't been checked thoroughly first...

Good luck!

englishguru

Task 42: Scriptwriting

The Royal National Theatre on London's South Bank - the home of much of the world's best contemporary theatre

After some sonneteering and a piece of prose, I thought I would throw you into some scriptwriting again, a medium we haven't explored on wordvoodoo since early 2008!

Before I explain what I am looking for from this task, you MUST all read carefully the following three tasks first. With each one, look at the original task I set; and THEN have a browse through some of the students' attempts (and their comments). [I know a small number of you were on wordvoodoo when these tasks were originally set, but it would still be helpful for you to refamiliarise yourselves.]

The tasks are as follows:

• Task 22: Click HERE for the original task; and HERE for some student attempts (and comments).
• Task 23: Click HERE for the original task; and HERE for some student attempts (and comments).
• Task 24: Click HERE for the original task; and HERE for some student attempts (and comments).

Right. Have you read through all that now? Are you SURE? If you've done it properly, it will have taken you a while...

OK.

Task 42 is as follows.

PRODUCE THE SCRIPT FOR A SHORT (min. 400 words, max. 600 words) PLAY WITH ONE OF THE FOLLOWING TITLES:

1. The Right Balance
2. Testing the Water
3. Waiting for Something
4. Everything in its right Place

Like Tasks 22-24, your script must:

• be both accessible and yet profound - and, above all, totally ORIGINAL (however you achieve this);
• use TENSION to create a powerful, effective and deliberate ENDING;
• employ CONVINCING, believable and engaging DIALOGUE;
• have plenty of SUBTEXT (i.e. room to 'read beneath the lines');
• be built around CONFLICT, the essence of effective drama, and explores that conflict in an original way.

Also, as with these tasks, you should make strategic, careful use of STAGE DIRECTIONS as and when appropriate.

However, it is up to you what sort of impression you are aiming for, and what reaction you are hoping for from your audience: laughter? confusion? fear? sadness? It's up to you...

As ever, I will attempt an exemplar myself in the next couple of days.

The deadline for this task is midnight on Sunday 27th September.

Good luck - and have fun! And, above all, stretch yourself with this one and do NOT post until you are 100% convinced that this is you at your COMPLETE best.

The Last Dance (Photo 8)

It is carefully choreographed, out of years of practice.

He buys the papers en route, every day: one for him; one for her. He tucks his, rolled tight, a triggerless rifle under his arm. She folds hers carefully, and slips it into her bag, next to the baby wipes. (She has never had a baby – but has always found the world in need of wiping.) The change makes maracas out of his trouser pockets, and he whistles along too – but the tune is always the same, and wants a cadence.

She likes to pretend the table is theirs, each seat engraved with an invisible plaque. It is true that they have never sat anywhere else; but, in truth, the café is always empty when they arrive; and when they leave. There is a different face at the counter today, but she does not notice: she doesn’t do faces. She orders. One pot of breakfast leaf; two cups, warmed; two slices of Victoria sandwich. She leaves the money, stacked neatly, on the counter, before taking her seat.

The sun is bleach-bright today. It strikes her as garish, hostile even. At home, she would draw the curtains shut – and she leans back slightly to catch the shade of the brown drapes in the window. The news smells bad, and she reads it from a distance. She has learnt never to get too close.

He stopped reading the newspaper years ago, but, held high enough, she doesn't notice. He does not drink the tea either, and barely touches the cake. In twenty minutes, they will leave – but a part of him will remain; each day, a part of him remains – in fact, he frequently has the sensation that, in time, there will be little of him left. At which point, he will lay the newspaper gently over his creased, glassy face and crumble among the cake crumbs.

Across the road, a cold almost-corpse is wheeled on to an ambulance.

Task 41: A Holiday Task

On the back of such dazzling sonnets, you really are all at the top of your game. Six weeks away from writing, however, and you will just go rusty - so the purpose of this task is twofold: to keep your creativity alive over the summer break; and to give you a platform to show off to your moderators everything you can already do with prose fiction (as well as things you have never tried before!).

I really don't want to give you too many constraints with this task. After the rigidity of sonneteering, I want Task 41 to be much more of a blank canvas on which for you to let your creativity blossom. All I will do is a) give you a stimulus for your writing; and b) give you some suggestions about some creative decisions you might choose to make.

And the task?

To write a piece of prose fiction (between 300-400 words) inspired by one of the following photos.

By 'inspired by', I simply mean that you use the photo as a springboard (or starting point); where it takes you creatively is totally down to you and your muse...

All the photos have been taken from a brief and random surf on the 'Social Documentary' pool on flickr.com. DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY is basically a genre of photo which provides a (usually anonymous) snippet of the everyday life of an ordinary person. I don't think any of these photos are copyright-protected, which is why I am embedding them here; if I am wrong, then I apologise to the photographers concerned - but I am sure they will not mind their work inspiring the work of a bunch of teenage writers from East London anyway...

Photo 1


Photo 2


Photo 3


Photo 4


Photo 5


Photo 6


Photo 7


Photo 8


Photo 9


Photo 10

Once you have decided which photo you found most interesting or potentially profound, you will need to make a few decisions about how to write your piece. Here are some things to think about:

1. Form: Will it be the beginning of a short story (or novel)? Or a dramatic monologue?
2. Narrator: Will you go for 1st person (i.e. I/Me)? 3rd person (i.e. he/them etc.)? Or maybe even dare to dabble in the 2nd person (i.e. you)? Or even a mixture?
3. Tense: Will you write in the past tense? The present tense? The future tense even?
4. Narrative: Will you have multiple narratives running parallel to each other? Will the narrative move forward (or backwards) in a linear way?
5. Dialogue: Will you include some dialogue? If so, how will it be represented?
6. Description: How much detail will you give your reader regarding setting and scene? How much is essential and how much is superfluous?
   
7. Tension: Your reader will need a reason to keep reading - and to get to the end - but how will you achieve this?
8. Syntax: How will you experiment with your syntax (sentence structure)? Will you use long, compound/complex sentences? Short, simple sentences? Fragments, even? Or a mixture?
9. Vocabulary: What about the words you choose? Will they be long, complex and polysyllabic? Or short, simple and snappy? Words you have never used before, or common words used in a new way?
   
10. Imagery: How will you give your writing figurative richness (i.e. simile, metaphor and personification) without resorting to cliché?
11. Poetry: Lots of the best poetic techniques should not only be reserved for poetry. Think about the SOUND of your prose too: e.g. alliteration, rhythm, rhyme etc.
12. SHOW not TELL: How much will you be able to leave to your reader's imagination? And how much work do you need to do on their behalf? Suggestion usually works better than just 'telling'; but if you are too oblique and mysterious, you might just lose them.
    
13. Reader: What effect are you trying to have on your audience? How will you achieve this?
14. Start and Finish: Even if your piece is a smaller part of something much longer, you still need to think very carefully about how you BEGIN and END your piece (as these bits are, in many ways, the most important of all).
15. Photo: And how will you use the photo you chose? Perhaps it just gives you an idea or emotion that you then develop in a totally different and abstract direction? Perhaps it offers you a character you will then bring to life? Best of all, try out a number of things, and then take further the idea that seems to work the best...
    

I could go on forever. The point I am trying to make is that there are always choices to be made. And EVERY single word you write, every sentence, every paragraph - EVERYTHING should be the result of a creative DECISION. That is not to say that great writing can't flow, subconscious and instinct-driven; simply that, before submitting your final draft to the blog, you need to be confident that every single part of your piece is exactly how you want it to be.

The timescale for this task is longer than usual - but you MUST all meet the deadline, even if you need are going away on holiday and therefore need to be very strict with yourself whilst you are still at home. The deadline is midnight on Saturday 15th August.

Your moderators will then have the following fortnight in which to comment, in time for Task 42 at the very beginning of next term.

Finally, just in case any of you are a little stuck or confused about how to go about this DIFFICULT task, I will post my own exemplar over the next day or two. But please remember: it is only an exemplar, and, therefore, only one of the many different possible ways to attempt this task.

Good luck!

englishguru

Hope and Despair (Exemplar)

Hope

The clouds may hang lead-heavy in the sky
And sun may seem a stranger to this land,
But there amid the nimbus I can spy
A fleck of blue. It reaches out its hand
And, bright with backlight, spreads its fingers wide.
The dirt-grey sky is temporary. Mark
How quickly all the clouds now stand aside
To frame a sun which banishes the dark.
The sky is just a metaphor. Beware
The clouds which seek to infiltrate your mind.
If you are not alert, that fiend, despair,
Will shroud you in its shadow from behind.
The sky will soon explode with brightest blue
And we can bask beneath it, me and you.

Despair

Prepare yourself for too much painful truth.
The clouds are here to stay. The sun is cold
And weary. Grey remains the colour. Youth
Is just a breath. Too soon you will be old.
For every war that ends, another starts.
For every healthy child, another dies.
In time all lovers suffer broken hearts.
Each laugh is drowned by half a million cries.
What use is hope? A mirage in our midst.
Beware before you drink its heady brew
And drift without the power to resist
Intoxicating promises untrue.
The glass is empty; and there is no light
Beyond this tunnel’s everlasting night.

Task 40: A Tale of Two Sonnets

Welcome to the NEW wordvoodoo!

Please don't be confused by the fact that this task is called Task 40. There were 39 tasks on wordvoodoo in the past two years - and it will just confuse the blog TOO much if I go back to calling this Task 1. :)

If you have read this weekend's newsletter you will be well aware that tasks will become even more challenging now - and my expectations of your work will increase commensurately too. The stakes are high: the George Mitchell students will not want to be outdone by students from Connaught, Leytonstone or Norlington; and the Connaught, Leytonstone and Norlington students will want to outdo each other AND the George Mitchell students. I am hoping that a bit of healthy competition will inject a certain chemistry into the tasks - to everyone's benefit!

With Task 40, we return to that most perfect and yet elusive of poetic forms: the SONNET.

So, before I go any further, let me remind you all of the rules of sonnet writing...

1. A sonnet should have 14 lines
2. Each line should be written in iambic pentameter (i.e. 5 iambic feet) - dee-DUM
   
3. I am looking for the following rhyme scheme: ababcdcd efefgg
4. Ideally, there will be a subtle change of mood/theme between the octave (lines 1-8) and the sestet (lines 9-14)
5. Not all lines should be end-stopped - and enjambement is recommended, as is the use of caesura within some lines

Have a look at the following tasks to remind you how to go about this:

• Task 5
• Task 19
• Task 30
• Task 31
• Task 32

As well as the tasks themselves, you would do well to read some of the attempts by the students blogging at those times - and the comments they received too.

Make no mistake - I shall be looking for pretty perfect iambic pentameter from ALL of you this week; and some very inventive caesura and enjambement from those of you with a real flair for this sort of stuff.

But Task 40 isn't just to write a sonnet. ANY wordvoodoo blogger worth anything can do that!

Task 40 requires you to write TWO sonnets; and the SECOND sonnet should be a direct response to the FIRST sonnet...

The world is full of binary opposition - conflicting ideas which are diametrically opposed to each other: love and hate; truth and deceit; peace and war; childhood and adulthood; hope and despair; the city and the countryside; Arsenal and Spurs; comedy and tragedy; vegetarianism and carnivorousness; faith and atheism... The list could go on forever.

You need to choose a pair of opposites - either from the list above (if you want) or completely of your own choice.

Then your FIRST sonnet needs to be written in the 1st person, from the point of view of one of your conflicting ideas. Subsequently, your SECOND sonnet should respond, also in the 1st person, to the first sonnet.

Kind of like 'answer poems', I guess: Ralegh's "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" to Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love". Or even 'answer songs': The Pirates' "You should really know" to Mario Winans' "I don't wanna know" or Sporty Thievz's "No Pigeons" to TLC's "No Scrubs".

You have two weeks to complete this task - and the deadline is midnight on Saturday 4th July. (So those of you with me on the residential need to make sure they do not leave it until the last minute!)

As always, I shall post an exemplar shortly, which will give you an idea of what I am looking for, and how to lay it out too.

And remember, this is wordvoodoo; so I am looking for:

• flawless adherence to the rules above
• freshness and originality (with a healthy dose of risktaking and experimentation thrown in for good measure!)
  
• accessibility coupled with complexity - so that it works on more than one level
  
• control over rhyme and form (rather than letting rhyme and form control you!)

If you get stuck, or want any help at all - just email me. Seriously.

Good luck!

Task 39: Innovation

I sincerely hope that your reading of the various excerpts I have sent you during this term together with your own attempts at each task will have taught you loads about how to produce really effective prose. You will have picked up techniques and devices - consciously and without realising it - which will enrich your writing in the future, and you will have had the chance to experiment with some of these already too.

For your final task of this term (and your final prose task of this academic year), I would like you to think especially hard about how to continue that experimentation, and attempt as innovative and 'creative' a piece of prose fiction as you can muster. In order to assist you, I have emailed all of you five excerpts from different novels which I think display a particularly innovative use of language and narrative. Look carefully at what each writer is doing - with their narrator, with their tenses, with their vocabulary, grammar and syntax (sentence structure).

Part One

As usual, I would like you to choose ONE excerpt which you liked the most, and explain - in approximately 200 words - what it was about the excerpt that grabbed your interest. In particular, what is the writer doing with language to especially successful effect?

Part Two

Now it is your chance to 'show off' what you have learnt. This does not necessarily mean using lots of long, fancy words and complex, compound sentences - in fact, some of the best writing can be remarkably simple. What I want to be sure of is that all of you have thought long and hard about each and every word, how they are organised, and how every sentence and paragraph has been structured to achieve a particular effect on your reader: deliberate, careful, meticulous prose with an experimental, innovative streak and, above all, exuding originality from start to finish.

I would like you to use the following title: 'The End'. Your piece can either be a self-contained, short story, or the ending of a longer story or novel; but, either way, it must work on its own, and display a clear structure.

Good luck!

Your piece must be posted by midnight on Saturday 4th April.

Your moderators will then have TWO weeks in which to comment, before the first task of the summer term on 19th April.

Englishguru Analysis 2: eternity.forever. (Task 38)

Don’t Turn Around

Don’t turn around.
She read the words again, counting to five as she did so. Then she pressed send.

This is a brilliant opening, with a perfect balance between what we don't know (i.e. who 'she' is, who is the recipient, what lies behind the warning) and what we do (i.e. she is nervous, double-checking the message and "counting to five" before sending it). I am instantly intrigued and want to read on and fill the gaps.

Phillips walks up to me.

I really like the sudden and dramatic shift here - from 3rd person to 1st person, and from past tense to present tense. Having been sucked in by the enigma of the opening, this throws us right into the centre of events.

“Evening, boss.”
“Good day?” I gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder in return for his smile.
“Not really. Chief made me sort out his office whilst she,” He indicated at Jennifer. “And himself went through this month’s budget.” I grinned.

I like the contrast between the two characters' interactions: a punch for a smile. But there are a couple of problems with this section. Firstly, you seem to have slipped right back into the past tense, which is confusing. And, secondly, the syntax and punctuation of the last couple of sentences needs revision, as it is somewhat clumsy at the moment. Your 'aside' ("he indicated at Jennifer") does not need to be a separate sentence, and can just be wrapped in commas; and I am often unhappy with the way in which students use "himself" (or "herself"). How about: "Not really. Chief made me sort out his office whilst she," he indicated at Jennifer, "went through this month's budget with him."

“What’s going on then? Chief sounded anxious on the phone.” My hair was still wet from the shower I had fifteen minutes ago.
“Two kids were found in the alleyway back there.” He turned around and pointed at the cornered off area. I nodded.
“Any witnesses?”
“None yet.”
“Forensics here?”
“They will be. But road works are keeping them up.”
“Can I go through?”
“I don’t see why not. You are my boss after all.” Phillips winked cheekily and walked me up to the crime scene tape. I turned around quickly.
“You holding up, kid? You look a little rough.”
“I’m fine, thank you. Do you want me to get you one?” He waved the extra large cup of coffee in his right hand, and I nodded with gratitude. What an amazing kid.

This is excellent and, above all, convincing, quick-fire dialogue. I like the fact that there is virtually no narrative, and, when there is, it is on seemingly secondary details like the wet hair or the large cup of coffee. As a reader, we get a number of things from all this: that there is an element of routine to it all; that the two officers are used to working together; that they have been called to the scene when they would rather be at home (I assume, from the coffee and the wet hair, in fact, that they would rather be asleep!). And "What an amazing kid" at the end communicates so much about the speaker, and about his relationship with Phillips, with just as much economy as the rest of the piece so far.

Charlie was already hovering above the corpses, trying to peer into the contents of the dead girls’ bag – with little success, mind you.
“Well, look who we have here.” I stood with my arms folded, looking smug.
His head spun around, quick as a bullet, before his smile lit up the gloomy alleyway.
“Davie boy, it’s been a long time. Heard it was your day off?”
“It was, until Halloween got to these two.” My chin pointed to the bodies.
“Yeah, shame. Young things. Remember when we were the hooligans?” He smiled.
“I wish I could forget.” I smiled back. He gave me a brotherly hug, his big build crushing my lungs.
“Ah, sorry mate, I’m like a giant, I am. Handshake?”
I shook his fat right hand.

Again, another economic conversation, but a very different relationship. I am very impressed by the way you manage to cram so much character into a small section of dialogue with limited narrative. Little details, like the fact that Charlie "hovers" over the bodies and Davie shakes his "fat right hand", and the 'smugness' of Davie pointing at the bodies only with his "chin" - these all contribute to the authenticity of the piece, a crucial ingredient of much of the best crime fiction.

Something clattered lower down in the alleyway – it took us seconds to sprint towards it.
“What was that?” Charlie whispered. I shushed him and walked over to a graffiti layered wall, riddled with colour and crumbling with age. Two bins lay knocked over at its base.
Behind the bins was a partial opening; I took out the pen torch from my jacket and climbed through. Dust caressed my skin as I walked deeper into what seemed to be a basement.

After all the dialogue, the noise in the alleyway comes as a very effective shock. I like the description of the wall too: "riddled with colour and crumbling with age". Excellent. There is something really powerful about the personification of the dust too, and it makes the reader share the experience.

My Blackberry vibrated in my trouser pocket. 1 new message.
I opened it. The three words were simple enough, something that I wouldn’t have done instinctively if I hadn’t been a police officer.
Don’t turn around.
I turned around.

I like the short sentences here, which build the tension skilfully. The double negative of the longer sentence is a little confusing though, and the effort the reader has to make to work it out deflects from the potential power of the final couplet: "something that I wouldn't have done instinctively if I hadn't been a police officer". I am still a little confused, to be honest. However, the return to the email message from the start is expertly done, and the cliffhanger brilliantly executed. Well done.

All in all, I thought this was a very effective piece, made stronger by your economical prose and dialogue. I think the ending needs a little bit of revision, and I would still have kept the main body in the Present Tense myself - but you have clearly been taught well by your own crime fiction reading, and your adept grasp of the genre shines through throughout. :)

Task 38: Crime Fiction

Well done on your respective Task 37 attempts. I think this was one of the most deceptively tricky tasks for a long time. Wordvoodoo is all about creative, inventive and original use of language - but as soon as set you a non-fiction genre, lots of you fell, if only now and then, into Primary School 'autobiography' mode. Just remember: just because writing is 'non-fiction', it doesn't mean that it can't be creative, inventive and original too.

This is your penultimate (i.e. last but one) task of this term - and, therefore, your penultimate prose task for this year. Task 39 will no longer be genre-based - but rather a chance for you all really to 'strut your stuff' and show off all the skills you have garnered this term. But, with Task 38, I am setting you one, final, genre-based task: CRIME fiction.

You will all, no doubt, be familiar with 'crime' as a TV or movie genre: I, for one, am totally gripped by each year's new series of Waking the Dead, Silent Witness or Wire in the Blood. But I don't know how many of you have read much crime fiction.

As with many popular genres, the shelves of Waterstones are full of two different types of crime fiction: popular, generic, shallow, derivative stuff aimed predominantly at a mass market and pretty devoid of anything especially 'creative, inventive and original'; and, also, more 'literary' fare, writing that grabs hold of and wrestles with the conventions of the genre, and reworks them in a highly original and imaginative fashion. Unsurprisingly, it is the latter for which I would like you to aim.

Part One

You have all been emailed 5 extracts from different pieces of contemporary crime fiction. As with recent tasks, I would like you to choose which of them you feel is the most effective, and explain precisely why you have made that choice. Using examples to back up your points, try to get to the bottom of what, in your opinion, makes for effective crime fiction, identifying techniques which you might, yourself, try to explore in your own writing for Part Two.

Part Two

Now it is your turn: write your own excerpt of crime fiction, in which you demonstrate your own ability to interpret this popular genre in an original and compelling way. It is up to you whether your piece represents the opening of a longer novel, the end of an individual chapter, or just an 'abstract' - provided that it still works in isolation (i.e. on its own). As well as focusing on the genre-specific features of language and style, think also about the structure of your piece: few genres are more reliant on a build up to a strong (and sometimes surprising) climax. Aim for between 300-450 words (and try not to go too much below or above this).

Good luck!

This task is due by midnight on Saturday 21st March 2009.

As always, here is my attempt:

His First Case

You wake, surprised by the dark. You can smell him, although you do not realise that yet. You sit up, briefly, and hear nothing. Dreams, punctured, claw at you, vying to drag you under. You sag and fall into the mattress he bought. You can hear him, although you do not realise that yet either. Sleep comes.

You wake again; the dark is predictable now. You cannot smell him or hear him, but you think you can. Your dream has spilt over, torpid but bulging. He is in your dream; quickly, reluctantly, you rejoin him.

You do not wake. Still, listless, the darkness drinks you. He can smell you now; he can hear you too, the crackle of your congested breath half stifled by your pillow. He watches, waiting, your stale perfume tickling his senses like a red rag. The blade is the only beam, conducting light from nowhere. He shines it on your face. Your mouth. Your neck.

The cut is languorous. The metal strokes your throat, teasing the blood in one, perpetual exhalation. The white sheets purple in the bladelight. Your scent changes; he is relieved.

Freshly shaven, a pale elastoplast barely covering one clumsy nick, I cannot see when I first cross the threshold: they have left the curtains closed, left everything. I carry a small torch. I shine it on your face. Your mouth. Your neck.

I can smell him. I think I can hear him, but I can't. The blue light speaks, silently, outside the window. I buckle, bend over, vomit - ruddy specks raining through my torchlight.

Your eyes are staring at me. I cannot escape your gaze. I take out my notebook and begin.

Englishguru Analysis 1: Lilmiz (Task 37)

Each fortnight, from now on, I will comment in detail on ONE attempt myself, as a separate blog post. Although it is my hope that ALL of you are reading and learning from the moderating comments on other people's work each fortnight as well as your own, I thought it would be useful for you all if I picked apart one piece publicly, for all to see and in particular detail. N.B. Thanks in advance to lilmiz, who has unknowingly become the first 'volunteer' for this analysis.

Here goes...

Strike!

An intriguing title - suggesting any one of the following: people refusing to work; a football game; a military invasion; or some other sort of 'attack'. I like the dramatic ambiguity here.

My family and I were in Guatemala enjoying our holiday but something precarious occurred.

This first sentence is a little disappointing: it just smacks of the ordinary, that's all. The one interesting word here - "precarious" - is even rather tame, suggestive of mild danger as opposed to anything more interesting than that. I think this first sentence demonstrates where many of this week's attempts floundered a little: the minute I asked you all for 'travel writing', too many of you slipped into Primary School, autobiography mode, forgetting that non-fiction can benefit from a creative use of language just as much as any piece of fiction.

On August 20th at 20:46 we experienced an earthquake. It was striking, astonishing and perilous with everything drastically moving and shaking, it felt like being on a miniature boat in a storm. It was something that’s been welded in to my memory, trapped in my mind.

I like the directness of the first sentence here; the details of the specific date and time land us there ourselves as a reader. However, the group of three adjectives at the start of the next sentence seem a little forced and artificial - one would have done. Also, the syntax (sentence structure) of this sentence could be refined a little: try putting "and," after "perilous", thereby turning "with everything drastically moving and shaking" into a separate clause and reinforcing the simile at the end. On the subject of which, I was really pleased to see your first use of figurative language in this piece: however, I would have emphasised the smallness of your human experience amid giant nature by balancing out "miniature boat" with something like "gargantuan storm". I really like the metaphors in the final sentence - especially the idea of memories being "welded", so apt for an account of events linked to the earth's core.

Fear fiercely filched firm grip of me, my heart pulsating out of control. I took a well needed deep breath, and sprung in to apprehensive action. Firstly I rushed to my bed and got my pillow, this would protect my head from any falling rubble, I then scutled to the corner away from the window and the tall oak door this would protect me from shards of glass or wood. I was well protected. I was safe. I briefly looked to see if the rest of my family were out of harm's way. My parents clinging on to my terrified younger sister were taking shelter underneath the dining table. They were well sheltered. They were safe and sound.

Your piece is definitely warming up now, and I love the energy of this first sentence, rich in alliteration and metaphor. Not sure the first phrase completely makes sense though: "filched" is a quite old-fashioned word meaning "thieved" or "stole", and I am not sure it fits here. How about something like "Fear fixed me in its fierce grip..."? There's nothing actually wrong with "apprehensive action", but I'm just not sure it completely works: springing "into action" does not sound like an "apprehensive" move to me, that's all. The next sentence has loads of potential, but, again, the syntax needs some work. Look at my redraft here, and see how I have managed to refine the syntax to create a highly effective, complex/compound sentence: "Firstly, I rushed to my bed and got my pillow, to protect my head from any falling rubble, and scuttled to the corner which, away from the window and the tall oak door, would shield me from shards of glass or wood." See also how I have found a synonym for "protect" to avoid unnecessary repetition. I love the simplicity and brevity of the next sentence, fantastic contrast with the sprawling danger of the long sentence before.

A pedantic (i.e. fussy) point about the following sentence: "the rest" of your family is singular, and so the verb would be "was", rather than "were". The next sentence just needs one syntactical change: put "Clinging on to my terrified younger sister," at the very start of the sentence. By the way, I love the paradox (i.e. situation that doesn't quite fit together) here: your parents (whose role is to protect) "clinging" on to their "terrified" daughter (rather than shielding her): this really emphasises the scope of the fear felt by the whole family. Finally, the last two sentences work very well indeed - in their simplicity and in their similarity: a good use of contrast, again, with the complexity directly beforehand.

The whole thing lasted for an extremely hazardous, prolonged hour. But it had passed and I was safe, my family were safe and there was no damage to our holiday home- without taking note of our belongings stretched out on the floor. What a relief!

My issue with the first sentence here is, again, with the adjectives. Whilst it is true that adjectives can give essential depth to any writing, like extra shades on the writer's palette, sometimes they can seem a little extraneous (i.e. surplus to requirements), and sometimes a more figurative approach can work better. How about something like: "The next hour hung interminably, danger infusing the dusty air." See how I have made time metaphorical, and personified the danger you wanted to emphasise. I have said the same thing as "an extremely hazardous, prolonged hour", but to richer, more creative (and, therefore, more successful) effect.

I don't know if it is deliberate, but you have made excellent use of the "rule of three" (don't know if you have studied rhetorical devices like this in your English lessons?) in the next sentence; but I would change "without taking note of our belongings stretched out on the floor" slightly, to something like "apart from the sprawling pattern our strewn belongings etched on the floor". Again, I have taken a quite ordinary clause and enriched it with alliteration, metaphor and personification; important not to overuse these devices, but, equally, don't let them languish underused. Finally, I like the simple final sentence here - for the same reason I have liked your contrast of short and long sentences elsewhere so far: a very useful technique.

Several days later we were all sitting on the couch, around the T.V watching the news and we came to know that Mexico was hit by an earthquake of 7.6 on the Richter scale and more than 20 people died! It was a distressing catastrophe.

You will not be surprised to learn that the first sentence here is let down by its syntax, but could be saved so easily as follows: "Several days later, sitting on the couch around the TV news, we came to know that Mexico had been hit by an earthquake of 7.6 on the Richter scale and more than 20 people had died." Apart from my use of the 'pluperfect' tense (i.e. "had"), the only other change I have made is to turn the details of the TV news into a sub-clause, thereby firming up the structure of the whole sentence.

I don't like "It was a distressing catastrophe" at all, I am afraid. It is too 'in your face', too unsubtle, and leaves little to the imagination. Think about what you are actually trying to get across here: the fact that you were there! And think how you can get across that realisation, that 'dawning' that you were at the centre of a massive natural disaster, and that you were lucky to have survived. How about something really simple instead like: "How easily it could have been 24!" Do you see what I mean?

There are two major fault lines that go through Guatemala, so the country has a lot of seismic activity.
The volcano Fuego erupts several times per day, it sends immense clouds of smoke abating high into the sky. It is the only active volcano of the three that surround Guatemala and it is especially impressive. The first time I saw it, I stopped in ore and took some photographs, but the locals continued with their business as if nothing was happening! But we’d gotten used to it as well and only stopped to watch on occasion. At night, it was possible to see red hot lava erupt from the volcano, the best place to see this, is from café Sky. A cafe that is located on a roof of a building near a school, from where you have a magnificent, picturesque view over the town and the surrounding volcanoes.
Antigua Guatemala, as the full name of this town goes, was the capital of Guatemala (actually the entire Spanish colony covering what is now Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and parts of Mexico) until it was hit by an earthquake in 1773. The entire town was destroyed and in 1776 the capital was moved to Guatemala City, hence the name Antigua Guatemala, which means ancient Guatemala.
On August 20th at 20:46 we experienced an earthquake. It was striking, astonishing and perilous. It was something that’s been welded in to my memory, trapped in my mind.

I don't think the rest of your piece is necessary here, personally. Whilst I see what you are doing - giving us factual detail about your destination AND finishing with an echo of your phrase from the start of your account - I think the whole piece would be SO much better were you to finish at the end of the "Several days later" paragraph. Sometimes, detail is necessary; but, sometimes, less can truly be more. And if that were to leave the overall piece below the expected word count, then maybe return to the quake itself, and see what extra detail you could have added there?

All in all, therefore, I think your account is full of excellent writing, and I especially like the way you speed up and slow down events through long and short sentences. There is sophistication to much of what you write, and don't let the detail of my comments make you feel it isn't any good, because it IS! Just make sure your writing is never 'ordinary', remembering how useful metaphor can be in avoiding such a fate; and keep working on those complex and compound sentences, ensuring the syntax is spot on.

I hope this analysis has been helpful - to you and, indeed, to the other workshoppers - and I am really grateful to you for, unwittingly, being the first 'victim' of one of my in-depth analyses. Each week, I shall pick apart ONE attempt in this way, so that you can ALL learn from a comprehensive dissection of an attempt at the task. If anyone particularly wants to go next, just let me know.

Task 37: Travel Literature

This week, I am going to ask you to experiment in a genre usually inhabiting the realm of non-fiction (although there have also been plenty of fictional accounts): travel literature.

Just like the others this term, your task will consist of two parts; however, unlike the other tasks, which have predominantly dealt with genres with which you are all largely familiar, your success with this task will depend massively on how much you are able to learn from Part One - and how much you are able to demonstrate what you have learnt when you write your own piece in Part Two.

Part One

I will email you all FIVE EXCERPTS from famous and successful pieces of travel literature. I would like you to READ them carefully, CHOOSE which one you thought was the most effective of its genre, and EXPLAIN, in some detail and with examples (i.e. quotations), why you made your choice.

This is your chance to identify some of the most successful ingredients of good travel literature - e.g. witty anecdotes, figurative descriptions etc. - in order that you can try to embed those very same techniques in your own travel writing in Part Two.

Part Two

First of all, you will need to DECIDE on your subject matter. Unless you have spent the last 12-16 years locked 24/7 in a darkened room, you have all travelled considerably, whether it be internationally, nationally or just in the local area. And it is important to realise that good travel literature does not need to be about some exotic location: one of my favourite pieces by American travel writer, Bill Bryson, is simply about a small section of the Central Line on the London Underground.

Then, using some of the techniques you have observed in one/some/all of the excerpts I have sent you to bring your writing to life and engage and sustain the interest of your reader, you should WRITE (approx) 300-400 words in which you describe an episode from one of your own travels. N.B A tip: don't try to write about an entire holiday, as you will, inevitably, end up just skimming the surface; a brief episode, a particular segment of a journey, one chance encounter - these are ample around which to base such a short piece of travel literature.

The DEADLINE for this task is midnight on Saturday 7th March 2009.

PLEASE make sure you meet this deadline, as I cannot stress enough how inconvenient it can be when you keep your moderators waiting. And PLEASE make sure you proof-read your work for careless spelling/punctuation/grammar errors and silly typos, as these are still spoiling too many of your work unnecessarily.

Good luck! And a special GOOD LUCK to those of you new to the blog entirely this week: I hope you have fun! :)

Finally, here is my attempt:

When I was 21, I nearly died.

It was only on 31st October 1996, from the tectonic safety of a house I shared with another trainee teacher, the right side of the walls of H.M.P. Wakefield, home to some of the country's most dangerous and violent criminals, that I first realised quite how close I had come to extinction just under a year earlier. A brief item towards the end of the news mentioned that Gunung Merapi, an active (and, evidently, rather angry) volcano in the middle of the Indonesian island of Java, was erupting. Burning ash was raining down on houses on the mountain's flank, after part of the lava dome itself had collapsed earlier that day.

January 1996. In hindsight, certain details should have spoken louder to us, as we unpacked our rucksacks in the Merapi View hostel the night before our ascent: the eery absence of life emanating from almost all the houses we passed as we strolled around the village upon arrival; the still raw, lifeless canyon carved where half the village had been only two years previously; the fact that the puddles by the side of the road were all bubbling! The incessant plume of smoke from the summit should have warned us that someone was definitely at home; and the distinct absence of any vegetation whatsoever around the entire peak should have made it perfectly clear that visitors were definitely not welcome.

Was it the arrogance of youth? Or the naivete of the foreign traveler? Perhaps we were guilty of exactly the same disrespect we had villified in the hoards of tourists who scaled the holy arc of Uluru in Australia the month before? Deaf to common sense and blind to our own mortality, we duly rose in the middle of the night, donned our waterproofs and walking boots, and joined our brave guide as he took us on the three hour hike to the treeline. Had the sound of the rain abated, had our feverish pace slackened just for a moment, I might have called out to him, and asked him if this was really safe.

However, to be honest, the blackened stumps which spiked the grass as far as the eye could see gave me my answer; as did the thunder which shook the mountainside several times during our climb and descent. For it wasn't thunder. At the end of the news item back in Wakefield, the reporter explained, in sober tones, that the recent eruption was, in fact, nothing more than a continuation: Gunung Merapi had actually been erupting constantly since late 1994.

Note to self: if in close proximity to the fiery peak of an active volcano, walk the other way.

Task 36: A Valentine's Day Challenge

There can be few genres as badly done as ROMANCE. Bookshop shelves are strewn with dire, cloying, unoriginal attempts at expressing on the page that most mysterious and inexpressible of emotions: love.

I defy you to find many examples of romantic fiction which aren't overladen with cliches. Furthermore, in all my years of teaching, there is no genre I have seen attempted as badly in reams and reams of KS3 and GCSE coursework as the good old love story.

But Valentine's Day has come and gone, and I thought it churlish not to give you all a stab at proving all my cynicism wrong. Perhaps it is still possible to write convincing, believable and original romantic prose. Perhaps romantic fiction does not need to be so weighed down with sickly-saccharine sentiment that the reader is more likely to choke. Perhaps your attempts at ROMANCE will possess all the qualities a good wordvoodoo submission should have: originality; freshness; and an addictive hold over your reader's attention from start to finish.

Part 1

First of all, please read through the five excerpts I have emailed to you all. These are not all from novels which would be classed as romantic fiction in themselves; however, the excerpts I have chosen all depict a romantic scenario, and, in order to incorporate some 'action', they all culminate in a kiss.

Which of the five excerpts do you like the most? Which do you feel best brings to life a romantic moment in an original and effective way? Can you identify why it is effective? What ingredients does the writer use to achieve this? What do you notice about how their use of language contributes to the overall romantic effect?

Using these questions, write a brief analysis of your chosen excerpt, explaining why you think it is particularly successful.

Part 2

Now write your own narrative around a romantic moment or event.

Remember that we do not need to know the whole backstory, any more than we need to know what happens afterwards; you can afford to leave such details out, unless they directly impact on the moment you are describing.

You do not have to culminate in a kiss; however, it might help you if you do, as this will give your piece a clearly defined narrative thrust and provide you with something to work towards.

• What person will your narrative occupy - 1st (i.e. I/me); 3rd (i.e he/she/they)?
• What about your tense - past; present; or even future?
• Will it be a positive depiction of love, or a more cynical portrayal?
• How will you avoid the temptation to regurgitate romantic cliches?
• Will you concentrate on atmosphere, action or dialogue - or a mixture?

Now see if you can construct that rare narrative beast: a piece of original romantic fiction.

Same length as usual: 200-350 words. And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure that what you post is a FINAL draft: don't embarrass yourself by allowing any careless errors (spelling, punctuation, grammar etc.) to slip through the net.

The deadline for this task is midnight on Saturday 21st February. If there is some critical and unprecedented reason why you cannot meet this (and it had better be mindblowingly impressive!), you MUST seek permission from me by the end of Friday, in order that I can negotiate with your moderators on your behalf.

Good luck!

(Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!)

Here is my attempt:

The backdrop to the meal is apt: a reproduction of Klimt's "Der Kuss", glossy and new inside the narrow, clean birch of its IKEA frame. They bought it at the same time as the table - also birch. Theirs is the copied generation: their songs are covers; even their movies are remakes - and here they sit, dissecting song lyrics like love were a mathematical conundrum, whilst love itself sits, quietly, by their side.

I have counted the lines on your face, long roads we have travelled together. I have washed in the resplendent green of your eyes, cloudy now, but not to me. That body, frail as you reach for the wine, I have crushed beneath mine; still do, when we lie, alone, together.

I remember the Galerie Belvedere; we were young and we marvelled at the flowers and vines in their hair. We kissed. And I lean across the briefly empty chair - seize the moment and take you by surprise. For a moment, my lips are wet amid the gentle folds of your cheek.

And then the children come running back, drawn by the smell of hot dessert, and the seat is occupied again. But the feather of our kiss floats in the air between us, and a coy breeze carries it towards the wall, where it does not need a frame.

Task 35: HORROR

Firstly, WELL DONE on your fantastic submissions for Task 34. Your moderators were treated to some very impressive writing, and some equally strong commentaries on your chosen opening.

I was a little disappointed with the number of typos and other careless spelling/punctuation errors, but I am confident you will be able to iron them out BEFORE posting for Task 35.

I shall be using a similar format for each of your prose tasks this term: a) a commentary on an excerpt of prose; and b) your own piece of original writing.


This week, we shall focus on writing in the HORROR genre.

TASK 35

1. Choose ONE of the FOUR excerpts and explain why you think it is an effective piece of HORROR fiction.
2. Write your own piece of HORROR fiction: it could be the 'opening' of a horror novel, or an 'abstract' from the middle of your imagined story. Whichever you choose, it should be between 200-300 words, and should achieve some of the objectives of horror writing (see below). As always, you should also give considerable thought to the beginning and ending of your piece.

N.B. When you are producing your own piece of writing, you are NOT being asked to REWRITE your chosen excerpt. I am looking for a piece of ORIGINAL WRITING - but one which uses some of the TECHNIQUES you have observed in your commentary.

A Warning: It is often too easy to indulge in graphic, gory detail - but remember that sometimes the scariest writing leaves as much as possible to the imagination of the reader. The best HORROR writing is a masterclass in the 'Show, don't Tell' technique; so don't drown us in blood and gore and anything too obvious or melodramatic.

Your submissions should be posted by MIDNIGHT on SATURDAY 7TH FEBRUARY.

Good luck!

New Year: Fresh Start (and £10 up for grabs)

Firstly, apologies for the late start to the WORDVOODOO New Year. Most workshoppers will know something of my poor health of late; moderators might just be pleased to be eased in gently; and all of you, I expect, will be relieved that with a new term comes a new focus: out with the poetry and in with the prose!

However, before I go any further, I need to state an important fact: much of the best prose is, in itself, poetic, and it would be a sad mistake for you to ditch all you learnt last term in writing fiction this term, as many of the techniques (even rhyme and meter) can sometimes be applied to prose too.

After the introductory task, this term will work through a number of different genres, with each task challenging you to embrace another genre but to do so with panache, flair and originality. Every submission should be between 200-300 words (any shorter and you will not be able to develop your skills to the full; any longer and not only will it become harder to moderate, but you will also be in danger of waffling).

But first the introductory task...

I shall email you all a .zip file which contains 10 OPENINGS to different novels. Unzip the file (let me know if you need guidance on how to do this) and read the openings carefully several times. Then your Task 34 consists of two parts:

1. Decide which opening you like the most and regard to be the most effective. Once you have done so, in one paragraph (approx 100 words) explain/justify precisely why you have made that choice. This part of the task is VERY important, as it sets the perameters for the second part.
   
2. Now you must write your own OPENING to a novel. This should consist of 200-300 words which could begin your own piece of fiction. Your moderators, as well as discussing with you your choice for Part (1), will assess your own opening according to a) how well it meets your own criteria identified in Part (1); and b) how effective an opening it is according to their own opinion. As usual, they will comment on the main strengths and areas for development in your piece of writing.

The deadline for your submissions (which must be LABELLED, and must also have a TITLE of your own choosing) is midnight on Saturday 24th January. In my absence from school, Mrs Ali and Ms Stavrinou will be nagging and cajoling ALL of you whenever they see you to make sure you ALL meet the deadline WITHOUT fail.

Lastly, with the predictably chaotic and busy end to the Winter Term, if any of you feel you would like more moderation of your Task 33 attempt, please just drop me an email and I will endeavour to give you more feedback as soon as I can.

In the meantime, good luck! I am really looking forward to reading your submissions, as I know the moderators will be too.

________________________________________

N.B. ADDITIONAL, 'OPTIONAL' TASK:

If you want the chance to win a £10 book token, you may also email me the following list (do NOT post it on the blog):

• Identify each of the novels from which each of the 10 openings is taken, together with their respective authors, in order of how effective you think the opening is (from the best down to the worst).