Creative Writing and short stories

[Aaron12038488]

So my teacher said for my creative writing for the half-yearly which is 40min, that I should be aiming for about 3 pages. Is this realistic?

[jamonwindeyer]

So my teacher said for my creative writing for the half-yearly which is 40min, that I should be aiming for about 3 pages. Is this realistic?

I'd say so! 3 pages of about 200 words each is about 600 words, which is roughly what I'd expect to see from a Creative!

[Aaron12038488]

how do i do an appropriation of a text and modify it.

Spoiler

E.g. To the guards!’ the men around the table lifted their glasses, grinning to each other as they leaned back in their wide chairs. The meal was much appreciated by the guards, who having forced the prisoners to eat their watery stew, now felt like kings. As the bell rang, bouncing through the passage of the small rooms, Mark and four others pushed their chairs back and stood together, ready for their next shift. ‘Give prisoner 310 a bit of a push! Yelled one of the guards at the table, ‘he’s being a pain, barricaded the door of his cell with his bed today.’ Mark nodded, pulling his eyes as he filed into the hall behind the other uniformed men.

Once inside, with the door locked, they checked each cell. Each room was small with two narrow beds filling most of the space. Sitting or lying on each bed was a man clothed in a thin white smock. 310 lay under his square blanket, his bare feet hanging off the edge of the mattress. Mark hit the bars on 310s cell with his baton, breaking the humid hush that had settled over the rooms and causing him to sit up. The skin on his face was pale and strained and with no natural light his eyes looked like shallow pools, murky and still.  Mark hit the door again and again, the stinging sound growing louder until it reverberated through each of the rooms as if the building was shaking causing yells of complaint from the prisoners. Mark looked to the other guards, smiling behind their matching glasses. Tom, the guard closest to him motioned for Mark to pause and cleared his throat, ‘You can blame 310 for the noise’ his voice was loud but unsteady ‘Repeat! “310 is a bad prisoner.”’ The prisoners waited in silent defiance. Tom walked towards the cell next to 310s followed by the other guards. The silence in the cells making the sound of their thick boots scuffing the ground unnaturally loud. Grinning to each other they all began to hit each prisoners door, the sound joining into a shuddering thunder. Mark felt their power as they moved together, each strike of the baton becoming stronger and faster like a train, each wheel spinning with more force, pulling the train from the station and sending it with momentum as it races down the tracks. In these rooms, together, they had control.

When they stopped, Tom reiterated his demand. This time his voice was low and firm. ‘Repeat my words. “310 is a bad prisoner, 310 is a bad prisoner.”’ Two voices joined his and then another and another. ‘310 is a bad prisoner. 310 is a bad prisoner. 310 is a bad prisoner.’ As the chant picked up the guards stood back from the doors, moving back to their chairs on the opposite side of the narrow hall. Tom sat upright on his chair, tugging his uniform straight as he watched 310 from a distance, his hands over his ears, his face pulled even tighter with dread.  ‘We did that well’ said Mark as he lowed himself to the chair beside Tom, ‘We’ll have a good laugh to share with the others’.

Three hours into the shift, a key turned in the lock and the professor entered the hall. He walked to the center of the room, pulling back the blind that had been tied close for the last four days. ‘Students, we are ending the experiment early.’ Tom stared out of the window, shocked by the sunny courtyard outside, filled with students moving from class to class.

Four days earlier, Professor Zimbardo stood in a classroom with twelve students, half the number he had selected for the experiment. The twenty-four young men were considered the most emotionally stable and normal of the many more they had tested. ‘In just a moment’ the Professor explained ‘I will show you where the mock prison has been set up. In this place, your new identity is to be a guard. I will give you your uniforms’ he motioned to a pile of clothes, boots, sunglasses and batons ‘It is your job to control your prison. In those rooms you will have superior food and sleeping arrangements than the prisoners. Together you can create in the prisoners a sense of fear to some degree. They’ll have no freedom of action, they can do nothing, say nothing without the guards permission. They will be divided into cells, locked behind bars, you will move freely in the prison and act together as one unit.’ The men sat still, glancing uneasily at those around them, unsure if they had the authority or desire to fulfill this role. The Professor opened the door, ‘Come let me show you your prison.’

An hour after the Professor ended the experiment all twelve prisoners emerged from storage rooms at Stanford University, their faces pallid and eyes blinking in the sunlight, pulled unexpectedly from a life that had consumed them in just days. With them were the guards. The prison was gone. Tom walked home alone, blending in with the crowds of students as they left for the weekend. His mother answered the door when he knocked, her eyebrows raised. ‘I thought you weren’t back for a week at least?’ Tom stepped inside the house kicking of his sneakers.

‘They finished it early.’

‘Oh, no! Did you get paid for the two weeks?’

‘Yeah they paid us the full amount anyway.’

‘That’s great luck! Well go and clean up Tommy, and then we will have dinner’ Her smile wasn’t returned by Tom. ‘Actually, dear, would you mind going and bringing the bins in first?’

‘No, I won’t get the bins’ Tom pushed past his stunned mother, feeling his frustration growing like a hot cloud within him. He wanted to be back with the guards; the keys to each of the cells strapped to his uniform and striding through the dark halls with the other men. He climbed the stairs, his frustration swirled around his chest, winding itself around him like a serpent around its prey. He was so much more than this, if only they knew what he was in his territory, with the power of the pack around him. Now he was alone, the tendrils wrapping tighter around him. Trapped. Unlike the prisoners who emerged from their prison, there were no keys to unlock this cell. The tendrils closed tighter and harder, pushing the blood from his face.

Mod Edit: Added spoiler

[jamonwindeyer]

how do i do an appropriation of a text and modify it.

Well, an appropriation is basically taking some element(s) of the text, be it the plot-line, characters, themes (etc) - And using them in a story of your own! This could take the story in a new direction, extend on the end of a story - The options are endless. There just needs to be enough new stuff - You can't just take the same story and adapt it slightly to make it yours. You need to be creative with it

[ericazzz]

Orphan Stories by Margaret Atwood was a short story I used for my AoS - It is really different and really powerful. Highly recommend!

(It is from an anthology called The Tent, which if you can get your hands on, is fabulous)

Hi,
I know this is a while ago but do you by any chance have any notes left on Orphan Stories by Margaret Atwood you used for Discovery?

Thank you 

[Ellielh]

Hi,
I know this is a while ago but do you by any chance have any notes left on Orphan Stories by Margaret Atwood you used for Discovery?

Thank you 

Have you checked the notes section?
https://atarnotes.com/notes/

[headsup]

Hey ppl!

Just a question about my creative writing.... For my trial exam I got 8.5/15     and I have written extracts from a diary.... The teacher that marked this said that I should have done a narrative with diary entries and not just diary entries as they do not make a good creative writing...

What do you people think?? Should I try and write it as a narrative now?

Thanks!!!!

[fkkiwi]

Hey ppl!

Just a question about my creative writing.... For my trial exam I got 8.5/15     and I have written extracts from a diary.... The teacher that marked this said that I should have done a narrative with diary entries and not just diary entries as they do not make a good creative writing...

What do you people think?? Should I try and write it as a narrative now?

Thanks!!!!

Creative writing is arguably the most subjective part of both English papers. Different teachers have different styles and preferences so it's hard to satisfy them all! I showed my story to several teachers; a couple said it was good and conceptual but in my trials the teacher who marked it gave me an 11/15. I know this isn't really helpful, but just write what you feel is best for you. As long as you encapsulate the core ideas of discovery and engage with the stimulus, it doesn't matter if it's a diary entry or narrative.

Alternatively, you could look into embedding an epistolary in your narrative? That way you keep your idea but also incorporate your teacher's feedback.

[headsup]

Creative writing is arguably the most subjective part of both English papers.

Thanks heaps!! I will keep working on it. Would appreciate it will someone would be able to go over my creative below and let me know your thoughts.... (PS. Its not great...  )

Spoiler

12th March 1932 | Mannheim
Have you every heard the voice of people? The stories of people's feet? The voices of feet?
The closeness of a spanish heel to an Oxford Brogue tells a story of an evening ball. A story of wealth. A story of love.
Add to this story the voices of flaky, cracked feet conversing with black hobnail boots and you have a crime. A suspicion. Tears.
Our story is suddenly interrupted by polished wingtips. The voice is loud and rushed. It tells of a concluded meeting. Of business. A deal.
The voices whisper from all parts of the street. Every shoe, every foot has a voice. No foot tries to drown out anthers voice. No foot tries to kill another foot. The pavement accepts all the stories. Regardless of religion it hears. Regardless of heritage it hears.
I love these voices. They tell what is not spoken. What I cannot see. What there is to tell of the world.

10th May 193 | Berlin | Book Burning
The smoke hangs low in the air. The smell of burning flesh eats at the nose. Tonight the plot is different. Hobnails dominate the story tonight. They tell of power. Of authority. Yet a shuffle of fear exists. A  tremor in the voice. The story becomes intense, more authors interupt. The darkness chokes the voices. Ash is caught in the throat. The words become forced, confused and disjointed.
Here and there a rustle of paper. A word. A page. An intertextual reference that has no bearing on the story being told. Yet, it tells a story of its own. A story of a wasted life, a burnt author.
The page tells of an act against the Un-German spirit. What is the Un-German spirit? Those born here. Those born in Paris. Are we not all Germans? The Poles, Turks, Greeks, Asians, Africians and the Jew?
Think about the word 'Jew' for a minute. It is a title proudly born, yet one that comes from many mouths as a curse. An insult. When a little boy wants to insult a little girl does he not call her 'girl'? It it an insult? No! It is a title borne proudly and openly. It is not something of which to be ashamed.

14th November 1940
The train screams to a halt. Yet, the screams continue. The voices of mothers, calling for there children. The voices of children, calling for their mothers.
The voices are different here. They speak of cruelty. A shuffle of fear, which once existed, now controls. Hobnail, harsh voices surround those of the crocs. The crows cow in fear. There is no-one individual noise. It is the cry of a multitude. The cry to an unseen God. A cry of pain and sorrow.
A hand rises. It claps at my breasts. It explores, feeling for a heart. A heart that pines with the voices. A heart that helps. Yet, it finds only an unsteady throb. The hand falls limp. The heart , as if missing the love of a hand cries out. It continues to cry out, until the sickness of loss forces the cry to stop. It stops. These feet speak no-more. An individual voice among the multitude stops on earth and starts in heaven. A cry to a now seen God.

Epilogue - I know and as pointed out by the marker doesn't fit however it needed to add something to explain in relation to the question 
Sara was born in Germany during the first World War. She never saw her father. She never spoke to her father. He died in the trenches.
She never saw her mother. She never spoke to her mother. She died of the sorrow at the loss of her love, as of the sound of silence.
Sara was blind and dumb. Yet, her ears heard what is missed by all. Common ground among all people. The lack of understanding of differences. She never discriminated. She couldn't. She judged on the voices of peoples feet.
The voice of those people...

EDIT: This is my trial creative so written under exam conditions....