Hey, aadharmg.
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I watched my withered mother lay on the bed as the nurse took readings of her blood pressure. The room felt condescending and inhibiting, as if inviting me to my own deathbed. I hoped that this was only happening to me. I hoped that this was solitary, my only solace was the hope that my mother was not on her deathbed. (I like this opening; I think it will be really interesting, but everything is given to us too quickly. I would’ve liked you to play around with the imagery evoked by this event. How does the narrator feel? Your goal here is to invite us into the event, but other than that, I really like this dark opening!)
We’re given advice as to how we should deal with the loss of a loved one. In the moment, none of that advice is valuable. (Ooh! Nice.) You can’t make yourself think about the good times. You’re forced to think about the dark possibilities. You can’t enjoy the last moments with someone. You’re forced to think about the upcoming moments without them. (I love this repetition!) My mother was such a multifaceted character; she was there my whole life, through the struggles of migrating from India to land only known by word of mouth - Australia. She gave up everything for her family. A shot at teaching at one of the most prestigious universities in India, an opportunity to work for the education department of the government. In other words, she was on the verge of being entitled to highly prestigious jobs. She was well respected in her environment, with countless students of hers reflecting stellar results to her name.
She chose to move on from all of this. For my sake. For my sister’s sake. For my father’s sake. For her family’s sake.
A certain memory sticks out in my mind of my mother. (Be careful here. You’re changing tense here!) I was only 8 years old and we had moved to Australia a couple of weeks before. In those first few weeks, Australia felt like heaven - so many open spaces, gorgeous skies in the evening, visible stars at night, so much cricket and football to play. That is until, I began school. I never had a problem with language, coming from a relatively modernised school in India where we were predominantly interacted in English. The first day of school came and I walked on the asphalt past the large, ironically rigid green gates that stood ajar. I felt secure enough and ready for a fresh opportunity, a fresh beginning. Equally excited, my mother walked me to my first classroom and discussed my situation in terms of what I already knew or didn’t know. (I like the action here, but again I feel as though you’re being too literal. Rather than just relying on sight, mix in a few other senses to evoke a scene. What does Australia feel like? What about the smell or the sounds of Australia? By itself, the imagery falls a bit flat because we’re being spoonfed with what Australia looks like.)
“He’s excellent with maths, he can multiply and divide very large numbers so I’m hoping that he won’t have a problem with any of that stuff. In terms of English, he might need a little bit of refinement because he hasn’t gone to school in 3 weeks.” she told the teacher, in a cauties yet well fluent tone. (Well fluent is an example of tautology; fluent already implies “to be well spoken”, so be careful here! Instead, just “fluent tone” is good enough.)
“Well, alright then. I’ll do what I can.” the teacher replied, in a reassuring voice that put my mother back on her way home, glimpsing at me one last time with a vibrant smile that made me feel quite comfortable in this unfamiliar place.
There I sat in my new classroom, on a new continent, in a new country, in a new city, in a new school. All alone, but not afraid. (I love the sentence control here! Nice and effective.) I saw a fellow classmate approach me. Caucasian with wavy golden hair, he approached me at my table as I sat staring at him. (Still too much to do with sight; what does he smell like? What about his presence? How do you feel when you first meet him?)
“Hey, are you new here?” the boy asked me. He sounded like a nice kid.
“Yes, I ca-came here 3 weeks ago.” I responded in my heavily foreign accent. The boy stared blankly at me for a couple of seconds, a smile evidently brewing on his face. His lips tightening. Abruptly, he burst out into laughter.
“You sound funny” he shouted.
The rest of the class was staring at me. Then they all started to giggle. I felt smaller and smaller in this large class, large city, large country and large world around me. I felt uneasy. I got off my chair and trudged outside the classroom. I sat next to my bag, crying, until the teacher hurried outside to look for me. I couldn’t hear the class anymore, everything around me was dead silent. The teacher consoled me, walked me back into the classroom and scolded that kid in front of my eyes. How sweet. This revenge was intoxicating for my 8 year old self. (Yeah, I feel like you’re not really setting the scene as effectively as it should be. Rather than just advancing the plot literally, I like to use non-linear plotlines. That is, think about your character’s experiences back in India and bring that into the story. Does this incident you’ve created invoke a particular memory from India? Or… perhaps, he misses the time he was in India? Just these little “anecdotes” can really build up a scene, and it will allow your audience to relate to your main character (as all writers do).)
I met a couple of new kids who sounded a lot like me. They introduced me to various games that day. I still felt lonely. Everything was too new for a kid like me. I had forgotten the incident, but I couldn’t forget my home. My home where I sounded the same as the others. My home where I fit in. I remembered the way it felt to be at school with people whose company I cherished, the yellow skies in the afternoon, the call of my childhood friends in the evening to play cricket with them, the sensational street food, the aroma of which lifted me into a serene yet stimulated state, every single time. (This is better! Linking back to your time in India can really set the scene more effectively than just trying to advance the plot.)
The feeling inhibited my sense of time. Suddenly it was 3 o’clock.
I was picked up by my mother and in the car, I recited my experience to her. As a mother, she felt furious at the kid, furious at the teacher for not handling the situation better. Her maternal instinct got the better of her patience. We drove through the perfectly straight lines on the road, trucks passing by, dogs hanging out the window of other cars. I was flooding tears, now that I had someone to talk to about my feelings. My mother came to reason with herself. I was expecting her to launch some sort of attack against the school, completely decimate every person associated with the school, like I had seen in movies. Of course I exaggerated the situation in my mind, but what better does an 8 year old know?
The next day I again walked on the asphalt past the large, ironically rigid green gates that stood ajar, dreading the day that was to come. We walked straight to my class and my mother asked to see my teacher outside. After a couple of minutes, the teacher came back in and announced that I would be her ‘maths helper’ from today. I was in shock. No way in hell did I want to be in the spotlight! She told me that I would fill her answers for her, and get the rest of the class to cross-check their answers with mine. I didn’t know what to feel. She gave the whole class 10 minutes to fill out our times tables and asked me to slowly read out my answers. I began to do so, highly embarrassed about my accent.
The kid who put me in an uncomfortable position raised his hand. He needed help.
“Go help him,” my teacher kindly whispered to me. “Don’t be afraid.”
I walked over to him and looked at his problem. I quickly identified his mistake, which was lied in his carelessness whilst carrying over a double digit number in the multiplication of 12 with 11. He looked up at me, smiling and began to giggle. He slapped his own forehead and looked at me in embarrassment, playfully. I was suddenly over my woes of the day before. This boy wasn’t as bad as he seemed!
At the end of the day, I ran to my mother with a vibrant smile on my face, feeling the breeze on my face, on the verge of tripping over on the asphalt that suddenly felt like a meadow of sunshine and soft grass that pushed me back into the air to make me feel like I was flying.
I told my mother all about that kid. Then I asked her, “why did the teacher make me the ‘maths helper’?”
“I told her to. I wanted the rest of the class to look at you past your accent.”
I felt astonished, and very grateful.
“You see, sometimes people will only focus on what’s different about you. There are some that you can help, some you can’t. What you can always do, is show people what you’re best at so they appreciate you in that way and look past your imperfections. No one is ever evil or hateful. It only depends on what you show them about yourselves.”
That was my favourite memory of my mother. Here I sit, on this uncomfortably small chair beside the bed in which my mother lies. I smile and hold her hand a little tighter. Although she may have missed opportunities, she never missed her chances to make things right in the world for her children. I now realise the importance of looking back on the good times. As I await the evaluation of my mother’s future, I think of those times; the hilarious times; the adventurous times; the times that brought my family closer together.
Overall, you have really interesting ideas and they work for the most part. I like the non-linearity; it works well.
However, as you probably do know, there are certain elements that don't work as well.
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Play around with more than just your sight.
Human experiences come from the way we interact with our own environment: what we see, what we hear, what we smell, etc. As a writer, it's your goal to relate your main character to your
own human experiences. You could do this by thinking about what your character feels, smells, sees, and hears.
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Develop your character before advancing the plot.
Every great story starts with a great character. Every character needs to do something otherwise it's a waste of potential space. You do this well in some areas with the bully kid. Other times, they lack anything because everything happens too quickly. Slow down the action, and work on the characterisation for your trials.
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Remember that discovery has to play a key role.
It's important to stick to the theme of discovery; I mean, the way you're being assessed is through your own understanding and layer of complexity of discovery. You should aim to have the discovery aspect clear and evident at the beginning of the story so that the rest of the story are just complex notions of that one discovery component. So, if your discovery idea was about familial relationships (rediscovery??), then build that up with the rest of your story!
Make them subtle, yet not so subtle that it loses sight of the markers. They need to be clear, but not obvious at the same time if that makes sense.
What to do next1)
Highlight your discoveries.
Go back to the rubric and highlight all of the discoveries that are
clear in your piece at this moment. Then underline any discoveries that you
could implement, and finally place a little cross above all of the discoveries that you're absolutely clueless with. You should then aim to rewrite the piece, but now consider how you could highlight all of the discoveries that has a cross or underline. You may have to change the way you approach the piece slightly.
2)
Rewrite, but now consider how you could use your other senses.
One of the key areas for improvement was that you're being too literal. There's little to imagine for the reader. So, I suggest that you rewrite the piece, but now think deeper about each scene. How does that make the character feel? Does he feel safe in his new environment? Perhaps, it reminded him of a past experience. Emphasising your other senses will help evoke the scene, and this works more effectively than just trying to describe what happens in the plot.
Good luck with the trials and the HSC! If you have any problems, feel free to ask me
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Topic: English Advanced: AOS Creative (Read 1169 times)