Eng. Adv Craft of Writing Practice Response

[BakerDad12]

Hey guys, here is a Mod C response I did under timed conditions. Mod C is probably my weakest/most unsure module, so I would appreciate some feedback! (especially if there are glaring errors/areas for large improvement)

It is a response to the sample paper released by NESA. I have attached the question below.


a. His eyes shot open.

“Wake up, Orboreyn!” his sister called from outside of his door.

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“Come with us if you want to see” the voices - more like an orchestra - repeated.

His thoughts seemed top pound against his own mind.

This can’t be real. This can’t be real, he told himself. Yet, there it was - voices clear as day resonating within his mind.

“Come with us if you want to see.”

His mind was stretched backwards, and backwards, and backwards, until he was no longer in his mind at all.

He was floating in the dead of space. His body, weightless, felt like it was wrapped in infinity.

Orboreyn looked down - and there was Earth. It radiated splendidly, a blue lamp fighting the all-encompassing blackness. His mother and his sister were on that blue marble. His father as well, someone he had never known. All the ones that were, and all the ones that will ever be, existed only there.

And then, suddenly, he soared through space. Earth was long behind him, and Mars too. He witnessed the eight great planets in their striking beauty, some so close he swore they whispered to him.

He saw the rings of Saturn; its icy moon; comets that were on the same journey as him.

And then he was out of the Milky Way. He soared through Andromeda, seeing the green and gold and blue of long-dead stars fill the emptiness of space.

He saw stars in their dying breath explode into bursts of light that flew through the universe. He saw planets form from rubble; he saw exoplanets and black holes and dwarf stars unknown to man.

He explored great moons of fire and ice in all their glory; he explored the ruins of long-dead civilisation; he explored thriving species and their immaculate planets; he explored solar systems; he explored galaxies; he explored the universe.

“Come with us if you want to see”, the collective said again.

He faltered.

“I - I can’t desert my sister, my mum”, he cried out.

Could he?

Could you?

His mind was then slapped backwards, throughout time and throughout space.

His eyes shot open.

“Wake up, Orboreyn!” his sister called from outside of his door.

b. My short story, ‘Wanderlust’, explores the primal instincts of discovery, of adrenaline, of exploration. It delves into the mind of a teenager offered the option to explore space, and the tantalising mental battle between abandoning his family and all those he’s known with the thought of exploring the universe. This piece invokes the innate human desire to explore space. “We are born too late to explore the world, but born too early to explore the stars.” But what if we weren’t? What if we could?

To achieve this thought-provoking stimulus, I adapted Colum McCann’s vivid imagery utilised in his short story, What Time Is It Now Where You Are? Although he employs this vivid imagery to distinguish the cold Afghan night with the sunny, Californian day, I utilised it to call upon the reader’s deepest, most innate desires - that to explore - by appealing to their sense of wonder. For example, the visual imagery used as Orboreyn explores “the green and gold and blue of long-dead stars”, accentuates the beauty of space, and thus provoking them to think about their choices in this situation - to abandon familiarity for the new and dangerous, or to maintain our connections?

This is further reinforced through the tactile imagery that Orboreyn “felt like he was wrapped in infinity” to deepen the reader’s sense of wonder. By threading this imagery throughout ‘Wanderlust’, the reader is provoked to question their stance on issues similar to this. Although this story may seem divorced from reality, it is not - this question of the familiar versus the unfamiliar is embedded throughout life, manifesting in decisions to move cities, or even countries.

Ultimately, the reader is reminded of the sacrifice they must make through the auditory imagery of “Orboreyn, wake up!” By rooting the reader in a familiar reality, the question of exploration becomes more difficult.

Ultimately, it is through this use of imagery as a constant motif that conveys the power of ‘Wanderlust’ - by appealing to both the reader’s primal desire to explore, and their yearning for familiarity and connection, facilitated through the visual, auditory and tactile imagery, that I provoke the audience to deeply think about this - hypothetical - offer.