Free AOS Creative Writing Marking!

[elysepopplewell]

Thankyou for all your help with this!! I was originally writing it from a perspective that since the parents accident he has had trust issues and thinks everyone is out to get him, he is depressed and then finally goes outside for the first time since the accident. Should I introduce maybe a friend to help him get through it all at the end or will that be too cheesy (<-- like this)
He wasnt in the accident so couldnt have any physical hurt (unless self-harm but thats another minefield).
See where I am coming from?

Thanks again you are an absolute legend that makes english seem that much more livable

Ahh yes that makes perfect sense! This makes sense about the intruder as well, but that wasn't quite clear. Try emphasise the paranoia a bit I think! Perhaps take out the "biological parent" title because it implies surrogacy, adoption or fostering. So that detracted from the accident idea. I love the paranoia idea, that he's scared to step out until he finds a moment of courage with his parent's spirit. Definitely run with that! Now you've just got to enhance the sense of him being scared, rather than there being an actual threat (which I thought the intruder was )

No, no, YOU'RE a legend!

[franciscasabere]

Could you please please take a look at my creative writing on discovery.

[jamonwindeyer]

Could you please please take a look at my creative writing on discovery.

Hey there! Thanks for posting your creative, welcome to the forums!! Be sure to let me know if you need anything

Unfortunately you have not met the posting requirements to receive feedback. We have a post exchange policy in place to make sure the service doesn't get too clogged (essay marking rules available here). It is 15 posts per essay/creative,  so if you hang around the forums for a bit, ask a few questions and have a chat (make your 'first' post here if you like), then you'll get there really quick! Just let us know when you reach the post count, and we'll give you some feedback! Thanks in Advance 

[studybuddy7777]

Ahh yes that makes perfect sense! This makes sense about the intruder as well, but that wasn't quite clear. Try emphasise the paranoia a bit I think! Perhaps take out the "biological parent" title because it implies surrogacy, adoption or fostering. So that detracted from the accident idea. I love the paranoia idea, that he's scared to step out until he finds a moment of courage with his parent's spirit. Definitely run with that! Now you've just got to enhance the sense of him being scared, rather than there being an actual threat (which I thought the intruder was )

No, no, YOU'RE a legend!

Thank you (again!) for this! I will try and put all this in the creative I have to write today! My Eng Paper 1 starts at 9:00am. Not nervous at all what are you talking about... 😱😰

[elysepopplewell]

Thank you (again!) for this! I will try and put all this in the creative I have to write today! My Eng Paper 1 starts at 9:00am. Not nervous at all what are you talking about... 😱😰

Not a problem! Be sure to tell us what you thought about the paper over here!

[studybuddy7777]

Haha i already have.. Multiple times

[bethjomay]

Hey! This is my potential base for a creative writing story! I know it's pretty basic but I'm not sure how to make it more complex/explore discovery more! Any feedback would be much appreciated

(Also my trial is tomorrow so this is a bit last minute  )

She sat on the timber fence at the top of the beach and gazed out over the ocean. It was getting later in the afternoon as the sun swung slowly lower through a clear blue canvas. The long grass that transitioned into the sand below her swayed back and forth, tickling the bottoms of her feet. The last week had gone by so quickly she felt as though she had only just arrived back in her hometown. The trip had been a long anticipated one. The past few months had been so stressful down south, with exams, family gatherings and working extra shifts at her job for the Christmas season. Once the money was saved up she had booked tickets straight away, and the thought of coming up here again was part of what had kept her going. Everything being so crazy, she had found herself longing for a sense of home and she was sure that coming up here would satisfy that better than anything else.

On Tuesday night she had been invited to go out for drinks with a group of her old friends from high school…
She walked across the crowded bar and scanned for her friends. It hadn’t occurred to her until this point that she might not even recognise some of them, and they might not recognise her. Someone called out to her from across the room.
“Liz! Elizabeth, hey! We’re over here!” It was Marley, a girl she had never been particularly close to. She wove her way over to them and was greeted with a chorus of enthusiastic “Hello’s!” followed by many a “How are you?” and a procession of hugs. After telling everyone separately that she was well, Marley offered to buy her a drink.
“Oh thank you, that would be lovely!”
“So how’s life in the city treating you?”
“It’s good! University is crazy but I’m really enjoying my course.”
“Great! You’re living with your Aunty and Uncle right?”
“Yeah.” Re-examining the group she noticed a lack of a few faces she had been hoping to see.
“Is Drew around? I haven’t been able to get in contact him?”
“Who?”
“Drew Sommers?”
“Oh, his family moved away not long after yours! Didn’t you know?”
“No I didn’t. What about Rachel Godfrey?”
“Ah, I think she’s studying overseas, but I’m not sure, we were never really close!”
“Oh ok.” Drew and Rachel had been her closest friends when she lived there and she was left feeling oddly alone knowing they weren’t around, despite the fact they hadn’t spoken in years. After a few hours of shallow conversation she went back home, unsure how she was feeling.

On Sunday morning she went to her old church service, where her family had gone for years. She knew that a new minister had taken over recently as the Coopers had moved went to do inland mission. She sat towards the back in order to observe the church more easily. It felt much the same as when she had last been there, if a little mustier. The service itself was also quite similar, although she had only ever heard one of the songs played. What struck her most was how many young kids filled the church. The front few rows were full of families with kids running around all over the place. At morning tea she lingered in the hall, awkwardly looking for someone she could talk to. Young mothers all chatted amongst themselves as their kids ran around, eyeing Elizabeth off.
“Elizabeth? Is that you?” A frail voice behind her spoke.
“Yes, it is! Oh hello Lyn! How wonderful to see you!” The woman who had been like a grandmother to her as a child was now bent over a walking frame and had a slightly dazed look in her eyes. Elizabeth clasped her hand over one of Lyn’s.
“How are you going? I was so sorry to hear about Harold.”
“Yes, it was very hard on both of us, but I know he’s in a better place now.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Are you still at school?”
“No, I’m almost finished my university degree actually!”
“My goodness, you have grown up fast!” As she spoke a woman Elizabeth had never seen before came over to them.
“Lyn, come sit down, you’ve been standing much too long.”
“Oh, yes ok. Timothy, how are you dear?” She addressed a small child gazing up at her. Elizabeth felt like she was invading and excused herself to go talk to someone else…

Looking out at the ocean now, and reflecting on the past few days she realised that what she was feeling was not a sense of home but rather one of nostalgia. She looked at her watch and thought about all her friends in the city, and her Aunty and Uncle, who knew her just as well as she knew them. Her plane was leaving in an hour. She was going home.

[olivercutbill]

Hey! Below is my CW.

I wanted to know what your opinion on 'non-story' stories is? ie. A variety of receipts, letters, notes organised to create a story etc. Is this a good way to use a general story idea with a weird stimulus.

For this CW, the stimulus was a note which had written: "you are going to be okay, but maybe not in the way you planned to be".

You are never too free to admire something too much. The Balliol sandstone walls and long, fern lined roads, long roads promised something. University always promises something—its the system. I had done well at school, so I felt that I deserved to be there. I heard words thrown around like “anti-establishment” and “Iraq” and remembered to nod thoughtfully in the hope they would pass be as knowing. How I admired them—the true Balliol men, expensive jackets, Lattes and marbled inner-book covers. Conversations of foreign films, ‘non-linear structures’ and ‘counter-revolutions’. I always wondered what is must have felt like-

To have all the answers.

Arriving originally at Balliol, in my first years I had no answers—and you learn quickly that they are difficult to find. My first day included not being able to find my first lecture, scampering in and knocking chairs over with everyone, already, primed with their own answers which I sought desperately. Distinctly, i’ll never forget some paper which was left on my desk from the previous lecture, which I read after everything had settled around me. It’s one of those moments that stays, self-conscious of holding it as a memory, in the mind forever. Under the waves of answers and knowledge that were pouring on me during the lecture, a rafle ticket for an anxiety foundation stared up at me. It seemed like nothing thought provoking at the time—nothing much—I needed something more sophisticated and ‘non-linear’ than a small note. It said “you are going to be okay, (ridiculous american spelling), but maybe not in the way you planned to be. With that in mind, I took plato’s Republic out of my public school bag (affording me many stares from the boys in tweed) and attempted to catch my answers up with everyone else’s. I was drowning in those waves…

It did, as these things unfortunately do, (the youth really is wasted on the young) take years of Balliol before I realised everyone there was just as terrified as I was. Sure, I had learnt now how to speak with some fluency about small obscure Russian films, but couldn’t shake the fact the fact that everyone knew it was fake. Such discoveries are never straight forward however…

I learnt how to use the library and was always there. Working on papers or reading ‘Advanced literature’. It was who I wanted to be. Plato’s Republic flew onto the desk now, where that note had sat—now long forgotten—and the answers were mine. I didn’t need the dumber students. I was the student they wanted to be. I was intelligent, I dictated the conversation and I knew why ‘non-linear’ narrative structure were important. The waves of knowledge were greeted now with [A HANDSHAKE] rather than a life-vest.

I was intelligent. Of course I was. But not yet in the way I required.

My final year was centred around ‘The Republic’ and working on my last paper. In the library for hours and hours and hours and hours I remained in a chasm between two shelves of bound books. It was starting to feel as though me entire reality was there. A prison. Of…knowledge? I couldn’t know, but I needed to escape. Violently—as in the capacity we indulge the young with—I wouldn’t have it. Just as the waves of answers were looking for a new victim (they were hitherto finished with me), I called them back from a tsunami. I had to leave.

The answers were not mine. I was trapped inside a vortex of paradoxical thinking. The more I knew, the less I knew. My answers were not, my answers. They were the Balliol answers. I didn’t know how to think, I realised. I knew ‘what’ to think.

I again, in the pattern of violent changes of lifestyle with which we indulge the youth, I, the next day, swapped my latte and desk at the library for a blanket and a seat under a tree (like Newton—obviously). If I were to be in conversation with my contemporaries at Balliol, Im sure it would have seemed perfectly cliche (the mark of poor film). It didn't for me though, for at that moment, I laughed as I remembered that note, in its own cliche, with this this member already germinating in my mind and of course knew “I was going to be ok (I refused the american spelling)l just not in the way I had planned to be”.

I had my own answers. My own answers.

[elysepopplewell]

Hey! This is my potential base for a creative writing story! I know it's pretty basic but I'm not sure how to make it more complex/explore discovery more! Any feedback would be much appreciated

(Also my trial is tomorrow so this is a bit last minute  )

Apologies for not getting this back to you last night! I don't get home from Uni until 9 on Tuesdays usually and I missed this! I'll give some feedback now, and then I suppose you can compare it with the feedback from your teacher after the trial, and then you can put the two together to create an improved creative?

Comments are in bold in the spoiler - and then I'll make some notes at the end

Spoiler

She sat on the timber fence at the top of the beach and gazed out over the ocean. It was getting later in the afternoon as the sun swung slowly lower through a clear blue canvas. The long grass that transitioned into the sand below her swayed back and forth, tickling the bottoms of her feet. I'm absolutely loving the imagery so far. I can truly imagine the long grass and the sand. How about we try and do a slight personification of the wind here? Like, "The long grass that transitioned into the sand below her was tugged by the Eastern wind and tickled her ankles." This is rough, but something to that effect, just to take the grass' movements beyond a "back and forth." Maybe the grass was dancing? Or contorting? Something just to give that little bit of imagery a slight bit more punch. Because as I said, the imagery is beautiful here because nothing is taken too far, but just a slight enhancement there won't crowd the piece, but enhance it, I think!The last week had gone by so quickly she felt as though she had only just arrived back in her hometown. The trip had been a long anticipated one. The past few months had been so stressful down south, with exams, family gatherings and working extra shifts at her job for the Christmas season. Once the money was saved up she had booked tickets straight away, and the thought of coming up here again was part of what had kept her going. Everything being so crazy, she had found herself longing for a sense of home and she was sure that coming up here would satisfy that better than anything else. I'm not sure if it is your intention to set this in an old school way, but I'm really enjoying it. You haven't necessarily told me that this was set 30+ years ago by the setting, but your really gentle tone of description being paired with the simplistic view of location. It reminds me a lot of the prescribed text that I used for Module C People and Landscapes - Brooklyn. It's really nice. It mightn't be set in the past, but I think the old school simplicity of location and writing adds such a fresh tone to this.

On Tuesday night she had been invited to go out for drinks with a group of her old friends from high school…
She walked across the crowded bar and scanned for her friends. It hadn’t occurred to her until this point that she might not even recognise some of them, and they might not recognise her. Someone called out to her from across the room.
“Liz! Elizabeth, hey! We’re over here!” It was Marley, a girl she had never been particularly close to. She wove This is the only word so far that I'm just not gelling with.her way over to them and was greeted with a chorus of enthusiastic “Hello’s!” followed by many a “How are you?” and a procession of hugs. After telling everyone separately that she was well, Marley offered to buy her a drink.
“Oh thank you, that would be lovely!”
“So how’s life in the city treating you?”
“It’s good! University is crazy but I’m really enjoying my course.”
“Great! You’re living with your Aunty and Uncle right?”
“Yeah.” Re-examining the group she noticed a lack of a few faces she had been hoping to see.
“Is Drew around? I haven’t been able to get in contact him?”
“Who?”
“Drew Sommers?”
“Oh, his family moved away not long after yours! Didn’t you know?”
“No I didn’t. What about Rachel Godfrey?”
“Ah, I think she’s studying overseas, but I’m not sure, we were never really close!”
“Oh ok.” Drew and Rachel had been her closest friends when she lived there and she was left feeling oddly alone knowing they weren’t around, despite the fact they hadn’t spoken in years. After a few hours of shallow conversation she went back home, unsure how she was feeling. Them not being in touch on Facebook also hints to me that this is set maybe 10+ years ago.

On Sunday morning she went to her old church service, where her family had gone for years. She knew that a new minister had taken over recently as the Coopers had moved went to do inland mission. She sat towards the back in order to observe the church more easily. It felt much the same as when she had last been there, if a little mustier. The service itself was also quite similar, although she had only ever heard one of the songs played. What struck her most was how many young kids filled the church. The front few rows were full of families with kids running around all over the place. At morning tea she lingered in the hall, awkwardly looking for someone she could talk to. Young mothers all chatted amongst themselves as their kids ran around, eyeing Elizabeth off.
“Elizabeth? Is that you?” A frail voice behind her spoke.
“Yes, it is! Oh hello Lyn! How wonderful to see you!” The woman who had been like a grandmother to her as a child was now bent over a walking frame and had a slightly dazed look in her eyes. Elizabeth clasped her hand over one of Lyn’s.
“How are you going? I was so sorry to hear about Harold.”
“Yes, it was very hard on both of us, but I know he’s in a better place now.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Are you still at school?”
“No, I’m almost finished my university degree actually!”
“My goodness, you have grown up fast!” As she spoke a woman Elizabeth had never seen before came over to them.
“Lyn, come sit down, you’ve been standing much too long.”
“Oh, yes ok. Timothy, how are you dear?” She addressed a small child gazing up at her. Elizabeth felt like she was invading and excused herself to go talk to someone else…

Looking out at the ocean now, and reflecting on the past few days she realised that what she was feeling was not a sense of home but rather one of nostalgia. She looked at her watch and thought about all her friends in the city, and her Aunty and Uncle, who knew her just as well as she knew them. Her plane was leaving in an hour. She was going home.

This is such a beautiful piece! As I commented throughout, this was a real pleasure to read because it read so smoothly. Everything was well connected and I wasn't lost in transit anywhere. I have a few suggestions that are more plot based rather than being picky on writing, because I think your writing is really stunning, it's just about enhancing the plot to work with it.

Something that I'm having trouble placing is the situation of the protagonist. So, she's at Uni in the city, which is a plane ride away from her hometown? Liz seems mature, really mature, which is nice. I tend to think that this story works best if you remove it from the now completely, and just make a few small connections to connecting it to a past time. This could be as simple as recognising the girls at drinks as growing out of their Posh Spice bangs, or no more high pony tail scrunchies, etc. It just has to be super subtle, but I think it will kind of cover over the fact that she could have stayed in touch online so easily, if it were in the present.

I liked at the end that she says she's "going home" but at the start, the place she visits is her "hometown." So I think that maybe towards the end you could possibly link to two by saying how she dreamt of her home town, but it just made her realise it was just a town, and her home was somewhere else. I think that works in terms of discovery because it adds a slightly more intense layer to the discovery revealed in that last pocket of sentences.

Otherwise, this is a wonderful piece, which I've said like three times now lol. You should be so proud! There's an emotional, physical and potentially even spiritual discovery at place here. The discovery is intensely meaningful because the shift of what "home" is, is so clear. The discovery itself wasn't planned, but the journey to the hometown was planned, so you tick two syllabus boxes there too!

[elysepopplewell]

Hey! Below is my CW.

I wanted to know what your opinion on 'non-story' stories is? ie. A variety of receipts, letters, notes organised to create a story etc. Is this a good way to use a general story idea with a weird stimulus.

For this CW, the stimulus was a note which had written: "you are going to be okay, but maybe not in the way you planned to be".

Very interesting stimulus! Honestly, in my time on ATAR Notes I've only marked maybe 2 CWs that aren't short stories. This does not at all mean they are better than a hybrid creative, or just a different form all together. I think your idea is really cool and will work well.

Okay, let's go! Comments in bold in the spoiler below, plus some comments outside the spoiler in the end

Spoiler

You are never too free to admire something too much. The Balliol sandstone walls and long, fern lined roads, long roads promised something. University always promises something—its the system. I had done well at school, so I felt that I deserved to be there. I heard words thrown around like “anti-establishment” and “Iraq” and remembered to nod thoughtfully in the hope they would pass be me? as knowing. How I admired them—the true Balliol men, expensive jackets, Lattes and marbled inner-book covers. Conversations of foreign films, ‘non-linear structures’ and ‘counter-revolutions’. I always wondered what is must have felt like-

To have all the answers. I really enjoy this break here. It's very sophisticated.

Arriving originally at Balliol, in my first years I had no answers—and you learn quickly that they are difficult to find. My first day included not being able to find my first lecture, scampering in and knocking chairs over with everyone, already, primed with their own answers which I sought desperately. Distinctly, i’ll I'll* never forget some paper which was left on my desk from the previous lecture, which I read after everything had settled around me. It’s one of those moments that stays, self-conscious of holding it as a memory, in the mind forever. Under the waves of answers and knowledge that were pouring on me during the lecture, a rafle raffle* ticket for an anxiety foundation stared up at me. It seemed like nothing thought provoking at the time—nothing much—I needed something more sophisticated and ‘non-linear’ than a small note. It said “you are going to be okay, (ridiculous american spelling), but maybe not in the way you planned to be. With that in mind, I took plato’s Plato's* Republic out of my public school bag (affording me many stares from the boys in tweed) and attempted to catch my answers up with everyone else’s. I was drowning in those waves…

It did, as these things unfortunately do, (the youth really is wasted on the young) This is your third set of brackets in a dense area. I'd reconsider this because you are speaking in the first person, so your story is like one huge aside. But when you add brackets, it is like, an aside from the aside? Sparingly, brackets can be great. But I'd think twice about them here take years of Balliol before I realised everyone there was just as terrified as I was. Sure, I had learnt now how to speak with some fluency about small obscure Russian films, but couldn’t shake the fact the fact is it a fact? or is it paranoia?that everyone knew it was fake. Such discoveries are never straight forward however…What is the discovery you're referring to? Unless it is absolutely necessary, I think avoid using the word discovery here. In AOS, it's not just a word anymore. It's a trigger for the marker to quickly locate the discovery to assess you on it. But here it isn't clear which discovery you are talking about, so I'm inclined to suggest that you change the word, or clarify the discovery.

I learnt how to use the library and was always there. Working on papers or reading ‘Advanced literature’. It was who I wanted to be. Plato’s Republic flew onto the desk now, Using the past tense and then saying "now" shows inconsistency of tense, consider changing where that note had sat—now long forgotten perhaps change "forgotten" to something about being buried in the mind or concealed - because they are recalling it now, so it's not forgotten.—and the answers were mine. I didn’t need the dumber students. I was the student they wanted to be. I was intelligent, I dictated the conversation and I knew why ‘non-linear’ narrative structure were important. The waves of knowledge were greeted now with [A HANDSHAKE] rather than a life-vest.

I was intelligent. Of course I was. But not yet in the way I required.

My final year was centred around ‘The Republic’ and working on my last paper. In the library for hours and hours and hours and hours I remained in a chasm between two shelves of bound books. It was starting to feel as though me my entire reality was there. A prison. Of…knowledge? I couldn’t know, but I needed to escape. Violently—as in the capacity we indulge the young with—I wouldn’t have it. Just as the waves of answers were looking for a new victim (they were hitherto finished with me), I called them back from a tsunami. I had to leave.

The answers were not mine. I was trapped inside a vortex of paradoxical thinking. The more I knew, the less I knew. My answers were not, my answers. They were the Balliol answers. I didn’t know how to think, I realised. I knew ‘what’ to think.

I again, in the pattern of violent changes of lifestyle with which we indulge the youth, I, the next day, swapped my latte and desk at the library for a blanket and a seat under a tree (like Newton—obviously). If I were to be in conversation with my contemporaries at Balliol, Im sure it would have seemed perfectly cliche (the mark of poor film). It didn't for me though, for at that moment, I laughed as I remembered that note, in its own cliche, with this this member already germinating in my mind and of course knew “I was going to be ok (I refused the american spelling)l just not in the way I had planned to be”.

I had my own answers. My own answers.

There is an incredibly powerful discovery and plot to this. The idea that you can learn to be whoever or whatever you want is scarily true, but the discovery that being you the way you are, and the way you learn, and the way you express, will not just suffice, but also feel incredibly natural. So the story has a lot of meaning.

There were a few sections of the story that didn't flow well, although it didn't hurt my overall understanding of the work. When we are talking about the note, which is the stimulus so it had to be there, and then later on, the note is replaced by Plato, I'm wondering if that desk had more significance than I realised? We mention Plato three times (I think), and I think that puts too much emphasis on Plato as opposed to another philosopher, economist, etc. If you were fleshing out an exact idea of Plato and it became a motif, that would be really strong! But otherwise, I think changing it up a bit with who the protagonist is reading would kind of give that understanding that these people the narrator aspires to be are well-read across the board.

There are a few little grammar issues that I fixed up along the way. Be aware particularly of capitals and tense consistency

Otherwise, this story has an extremely sophisticated discovery, and you should be thrilled! If you have any questions or would like to flesh anything else out, do share!

[olivercutbill]

Hey!

Thank you for marking -- ended up getting 15 for it in trials.

In regards to the Plato motif, what ways/how would you suggest I best integrate that more clearly?

Thank you

[elysepopplewell]

Hey!

Thank you for marking -- ended up getting 15 for it in trials.

In regards to the Plato motif, what ways/how would you suggest I best integrate that more clearly?

Thank you

Amazing! Perhaps I'm not explaining myself well. Can you try explain in colloquial terms to me here, what is the importance of the Plato referencing and why it is important to discovery?

I'm not at all suggesting it isn't important, but with your own words we might be able to work it out

[hannahboardman98]

Hi this is my creative writing piece. Can you please let me know if it is confusing and if the discovery is clear? Also, is the ending impactful enough?

[elysepopplewell]

Hi this is my creative writing piece. Can you please let me know if it is confusing and if the discovery is clear? Also, is the ending impactful enough?

Hi Hannah! As I just wrote on the Module marking page, you need 13 more ATAR Notes posts to get something fully marked. If you have any questions, let me know!

[olivercutbill]

Amazing! Perhaps I'm not explaining myself well. Can you try explain in colloquial terms to me here, what is the importance of the Plato referencing and why it is important to discovery?

I'm not at all suggesting it isn't important, but with your own words we might be able to work it out

The reference to the republic in my mind at least, didn't have any symbolic value past establishing the context. I'm not completely sure on how I can integrate it more to symbolise the discover and change. Any clear ways I should be doing this?