Hi,
hopefully this post can count as my 25th post. Could you guys please mark my creative, and maybe tell me what band it sits at? during my trial the external marker gave me a 11/15 but she didn't give me much feedback, and said she could only give me marks for what she could actually read (my handwriting was illegible). I've gotten feedback before that I need to change my 2nd last paragraph and I've tried, but I still don't think it's that good. Also my ending includes a robert frost quote from my stimulus; should I change it or is it ok?
Thank you so much 
Hey! Sure thing - Feedback is attached with comments in bold
Spoiler
Aiko's son had a habit of frequenting convenience stores at one in the morning. Leaving after one was paramount; he had no obligation to hide in the absence of human contact. Laconic store-managers didn't count. Before she headed to sleep, Aiko plodded to his room and curled her fingers into the wooden latticework of his rice-paper door, tugging to confirm that he'd jammed the railing. He hadn't. The shoji shuddered along its tracks, rasping as it opened. A good opening! Establishes interest and tone very quickly, good job there. The fact that we are talking about Aiko but focusing heavily on her son creates some confusing use of pronouns in that middle sentence - I had to do a triple-take to follow how it was jumping from "he/his" to "she/her." Could be worth tweaking?
Acute social withdrawal, a shut in, a hikikomori, decay; just as his shoji had been immutably locked, his disintegration wouldn't cease. Daily invitations to grill fish together or to sew buttons on his shirts were declined. When he was a child, Aiko moulded faceless clay figurines so he could complete their features. One week ago, she had placed a sculpture outside his room, only to dispose of it later, blank-faced, too dry to re-use. I like that you've used relatable things to signify that the relationship has broken down, rather than just saying it. Works really well.
Stepping inside, Aiko followed the grid-like divisions of tatami mats to navigate his room. When she re-examined the floor, the divisions became fissures in barren land. Cellophane used to patch tears in the brittle shoji glinted under a fluorescent screen. While acrid vinegar festered in containers, shrivelled laundry dangled from a curtain rod to dry. Both were proclamations of autonomy from her son. Be careful you aren't overdoing it with the descriptive language - If you use it everywhere, it becomes the norm and so loses its power in your narrative. Kind of like how, say, pizza is fantastic, until you eat a pizza every night for a week. Inching past stacks of magazines, her right foot crunched onto an empty bottle. She deftly kicked the crushed plastic behind crinkled t-shirts. A drooping banner of 'Yahoo! Japan' subsequently fell off the edge of his desk, scraping against the floor. In spite of his being laid off six months ago, the banner remained. Though she had tried cultivating his interest in whatever lay outside his room, laying seeds for a new career path away from information technology, his rigidity was a drought, evaporating her well of suggestions. Really like this last line - Again, like that you are using physical cues for your plot points. It feels very natural.
Weary from the glare of his computer screen, Aiko groped for a light switch. Against the turmoil, like white paint exposed through tears in garish wallpaper, his futon was clean. Instead of inhaling the cloying reek of mould in bedsheets, she was met with the scent of fresh linen. No objects cluttered the mattress except for the laptop.
Two parallel lines stretched across the screen. A pause button. In lieu of slamming the lid down and promptly exiting the room, Aiko clicked on it to play the game. This, on the other hand, seems like a bit of a stretch. I'd perhaps spend a bit more time here. Why would she play the game, what justification is there? Heat emanating off the keyboard warmed her fingertips. Four words: created by Seiji Tamuro, her son, stopped her. Perhaps more time spent reacting to this revelation as well? As the game initialized, thickets of bamboo spiralled around a glassy lake. Splashing towards an islet within the lake, mottled a translucent orange and white, koi fish enticed Aiko to trail along.
Manoeuvring her character was uncomplicated, and as the man zig-zagged across a vermillion bridge, silvery glockenspiels chimed in the background. Apart from gardening tools, the isle was an empty stretch of grass. She harvested some bamboo, and upon returning, placed it on the island. The clouds briskly unfurled, first breathing wisps of smoke in the sky, then dispersing like dye in water. Stumps of bamboo Aiko had planted hurtled after them, shoots reaching out from the bumpy segments of stem. She didn't know how many hours Seiji had consumed building code, but now, the time spent in his room wasn't vacuous. He had a purpose. Good - I'm liking the concept of this Creative. Day evanesced to night like a fading lantern, and when the sun vaulted above her head, time returned to its normal pace.
After collecting kernels from dwarf pines, harvesting persimmons, and returning to the island to deposit laden baskets several times, Aiko abandoned exploring the entire game. Instead, she utilised the island as a canvas to fill with what she had reaped. Just as clay was forgiving, could be twisted and coiled until fired under a kiln, mistakes would yield with pressure. In an attempt to introduce Seiji to her sanctuary from destruction, she had constructed the figurines. They were unnecessary. She would prove that beyond his game, mistakes were acceptable. When repairing vases with epoxy, even if she'd sanded down the edges of individual pieces, there would still be faint fissures where the pieces didn't fit. By replacing epoxy with lacquer mixed with gold powder, she transformed the fissures into gilt veins; life-force. Breakage indicated history, rather than failure. Though it might take months for Seiji to find a second, she'd help the game slip past tears of his shoji and reach them. As Aiko's vision for the isle unrolled from the grass, she saw his game growing beyond his room, outstretching its tendrils towards those needing a reprieve from defeat. I see what you are trying to do with this paragraph, but I don't think it quite come across as clearly as it could. The overlaps between the game and reality make the reflections a little difficult to follow - There are snippets of excellence in there, but I'd simplify the expression a tad to really bring those out.
When Aiko was satisfied with her garden, she glanced at the clock. Half an hour had passed and she needed to leave. He would be home soon. But, she continued playing, and felt a spirit kindred to her own.
I've not added many comments throughout because I love your writing style! I love the story idea, I think it has a nice unique Discovery concept portrayed in a unique way, and you've presented it excellently. Well done!
A few things to consider:
- Watch for over-use of descriptive language. Using it all the time takes away its power - Sometimes, more simplistic language to break things up can be really effective.
- That long reflective paragraph definitely still needs some work I feel. It's a little convoluted - I like the ideas and I honestly think some small tweaks of expression would fix it. Simplify it a little - Use simpler words, make it shorter, explain the links you are making more clearly and more obviously to the reader. This will make the things you keep (EG - you should keep "Breakage indicated history, rather than failure.") more powerful in comparison to what surrounds it.
- A little more justification as to why Aiko plays the game would be welcome - That's the only plot-discrepancy I can see.
- Be sure to consider how this could be adapted to a strange stimulus - The concept is quite narrow so you'll need some backup plans if you want to take this in!
- Could be worth ditching the Frost quote to avoid plagiarism issues - Unless you think it is absolute central, in which case you could put quotes around it to indicate it has been used from somewhere. Don't think it is a huge issue either way tough
I'd say, assuming this story matches the question/stimulus you are given, you'd be sitting high Band 5/low Band 6 with this piece, so 12-13. If you tidy that reflective paragraph (where a lot of your concepts are) and perhaps bring out the concepts just a little more as a result, you'd almost definitely go higher! Good work
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Topic: Free AOS Creative Writing Marking! (Read 353210 times)