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Free AOS Creative Writing Marking!
seventeenboi:
HELLO
i've finally accumulated to 50 posts PLSPLS mark my creative + in my opinion it's lacking on the discovery aspect, but I'm not sure how to approach it - could you perhaps suggest somekind of plot points or like things that could occur to further portray the impact of discovery ?? thanks so much!!!!! PLS SAVE MY ATAR LMFAO
SpoilerLeonard woke up to another crumpled emptiness on the other side of their bed. He had tried to fill the void of space himself everyday, by painting the empty canvases they promised to fill together with the art they had devoted their lives to. Papers and threadbare socks were scattered across the stone-cold timber floors around the fortress. He could almost see the look of disappointment on Maria’s face if she had known what he’d become.
The bedridden sun was still buried in its cloak of anxiety and cast a lone shadow on the floor, barely warming the bareness that permeated the walls of his room. Sprawled across them, decades-old paintings attempted to compensate for the blankness. He closed his eyes to reimagine the trials of his youth in these illustrations which had now to him, become lifeless bodies of muted grey and insipidity.
The fireplace which was once ample and alive, and had facilitated late night conspiratorial whispers and dozes wrapped in blankets, was now black and charred with dead secrets buried in the ashes. Now, even the layers of brick seemed to want to disintegrate and crumble under the weight of the yellowing photographs of frozen smiles entrapped in time. He tried to avoid the gaze of the happy faces.
Their happy faces.
Heaving himself off the bed, he stumbled towards his easel - a place both of refuge and despair.
Its flaking wood and peeling skin was almost repulsive, as it looked like it was about to succumb to ruin and collapse from the heavy burden of unsatisfactory canvas after canvas, day after day.
He began to etch tendrils for branches, but the pencil disobeyed his mind and as his fingers clutched its weak wooden frame anxiously, it quivered in his grasp. The curvature of wise beaks would only become the squabble of pigeons. Mighty wings would only become feeble scribbles crumbling in the violent wind.
*********************************
So he decided to stop these fantasies and desires. He only knew they were never be got at again. Not without Maria.
It had taken him weeks to approach their cupboard - he had to learn how to resist the fluttering of her ribbons in the books she didn’t want to crease, or the whiff of her rustic perfume in their room. Packing away his brushes palettes, placing them delicately into a wooden box. He began categorising things into the chapters they shared in their lives, sorting the colossal stack of paintings in the corner which were billowing with dust. Flicking and flicking he tried to avoid the gaze of each canvas to avoid feeling nauseous. He was eventually interrupted an unfamiliar convolution of pigments and hues which seduced his eyes - its contents unrecognisable.
He was baffled by the complexity of it all.
Amongst stern boulder-like clouds which threatened to swallow the sky, dainty wisps of periwinkle greeted through rifts that the fog could not reach. Above the clouds, stars were delicately plotted to sprawl across an expanse of infinite black and navy. Back on the earth, fields and fields of herbage and vegetation quivered from the cool remnants of a shower extending their green limbs. A forest of silvery poplars rose spangled with the dewy glittering of gold and green in welcome. A flock of crimson birds crowded and nestled amongst its boughs relinquishing the open air in shrill, energetic conversation. Each bird flitted about and tended to each other. Their reddened headdresses defied the ashen ambience of the scenery as they rode the unreachable thermals above as if in a graceful ballroom dance. In the midst of it all, a tiny figure stood awkwardly, gazing upwards and almost engulfed by the overwhelming entity, hypnotised by the crisp symphony of his world.
At the bottom, signed, in delicate curls and rolling letters: “For my Leonard - Maria”
It was one of those unfamiliar scenes, like a childhood hometown left unvisited to evaporate from memory, only to return surging. For so long, he realised how he had craved the hypnotism and soothe of her. Wonder devoured the monotony that had stifled him, pulsing through his arteries like water flooding into dry rivulets.
His eyes followed the winding river the figure stood in and traced it as it meandered into the horizon.
You are alone, but you are not alone! The figure seemed to piercingly voice.
His eyes welled up with the droplets of laughter they shared.
He set down her creation, returning to his own easel by the window and picked up his brush, gripping it. He had forgotten how comfortably it sat in his hands, like a natural extension of his body, like another limb. Caressing its mahogany build, he recalled the intense spectrum of hues that dominated their lives, visualising them on the frosted blank.
Even without Maria, his own story would continue - she seemed to be telling him that now.
Meticulously, he carved effortless strokes onto the awaiting linen.
A stroke of vibrant vermillion, a stroke of brilliant blue.
A stroke for each remnant of memory that they made together.
A stroke for each memory he will make himself from now on.
jamonwindeyer:
--- Quote from: kemi on October 07, 2017, 12:08:03 pm ---Hey :)
If we have the required number of posts can we PM our creatives? Assuming the thread hasn't locked of course.
Thank you!
--- End quote ---
Unfortunately we can only mark in these designated threads :)
--- Quote from: sophiegmaher on October 09, 2017, 12:16:33 pm ---Hey! I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to integrate a stimulus into your creative: how central should the stimulus be, and how much does the integration of the stimulus count towards the mark?
--- End quote ---
The advice I always give is that the stimulus should be obvious enough that someone who has the stimulus can tell you've used it, but not so obvious that someone who doesn't have the stimulus notices anything out of place. It should be natural in your story, it shouldn't "stick out."
Incorporating the stimulus properly is a significant portion of your mark for the section - An amazing creative that ignores the stimulus won't score nearly as well as the same Creative that incorporates the stimulus ;D
elysepopplewell:
--- Quote from: justwannawish on October 03, 2017, 11:02:28 pm ---Honestly, words cannot describe how much your feedback means to me. I've been underperforming in all my creatives though I considered them to be my most developed skill in English and I've been rereading your comment because it made me feel a lot better about everything.
About your feedback:
"You scan the article she’s reading, grinning at the photo of the mushroom cloud. You’ll make that look like a peace pipe. “Darling, I didn’t know…” you read, you like to do things besides your hair. “You like politics.”
What I intended this to be was the words he was saying out loud juxtaposed with his thoughts. It was meant to be a reflection on how much they grew apart because there is so much he still doesn't know about her
"Murderer- you a murderer? She’s gone mad." This italicised bit can be stronger, I think. I'm not sure about the exact way you're intending for me to read this.
For this, I think I was trying to get like a shocked "lol what is she saying" feel about it. There's meant to be a tone of disbelief, which is later juxtaposed with his realisation at the end that she was right all along
I totally agree with your suggestion. Do you think this works better?
You go back to bed and, kissing your wife for the first time in months, you murmur a quiet "Thank you, Evie" into her hair.
You nod off, thinking about the taunts of your colleagues when you tell them it's impossible, that the wonder-boy himself couldn't do it, that no one could.
You fall asleep with a smile.
I'm glad you found it flowing, I tried to make it as smooth as possible and make the words sing as much as I could.
For the whole extension/advanced difference, I think i marked out a couple of sections as "Extension" (I wasn't going to put them in the discovery story because I thought the themes were more relevant to Extension, but if you think otherwise (whether it be that those sections fit better in discovery/why other sections aren't as relevant for discovery), please let me know! I'll be glad to change it.
This is such a long comment, I apologise :), but is there anything else you think I should add/remove?
--- End quote ---
Hello! I'm SO sorry this took so long - I got your PM over the weekend when the lectures were happening but knew I wouldn't have a quick chance to jump on the forums until today (and admittedly - I planned to give more time than I actually have). I didn't realise the Extension pieces were for the Extension creative - I just thought they were edits. So this makes more sense now! haha. I'd leave the first one in and take the second two out - especially the communism one. It's a nice touch for extension but for AOS it just gives another nugget of info that will possibly add to it all being too much.
I think your adjustment of the goodnight to Evie thing is much better. Very fluid!
I'm glad this gave you a confidence boost - I definitely think it's a great creative and is very deserving of high marks! The narrative structure through the narrational voice is most complex yet smooth and I definitely think that deserves applause! :)
dancing phalanges:
Hey guys, quick question for the Paper 1 creative. It's been 2 visual stimulus' in a row for 2015 and 2016 on discovery so, logically should we be preparing more for a textual stimulus? Also, do you think NESA could completely screw everyone over by making us base the creative off one of the unseen texts or images? Thanks :)
fantasticbeasts3:
--- Quote from: dancing phalanges on October 09, 2017, 05:01:29 pm ---Hey guys, quick question for the Paper 1 creative. It's been 2 visual stimulus' in a row for 2015 and 2016 on discovery so, logically should we be preparing more for a textual stimulus? Also, do you think NESA could completely screw everyone over by making us base the creative off one of the unseen texts or images? Thanks :)
--- End quote ---
okay i'd probably be cry if they made us base the creative off one of the unseen texts... it's going to be like writing a fanfic 😂 i wouldn't rule out the possibility of a textual stimulus - it would probably be a starting/ending sentence (i can't think of any more at the moment). or maybe specifying the form of the creative (definitely not out of the realm of possibility, it was like that in trials!) prepare for both, just in case :-)
best of luck with your hsc,
fantasticbeasts
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