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English Extension One Creative Writing Thread!

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AJ123:
Hey guys, if i was to post a creative, how long would it take approx to get some feedback, providing I meet the post threshold?

bsdfjnlkasn:

--- Quote from: elysepopplewell on July 03, 2017, 10:30:52 pm ---
On this note, can you identify the ways of thinking that you've either thoroughly explored or only just touched upon? I'd be interested to know if we think the same ways of thinking are being addressed.

Overall, an amazing piece that's almost where it needs to be for the top band. You should be very proud of this project!

--- End quote ---

Hey Elyse!

Now I should be the one apologising, I didn't even realise you had sent me a reply - thank you so much for your encouraging words :)

Your feedback aligns exactly with my teachers in terms of the plot :) - she didn't understand the place of the middle fragment and in all honesty, I only included it because fragmenting of narrative structure is something that i've come across in my study of other texts. From my understanding, the creative has to include structural elements to reflect the postmodern ways of thinking (still getting a grasp on this) so that's why I wrote it this way.

So in terms of plot, it begins with Ono revisiting the destroyed sight of some unnamed city (and that's the point, it's relevant to anyone who suffered the catastrophes of the atomic bombs, it's just manifested physically here for Ono, but I try to focus more on his psychology through the environment). He then hears the apparent call of his son, Kenji who actually passed away in the war. I know this isn't clear but I'm not sure where to include it in the first fragment.

Your ideas on the second fragment are intriguing since I think it would be worth exploring the changing gender roles/perception in Japan through her (although they're all family so i'm not sure if the erotic interpretation works now, will have to work a few things around if I can figure out how to integrate it - plus I have 200 words more to play with anyway :) ). I was focusing on the suspicion and distrust which permeated the personal but I think I need to expand this fragment anyway so please do suggest a few things that would be good to work with :). Plus I just need more ways of thinking in general - I just feel like I don't know many at all!

I'm glad my writing style isn't too big of an issue (thank you for your encouragement!), I was wondering though, do I tell too much? I'm trying to show more but i'm not so sure if it's working. I still need to write a piece or two before trials (2 weeks time) as a way to clarify the ways of thinking I want to explore. Let me know if you have any suggestions for how I could make clearer the ways of thinking I'm going for/if there are more that I should include.

Thank you so much :D

dancing phalanges:
Hey,
Just wondering if you have any tips on preparing for the creative. I have written one but it is very restrictive in the sense that it is set on a ship so there isn't much room to move if the stimulus given is a setting like that in the 2015 HSC. Should I prepare a couple of other general stories in my head too? I'm currently just going through past papers and writing down examples of how I would manipulate my story to fit the criteria. For example, do you think when it is the one about including a significant character from one of your prescribed texts, I could include a visit in a dream from the Mariner from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner? My story is about a slave ship and basically as the captain throws more slaves overboard (for $$$), the storm gets stronger and stronger and eventually takes retribution upon man's wrongdoings (sort of like the supernatural aspect in the Rime). So I was thinking if that came up in a trial, obviously not the HSC since it was done last year, could I include the Mariner appearing in a dream, warning of the dangers of his actions. I'm just mostly concerned for the trial because our teacher always shows us photos of random houses and crap and will say this could be something you could get as a stimulus for the trial and if so I'd be screwed haha!
Thanks!

elysepopplewell:

--- Quote from: bsdfjnlkasn on July 10, 2017, 08:34:03 pm ---Hey Elyse!

Now I should be the one apologising, I didn't even realise you had sent me a reply - thank you so much for your encouraging words :)


Thank you so much :D

--- End quote ---

We just keep missing each other! With the lectures this week we've been so busy I'm just getting back to this now I apologise.

I think that religion and gender are interesting constructs you can approach more closely in the text even if just in the most subtle ways. I see what you are trying to do with the fragmented structure to reflect the surroundings but it's definitely not the only way to do this - if it were the case then all of our creatives would be in a similar structure, when in fact some are speeches, some are linear narrative form, etc. So don't stress about that, you can reflect ways of thinking in gender and religion with connotations, allusions, sentence structure, and tone. Perhaps by this time you've updated your piece. If so, happy to discuss anything! :)

stephjones:
hey guys! I would absolutely love if I could get some feedback on my creative for sci-fi, it got 23/25 for the half yearlies but atm i'm really unhappy with it just because it feels really overdramatic in some places but I can't figure out how to fix it! Thanks so much in advance for taking the time to read it xx

Spoiler“There is no human life more sacred than another, just as there exists no human life qualitatively more meaningful than another.” – Pope Francis.

* * *

Artificial moonlight trickled through the gap in the beige curtains, casting mottled shadows over the bleached marble floor. The man woke as pain assaulted his chest, a hoarse groan of agony slipping from his throat. He struggled into a sitting position, eyes watering as the ache intensified with each gasp of air he took in attempt to placate it. Shaking fingers found the red button on the side of his cot, desperation forcing his fingers to clench as pain laced through his abdomen.

The light over his head glared crimson, the siren interrupting the silence of the ward. Immediately, the wall beside his bed folded outwards, an indistinct figure speeding towards him, a blur of silver and white. The bitter scent of chemicals was overwhelming, agonising, and pinpoints of black began to obscure his vision, and his screams drowned out the blaring siren and he didn’t know what was real anymore except for the pain, the darkness that blanketed him, the shadows that crept in from the corners of his vision, suffocating him. 

And then suddenly, it was as if he was floating.

The man blinked, forcing his vision to come back into focus, barely noting the lifelines now stapled to his chest, a white tube pumping liquid that disappeared into smooth skin. A nurse hovered over him, its blonde hair spilling over thin, metal shoulders as its unblinking cerulean eyes scanned the length of his body. He was numb, and the shadows were almost too bright as he gazed, disorientated, around his room, flinching from the icy fingers that ran over his forehead.

The curve of each nurses’ body was designed to calm the men, but they never could manage to get the body temperature right. But it was a price he was willing to pay – the Domestic Services Act of 2034 had retired human women from high-stress occupations, to spare them from the potential of emotionally-provoked errors.

The nurse made no noise as it grabbed a clipboard from the desk, scrawling indecipherably along thin black lines. “The sedatives won’t last much longer, Mr Archibald. This is it,” it informed him, and the voice was clipped, indifferent, dispassionate. The man swallowed, as a hollowness settled deep within his chest. “Your body is effectively eating itself.”

The man’s vision began to blur, and he blinked furiously to fend away the shadows lurking at the edges of his gaze. His mind flooded with images, a photo album of the previous thirty years, of a family, of a dishevelled two-year-old boy waiting stubbornly by the window for him, of the desperation settled deep within his wife’s blue gaze as she kissed his knuckles.

He took in a trembling breath, eyes flicking desperately around the ward, yearning for the warmth of human comfort, but the sterile walls ignored him as he felt the images, the life slip from his grasp.

“Of course, you are eligible for a Life Extension,” the nurse continued, “The serum has a ninety-eight per cent success rate – exposing the body cells to cryogenic environments decelerates the aging process and destroys tumours, and has the potential to double the average human life expectancy. The population surplus is dealt with accordingly and immediately, and for a small price, it’s as though your body never malfunctioned.” It listed the benefits methodically, monotonous, voice a drone against the unnatural silence of the ward. He thought again of his family, of tears he would be unable to catch, of dreams never realised. What was the value of his life, his family, his family’s future, to the value of a man he’d never met? But still his heart clenched painfully. The shadows continued to writhe, waiting in his peripheral vision.

“Surplus? Someone… killed…” But his eyes were drifting shut, voice slurring as his head sagged back to the pillow. The nurse finished printing details, placing the clipboard in front of him. The letters swam before his eyes, “ExtendiLife™ - Your life is too valuable to lose!” His hands began to shake, and the ache began to blossom in his chest once more, an agony that ran deeper than his illness.

“Retired, yes,” the nurse corrected, “But someone less significant than you, Mr Archibald – someone from the colonies. As useful to our society as an ant is,” the nurse assured, pressing the pen into the man’s limp fingers, guiding his hands to the signature line, and it was all too much. And as the pressure built within his chest again, and the shadows reached greedily across his vision, the last thing he saw was the cold, silver hand signing his name.

* * *

The sky outside was an angry kaleidoscope of charcoals and greys as large droplets pelted relentlessly against the window, the smog suffocating the city, pressing up against the glass. A skeleton of skyscrapers loomed over the small house, the plethora of wires entangling them within the rubble that littered the ground. Hundreds of people scurried over the dusty hillside, as frightened insects in a foreign nest. The woman turned away.

“Mama, I did it!”

The child beamed up at her, a toothless grin that made his wide hazel eyes sparkle as he held the dusty, coloured cube triumphantly in his hand. The old wheelchair whined to a halt as he stopped in front of the woman, panting, exhilarated, pressing the puzzle into her palm, and his smile was infectious. She knelt, sweeping the auburn hair from the side of his face tenderly.

“Jimmy said you gotta be really, really smart to make the sides the same colours and I did!” he repeated, voice a squeal, a giggle bursting from his lips that lit the shadowy grey world beyond the window. “I’m gonna be a space man, Mama, because you gotta be smart to be a space man! Mr Abacus at school said I couldn’t because I can’t walk, but I read a book that said in space you fly so I wouldn’t even need my chair!”

And as the boy chattered on her thoughts turned to the cities that floated, invisible, miles above the industrial smog, where the stars were painted in the sky, where the space man was the man in the tie who sat on his throne and watched the ants scurry below. But she smiled, again, at the innocence of dreams which threatened to break the cover of clouds and nodded sincerely. “You can be whatever you want to be, Toby,” she affirmed, a lie, and the grin that split his face overshadowed the twisting anguish in her gut.

((I'm trying to include something here bc next para is too sudden imo))

The ancient telecommunications machine behind her whirred to life, spluttering as it spat out the clean, white paper. A government seal branded the top right corner, long cursive letters decorating the pristine page. Her stomach dropped as the bitter scent of chemicals wafted from the document, blood turning to ice at the boy’s excited cry of recognition of his own name penned in the scathing black ink.

“We regret to inform you that the individual TOBIUS BROWN is to be retired at noon tomorrow as a result of the population surplus. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Kind regards,
Archibald Enterprises.”

And suddenly the walls of the small home were suffocating, the dust that rose from the wooden floorboards choking her throat as the boy watched on, brows furrowed in an innocent frown of confusion. Her knees buckled, the toy cube thudding to the floor, the manuscript trembling in her hand as her mind flashed forward, to the tears she would never be able to catch, to dreams never realised. How could the value of one man’s life overshadow the dreams, the future of a family?

And miles above them, the space man raised his foot above the ants, and stepped down.

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