feedback please for opening of ext eng literary world creative

[ama9]

Hi, I would love feedback for the opening of my creative task. The focus is on literary worlds, mine using the modernist aesthetic. I plan to write about the economic disparity in a neighbourhood but I don't know if I've made the world enough of a focus. how could i make it sound more of a modernist piece? (btw it begins in a wedding in a nice neighbourhood)

Lights flashed through tinted glass and a whirr of cultural music permeated through the streets. The building stood, stoic, afoot stairs that stretched down to the paved black concrete and beside pruned bushes that rustled to the trill of an electronic keyboard. It was a nice street, the kind that had gates for all its driveways and locks for all its letterboxes. Its road, illuminated by the streetlights that stood on either side, was littered today with parked sedans and mini coopers. Their wheels scratched the curb side grass, some riding atop pavement and threatening to overtake the lawn in front. And just like the moon that peeked the topmost part of its orb from above acacia trees, the neighbours could be seen stirring from beneath open verandas. Under the guise of the moon’s shadows, they sidestepped the vocal stair of their porches and walked upon bare feet to their picket white fences. One beside a hose, about to water the plants that had been so parched by the moon’s rays, another daring to walk from behind the safety of his broad fence to his parked car, presumably to collect his groceries that he had left abandoned since midday, and a third, a large bunch, a family, with grandparents in tow, were walking to the road to deposit their rubbish for the week, the collectors were coming tomorrow. But all that could be seen were billows of purple and gold ribbons and a banner, pasted above the entranceway, which caught the luminous light of the full moon.

She sat with all the grace she could muster. It had been hours, for hours she had been buoyed atop her gold encrusted throne, with her leaden hand held by the man seated beside her. Her white dress left her with nowhere to hide, it was her, decked in a gown that spilled from her seat to the plush carpet floor, and it was them, a sea of azures, auburns, greens that snaked from each corner to each crevice of the hall. They had come as the sun had just started to fall from its height in the sky and had spent the early afternoon wondering through the neighbourhood, taking pictures with everything and anything. When they had first crossed the threshold, and pushed back the iron gates that hung heavy from the sandstone archway, she noticed a shift in their demeanour. They strode with a certain two-step she had never seen from them before. Their backs were a little straighter, their chins slightly more raised and their strides were a little sultrier.

[angewina_naguen]

Hi, I would love feedback for the opening of my creative task. The focus is on literary worlds, mine using the modernist aesthetic. I plan to write about the economic disparity in a neighbourhood but I don't know if I've made the world enough of a focus. how could i make it sound more of a modernist piece? (btw it begins in a wedding in a nice neighbourhood)

Hey, ama9!

The descriptions are highly vivid and your control over language is refined to an ideal standard. I’m particularly enjoying the rich and flavorful the sensory details you integrate into the world so far. As for some feedback, have a few suggestions that you might like to take on board 

- As of current, you have two massive paragraphs for your opening. Creative writing grants you the liberty to be break from conventions and be more experimental with your paragraph structuring. You could split these two big paragraphs into perhaps six or seven smaller ones, have some shorter paragraphs with only two or three sentences and be bolder with the story flows. This can also help you tap into the modernist aesthetic and implement it in your form. Right now, they appear to be more like essay paragraphs and could be more inviting if they were visually less packed.

- The world itself is constructed well and you bring it to the forefront of your creative. I can visualise your character’s space and the environment that is encompassing them. What I think the setting itself needs more of is contextual clarity. From reading it without knowing it was going for a modern aesthetic, I wouldn’t have known what period it was set in. Although this might have been a deliberate choice for you, it would be a good idea to clarify context in your descriptions. For example, from your first sentence, what kind of “cultural music” is playing? Little clarifications like this can pinpoint a certain atmosphere and place better.

- Since your setting is a wedding specifically, perhaps describe the kind of dress your character is wearing and look into the fashion of the time. This could also help give the literary world more context, without focusing so much on the setting itself.

- Have you considered giving your character a name? You don’t have to introduce it in this opening but it would be wise to have one. Find out what names were popular during the time and possibly go for a Modernist artist, writer or composer’s name, for example, to give it some contextual flair.

- On a final note, if you’re finding it hard to adopt the modernist aesthetic, read some poetry and literature from the time. What you can then do is emulate the techniques, language forms and features that constitute towards a distinct, modernist style. Some great examples are T.S Eliot, Ezra Pound and James Joyce Your character’s femininity in particular could be explored further with writers such as Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein as well  Your prescribed texts can also guide you in adopting this style; find elements of them that you find fascinating and “modernise” them. Think to yourself “if Frankenstein was written in the 20th century, what would it be like?” That’s how you can develop that aesthetic more. It comes with research and immersion into the period, especially with its literary and cultural spheres 

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any further questions 

Angelina