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Discovery creative writing, is this idea too violent? (1 Viewer)

undertale

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Hi, i'm in the process of planning a short creative however need an opinion if it is rather too violent for the HSC. Basically the story is a discovery prompting the confronting memories of world war 1. These memories include trench life, writing a diary entry and the death of his brother. With the concern of violence i thought i would write it in an appropriate fashion avoiding gruesomeness, but rather convey the fear of it all.

What are your thoughts, too violent?
 

jjuunnee

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Violence shouldn't be a concern with this idea as long as it's not the main focus of your creative. Furthermore, if it is a diary entry, you can convey fear of the violent nature of war through narrative voice eg. tone of the character, the specific words they use. The only thing you need to be careful with if you decide to proceed with this idea is that you need to be extremely accurate with the context of WW1 because quite a few of my friends have written narratives based on war and had gotten marked down because it was slightly unrealistic and cliched.
 

Haramsnackpack

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Completely fine, as long as you focus on the emotions and avoid physical details of how violence/death occurs
 

undertale

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Also anyone know how a short story for the HSC should be structured? Does it start from the climax or something?
 

jjuunnee

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Also anyone know how a short story for the HSC should be structured? Does it start from the climax or something?
Your story should definitely have some tension to make it interesting but it doesn't have to be structured like a pyramid where it starts chill then rises to a climatic point then resolves. But since it's on discovery, maybe start just a bit before the climax (the discovery) and then focus more on the aftermath and the impact of that discovery?? idk I haven't thought about my creative at all haha
 

dan964

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Generally you won't have much time to go into sidetrack details, so pick maybe one character or one element and explore that.
Maybe it could be a conflict-resolution type of story (there is a problem, that gets fixed by the end of the story, or open ended ending)

its really up to you. Cliff hangers are good endings...

Think of it almost as like a written skit.
 

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