What do you think of my short story? (2 Viewers)

[agirlinatutu]

© James Schofield, 2008

LMAO. Copyright?

 

[melonkitten]

LMAO. Copyright?

its a lie.

i submitted his work under my name 2 days ago

 

[ital101]

I wasn't just saying that as a joke. <_<

Here's a few things I consider worse:
First paragraph - makes the teacher sound very unrealistic (including more uses of word 'idiot' which I said to cut in my first post).

Second paragraph - description of Joy & her r'ship with Sergio is even more clunky, meeting Gough and the conversation with him is made less subtle.

The rest - emphasis on physicality between Joy and Sergio, no real character development.

I do English (Extension 1). Do you???

As a side note, I'm not friends with Schoey93. We chat on MSN but other than that, we do not communicate verbally on a face-to-face basis.

1. The teacher is obviously meant to sound unrealistic. Also, do not forget that he is extremely furious, thus he has become filppant and lost restraint, so does not care about using offensive language. For crying out loud, Sergio has been bagging out his favourite historical figure! Do you understand?

2. Uh this guy had to write the short story in one period, there is hardly time for meaningful character development in 52 min when he has 4-5 A4 pages to write. Granted, the writing could have been more descriptive and slightly more sensitive if the story was to improve.

3. I don't know about you, but to me: hugging and kissing is symbolic. I don't make out with girls just to get pleasure from it (although that is nice...). The physicality of their relationship seems to represent, for me, that they were deeply in love and felt great affection towards each other. They had an urge to express this affection physically.

Don't we all have that urge? Well?

And lastly, don't be so harsh on the boy. He's only in Year 9 and he did the best he could. Admittedly the story is hardly worthy of anything above 12/20 had it been submitted to an English Premlinary Extension teacher, but it's a good effort for a Year 9er.

Uh, don't you have better things to do than criticise kids whose balls still haven't dropped????

 

[ital101]

its a lie.

i submitted his work under my name 2 days ago

You're a lazy little shit. Anyhow, copyright is automatically given to the author upon completion of their work.

N.B.: No legal documentation is required to obtain copyright. Here's an Australian website about this issue:

http://www.copyright.org.au/information/introduction/basics.htm

That's all. And I think you're joking. However, based on that assumption I assume you laugh every time you pick up a published book and start to read????

 

[Patar]

Originally Posted by ital101
I do English (Extension 1). Do you???

Ext.1 doesn't equivilate to creative greatness. I do Ext.2 and I'll be the first to say it doesn't make me better than my comrades in normal English.

However, let's just say Ext.1 counted for something more than nothing (which it doesn't). Veloc1ty and I both do the subject, one level above you.

1. The teacher is obviously meant to sound unrealistic. Also, do not forget that he is extremely furious, thus he has become filppant and lost restraint, so does not care about using offensive language. For crying out loud, Sergio has been bagging out his favourite historical figure! Do you understand?

The teacher's dialouge in that first section , beginning with "Yeah that's right..." down to "Goodbye, loser" is too contrived, unrealistic and completely out of character, even one that is angry. Judging by the sheer implausbility of character and cliche ("Just to teach you a lesson", "your little history assignment") would place my estimate of that writing as poor grade 7 work.

The subject, while not out of the ordinary for students sitting the HSC, is boring and contrived. Keep away from school, road-trips and classes at all costs... introduce more exciting settings and scenarios. You are literally limiting yourself so much when you write in that scenario.

Also, do not forget that he is extremely furious, thus he has become filppant and lost restraint, so does not care about using offensive language. For crying out loud, Sergio has been bagging out his favourite historical figure! Do you understand?

I just think the loss of restraint is unqualified and overdramatised, and thats not the effect I think you're looking for... it's like (a crude example):

Jedi I: "Bloody hell, it wasn't the dark side the Old Order fell to, it was sheer complacency! Damn idiots such as Obi-Wan dangerously downplayed apprentices..."
Jedi 2: "SHUT THE HELL UP! *draws lightsabre*
*they start battling*

Originally Posted by ital101
2. Uh this guy had to write the short story in one period, there is hardly time for meaningful character development in 52 min when he has 4-5 A4 pages to write. Granted, the writing could have been more descriptive and slightly more sensitive if the story was to improve.

If he said he had to write this in 50 or so minutes... then I think the truth may be a little stretched here. The story goes well over 2000 words, even as a memorised, well-known copy a student wouldn't be looking at more than 1700 in 50 minutes. And that's an insane level as it is.

Originally Posted by ital101
3. I don't know about you, but to me: hugging and kissing is symbolic. I don't make out with girls just to get pleasure from it (although that is nice...). The physicality of their relationship seems to represent, for me, that they were deeply in love and felt great affection towards each other. They had an urge to express this affection physically.

Don't we all have that urge? Well?

That may be true; but it has to be put in an interesting way if you want to try putting that sort of teenage cliche in a story. The relationship description with Joy and Sergt is about as subtle as a sledgehammer and as blank as a teenage erotic sex dream. Which was where it was probably taken from.

I'm also trying to work out what the importance of the relationship was. A general rule of thumb - you put a hero in a tree and throw boulders at them. It's all too easy to be kind to a hero, who the reader and author associates with. It creates complication; moral response to challenge and an overall stronger understanding of the hero.

Here, it sounds too much like the hero is being put on a rocking chair you find in your good old nursing home.

Similarly, the ideal of 'show, not tell' is being shot here. You don't say "he jumped in fright" we KNOW what he jumped for; you have to not tell us that "he was evidently furious" you have to SHOW it through descriptive, not literal, language.

Originally Posted by ital101
And lastly, don't be so harsh on the boy. He's only in Year 9 and he did the best he could. Admittedly the story is hardly worthy of anything above 12/20 had it been submitted to an English Premlinary Extension teacher, but it's a good effort for a Year 9er.

Uh, don't you have better things to do than criticise kids whose balls still haven't dropped????

It's no good just praising it when it has clear problems... I hope that's not the best he can do, because if you handed it in for a preliminary Ext.1 English teacher at my school you'd be looking at about a 7/20 tops.

Saying that, the best he can do now and the best he can do in 2 years will be much, much better.

I'll give that if he works on it, adds some complexity to the writing, he is a great deal ahead of most of the state at present.

Try setting it outside school, show, not tell, add plausible characterisation. Some of the description was nice, I just didn't like it overall.

 

[AkaiHanabi]

Hmm... I think the one you posted first was slightly better than the second, because it was slightly more subtle. Firstly, you don't need to describe what a character looks like eg (she had blonde hair that was parted down the middle), because it's a short story and it doesn't really need that much detail, as it detracts from the rest of the story. Secondly, throwing in a sex scene is tacky. I felt that the historical parts kind of made the story drag.

 

[wuddie]

i get the feeling that most of you guys think you have to conjure up a charles dickens to get good marks. i did quite well in sc so i'd like to offer some advice.

firstly, try not to make too much progress in your story. you only have 40min or so to write it, how much do you think can happen in such a short story? so try and be descriptive, rather than action packed. paint a picture, but not a movie.

secondly, if you think you know what love or politic is and are writing about it, give it up. the marker will get a good chuckle and that's about it. pick something new, something you truly understand.

if anyone is out of ideas, pm me and maybe i can give you a hand.

 

[Schoey93]

i get the feeling that most of you guys think you have to conjure up a charles dickens to get good marks. i did quite well in sc so i'd like to offer some advice.

firstly, try not to make too much progress in your story. you only have 40min or so to write it, how much do you think can happen in such a short story? so try and be descriptive, rather than action packed. paint a picture, but not a movie.

secondly, if you think you know what love or politic is and are writing about it, give it up. the marker will get a good chuckle and that's about it. pick something new, something you truly understand.

if anyone is out of ideas, pm me and maybe i can give you a hand.

Hello

I'm James, I wrote the story. I agree that the original short story is better, however you must understand that this story had to fit the brief of 'write a short story about time travel' and my teacher, Mrs Sewell, preferred that we write fantasy/time travel stories with a historical basis. I chose an area of interest and stuck to it.

And ital101 was hardly praising me, I mean he practically insulted me, saying that my balls hadn't dropped.
So I don't get why someone said 'It's no use praising the kid' or something along those lines.

Thanks for you feedback everyone, I'm going to lock this thread (if I can but I doubt it). MODERATOR, PLEASE LOCK THIS THREAD, it's done and dusted.

OK, hope that does the trick, as I'm sick of this thread going on and people arguing and so on and all the rest...

btw the story was about 1,250 words - written in 50 min. I shortened it and was much happier with it. It's not my best work, oh yeah...check out more of my stuff at

http://www.james-schofield.wetpaint.com

or

http://60sox.org.au


I'm going to post a (hopefully much more well received) section of a novel I'm writing, I'll post here again, I just have to get it typed up. Okie dokie, ahhh cya!


EDIT: here is a section of the new novel 'Cause of Death' http://www.60sox.org.au/main.aspx?page=Content View&mode=display&docid=2305&template=DefaultPage

 

[omniscience]

I do English (Extension 1). Do you???

As a side note, I'm not friends with Schoey93. We chat on MSN but other than that, we do not communicate verbally on a face-to-face basis.

1. The teacher is obviously meant to sound unrealistic. Also, do not forget that he is extremely furious, thus he has become filppant and lost restraint, so does not care about using offensive language. For crying out loud, Sergio has been bagging out his favourite historical figure! Do you understand?

2. Uh this guy had to write the short story in one period, there is hardly time for meaningful character development in 52 min when he has 4-5 A4 pages to write. Granted, the writing could have been more descriptive and slightly more sensitive if the story was to improve.

3. I don't know about you, but to me: hugging and kissing is symbolic. I don't make out with girls just to get pleasure from it (although that is nice...). The physicality of their relationship seems to represent, for me, that they were deeply in love and felt great affection towards each other. They had an urge to express this affection physically.

Don't we all have that urge? Well?

And lastly, don't be so harsh on the boy. He's only in Year 9 and he did the best he could. Admittedly the story is hardly worthy of anything above 12/20 had it been submitted to an English Premlinary Extension teacher, but it's a good effort for a Year 9er.

Uh, don't you have better things to do than criticise kids whose balls still haven't dropped????

As somebody already suggested, being part of the EX1 community does not entitle you with the gift called "creative greatness". From your own post, I can read your lack of "creative greatness" let alone any creativity. Charaterisation entirely depends on the author's intention. If his purpose was to mirror our own community, it is wholeheartedly recommended that he creates characters that are relevant and realistic that would reflect on our society. As someone already mentioned, the characters are unrealistic and poor characterisation seems to overshadow the well woven language in the text. Reading the post, it seems that unrealistic characterisation would not really help the plot of the story. And may I ask how you came about your own views of the story? It's as if you wrote that story and it's not like the OP told you his every intention in regards to the characterisation, plot and the message that his work is trying to project. By writing that post, you really made a fool of yourself and you contradicted your stupid comment by admitting that the piece of work only worths 12/20 when submitted to the teacher. You know what? We judge the work from that level of English and no wonder he got more criticism that compliments, DUH!

It is obvious that many of internet posters like us judge the text given at our own level of language. Anything below our own level of language, we would dismiss the text being poorly written and presented and that almost seems like a right way to go as we do not kow anything about the posters (if we did, we would adjust our commentary according to the OP's nature and character). And that's the biggest flaw in the OP's logic - we woud give good commentary on his work based on our knowledge of English. And that's why it's better to present the task to the teacher who understands students far better than random internet posters do.

If the guy really wanted to know his level of creative writing IN RELATION TO HIS COHORT, he should have taken it to the teachers who would understand the guy far better than random internet posters like us. We internet posters remain unbiased. We give advices from our own pool of knowledge and what the OP really needs is some unbiased comments and posts that really point out his mistakes and areas of improvements. Why did you think that he posted his writing here for? To show is literary greatness? To brag how well he writes? It is quite obvious that he wanted the others to criticise his post and help him to further reach out. Criticism is necessary in every judgement. Velocity obviously presented his crticism to help the guy further improve his writing. In saying that, I do not mean little bit of compliments is unnecessary. The OP did a great job in writing a short story that shows a good level of sophisticated use of language and vocabularly. I will give him that. However, the main point in this thread is to help the OP write a far better essay by reminding him of areas where he needs to work on.

By the way, I do both Comparitive Literature (Distinction Course) and EX2. Your hope to brag in this forum truly fails and it relevantly highlights your faggotry. You obviously do not understand the greatness of other posters in comparison to your own. You have a lot of learn, mate. If all you wanted was compliment and other nice little comments saying how awesome you are, I will suggest you get off that habit. Now, it is time for you to sit and remind yourself what kind of position you are in.

 

[ital101]

Hello. I am Rico. I'd just like to say pls read the short story 'Cause of Death', Schoey93 wrote it, it's really good, he showed me his handwritten drafts and then I typed it up for him.

Check it out > happy reading!!!

 

[wuddie]

straight to the point, if the next post after this is not a post with a helpful comment on the op's script, i will delete it and ban the person for however long i feel appropriate.

thank you 08ers.