Guess Who?
Plot- ss has new world
with SS men to keep order between people. He gets told of uprising to kills of
ss members one by one until bill is left who then causes an uprising to bring
dictatorship.
Chapter 1
Clink. Whisky tunnels between the ice cubes as Sergio
Soloman refills the crystal glass. He sits in comfortable silence on a slick
black leather chair in the centre of the heptagonal room, absorbing the
business below of the contrasting lights against the dark evening backdrop in
his high up office. Quite jazz music played through the speakers situated
unnoticeably in the room, drowning out any evidence of life outside the walls. He
feels distance from the people of Solomanearth; a self-sufficient island
orbiting Earths fiery remains, which had been destroyed 12 years earlier in the
Great War.
Shuttle lights reflect off the mirror walls of the tall city
buildings as they twist and turn between them, lighting up the entire perimeter
of the island. Sergio raises his skeletal finger and presses at a remote on the
contemporary desk, making the panoramic window to tint. He leans back content
and swigs from his glass. After letting out a sigh of alcoholic infused vapor,
he set the glass down quietly and turns his chair to face the desk. Again he
presses his finger to another button on the remote, this time a screen form and
lights up before him. Using the same finger he swipes and taps at the
ultramodern computer, whilst steadily swaying in time to the smooth sound still
spilling from the speakers.
He is interrupted by the ring of the telephone on the desk
corner. He looks but ignores the consistent noise it makes demanding him to
answer. Instead he presses at a different button on the remote making the jazz
music louder. After a few seconds the ringing stops, it has gone to answer
machine. A voice starts to speak through the phone in a spine-chilling manner.
Immediately Sergio turns down the music and listens intently.
“Soloman Island is under threat. One of your officers is
planning an uprising. As the governing body, you are responsible for
eliminating any threat on Soloman Island. You have 24 hours before the
rebellion. Good Luck.”
The phone beeps three times to signal the end of the
message. In a frantic panic Sergio presses at many buttons on the telephone in
attempt to redial the mysterious caller and find out more. The phone hisses
back a monotone transcript informing Sergio all his messages had been deleted.
Sergio rises suddenly and throws the phone to the office floor. He clasps his
head in his hand and rubs at his bushy eyebrows.
He lets out a grunt of anger; turns sharply back to the
desk, swipes his fist across the surface pushing his whisky glass tumbling to
the ground and leans both arms on the shiny black counter. Lifting his head, he
looks straight across the room at a white board stuck on the wall. On it are
twenty-four a4-sized photographs of the Secret Service members. He assigned
each one the role to protect the island in secrecy of the people, after many
months of intense training.
It was a perfect system, the citizens where unaware of who
was in the Secret Service so dare not act out as anyone could be authorized to
punish them. There had been little crime in the 12 years of life on the island
the only two crimes committed had been punished through death. The criminals
were blindfolded and forced to walk from the northwest edge of the island where
they fell to their inevitable end. This was channeled live an example to the
citizens.
Sergio hurries to the board and examines each SS member. The
sound of an envelope dropping forces him to jerk his head in the direction of
the door. He darts over curiously and picks up the brown paper. Inside he found
a letter made up from newspaper cuttings, he holds it up and mutters the words.
The SS member who threatens you,
Never leaves the home night or day,
This is your only clue,
Their hair the colour grey.
Calmly, Sergio paces back over to the white board, picks up
a magnet and pins the mysterious letter next to the images of Paul, Peter, and
Susan. After one last glance at the three SS members, he turns sharply picking
up his coat from the back of the leather chair, slinging it casually over his
right shoulder and leaves.
Soon
to be Mrs Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud
Coal
Through the Letterbox
By
Francesca Radley
Receiving
mail in the morning is similar to receiving a gift at Christmas. The excitement
you feel as you tear to reveal the mystery inside is magically fulfilling.
Every morning around 08:30AM; I regress to the former years of my childhood, gallop
down the stairs dressed in my Disney pyjamas, to the front door in search of
what the man in the red suit has left for me. The only difference being at
Christmas I leave cookies and milk.
Last Monday
morning my mailman left me a rather unpleasant gift, and as I opened the large
brown cardboard envelope, all joy fled from my face. A restraining order. A big
blue slip of A4 paper demanding I stay a minimum of one hundred feet from
Edward Christopher Sheeran. The gift I held was worse than coal, and in my eyes
completely ludicrous. As I read the official looking document my heart sank and
my fury grew.
According
to the devil that was my restraining order, which stood between my future
husband and I, at the concert which I had attended on Saturday 11th
October 2014, I waited outside the stage doors of Leeds Arena for a total of
four hours and twenty-one minutes after the event finished. This was referred
to as ‘abnormal behaviour’; however, what this paper failed to specify was that
I had recently purchased over £120 worth of official Ed Sheeran merchandise and
was patiently waiting in the hope that Mr Sheeran would sign it for me. It also
fails to mention how rude Mr Sheeran was that evening, as he made no effort to
scribble his name across any of the overpriced goods, nor did he even come out
to greet me as I stood, cold and tired.
The
document then went on to say that my behaviour at Mr Sheeran’s secret book
signing on Wednesday 28th October 2014 was unjust and mildly
discriminating. Apparently, arriving three and a half hours prior to the event was
scheduled to start in order to reserve a prime position in the queue is unfair
to those waiting with disabilities. In my defence; I had paid a considerable
amount more for my ticket as they sold out too quickly, meaning I had to
purchase mine through a dealer, whereas the disabled had a pre-order system in
place so they had an unfair advantage. I was merely balancing the playing
field. Furthermore, my insistence on having a photograph with Mr Sheeran
despite security guards’ advice not too has been considered ‘an invasion of
privacy’; well I’m sorry to inform you Mr Sheeran but your photographs are all
over the bedroom walls of most teenage girls in the country. Equally, I had
just bought the new IPhone and requested a screensaver, so I was killing two
birds with one stone.
As I
continued to read the restraining order I had been given, I was most displeased
to discover that Mr Sheeran had not been grateful for the multiple personalised
birthday, Christmas, or Valentines cards I had been sending him for the past
five years. I had gone to all the effort of editing images to make them look as
though we are a couple. I had written love poems inside. I even went to the
trouble of paying the extra two pound ninety-nine to have them delivered to his
home address in London after it was leaked, only to find out he is unappreciative
of my offerings and hard work. The document refers to these letters as
‘fan-mail with disturbing content’ to which I take great offence. What the
document conveniently left out is that I have not once received a letter back
from Mr Sheeran, which is extremely ill-mannered and not the kind of quality
one looks for in a potential partner/lover/fiancé.
An example
of ‘stalker-like behaviour’ is the 10th of July 2015, when,
according to the restraining order, I stood outside Me Sheeran’s childhood home
in Suffolk for two hours. Apparently this was considered ‘harassment’ to is
parents who where inside the property at the time. However, what is not taken
into consideration is the fact that I was participating in a family weekend break
and we were hiking through the countryside. I happened to stop for a breath
outside the house and recognised it from my background research into Mr Sheeran.
The behaviour the law should be concerned with is not in fact mine but rather
Mr Sheeran’s parents who not once invited me in for a cold drink or sit down,
despite my best efforts to get their attention through the kitchen window.
Perhaps I will bring that story up over Christmas dinner with them once Ed and
I are married.
In my opinion,
this restraining order is unjustified and completely unnecessary. It is a waste
of the laws time which tax payers are paying for, not to mention unpractical
for my future plans to marry Ed. How on earth will he manage to propose to me
with one-hundred feet between us? Additionally, it will be a complete nightmare
when it comes to settling down and starting a family. I guess we will have to
deal with the petty issues it brings when we get there, but for now I have
another autographed document to hang with my Ed Sheeran collection.
CREATIVE
WRITING COMETARY
FIRST
CREATIVE PIECE
GUESS
WHO?
My initial
aim for writing the opening to the novel – Guess Who? – was to create a
detailed and vivid image of the futuristic world I had created in a way that
showed the reader that the issues present in todays society are always going to
be issues, the main issue I wished to demonstrate was the idea of a corrupt
leader. Equally, I wanted to use a form of writing I had not employed often to
challenge myself, so I though a fictional novel opening was the best choice.
I was
having difficulty in coming up with an idea to show corruption in a light that
is both entertaining and understandable, when I came up with the idea of using
a well known children’s board-game, Guess Who. This idea gave me a lot of
structure and made the idea relatable to todays society. My intentions for the
full novel would be to have each of the recognisable twenty-four members working
within the society as secret service, and have twenty-three of them killed so
the last one could lead an uprising without the control of the secret service
to stop him. An influence I had to write this novel opening is from a poem I
came across online while studying corruption, called
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanococoniosis.
This poem
uses a lot of detailed description to enable the reader to visualise the
corruption taking place and makes it more realistic and believable.
Furthermore, it follows a loose structure which I intended to do for my own
writing.
The
opening verse to the poem is helping to set a scene for the reader, and the
writer takes great care to make the topic relatable to every part of the world.
“A silica
odor, dust walks through a fresh desert night
Cool air beneath and above the sea
A warm furnace smell, I don’t understand
Intricate to rise and receive without knowing
Up ahead in a virtue distance
A mysterious poisonous effluvium light-
My face feels like a leaf'
My sun holds up its own pendulum rods
Inflammation comes and settles in for the night,
There it stands in a pertinacious manner, with
quality
I resurrect this air created from madness, all
over again
Twilight, rain stranger than strange
Visions, pursue my path into an infested dark
pasture
"From the red Heaven I fell into the waters
of a cobalt Hell"”
In my own opening chapter, I
planned to have a similar effect on my reader by using detailed description and
drawing their attention to the setting.
“Clink. Whisky tunneled between the ice cubes as
Sergio Soloman refilled the crystal glass. He sat in comfortable silence on a
slick black leather chair in the centre of the heptagonal room, absorbing the
business below of the contrasting lights against the dark evening backdrop in
his high up office. Quite jazz music played through the speakers situated
unnoticeably in the room, drowning out any evidence of life outside the walls.
He felt distance from the people of Solomanearth; a self-sufficient island orbiting
Earths fiery remain, which had been destroyed 12 years earlier in the great
war.”
I feel this twist on the idea
of the board-game creates a completely new alternative context that is
representative on society’s corruption through recognized leaders and
followers, creating a distinct difference between levels and social class.
I chose to use prose-fiction
to communicate my intention as I felt it was a more creative way to demonstrate
them. I had previously attempted to write it as a short story but I felt my
idea was to big to be condensed into a smaller story, so I decided to write a
more detailed and accurate opening to a novel as this gave me a larger canvas
to work on and allowed me to go into greater detail to create a more vivid
image. Equally I had recently read ‘Rebels – The City of Indra’ by Kendall and
Kylie Jenner, and a ghost writer, which employed this same form to explain
about a futuristic world in an unusual way by splitting the narrative between
the two main characters which I enjoyed reading, and tried to recreate in my
own style.
To improve my writing, I had
to ensure I only used one tense as it had been pointed out to me that my
constant switching between past and present was distracting and confusing. I
decided to make my novel present to make the issues more relevant to today for
the reader and show that the they are constant issues that continue.
“Clink. Whisky tunneled between the ice
cubes as Sergio Soloman refilled the crystal glass.”
From my first draft I changed all the past tense verbs to
present tense.
“Clink. Whisky
tunnels between the ice cubes as Sergio Soloman refills the crystal glass.”
“He was interrupted
by the ring of the telephone on the desk corner. He looked but ignores the
consistent noise it makes demanding him to answer. Instead he pressed a
different button on the remote making the jazz music louder”
I adapted the tenses throughout my piece to make the
present tense a consistent theme and eliminate any confusion for my reader.
“He is interrupted
by the ring of the telephone on the desk corner. He looks but ignores the
consistent noise it makes demanding him to answer. Instead he presses at a
different button on the remote making the jazz music louder”
Another concern I had while redrafting was making the main
character Sergio likable to my reader as I believe they will be more engaged in
the novel if they find the main character likable, I tried to do this is a way
that still made him slightly vileness but charming so as to still communicate
the corruption there but make the reader understand the authority’s decision to
be corrupt.
“Calmly, Sergio paces
back over to the white board, picks up a magnet and pins the mysterious letter
next to the images of Paul, Peter, and Susan. After one last glance at the
three SS members, he turns sharply picking up his coat from the back of the
leather chair, slinging it casually over his right shoulder and leaves.”
This was also mentioned in my feedback as was the tense
issue. To try and make Sergio likable I attempted to add more to my second to
last paragraph to demonstrate his good intentions and how he get turned to
corruption through manipulation and blackmail.
“Sergio hurries to
the board and examines each SS member. His face filled with fear of
Solomanearth being threatened and his people’s lives being played with like
pieces of a board-game. In a worry to come up with a solution he begins to tear
through documents stuck to the board. The sound of an envelope dropping forces
him to jerk his head in the direction of the door.”
However, I felt my original paragraph left more the the
readers imagination and stuck to the main theme of corruption better, so I
chose to use the original instead.
“Sergio hurries to
the board and examines each SS member. The sound of an envelope dropping forces
him to jerk his head in the direction of the door.”
SECOND CREATIVE PIECE
COAL THROUGH THE LETTERBOX
My aim for this piece of non-fiction was to write an
article that would be featured on a blog, to entertain an audience based on my
exaggerated obsession with Ed Sheeran. I intended to include humor to engage an
audience. The inspiration to write an article came from the well known writer
David Mitchel, who wrote an article based on terrorists.
My influence to write about some
of my true life experiences was from the famous writer David Mitchel, who
employs comedy to express his opinions on serious issues. I found through
researching his wok, his articles entertain his audience whilst cleverly
communicating his opinion, which may not be popular but he makes his audience
accepting. I tried to include his style in my own writing, to make my audience
accept my opinions on my exaggerated obsession with my idol in a way that is
humorous.
An example of David
Mitchells’ work which I tried to incorporate into my own, from “How to protect
yourself in the event of receiving a counter-terrorism leaflet”:
” It’s also an unnecessary
thing to say. If people hear gunfire and explosions in a railway station or
airport, the don’t need to be told to run away, take cover or tell someone
about the issue. Anyone who can read a leaflet, and the vast majority of the
illiterate, would do those things instinctively. It’s like a poster telling
people to “Remember, if you let go of objects, they will fall to the ground!””
In my work, I included
sentences influenced by David Mitchell’s writing, to make my reader aware of
how oblivious I am towards the way others interpret my behavior. I felt this
added humor, as well as engage my reader.
“An example of ‘stalker-like behaviour’ is the
10th of July 2015, when, according to the restraining order, I stood
outside Me Sheeran’s childhood home in Suffolk for two hours. Apparently this
was considered ‘harassment’ to is parents who where inside the property at the
time. However, what is not taken into consideration is the fact that I was
participating in a family weekend break and we were hiking through the
countryside. I happened to stop for a breath outside the house and recognised
it from my background research into Mr Sheeran. The behaviour the law should be
concerned with is not in fact mine but rather Mr Sheeran’s parents who not once
invited me in for a cold drink or sit down, despite my best efforts to get
their attention through the kitchen window. Perhaps I will bring that story up
over Christmas dinner with them once Ed and I are married.”
David
Mitchell is also very talented in the way he builds subtly on his argument as
his article progresses. For example, in his last paragraph, his opinion comes across
much stronger than his opening.
“But this
campaign isn’t really about doing us any collective good. Its about an
institution justifying and aggrandising its position.” He ends with, “The
people behind this campaign are using fear to get what they want.”, which is a
serious message and so he doesn’t include any humour, he has engaged the reader
throughout the article in order to persuade them of his opinion in the last
paragraph.
I tried
something similar in my own work, however I felt my topic was less serious than
that of David Mitchell’s, so I decided to end with a joke.
“Additionally,
it will be a complete nightmare when it comes to settling down and starting a
family. I guess we will have to deal with the petty issues it brings when we
get there, but for now I have another autographed document to hang with my Ed
Sheeran collection.”
I feel, this ending
communicates how the issue has not affected me in the way it might affect
others, continuing the theme of my cluelessness.
I chose to use an article to
communicate to my reader that this non-fiction writing is on a topic I felt had
to be shared. After receiving some feedback, I understood my choice of form was
a little unclear, to overcome tis I adapted the layout of my wok to represent a
blog post. This is a subject that would commonly be found on a teenage girls’
blog, so this layout makes my work appear as something that could be published.
It also makes it clear that I am writing non-fiction appose to fiction. By
adding the blog name – “Soon to be Mrs. Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud” – I make
it clear to m audience that this is a blog, and I also Incorporate one of Ed’s
famous lyrics in which immediately makes my audience aware of my obsession. The
image I have added also makes it clearer that it is an article / blog post as
this is a convention of published work.
I made a few changes between
my first and second draft to make my article read better and clearer. One
amendment I made was changing the line “after the event was scheduled to finish”
to “after the event finished.”, through my feedback, I became aware that this
line was confusing for the reader as it was unclear if the event finished on
time or not.
Another change I made after
receiving feedback was a few edits to the first paragraph to make it clearer.
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