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Creative Story (1 Viewer)

azza_3761

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Would anyone mind having a look over mi creative story and give me some constructive critism, pointers, maybe a mark?
Thanx for any help in advance


Andrew Clarkson was determined that he could find the cure, so determined that he had been up for three days straight experimenting in his laboratory. However after the third day straight he started to realizing that this was going nowhere and decided to head on home. Suddenly, the concoction that he had been working on emitted a bright blue haze which quickly enveloped him.

When he came to his senses he stood up and looked around. This was not normal, he said to himself as he noticed the blue trees, maroon patched sky and the violet shade of grass that stretch as far as the eyes could see. Not quiet believing his eyes he readjusted his glasses. “Everything looked real however how could this be? There’s definitely no explanation to how he got here.” Determined to find out what was happening he decided to take a walk. After walking for a bout 10 minutes in no direction in particular he noticed a cliff edge and decided to check it out. There he was standing on top of a cliff watching the epic battle down below. As he surveyed the battle below him he became even more confused. “How could all these people (or whatever they are) be fighting like this and me not have heard about it on the news?” There appeared to be two sides battling down below. The first camp seemed to be controlled by a dragon-like man who, somehow appeared to be making the surroundings around him explode on whim. He was also accompanied by both black clad men and shawl draped women who also appeared to be able to manipulate the surroundings, however none of them appeared to have the same strength as the dragon man. He also commandeered at least a good five hundred thousand troops all dressed in the same attire which included a golden serpent dragon on the front of their armour.

The other side was composed of probably twice as many of armed soldiers as in the dragon-man’s camp however they all had a different symbols encrusted into their armor. There was also dark presence above these soldiers that seemed to grow the further back towards the mountain. “I bet that is where the leader of these dark soldiers was stationed” Andrew stated. Behind them were several more men and women able to shift their surroundings, each with slightly weaker strength as the dragon-man, but these seemed to be under the influence of the ever-strong dark force, lingered in the distance.

The battle seemed to rage on for hours until all the soldiers from both sides appeared to have been either cut down by the unturned earth exploding and fire shooting out of nowhere or killed by a soldier on the other side. The one of the dark possessed manipulators noticed Andrew on the edge of the cliff and hurtled a bolt of lightning straight at the cliff he was standing on. Down and down he fell to his eminent death. However when he awoke, what seemed to be only a couple of hours later, on top of the crumpled remains of the cliff a t the bottom of the cliff he didn’t even have a scratch on him from the fall. “This is very peculiar” Andrew says as he observes the 200 metre cliff from which he fell, “I should be dead.” Andrew then decided to stake out the dragon-man and see if he could help. After asking one of the black-clad manipulators, Andrew was taken to the dragon-lord. The dragon-man was covered from head to toe in goldern scales but if he didn’t know better he would have describe his appearance (that is without the scales) as a 25 year old boy. He enquired into Andrew’s health and his presence on the cliff, which Andrew then described how he was mysteriously transported into this world in the search of a cure. He then placed something like a vial into Andrews coat pocket, whispered something to his black-clad followers and a dimension door appeared into which I hurtled back into the laboratory.

Lifting himself off the ground, Andrew felt something in his pocket and removed the phial stating the cure that he had been trying to create. The phial was the same sort of vial the dragon-man had placed in that exact pocket. “Had I actually taken that journey or had it just been a result of my lack of sleep catching up on me? Andrew questions to himself, “And if so how did that cure appear in my pocket? More importantly can I ever get back?”
 

SmileyCam

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Andrew Clarkson was determined that he could find the cure, so determined that he had been up for three days straight experimenting in his laboratory. However after the third day [straight] he started [to] realizing that this was going nowhere and decided to head on home. Suddenly, the concoction that he had been working on emitted a bright blue haze which quickly enveloped him. (some sensory imagery might be good here, like can he see? does it smell? just to make the moment more vivid)

When he came to his senses he stood up and looked around. This was not normal, he said to himself as he noticed the blue trees, maroon patched sky and the violet shade of grass that stretch as far as the eyes could see. Not quiet believing his eyes he readjusted his glasses. “Everything looked real however how could this be? There’s definitely no explanation to how he got here.” (does he actually say that? it sound more like an authorial observation) Determined to find out what was happening he decided to take a walk. After walking for a bout 10 minutes in no direction in particular he noticed a cliff edge and decided to check it out. There he was standing on top of a cliff watching the epic battle down below. As he surveyed the battle below him he became even more confused. “How could all these people (or whatever they are) be fighting like this and me not have heard about it on the news?” There appeared to be two sides battling down below. The first camp seemed to be controlled by a dragon-like man who, somehow appeared to be making the surroundings around him explode on whim. He was also accompanied by both black clad men and shawl draped women who also appeared to be able to manipulate the surroundings, however none of them appeared to have the same strength as the dragon man. He also commandeered at least a good five hundred thousand troops all dressed in the same attire which included a golden serpent dragon on the front of their armour.

The other side was composed of probably twice as many of armed soldiers as in the dragon-man’s camp however they all had a different symbols encrusted into their armor. There was also dark presence above these soldiers that seemed to grow the further back towards the mountain. “I bet that is where the leader of these dark soldiers was stationed” Andrew stated. Behind them were several more men and women able to shift their surroundings, each with slightly weaker strength as the dragon-man, but these seemed to be under the influence of the ever-strong dark force, lingered in the distance.

The battle seemed to rage on for hours until all the soldiers from both sides appeared to have been either cut down by the unturned earth exploding and fire shooting out of nowhere or killed by a soldier on the other side. The one of the dark possessed manipulators noticed Andrew on the edge of the cliff and hurtled a bolt of lightning straight at the cliff he was standing on. Down and down he fell to his eminent death. However when he awoke, what seemed to be only a couple of hours later, on top of the crumpled remains of the cliff a t the bottom of the cliff he didn’t even have a scratch on him from the fall. “This is very peculiar” Andrew says as he observes the 200 metre cliff from which he fell, “I should be dead.” Andrew then decided to stake out the dragon-man and see if he could help. After asking one of the black-clad manipulators, Andrew was taken to the dragon-lord. The dragon-man was covered from head to toe in goldern scales but if he didn’t know better he would have describe his appearance (that is without the scales) as a 25 year old boy. He enquired into Andrew’s health and his presence on the cliff, which Andrew then described how he was mysteriously transported into this world in the search of a cure. He then placed something like a vial into Andrews coat pocket, whispered something to his black-clad followers and a dimension door appeared into which I hurtled back into the laboratory.

Lifting himself off the ground, Andrew felt something in his pocket and removed the phial stating the cure that he had been trying to create. The phial was the same sort of vial the dragon-man had placed in that exact pocket. “Had I actually taken that journey or had it just been a result of my lack of sleep catching up on me? Andrew questions to himself, “And if so how did that cure appear in my pocket? More importantly can I ever get back?”

Blah, blah , blah, blah, blah... it's not very interesting, nothing really happens. What's the point of the story, what are you trying to convey about journeys? and from the looks of it imaginative journeys? and imagery, figurative language, you're just describing what it is.

Hope that helps
 

silvermoon

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ok, this is my running commentary:
1. "head on home" - just "head home" or "head for home" sounds slightly more sophisticated
2. try to use an active voice rather than a passive voice, so: "Suddenly, he was enveloped in a bright blue haze" - active voice is more interesting for the reader.
3. tense is important - in 2nd pararaph: "realise"; 3rd paragraph "looks" etc.
4. you have quotation marks in the third paragraph, so presumably this guy is talking - but who to? and why is referring to himself as 'he'? this does not make sense
5. the main problem i have with this story is that it is basically just a varient of the "then i woke up and found it was all a dream" scenario. try to steer away from these endings as they either indicate a) a lack of imagination or b) a deus-ex-machina; neither of which are favourable mark-wise.

despite the fact that most of what i've written seems negative, i actually think that this piece has great potential. i admit, i'm confused about what the hell was going on and why this dragon guy gave him the vial and sent him back, as well as why he didn't die (let alone what he was doig there in the first place). With some re-writing and introduction of internal dialogue, however, this piece has great potential to be an imaginative journey that is an allegory for scientific advance in the fight against disease or an allegory for the role of science in war etc. if you could develop soemthing more along these lines and improve the obvious grammatical errors (things like chaning tense stick out like a sore thumb), you could easily achieve 15. as it is, however, i would think you were looking more around the 10-11 mark.
 

vigelante

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yeah it isnt too bad but could i ask whether you often play a game like warcraft or some similar?

it has the the feel of a video game with mythical dreatures and you need ttry and explain this more (as smily cam said)

you DO need to try and make the point of the story come out more clearly because at the moment the reader gets to the ned and thinks ' so ... what was that about?'

dont harp on about the battle for too long because this isnt the central point of the story, the cure seems to be why you wrote it. isnt it? i know that a battle seems dramatic and nice but you chould try and use more communication between this dragon-guy and the main character.

smileycam's suggestion about more vivid imagery is a good suggestion.

a suggestion could be to read the first couple of paragraphs of a bestselling novel by a good writer of action. someone like Wilbur Smith or Tom Clancy or the guy who wrote Scarecrow and Ice Station (what is his name???). You would notice that thier first paragraph really hits the reader and draws them in. This is the aim you should be aiming for

so in summary:
make the beginning more interesting because you dont want the marker to think 'aargh another boring piece anbd then ignore the middle where you may have put the most effort in and give you a 10 because they werent interrested enough
make the point of the story more obvious and really hit it home

so good luck
 

sweetnsourpork

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Matthew Reilly wrote Ice Station and the others...

I like most of the story and think it could be pretty good with a bit of tweaking. I think you ended it way too fast. I don't know if you're going for the "journey is more important than the end" slant but it doesn't seem to be heading that way. Also I don't think it's necessary for Andrew to question the journey at the end. I'd leave that to the reader to ponder.
 

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