I'll wait...

Sorry I've posted this so late guys!

Tyler Alexander

I see it all. Every person who stops and stares at my big eyes is noticed/seen. I analyse them. Look at their facial expressions as they look at all of my being.  I can see them but I can’t hear them (unfortunately). My maker didn’t give me any ears so I’ve had to compromise. Lip reading. Lip reading helps me understand these people.

They always tend to say “wow an owl made out of stone.” Then they get really close to me. They peer over everything to see me. It does make me feel special I cant lie.  The closer they get the more I see. The wonder and awe on their faces. The different smells that they all have. Once someone came in smelling like the woods, you know that earthy smell. It made me feel at home. Oh how I wished they’d take me with them, but once again I was left sitting there. Constantly being looked at but never wanted.

That’s the hardest part about living here. Everyone looks at me and inspects every part of me (including the price of course) but never takes me home with them. Maybe I’m too pricey? Its heart breaking when my friends get a nice home and family and I’m left sitting here. Day in day out. On the cold days I see no one. The whit staircase in front of me is the only scenery I’ve ever had. I wonder if it’s tired of looking at me? I’m tired of looking at it. I wish I had wings so I could fly away from here. Settle myself in another place, see some new faces (these mushrooms don’t say much).

Again why I learnt to lip-read. It was hard at first because some people talk so fast! I don’t know how they have time to breathe. Words fall out of their mouths faster than I can read them. That’s when life here gets hard. When I’m left staring blankly into peoples eyes, reading their souls desire. Maybe not their soul, just their eyes. Deep into their eyes.

I’ve seen eyes of all colours.

Brown

Blue

Green

Black

Sometimes they have these things protecting their eyes. These eye protectors make their eyes look so big. Nearly as big as mine!

Once someone walked in and had an owl on them. I don’t know what you call the things they put on, but they look weird. Anyway they had an owl and I was ecstatic! Another one of me! It was colourful and elegant. I tried to get its attention. Let them know they’re not alone here. I’m not ALONE here! But they didn’t notice me. Not one look. That just proves I’m unnoticeable. I’m easy to miss when there’s so much more to see here. So now I shall sit. Sit and wait. I’ll sit here everyday until THE day. THE DAY! That’s when I’ll be take, held, loved. To be loved must be magical.

Yes I’ll wait. I’ll wait and watch and then wait a bit more. I’m timeless so I guess you could say “I have all the time in the world.”

Another person just walked in. no hair on top of their head and those eye protector things.  They didn’t look for long. They didn’t even glance at me.

I’ll guess I’ll just continue to wait. 

Year 2: Some English Haikus by Hayden Lee

I row down the stream

To find in life there is joy

And many big rocks.

The west wind wavered

belting in might, here I stand –

the sky turns away.

Old yellow star stood

The children murmured and hissed

But asks why blind eye?

Megan Turner Year 2 - The Room

EXT. FRONT OF COLLEGE BUILDING – DAY

Charlotte sits on a bench

Sound: (charlotte’s thoughts) ‘I’ve never been pretty enough. Even bro knows it, though he’d never say it. Why would anyone be interested in me? I thought. Until everything changed.

Nina comes on to get charlotte

                                           Nina

Hey! What are you doing there all by yourself? Come with me.

Charlotte timidly gets up and looks worried. Nina takes her to meet people

INT. MAIN LOUNGE OF HOUSE

Nina and Charlotte enter, where Jason, Heather and Tom are.

                                 Nina

       Everyone! Meet the new girl, Charlotte

                     Everyone in unison

                          Hey charlotte!

                                 Jason

             So, newbie, where’d ya come from?

                                   Charlotte

 Oh…um just some stuck-up part of town near DC, totally didn’t fit in

                                        Jason

                        (LAUGHS) Huh, well, now you do

Jason smiles at Charlotte, gives her a kiss on the cheek and wonders off to get a drink.

Sound: (Charlotte’s thoughts) – ‘has a guy actually just taken an interest in me?’

INT. TOM’S BEDROOM - DAY

We see Charlotte, Nina, Jason, Tom and Heather chatting in mime, showing the progression of their relationships…

      INT. MAIN LOUNGE - NIGHT

Everyone but Charlotte is dressed in their pyjamas and has a cup of some sort of brew. Charlotte enters.

                                 Heather

Have some of this babe, it takes the pounds off sharpish! We have it all the time

Hesitantly Charlotte takes the cup and sips.

                      Charlotte

              Mmm it’s good!

                            Nina

Oh my god! Let’s have a makeover!

                     Charlotte

                  Uh?…um…

Nina grabs charlotte and pulls her in front of the mirror

                           Nina

Tonight’s your lucky night, I’ve got some spare dye!

                        Charlotte

                    Oh…umm…okay

Nina gets her hair dye and begins dying Charlotte’s hair, then wraps it up in a bun. Nina does Charlotte a face pack while Charlotte’s hair is dying and then Charlotte walks off stage to wash her hair out.

                                 Heather

  I’m gonna find her something to wear!

PAUSE

INT. BATHROOM

Heather follows Charlotte into the bathroom. Charlotte is washing off the face pack that is horrifically burning her skin.

    Charlotte

It really hurts!!

Heather

It’s supposed to silly

Heather walks back into the main lounge, followed by Charlotte. 

Charlotte has her hair dyed a deep brown and it is curled, she’s smiling. Her face pack has been taken off and makeup is done. They turn to each other and chat and while Charlotte stands and thinks to herself.

Sound: (Charlotte’s thoughts) – ‘How can my acne just disappear like that? I look…good. I can hardly recognise myself right now. Wow.

INT. CHARLOTTE’S BEDROOM - DAY/NIGHT

A passing off time as Charlotte continues to drink the brew in her bedroom and losing more and more weight.

EXT. COLLEGE GROUNDS - DAY

Charlotte has just finished class and is walking home. Jason appears and runs up to her

          Jason

Hey Scarlett, wait up!

Charlotte turns around, confused

    Charlotte

Um, my name’s Charlotte...

        Jason

Oh. Right. Yeah, sorry. Been a long day, you alright?

       Charlotte

I’m fine. Gotta get home. I’ll seeya later.

INT. MAIN LOUNGE OF HOUSE

Charlotte gets home and Nina is laying on the couch, reading

                 Charlotte

Hey, Nina…you’know…Jason was really weird earlier.

Nina sits up

Nina

How?

Charlotte

Well, he sorta got my name wrong, said this other girl’s name…as if he was convinced it was me. I mean, he’s known me for a while now…I think it was Scarlet or something, aand I know they sound similar but-

Nina

 - Charlotte

Charlotte

Yeah?

PAUSE

                            Nina

Well…there was this girl that lived here before called Scarlett. She left before you moved in…

                      Charlotte

 What? Where did she go?

                          Nina

 Well, you could say she went a bit crazy…

                 Charlotte

                  How?

                       Nina

 I don’t know, like she became obsessed with herself. Never thought she was ‘pretty’ enough, always going on…she was stunning. Like unrealistically stunning. And didn’t we all know it. And so did she.

                Charlotte

   And she left because?...

                   Nina

I’m sorry to say, well, she’s not exactly here anymore…

           Charlotte

      You mean?...

            Nina

Yeah…but most people think she’s just taking a year out, so I probably wouldn’t go around talking about it.

        Charlotte

 No, of course. But why didn’t you tell me? I’ve got her room…I feel sick – I need go to

INT. CHARLOTTE EXITS THE MAIN LOUNGE

Year 2: Originality and Voice. Tom Bickerdyke.

Originality and Voice in writing.

In writing of any kind, journalism, poetry, prose, novels or any other form, each author has their own unique voice. The originality of a work arguably comes more from the writers voice than the actual content, for example if you gave two different authors just a simple story, such as Rumpelstiltskin, and told them to go and re-write it in their own way they would come back with very different interpretations of the same simple plotline. This unique voice is very important when writing because, to paraphrase the Golf advert, why read something like a Stephen King novel when you can read a Stephen King novel? In order to have a unique selling point you need to be different and if you are trying to copy someone else's style of writing it will normally be quite obvious that it isn't your own voice and will come off awkward and ill-fitting, like you're trying to walk in someone else's shoes.

No two people are the same and because of this, no two writers are the same. The experiences they have and the environment a writer lives in all determine their opinions, viewpoint, outlook and voice. The voice may not even be evident to the writer themselves, it could be something they never even consider when selecting their word choices, sentence structure, etc. To a writer it could simply be them writing naturally and honestly, in their own words.

Tropes, themes and genres as a concept rely on writers having unique voices and styles because if everyone wrote in the same way then one romance novel would be identical to the next, thrillers would no longer be thrilling because we would know exactly what to expect. It's the writers own twist on a certain archetype that make's great writing what it is.

A writers voice is something we both have and yet also can craft and cultivate, it grows as we grow and we can change it to fit how we want to write, a dark voice for thrillers or horrors, a faster paced voice for action, etc. In order to create an original voice for your writing I think it is important to experiment with different styles and genres also expanding your vocabulary as much as possible will help as you will have a bigger pool of words to choose from therefore your writing will be more unique. The writer can go a long way to create their own voice though, experimenting with different styles is important and often unavoidable, you read something you like and it's only natural you would want to try and emulate it. In "On writing" by Stephen King he writes

"You may find yourself adopting a style you find particularly exciting, and there’s nothing wrong with that. When I read Ray Bradbury as a kid, I wrote like Ray Bradbury—everything green and wondrous and seen through a lens smeared with the grease of nostalgia. When I read James M. Cain, everything I wrote came out clipped and stripped and hard-boiled. When I read Lovecraft, my prose became luxurious and Byzantine. I wrote stories in my teenage years where all these styles merged, creating a kind of hilarious stew."

Life experience is important to give you new viewpoints and fresh insights in to different aspects of the real world and reality, making your writing more powerful and your voice will seem more authentic if you have lived the experience you write about. Reading numerous and varied pieces of writing will help you to pick up on new techniques and stylistic approaches whilst giving you new ideas about things you yourself would like to try writing. It's not plagiarism if you mutate it into your own unique work through your original writers voice, even Shakespeare took ideas from Plutarch and made them his own stories and he is often considered one of the greatest writers of all time.

When editing their own work I believe the writer should be careful that they do not edit themselves out of it. Second guessing their own word choices and thinking "that's not what X-author would have written" can be a pitfall that writers need to avoid, having confidence in their own writing is key to creating a piece of work that contains their own original voice and when unsure if something works or not, it is better to ask for an outside opinion than to simply change it and make it more bland and monotonous, this is also something that editors need to be careful to avoid when they change an authors story.

The writers voice isn't just something that occurs in specific written work, it can also come across in a much more casual format, texting, messaging online and emails. Without realising it people have a unique way of speaking and texting, their word choice, use of grammar and punctuation (or lack thereof) are all unique to them. If someone who knows you well receives messages from your phone but a different person is writing the messages then it's likely the receiver will know it isn't you or at least notice a difference in your style of writing. This usually goes by without you realising you're even writing or speaking in your own way, to you it is just speaking or writing.

With the writers unique voice it is important to be consistent, breaking away from your own voice mid-chapter can cause the reader to become confused and disorientated, it will make the writing hard to read and keep up with because it wont flow nicely if there is a different style on every page. That being said breaking away from the comfortable voice the audience is used to can be a good way to give effect to a certain part of the writing, subtly making it stand out more for its uniqueness and making the reader pay closer attention to this temporary change. For example if a writer usually uses short words or sentences and suddenly switches to a longer one then the pace will change and that part will stand out as different.

In conclusion, originality and voice in writing are interwoven, it is difficult to be original without a unique writers voice and you cant have a unique voice without originality. It is important to grow, learn and craft your writers voice to be the best writer you can be and stand out from the crowd.

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/essays/fromhistorytostage.html 

http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/Plutarch/intro/Intro/default/;jsessionid=456DCB3AAB7CAB710D7F0A73ABD8FBFD      

Year One: Hard Choices by Shelley Abbey

Hard Choices

The cold air pricked the young man’s hands, which were clutched tightly to the gun. What used to be a pleasant countryside had now turned into a battleground. The soldiers were silent. All that could be heard was the cowering Germans’ pleas.
‘‘You see this thing here, he is the enemy. He probably has a mother, a father, maybe even a sister. But to us he is nothing; he has no name, no background, and no soul. His only title is the enemy German. His mission was to kill every American in sight, but look at how the tables have turned’’ the Lieutenant said as he simultaneously pointed at the sullen, dejected figure.
The young man, whose gaze was firmly fixed on the ground, knew what he had to do.
‘‘Please sir, I-I can’t do it. I can’t kill him’’. He said hesitantly.
The lieutenant walked a few yards until he was directly in front of the younger man.
‘Do you know where you are? This is war. Its either us or them. Today is the day you become a man Franklin. Isn’t that right men’’
The other soldiers roared with excitement. Franklin looked around searching desperately for an ally, but found none. Instead, all he saw was rage and hunger. It was clear to him that the war had transformed all of them. They were not men anymore. They were beasts taking refuge within human carcasses.
Tears starting streaming uncontrollably down Franklins face. Seeing this, the Lieutenant sighed and grasped the boy’s neck.
‘‘Listen. You need to kill this Gerry. No one is leaving until you do. This is your reality now, this is your duty’’.
‘‘Please. I am a God fearing man. My conscience would be forever stained.’’.
Upon hearing this, the Lieutenant dragged Franklin and forced him to kneel so that he was one metre away from the German, who was shouting ‘‘MUTTER,MUTTER’’ .
‘‘Your mother cannot save you. Your fate was sealed the moment we captured you’’
With these words, the Lieutenant brought out his own gun. For a moment, Franklin thought that he would finish the job for him. This was until he heard the gun click, and felt a small hole pressing on the back of his head.
‘‘Do it now otherwise I swear I will shoot right here, in front of everyone’’
Franklin’s heart raced faster than a skittering rat.
He raised his quivering, unsteady hand, closed his eyes and aimed the pistol towards the Germans’ forehead. The words of the lieutenant were firmly embedded in his mind.
‘‘Do it. Do IT. DO IT NOW!’’
A single shot rang throughout the area. A ringing noise filled Franklin’s ears. He could vaguely hear the struggled breaths of the German. When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t faced with the German. When he looked down, however, he saw the man sprawled out in agony. The bullet had missed its target and had instead hit the German just below his eye.
Franklin’s vision began to blur, and his body began to give way until he was layed on the floor and darkness encompassed him.
For minutes, all the men stood and watched as the victim lay in torment. No one said a word until he drew his last breath.
‘‘That’s one down’’ the Lieutenant said with a sigh of contempt.

Year 2: What is it for a writer to have a 'voice'? - Hayden Lee

What is it for a writer to have a ‘voice’?

Wiki definition – “The writer’s voice is the individual writing style of an author, a combination of their common usage of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text (or across several works).”

The importance of the writer's voice

A strong voice is a free voice. Having the ability and courage to speak your mind freely without hinderances allows your voice to naturally emerge from within yourself almost as if you were actually speaking and someone was writing down every word you are saying and not missing a single word.
Here is an example of an original voice -

“Apparently people are mad because blah blah black dude protagonist with a lightsaber, or girl protagonist, or Latino X-Wing pilot protagonist, and not enough straight white dudes. And folks are mad enough to join in on the hashtag and — nngh. Bleh. Meh. Gnarrgh. I mean, what version of Star Wars did you watch? The one where Luke Skywalker is a racist hick shitbird? The one where the Empire are the good guys because yay oppression and fascism and totalitarian chic?”

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/10/19/about-that-dumb-star-wars-boycott/

And here is an example of someone (nearly) without a voice - 

“In January 1815 the news radiated across the country: Andrew Jackson had decisively defeated

the British in the Battle of New Orleans. Along with spectacular American naval victories—

Oliver Hazard Perry on Lake Erie and Isaac Hull with the Constitution (“Old Ironsides”)—

Jackson’s triumph helped establish one of the great myths in American history: that the United

States won the War of 1812. In actuality the war was a draw. The British won most of the land

battles; they successfully blockaded American ports and effectively stymied American attempts

to invade Canada. The Treaty of Ghent, ending the war, did not even address American

grievances, which included Britain’s interference with shipping and the impressment of sailors.”

http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/1812/lessons/lesson_1812_textbook.pdf

Notice the vast difference? It's like talking to a real person, and then turning around and listening to a brick wall speaking about whether the war was a draw or not. I say "nearly" without a voice because I believe everybody has a voice. Although it may look like the second example doesn't have a voice, in actual fact, it is a type of voice. A type of voice that can be recognised by the majority to make it easier to understand. The voice is neutral, carrying no slang or localities. Essentially, this voice, this style, is flat, bland and factual considering it to be, as it seems, a part of a textbook entry which is what the aim is. 

An example of a strong voice - 

"You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another, without it was Aunty Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas, is all told about in that book—which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.”

Breaking rules left and right here. Note the atrocious grammar and the way he interrupts and repeats himself. Mr. Twain puts us right in the room with Huck Finn. Simply the way it is worded helps us to both hear the accent and see the boy—before ever being told what he sounds or looks like.

Voice isn't the point of writing?

As important as it is, some view the ‘writer’s voice’ as merely a distraction. Undertaking the perspective of someone that makes a living from writing, the reason for his view is totally valid. Most writing opportunities that actually provide you with a living wage would be within the work-for-hire section, which concludes of textbook entries or exam questions. In this case, the ‘writer’s voice’ is void. Essentially the people who would hire you do not care about your voice. If they do care, it would be that they don’t want anything to do with it. As harsh as it sounds, the point of work-for-hire is to make your voice into the house style.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/finding-your-voice-as-a-writer-overrated/382946/

What goes into the writer's voice and how do we develop it?