Module 1 Assignment 3 First Draft

I have completed my first draft of my next assignment. Module 1 is the "Introduction to Writing Styles, Techniques and Conventions" - pretty dry stuff but important basics that we (you and I) need to be fully aware of before we go throwing them out the door :)

This assignment is on style. It's one of the better assignments because I had to grab an extract from a favourite author's (step on up, Mr Saul) book (and bring Suffer the Children with you) and pull apart diction; description; POV; tone and voice.

I used pages 12 & 13 to analyse. This is in the forward where sicko family drunk watches, pounces upon and does evil things to, poor young Beth. Why choose such a sick and twisted section - my lecturer for module 1 is Mr Stone :)

It also led nicely into the second section of the assignment, where I had to write my own opening 600 words of a story using a similar style to my selected author. I say similar because John Saul I'm not - nor ever likely to be.

I may enjoy his books and have similar themes running through my twisted tales of the dark side but my way of putting it on the page is different. Not hugely so, but enough for me to recognise the differences in voice - and the fact that he's an immensely popular author and I'm still an emerging hack. And he's a real person living in Seattle, Washington and I'm an Aussie on the other side of the world - see lots of differences :)

So, I wrote the opening 600 words (exactly) which depict a lovely Australian beach from my childhood. It describes in vivid detail what happens leading up to the possible drowning of a young boy. Possible, because his mother manages to pull him out of the water and CPR is about to commence, when we hit the 600 word mark.....insert evil laugh here - will poor Nicholas be saved, will I ever finish the story? Don't know....I may just add it to the story I began and never went back to that formed part of my application.

So now, I'll let it sit overnight. Tomorrow I'll revisit it, polish it if it needs further changes and send it out the door. I was a little shocked to hear that term one had come to an end. There's 16 assignments due in the first semester so I should be somewhere near through eight of them. Style is number five, so I'm a little behind. Time to get stuck in.

In completing this assignment, I got to reread chapter one of Suffer the Children by John Saul - I hate to leave a good book unfinished - think it may be a reading night tonight :)

Good luck with whatever it is you're doing - as long as it progresses your writing forward.

BT