How am I finding English?

So far I have been very satisfied with English as one of my main A-levels. The reason behind this is because I always find the lessons interesting and varied. I learn different things depending on the teacher I have which makes the lessons more diverse and helps me remain focus. I have noticablly improved my knowledge on grammar and I have really liked writing a peice of flash fiction. It started off to be quite a challange because I didnt know what to write and how to make it scary but eventually I managed to finish it. Overall I am pleased with English and what I have learn so far.

Inspiration for my flash fiction

I was asked to produce a 500 word peice of scary flash fiction based around the theme of 'horror' for halloween. My flash fiction involes a china doll, I used this dilberatly as dolls are seen as very eerie and creepy when used in the right context. As my audience is aimed for younger children it may me more relatable to them also. It could remind them of dolls they may have previously owned and make it more scary and frightening for them to read.

I kept the language fairly basic as I had to base it around my target audience, therefore I wasnt able to use a complex use of vocabulary as it may have been difficult for them to read/understand. The grapholodgey of my Story was to match the theme, I used red to resemble blood and horror and a dark black background to contrast well and make it look creepy.

The impact I would like for the audience would be for them to be slightly distubed and have a clear vision in their head of how the china doll may have looked, this will make the story more scary and effective to read.

Flash Fiction Story - The China Doll

The China Doll

‘You need to tell us what you can remember’. Those intimidating words haunted me like a continuous nightmare, a mosquito whose sound grew stronger, it would never leave. Did I have an answer? No. No I didn’t.

It was October, Halloween of course. I was asked to babysit a girl named Amelia, barely 6 months of age. I set off late afternoon, down the eerie pebble stoned road leading to the house I would be staying at for the night. I was greeted at the door by a tall man and his wife. They showed me around and lead me upstairs to Amelia’s room. There she lay fragile, her little hands tightly curled as she lay over the top of a velvet blanket. ‘Thank you very much for doing this, we should be back for around half twelve, take care' I was told. With that they left without hesitation, I watched them through the window drive off into the foggy distance.

A few hours had passed. I went downstairs to the lounge and sat down keeping the baby monitor close to me on the kitchen side. It was at that very moment when I heard the blood curdling cry from the speaker beside me, it pierced through my ears and panic then hit me.  I rushed upstairs to the baby’s room, she has tears streaming down her cheeks, without haste I picked her up gently and cradled her in my arms, she calmed down and I laid her back down. What had upset her? I looked around the room and I discovered a mound of soft toys on the floor just opposite her cot. In the very middle hidden beneath the other toys was a rather odd looking toy, it appeared to be a sinister-looking china doll. I stepped slightly closer and examined the peculiar looking toy; I couldn’t think why it gave me that uneasy feeling. I turned off the light and returned downstairs.

It was now midnight. I then heard the sound again, this time it was much worse. I ran upstairs straight into Amelia’s room, she was screaming in terror. I looked to the china doll, it looked different this time, something was wrong. Rushing downstairs I grabbed my phone and rung up her parents, ‘I’m sorry to bother you but Amelia seems to keep crying, I don’t know what could be wrong. I feel it may have something to do with that creepy looking china doll in her room’’. There was a long pause before I got a reply. ‘What china doll?’ he replied. Then I realised. Amelia let out a shrill scream but when I looked she was nowhere to be found. I ran to the open window, I could see a figure running in the distance, it was the china doll. It had stolen Amelia, at that point I realised it was not a toy at all but something far more evil.

‘That’s all I can remember, the rest was a blur’ I replied.

Text A Transcript

Text A transcript

Four boys are playing a computer game. One of the boys named Andrew is playing whilst the others are watching.

From text A It shows that ben is the most dominant out of the group as he tells the others many instructions using imperative nouns. An example of this would be from the sentence ‘OK now throw a light sabre through’. This shows that Ben is quite bossy and you can tell from the language he uses he is controlling and likes to be in charge.

Andrew is shown from the transcript to be rather argumentative as he disagrees with Ben when he says ‘No this is what I do every time I kill him’. The noun ‘No’ shows Andrew thinks he knows better than Ben. Also Andrew is very focused on the game as he is the main player so his attention drifts slightly; this is clear from the brief pauses used. For example ‘observe (.) now (.) way number one’ He seems to have a lot of knowledge on the game so he may have played it a few times before.

Carl and David are clearly the weaker speakers in the group as they do not add much conversation, they tend to be listen more rather than direct. David is shown to be laughing from the use of’ (laughs)’ this shows he may prefer to listen to the others play and could be less confident,  the fact he is laughs shows interest which means he is enjoying watching. David and Carl are both seen to be laughing again towards the end of the transcript which shows they are on the same wavelength and share a similar role of watching rather than getting too involved. David also says towards the end ‘Machine gun (.) the machine gun’ which once again shows he is concentrating on what’s happening and wants to help his friend.

Ben is clearly the most dominant of the four and Andrew listens to Ben however can also go against what ben is saying, this show’s they are both quite strong and confident characters. However David and Carl share the similarity of being less confident and influential to the game but enjoy observing the game.