Powered By Blogger

Sunday 8 February 2015

“It was just like reading a book by a real author.” And “can I have the next (chapter) one please?”




So the five “chapters” came back from the 11 year old son of my colleague.  As he is in the age group of my target audience I was scared to death and excited in a hopeful kind of way. His dictated comments were written out by his mum.

He was enthusiastic and said it “hooks you in and makes you want to solve it”. He said the strange elements were “No cars on the Avenue and the stone not rippling the water” – the latter being the gateway of the mystery.  He and his mum noted that his eight year old brother didn’t think the lack of cars in the Avenue was anything odd. My colleague commented that she thought he was too young for the piece, to pick up on the nuances – it is intended for 9+.

Also the “chanting (Branwen), Aggy as a winged figure”. The latter comment about Aggy being a winged figure brought me up short – I re-read the section and realised that the crow passing over Aggy while she performs a ritual to protect the scene had not been clearly enough described. He had obviously read the words and clamped the two images together – which is very attractive but Aggy is no angel, or winged in anyway. 

He then went on to ask questions and postulate that the only living person was the boy Luan and that all the other characters were dead and the Avenue was possibly the waiting place before passing to the “other side of the curtain”. He is at a Catholic school and describes his ideas with this telling phrase “A bit like St Peter who lets people into heaven.”
He then goes on to equate the tragedy of Adams family being lost as being the event that brings all the characters together. 

I was disappointed that he’d gone down the wrong road (they are all very much living, somewhat) – but my initial feelings dropped away when I realised he was thinking, speculating and using his own knowledge and beliefs to reason out what was happening to Adam. 

He stated that he could close his eyes and see how each character “looked, walked, behaved …imagine each one” and he liked it being so descriptive as this made the story “more eerie”.  He wished me luck with my degree, thanked me and then asked “can I have the next (chapter) one please?”

I was utterly flattered, shocked and pleased that my experiment had been a success. It shows it’s is pitched for the right age group (something my Tutor had stated over and over to me) and had engaged him. It also showed in the 14-15,000 that I needed to refocus the scene where the elements had confused the image of Aggy and the protecting crow in flight over her as a single winged entity. A wonderful learning point.

This opportunity was another organic “happening”, something that just fell into place during the course and I seized it with both hands and held on. I feel so very lucky that I didn’t let my fear turn my back on this. 

My original fears were:-

What if "he" hates it? Phew! He didn’t.

What if it bores him? Phew! It didn’t bore him.

What if they all hate it? Not pitched for the 8 year old but the colleague and the target liked it and want more.

Was it worth all the apprehension? – OH YES!

Will he get the next chapters? Yes.

Monday 2 February 2015

Audience...

Fifth Assignment completed and assessed (in record time) by Nina Milton, my Tutor. Spent a few evenings re-writing with her suggestions in mind and then saved ready for assessment. Now I am working on the essay and the final course commentary, to be finished by the end of February.

So last week I put the final piece of my course plan into action. I created a single document, split into chapters the same as the assignments, without all the paraphernalia of the requirements of the OCA (headers with Assignment identifiers and student number etc). I thought a more normalized view would make my target volunteer feel more comfortable.

Yes! I was about to turn over the first five chapters of FADE to my colleagues eleven year old son. I was fine, in principle - in a detached way. I printed it off, placed a front sheet - blank, of course, so that other colleagues would not see what I was handing over - and waited for her to come in. Being a busy single parent she arrived at her usual time, flustered and in a flurry that only arriving almost late to work after being up for hours trying to organize and entire household can produce. The usual "good mornings" exchanged between work mates and I sat there silent. She noticed. She smiled. I smiled, my tongue cleaved to the top of my mouth and I got up and walked to the coffee point to get a glass of water.

I returned. I waited. The office settled and there was a general "getting on with things" atmosphere. I got up and stood at my colleagues side and slid the 14,000 plus words onto her desk. She stared and then looked up with a grin. I instantly wanted to run and hide.It was then that she dropped the bombshell that not only would her son be reading it but so would her older daughter - "well it's coming into our house" her brilliant justification, which made me smile - and she ("of course") would read it with them.

Now I REALLY wanted to run and hide.

"That's okay isn't it?"

Not really an open question, I thought and a little unfair having been thoroughly ambushed. I shrugged and said "Yeah" as casually as I could. I sat down - panic flooding through every corpuscle and nerve ending.

I drank the glass of water.

This was good. An almost twelve year old (target audience), a fifteen year old and a work colleague of forty would be reading it; "more the merrier", surely? Yes, of course - get on with your work.

What if "he" hates it?
What if it bores him?
What if they all hate it?
This felt like the nerves I had going in for my abdominal surgery five years ago.

I realized that I had not put any questions for him to answer on the blank front page; I asked for the piece back. Reluctantly, it was placed on my desk and I stared at it, suddenly I was unable to think of three perfectly leveled questions that would give me perfect feedback.I picked up my pen and wrote "Comments?"

Then I handed it back.

The following day my colleague rushed in beaming. The usual good mornings and I tried not to look at her, her desk, anything around her; in fact I was accused of staring at my own computer screen and looking furious about something. I was embarrassed and scared.

Then she leaned over, still grinning.

"He's hooked! He had to be forced to stop reading it last night and go to bed. Well, we both stopped at the same place, end of chapter two," she said. She was beaming again, she leaned forward and added "You HAVE to publish it!"

I laughed - quite a bit more loudly than I envisaged - then I replied "I have to finish writing it first."

It's been five days so far. Five days of thinking about them reading it, wondering, wishing and being generally scared to death that I have made a mistake.

I thought this was a good idea. It is. What I hadn't bargained on was the feeling of being exposed. I feel completely at their mercy - an eleven year old, fifteen year old and a forty year old could crush and devastate me.

Am I proud of FADE? Yes, what there is of it. Do I want to finish it? God, yes. Did I think this would be easy. No! But I thought the easy bit would be handing it over (to the target audience) and getting feedback.

Another learning point - scary or not.