TMA02 Commentary

This is my commentary for TMA02. It wont make a lot of sense without having read the story first - but it is a commentary that received a full twenty marks so might be of interest as reference for those struggling with this element of the A215 TMAs.

I wrote TMA02 based on ideas in the Workbook chapters ‘Raiding your past’ and ‘Writing what you know.’(Neale, D. 2011) which allowed me to concentrate on my own original writing. I revisited the activities in the Workbook to do with memory and referred to my writer’s notebook of recorded memories. I also spent extra time looking at the techniques of point of view, structuring, character, setting, and show and tell as I believed that for the story I had in mind involving a retelling of memories those techniques would feature heavily. Away from the Workbook I also considered feedback and exercises from the online tutorials and the various OU forums.
I had two memories listed under ‘School Days:’ ‘I Forgot to Ask’ and ‘The Odd Winners’ (Ragan, M. 2011 p.20-26). I thought both provided good opportunities to practise the ‘show and tell’ techniques described in the Workbook (Neale, D. 2011. p.127) which I was keen to demonstrate. Also a number of workplace settings in my notebook including a carpenter’s workshop and a work’s canteen (Ragan, M. 2011 p.46-67) from Workbook Activity (6.6) and drew inspiration from these when I described the Sudbury’s home and the Janitor’s working area. I tried for a good balance of show and tell through sensory descriptions I practised in Workbook Activities (9.1/2/3) and improved from feedback from the OU Tutorial.
My ambition was to describe these fairly normal settings through defamiliarising the known techniques discussed in Chapter 9 (Anderson, L. 2011) to invigorate these settings. I had in mind Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie in describing minute sensory details and Raymond Carver’s idea that mundane activities can be written about in interesting ways. (Workbook, p.57 and p.20)
The plot of rivalry and ambition was the supporting framework, but Giles/Andrews characters remained flat and did just enough. Rick and Marlene needed to be more rounded and complex: Rick, insecure/confident with his own motivation behind recounting the stories, Marlene, seeming confident but insecure, supportive of Rick but anxious about the game. I felt that they needed to be sympathetic characters and following feedback from TMA01 I aimed at the right amount of humour/sadness in the tone.
As Marlene was reluctant about the party I thought it more effective to have access to her thoughts with her p/o/v using third person limited as discussed in the A215 Tutorial and the Workbook. (Anderson, L. 2011. p.113) I wanted Rick’s lines to be in first person dramatic present to provide the tension associated with whether he could finally impress his boss with his public speaking whilst not revealing the secret of how he and Marlene, as a couple, really met up. I hoped this structuring would generate tension for the reader in whether Rick’s monologue would be successfully delivered whilst also feeling some empathy with Marlene’s concerns for Rick and her discomfort. I thought about Nellie’s third person narration in Wuthering Heights, (Bronte, E. 1847) but thought direct character experience better here. This story involves many strands which I hope connect into a successful whole, though I think I may have been a bit ambitious with the sketchy subplots of ambition.