English Language AS Level Coursework: Creative Writing Piece

Victoria Holdsworth-Swan Final Draft

You had no idea until it was too late. You tell yourself it’s not your fault, desperate for relief from the guilt, but the words ring hollow; even unspoken they are fake. You know you could have changed things, you had a chance but you ignored it, afraid, and turned your back. It’s too late now, and the desolation and deathly stillness in the wake of the storm is your punishment, filling you with memories and relentless guilt. Every second brings another fond memory: the way he breathed when he slept, eyes half open, lips curved in half a smile; the way his hand would creep into yours and you knew he needed you; the way he cried when he hurt you and you always forgave him, knowing he would always forgive you… The way he told you he loved you. There’ll be no kissing to make up, not now. With each little realisation of each little loss, another little thing you’ll never have again, you heart breaks a bit more, until you’re sure there can be nothing left to break.

You passed his mother in the street the other day, and her eyes were blank, lifeless. You imagine yours are the same, pools of frozen grief. The guilt bites down a little harder; how many more people have you hurt with your careless handling of his heart?

Sometimes you forget – almost – that it is real, and you’re happy for a while, but when you remember it hits you like a bullet in the chest and you feel like screaming, sobbing until you can no longer breathe, no longer feel. You have no right to be happy, when he is gone because of you. What right do you even have to grieve him, self-pitying as it is? Remembering that day and knowing you could have changed things, that with a moment’s thought, a word, a single action you could have changed everything… your mind in its turmoil, the storm of bitter emotions a constant torment, can barely take in the extent of your guilt. All the regret in the world can’t change the past, but that doesn’t stop the pain. That ache in your heart that reminds you, every day, every minute, of what you are seems there to stay; you can see no end to the pain.

The relief you feel, the release from your emotional torment as you draw the blade across your skin, the way you feel so calm, like nothing else can make you feel – that’s why you do it. Because you don’t know another way to stop the pain, other than to create your own.

This is a preview of the whole essay

They tell you that time is the best healer, just wait and see, it’ll be alright. But what do they know? You’re sure that no one could understand the pain you feel, knowing that you are to blame for the world turning upside down, your life and those of so many others shattering into so many pieces that recovery seems impossible. You could never explain the way the guilt eats into your conscience, your soul, every minute of every day until you can’t stand to think. They think they understand, but they don’t know what it is to kneel on your bedroom floor in an agony of guilt and remorse, cheeks wet with tears, wrists wet with blood, the knife before you your worst enemy and your best friend, the only way you know to ease the ache inside you. Could anyone understand how it feels to laugh and joke with friends, knowing it’s an act to keep them happy and that all the time you’re living a lie? Worse, how could you put into words the self hatred you feel hearing people, your own friends, even, talking about it, how it is a plea for attention, pathetic, and nodding and agreeing, laughing, then making your excuses and sobbing in a toilet cubicle, because maybe it’s true. It doesn’t feel that way – if you were doing it for attention surely you would have told somebody, but no one knows. You know it is more than that, anyway. In a way, you see it as your way of paying for what you did – you inflicted so much pain on others that you deserve the pain you cause yourself. You broke so many promises, told so many lies… and now you’ve destroyed the lives of people you could never be worthy of knowing. The sense of worthlessness drives you to it sometimes – some days you cut yourself just to see yourself bleed, to prove to yourself it’s not a nightmare, only to wish it were.

You know it’s become an addiction – no physical addiction, but a deep, consuming need to do it all the same. As much as you want to fight it sometimes, you can’t, and it terrifies you. You tell no one, because you are afraid of their judgement, their hatred. You’re so alone, just you and your guilt, your consciousness a fragile raft on the raging sea of your emotions… just waiting for someone to throw you a lifeline.

So many people live in constant pain, and don’t tell anyone they are hurting themselves because they are afraid of how they will be thought of by people who don’t understand how a self-harmer feels. It is not always a cry for attention, but the only way that person has to escape their emotional pain. If you know someone who self harms, don’t judge them – try to understand. Everyone needs help sometimes.

(Word count: 922)

Commentary

Although the main purpose of my piece is to inform, it would not have been appropriate to use a dry, factual style, as the topic is very emotional and requires careful handling. Because I wanted to investigate the emotions of self-harmers in my piece, I decided to write with a wandering, stream-of-thought type tone to emphasise and describe in depth the emotions I wanted to portray, in order to allow the reader to understand through empathising with the subject.

I wrote my piece as a kind of short story to investigate the emotions of someone who self harms, with the intention of submitting it to a forum for the sharing of writing, such as WritersCafe.com. As it is a narrative piece, there is no particular graphology. I tried to put it into paragraphs that would create more impact on the reader, by separating ideas such as the reasons for harming oneself, the action and feelings provoked by it, and the consequences emotionally for a self-harmer, but I kept cohesion throughout by using semantic fields of specific emotions, for example guilt, which is mentioned in almost every paragraph. (“…desperate for relief from the guilt… The guilt bites down a little harder… can barely take in the extent of your guilt…” and so on.) I constantly focused on emotions throughout the piece, describing them and the way the subject feels in almost every sentence, as I felt this was the best way to make the reader empathise with the subject, and therefore take on board and understand the message of the piece. The language used is fairly simple, with little subject specific vocabulary and mainly compound and simple sentences, so that anyone could understand it, specifically readers in their late teens, which is my intended audience. There are a lot of modifiers as it is a descriptive piece with great emphasis on describing emotions. I used many adjectives such as “relentless”, “bitter” and “constant” to show the extent to which the emotions of the subject affect them. Through this overuse of adjectives I hoped to help the reader to understand how the subject feels and why they self harm.

The register is quite formal in the language used, although it is written using the pronoun “you” (“You had no idea until it was too late”) which would usually make it informal. This pronoun use is intended to make the piece more personal, almost as if the reader is eavesdropping on someone’s thoughts. However, it seems almost impersonal in parts, which was meant to show how people can feel detached from themselves when they are self-harming. It is written to seem like a stream of thought, as if the subject is talking to him or herself. This is a very personal way of writing the piece, which I thought would help to make it more moving and emotional, as the purpose is to make people aware of the reasons for self harming, which means in depth description of emotions is required to help the reader to understand are necessary. It is entirely in Standard English, although it does use elision in places (“There’ll be no kissing to make up…” “…that doesn’t stop the pain”) which makes it less formal and in a way more accessible for the reader, making it easier for them to be drawn into the piece and understand it.

I tried to write my piece so that it bordered between prose and poetry. I felt that this would make it more powerful. Although this technique can make a narrative lack realism, I felt that in the context of my piece it would emphasise the notion of the subject’s loss of connection with reality, which is an important part of the message I was attempting to convey.

I made some deliberate changes for specific effects between each draft. For example, I changed a section near the end of my second draft, which consisted of many rapid-fire questions, which seemed far too aggressive for the purpose of my piece, which was not to accuse the reader or to put them on the spot, but to make them understand the emotions of the subject. I therefore changed this section, softening the interrogative tone to one that the reader could empathise with more easily.

(Word count: 714)