２００８年１１月號“一起寫故事”征文點評

Ｂｙ　Ａｄｏｒａ　Ｓｖｉｔａｋ

The Shadow in Casement

All the things in the day emerged from brain, cold sweat ran at the face.

This very morning, a band of wild and rude young fellows intercepted1) him when he was on the way to school. This little boy is called Skyler, who is a typical student. They snatched2) his school-bag and warned him not to inform anyone else....

Skyler was surrounded by the night; he did not want to do anything. In a while, he recalled his parents, who were in heaven. He also couldn't understand why he tried hard but everyone always bullied3) him. What should he do?

Since that day, Skyler didn't study hard any longer, he played all day long.

One day, after school, when he passed a road, a woman's shadow plugged into his eyes. It was obvious that the baby was crying and the woman was coaxing4) her little kid in that casement. She shook her arms in order that the baby would stop crying and start to smile. What a charming view! As a result, Skyler remembered something in his childhood: the children climbed and gamboled5) at the tree. Suddenly, the brunch snapped, he fell down and cried, "Help! Help!" His father and mother came; they carried him in the arms and went back to their house. It wasn't serious about his injury. However, this child pleaded with his parents for buying the snacks. If not, he would not stop crying. Ultimately, he obtained lots of food...Two tears of regret burst out of his eyes. He became aware that the lost time would never be found again; everyone should cherish time.

Later, Skyler tried his best to study. He often waited to see that shadow in casement when he was sad or worried. While the shadow floats in his mind, he confirms his belief that: all people should take charge of their own destinies throughout their lives.

This piece is touching, thoughtful, and moving, but some mistakes throughout the writing made it difficult to understand at first.

Clarity

表意明確

The first sentence of the piece, "All the things in the day emerged from brain, cold sweat ran at the face," is very unclear. This is a run-on sentence6). As a reader, I don't know whose face you are writing about and whose brain you are referring to.

(文章的首句，作者的本意可能是想要模仿電影中的特寫鏡頭，“所有的事情涌上心頭，冷汗不禁流下臉頰”。但這句話結構不完整，表意也不明確，會給讀者造成困惑。而且這個句子還犯了“連寫句”的錯誤：兩個分句的主語不相同，是兩個獨立的句子，不能僅用逗號來連接，需用連接詞。)

Ideas/Content

寓意與內容

This piece had some very meaningful insights, like Skyler's realization that lost time would never be found again. However, we should try to use a technique called "Show, not Tell" when we are writing stories. Instead of saying "Bob was sad," you could show that Bob was sad by describing a scene of him crying. In this piece, the author used a lot of "telling."

(這篇文章的出彩之處在于主人公Skyler的思想覺悟和轉變。但是在表現這一過程時，作者運用了大量十分直白的敘述，忽略了一條非常重要的寫作準則：“Show, not tell ”。建議同學們在寫作時，多運用描述性的語言來表現故事的場景或者是主人公的心理活動和變化等，盡量避免平淡的直接敘述。)

Tenses

時態

One of the major problems in this story is that tenses are inconsistent throughout the piece. For example, the sentence, "All the things in the day emerged from brain, cold sweat ran at the face," is in the past tense. Words like "emerged" and "ran" are in the past tense. But then tenses started growing inconsistent when the first paragraph began with the sentence "This very morning," which indicates present tense. The tense switched back to past tense—"a band of wild and rude young fellows intercepted him when he was on the way to school," and then to present tense—"This little boy is called Skyler, who is a typical student." Switching back and forth between two tenses makes your writing hard to understand and confusing to readers. To improve, choose one tense—either past or present—and then make changes accordingly.

(本文最大的問題之一便是時態混亂，僅在開篇的第一、二段就出現了兩種不同的時態：一般過去時和一般現在時，這會令讀者對故事發生的時間產生疑惑，有礙理解。作者需將全文的時態統一，建議選用一般過去時來講述已經發生的故事。)

Word Spelling/Choice

單詞的拼寫及選用

There was a lot of excellent word choice in this piece—the author used words like "gamboled" and "casement." However, there was one mistake—the author wrote, "Suddenly, the brunch snapped, he fell down" at one point in the story. Since "brunch" is a large mid-morning meal that combines breakfast and lunch, the author should replace "brunch" with "branch."

(從文章中可以推測，本文作者的詞匯量十分豐富，寫作時選用了大量精彩又不失準確的單詞和詞組，為文章增色不少。但遺憾的是，文中還是出現了拼寫錯誤：brunch是breakfast和lunch的合成詞，表示“早午餐”，而文中應使用的詞是branch，意思是“樹枝”。可見，單詞的拼寫錯誤往往會影響意思的正確傳達，同學們在寫作中一定要多加注意。)

Grammar

語法

In one passage, the author wrote, "Suddenly, the brunch snapped, he fell down and cried, 'Help! Help!' The author incorrectly used a comma between the word "snapped" and the phrase "he fell down." By using a comma, the author turned the passage into a run-on sentence. Ways to fix this error are either dividing the passage into two separate sentences (Suddenly, the branch snapped. He fell down...), or replacing the comma with the word "and" (Suddenly, the branch snapped and he fell down...).

(同文章的首句所犯的語法錯誤一樣，這句話也是一個“連寫句”。)

Vocabulary

1. intercept [7IntE5sept] vt. 攔截；截住

2. snatch [snAtF] vt. 奪；奪走，奪得

3. bully [5bulI] vt. 威嚇，脅迫；欺侮

4. coax [kEuks] vt. 勸誘；哄

5. gambol [5^AmbEl] vi. 蹦跳；嬉戲

6. run-on sentence: 連寫句(指該用句號、分號或連接詞之處而錯用逗號的句子)