２００８年１１月号“一起写故事”征文点评

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

表意明确

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电影中的特写镜头，“所有的事情涌上心头，冷汗不禁流下脸颊”。但这句话结构不完整，表意也不明确，会给读者造成困惑。而且这个句子还犯了“连写句”的错误：两个分句的主语不相同，是两个独立的句子，不能仅用逗号来连接，需用连接词。)

Ideas/Content

寓意与内容

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."

(这篇文章的出彩之处在于主人公Skyler的思想觉悟和转变。但是在表现这一过程时，作者运用了大量十分直白的叙述，忽略了一条非常重要的写作准则：“Show, not tell ”。建议同学们在写作时，多运用描述性的语言来表现故事的场景或者是主人公的心理活动和变化等，尽量避免平淡的直接叙述。)

Tenses

时态

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.

(本文最大的问题之一便是时态混乱，仅在开篇的第一、二段就出现了两种不同的时态：一般过去时和一般现在时，这会令读者对故事发生的时间产生疑惑，有碍理解。作者需将全文的时态统一，建议选用一般过去时来讲述已经发生的故事。)

Word Spelling/Choice

单词的拼写及选用

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."

(从文章中可以推测，本文作者的词汇量十分丰富，写作时选用了大量精彩又不失准确的单词和词组，为文章增色不少。但遗憾的是，文中还是出现了拼写错误：brunch是breakfast和lunch的合成词，表示“早午餐”，而文中应使用的词是branch，意思是“树枝”。可见，单词的拼写错误往往会影响意思的正确传达，同学们在写作中一定要多加注意。)

Grammar

语法

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语法错误一样，这句话也是一个“连写句”。)

Vocabulary

1. intercept [7IntE5sept] vt. 拦截；截住

2. snatch [snAtF] vt. 夺；夺走，夺得

3. bully [5bulI] vt. 威吓，胁迫；欺侮

4. coax [kEuks] vt. 劝诱；哄

5. gambol [5^AmbEl] vi. 蹦跳；嬉戏

6. run-on sentence: 连写句(指该用句号、分号或连接词之处而错用逗号的句子)