There, perfectly poised at the side
of the road she stood. Veronica Thorn, flicking her long, brunette hair out of
her face, adjusting the oversized sunglasses, and buttoning up her crystal
white, tailored suit. Her shiny, red lipstick glistening in the sunlight at
every movement, and from her cherry lips, she called ‘Taxi!’ waving her arm in
the air. The streets were flooded with yellow New York taxis, and with the
hustle of the city behind her, it drowned out her call. Again, she called, and
finally a taxi appeared in front of her. Thorn gracefully entered the taxi,
abruptly telling the taxi driver where to go, without looking up from her iPhone.
The taxi driver was a pleasant man, short and stubby, wearing an old fashioned
flat cap, he was keen to talk to Veronica, and was asking her how her day had
been so far. But Veronica did not acknowledge then poor man, she sat there in
silence scrolling down the newsfeed of her business Facebook page, popping her
chewing gum every other second.
The taxi driver had a yellow,
diamond shaped sign in the front of his cab, which read ‘DONS TAXI’ in bold,
black lettering. Veronica had noticed this, and finally looked up from her iPhone
screen and stated,
“Look Don, I am using your service
to get to work, not to make friends okay?”
Don looked taken aback, and caught
the eye contact of Veronica in his rear view mirror.
“Of course Veronica, from now on I
will not utter a word”.
The taxi journey from Veronica’s
apartment to work, only takes approximately fifteen minutes, no matter who is
driving, and the same route to work is always taken. Veronica was especially stressed this
morning. Within the past couple of days, a number of strange things have
happened to her, or tried to happen to her. Tuesday for example, which was two
days ago, Veronica was eating at her favourite restaurant, and she ordered what
she orders every time she visits, a ‘Root Vegetable Salad’. Although, this was
not quite the salad that Veronica has ordered in the past. This salad had Cumin
oil drizzled all over it. Maybe this was a mistake? But how could it be?
Veronica is allergic to Cumin, and if ever she is swallows it, her throat
begins to swell, to the point where she could stop breathing. The restaurant
know all of Veronicas food likes, dislikes and allergies, so why would the do
something like this? Maybe ‘they’ didn’t…
Something else that Veronica was a
little concerned about, was the incident in her apartment last night. When
Veronica arrives home from work, she likes to snuggle on the sofa, and light a
few candles to help her relax. It is common sense to blow out the candles
before going to bed, and this is what Veronica does every night. However, last
night, about an hour after blowing the candles out and going to bed, Veronica
smelt smoke coming from her living room. She bolts up out of bed and runs to
the living room, only to see a small fire near the door way. The candle had
been relit, and a piece of paper was burning on the candle. Firstly, Veronica
thought, she keeps all of her candles on the table, so why would it be on the
floor, and nearly blocking the doorway? Was someone trying to kill her? Or this
is how it seemed.
This morning, during the taxi
journey, Veronica was on edge and kept replaying scenarios in her head of how
these strange things could be happening. It was only a matter of time before
something else went wrong, and before something else or someone else tried to
kill her. Then out of nowhere, a car, at high speed crashed into the side of
the taxi, flipping it over onto its roof, before slowing tilting onto its side
again. Veronica and Don screamed in terror, rolling around in the taxi, banging
on the seats and the side of the taxi, Veronica’s iPhone smashing adding more
shatters of glass to the scene. It was over so quickly. Both of them lay there
in shock. Blood dripping from both faces, cuts covered their bodies, but no
bones were broken. They had a lucky escape. Veronica looked up, and saw Don
stuck under one of the seats. Veronica was not trapped, so she climbed over the
mess of the taxi, and struggled to free Don. The seat had completely fallen off
its hinges, so it just needed flipping over. Eventually both were free from the
taxi and alive. A passer-by rang the police and an ambulance, so that Veronica
and Don could be properly looked after. Veronica was lost for words. She sat
there in shock and silence. Why did the other car involved just drive off and
leave? Who was driving? And why were all of these life threatening events keep
happening to her? Each day is getting worse and worse. What could possibly
happen to her tomorrow, would she even be alive this time tomorrow?
After a few hours at the hospital,
Veronica was told she could go home, but she had to stay off work for the next
day or two as she needed to rest. Veronica rang her sister to pick her up and
drive her home, after the day she has had she wasn’t getting into another taxi
for a while. As she was dropped off outside her building, Veronica walked up
the stairs and along the hallway to her apartment, to find that her door was
unlatched and ajar. Entering her apartment with caution and checking every
room, Veronica could confirm that no one was in there. This day keeps getting
stranger and stranger. Veronica was going to be living in fear, in the supposed
comfort of her own home. Walking into the kitchen to have one last check,
Veronica noticed a note taped to her fridge. She walked closer to read it, and
she could not believe what she was reading. There, written in blue ink was a
note which read ‘you have been lucky so
far, but til death do us part right...’
COMMENTARY
Within my short story, I chose to
base it on a mystery, without it being too overbearing and difficult to follow,
as I know some mystery novels can easily go off topic and make the reader lose
interest. I have a tendency to base my writing on events that I have witnessed,
interesting personalities I have seen walking along the street, or my own
personal experiences. The reason I chose to base my writing on these factors, I
because I find it a lot easier to write using a visual source. For example, if I
saw an interesting person in the middle of the town, with extravagant dress
sense or hair colour, I would be intrigued by them. I would then think about
what their life may be like, or what job they may have, and just from these
thoughts, I link them all together and come up with a little story about them. This
is how I chose my main character ‘Veronica’. I saw this beautiful woman when I was
visiting London earlier this year, and she was just getting into a taxi.
Although she did not shout ‘taxi!’ like she does in my story, this is what I wanted
her character to be like. Also, the woman that I saw was probably a lovely
woman and very polite, however I wanted to contrast this and make Veronica the
opposite. I used my personal experience of being in a car crash to come up with
that event, as I know what it feel like to be in that situation and the effects
it has on you afterwards. I thought if I wrote about this, I could relate to
it, it is something that I know about and can hopefully present effectively.
My aims changed throughout the
story as I originally wanted it to be based on the car crash alone, but as I was
writing I wanted to link the car crash to something, and that is when I had the
idea to link it to other events to create a mystery. I found it quite difficult
to describe the car crash with the little word count I was given, and I began
to think that I should add more events in to make it a series of events. As I was
writing, I kept receiving different ideas of how it could all link, and who could
be at the end of it all, which I was not going to tell the reader. The only
reason I gave the hint at the end of the story, was to create closure, to sum
everything up. For example, a husband would know his wife very well and what
food she was allergic to, so if he ever did want to poison her or kill her like
in the story, then he would know exactly what to do.
It was very interesting writing
this story, I enjoy writing for children and young adults, so I do not tend to
write in a mysterious way. I wanted to challenge myself and see what I could do
with all of the ideas and thoughts that I had. Therefore, I did not try to
emulate certain authors or story lines because I hardly read mystery novels, I enjoy
reading books like ‘Paper Towns’ (Green 2008) and ‘If you could see my now’
(Ahern 2005) which are quite different to mystery. However, I think I was very
successful, and after this experience in writing a mystery, I am very likely to
continue and push my writing further.
Showing my work to my peers was
very effective, as they informed me on what I could add in to make it more effective.
For example, they told me to end the story with a note from the person at the
end of the life threatening events, so I took on board that comment and that is
what I did. Originally, the taxi driver in the story was named ‘Ron’, but
luckily, one of my peers informed me that ‘Veronica’ and ‘Ron’ were two main characters
in a popular film called ‘Anchorman’ (2004), I was not aware of this, and
decided to choose a different name for ‘Ron’.
I feel that my strengths in my
writing are from the ideas that I have. As I previously said that I get my
ideas from visual sources, and can imagine what the context could be like for
that certain individual, I am able to come up with a lot of imaginary events
that could happen in their life. With this, I am able to start planning my
writing straight away. If I was not able to think about this so early on, then
it would delay my writing, leaving less time for redrafting processes. I also
think that my writing if very easy to follow, and the language that I use is
not confusing or over bearing for the reader. I want my writing and my stories
to be read easily, without the reader thinking too much about the story.
My weaknesses in my writing is that
I am not familiar with writing in different genres, like horror or fantasy for
example. I normally stick to what I am familiar with, which is writing for
children mainly. This could be because of the style of books that I read, I do
not read horror or fantasy, whereas if I did I may get a clearer understanding
of the style and my inspired to write this way. This is why I decided to write
a mystery story, as it is a genre that I completely new to writing. This is an
example of the progress that I have made, and then way in which I am trying to
develop my skills, and after this experience, I am going to carry on and see
what else I am capable of.
References
Green, J. (2008) Paper Towns
Ahern, C. (2005) If you could see me now
