GCSE Descriptive Writing

The Solo

This is a piece I just quickly wrote to show you how the example I used in the Moment in time Structure would work.

1. Piles of plates stacked like pebbles on a beach, new customers appearing at the door every time I checked my watch: the evening was a busy one to say the least.

It was a paper collage of rushing waiters, happy couples, and tables laiden with delicate meals and wine glasses painted with lipstick stains.  Waves of noise rose and fell throughout the room, the gentle chatter fluctuating between small talk and deep conversation. The soft aromas of spices, chocolate puddings and roast dinner snaked between the crowds of table legs and pushed my stomach into an almost constant chant of hunger.

I tried my best to focus on my table. The candle's flame climbed gradually down the wick, until it was near the edge of being distinguished, fighting to stay above the pool of melted wax. It flickered gently in and out of existence, like TV static. It irritated me more than I could understand why.

I shifted in my seat, swallowed, flipped my napkin one way and then the other, checked my reflection in the black screen of my phone.

2. The evening, for me, had started hours ago, when I applied makeup with the utmost precision, retracing the lines that his eyes had drawn on my face. When I dressed, I remembered where his smile had left impressions of warmth on my body, and I left those areas bare. So it was now, with uncovered arms and my pale legs on exhibit, that I shivered slightly, and suddenly the flickering flame wasn't so aggravating.

"I'll see you at eight, then?"
"Definitely." He had said.
And the world span a little faster.

3. Yet now the hands of my watch spun slowly, agonisingly, until the clock face displayed a horrible realisation.

Suddenly it felt like I was sat directly in the middle of the restaurant, and every eye was trained on me, watching as my face blossomed red and I picked obsessively at my own nails. Every person in the room fed me pity until I choked, and passed their judgement on me as if I was a shaking defendant in a courtroom's box.

Of course, they did all of this without looking up from their meals, but I still felt just as conspicuous, staring across the table at a chair whose emptiness was impossibly loud to me.

I stood, allowing my chair to join the hollow crescendo, and hurriedly walked out the restaurant's doors as the candle's flame finally dwindled and went out.

———————————————————————-
So, as you can see, the piece is set in a moment in time: the girl waiting in the restaurant.

1. Describing the setting. Using the introduction to introduce the setting and also the character's emotions, without really saying anything head on. Reveal facts through description.

2. Small flashbacks in the character's mind allows you to tell the plot much more quickly than actually writing about a whole sequence of events. Keep it descriptive. Maybe add some dialogue.

3. End the piece by moving on from the moment in time and allowing something small to happen. It can be some kind of plot twist but it doesn't have to be. Make sure it is clear the piece has ended.

And that's it! Try it out if you want, see if it works for you. This is just my process :)

Also if you guys could respond to the question I posted in the conversation section that would be a big help, thank you!