Teenager's Love Life Written as a Diary Entry

Teenager's Love Life Written as a Diary Entry

I wrote a short story for a teenage magazine aimed at girls of

approximately 14 years of age. This story would relate to teenagers

and may even advise in certain situations. It is a short story about a

teenager’s love life written as a diary entry.

I modelled my story on the short stories found in teenage magazines,

aimed at girls of the same age range that I have written for.

In research I have carried out into language and writing short

stories, I found a section about the language and style of magazines.

This text displayed the variety in magazines and some of the features

mentioned, I have used where I felt appropriate. For example, I

considered the length of paragraphs ‘to suggest visually that the

content is light and undemanding, a technique widely employed by

magazines.’ This would also apply to the intended audience of my

piece, as a long text that seems as though it would need more

concentration would not appeal to this age group.

The lexis in my piece is not complex, but very accessible. The text

contains some lexis which is Latinate in origin, such as ‘appreciate’

which shows sophistication. However lexis such as this lexical verb is

not often used.

When writing my piece I decided it was not necessary to use proper

nouns as it is a first person narrative. There are also only two

characters involved and therefore with the use of proper nouns such as

names, this piece may have become quite clumsy and confused. The fact

that it is written in diary format is also a factor in this decision

as a diary is secret, and the fact that the use of proper nouns is

very limited keeps this theme. It shows the text to be secret and

personal to the writer.

In the opening paragraph of the text I aimed to engage the reader by

the use of the pronoun ‘you’ which immediately tells the reader that

they are being spoken to.