Source extract
In time, the memories of that first day would come back to Max as a peculiar collection of random images. To begin with, as soon as the vans stopped outside the house and Robin and Philip had started to unload the luggage, Mr Carver managed to trip over an old bucket, propelling himself at dizzying speed onto the white fence and knocking down at least four metres of it.
‘Are you all right, dear?’ asked his wife.
‘Never better,’ he replied, his right foot still trapped in the bucket. ‘It’s a sign of good luck.’
‘I knew he was going to say that,’ muttered Alicia.
Mrs Carver shot her a warning look.
The two porters carried the luggage as far as the front porch and, apparently considering their mission accomplished, vanished in an instant, leaving the family to do the honours of dragging the trunks up the stairs.
‘Another good omen,’ Alicia commented dryly.
When Maximilian Carver solemnly opened the front door, a musty smell wafted out through the opening like a ghost that had been trapped between the walls for many years. Inside, a thin haze of dust hovered in the faint light that filtered through the blinds in slanting razors of gold.
‘My God,’ Max’s mother muttered to herself, as she estimated the tons of dust that would have to be removed.
‘Isn’t it marvellous?’ Maximilian Carver said hurriedly. ‘I told you so.’
Max exchanged a look with his sister Alicia, while Irina gazed open-mouthed at the interior of the house. Before anyone could utter another word, Irina’s cat jumped out of her arms and charged inside with a loud meow.
‘At least somebody likes it,’ Max heard Alicia grumble.
A second later, following the cat’s example, Maximilian Carver stepped into the family’s new home.
The first thing Mrs Carver instructed them to do was open all the doors and windows to air the house. When that had been done, the whole family spent a few hours making their new home habitable. With the precision of a specialised task force, each member attacked a specific job. Alicia was in charge of bedrooms and beds. Irina, duster in hand, knocked down castles of dust, and Max, following her trail, was in charge of sweeping them up. Their mother busied herself distributing the suitcases and made a mental note of all the jobs that would have to be done. Mr Carver devoted all his efforts to ensuring that water pipes, electricity and other mechanical devices were back in working order after years of neglect – which did not turn out to be an easy undertaking.
Writing task
Write the next chapter of The Prince of Mist. [25]
Practise this exact question with personalised feedback on your writing.
Understand the task
Pick up after Max’s family arrives at the unfamiliar house. Use the established characters and small oddities in the setting to foreshadow a larger mystery.
- plot continuity
- foreshadowing
- tension
- descriptive action
Requirements to keep in mind
Write the next chapter of The Prince of Mist; 25 marks.
Plan your response
- Keep Max and his family recognisable from the extract.
- Use the old house as part of the atmosphere.
- Introduce one intriguing new event.
- End with a question or mystery that invites another chapter.
Check your response against the task requirements. Leave time to review sentence clarity, punctuation and spelling.
Original atoply example response
Written by atoply, not an official school answer or mark scheme. Other successful responses are possible.
Reveal example and teaching notes
Max stood in the hallway with a broom in one hand and a mountain of dust at his feet. Somewhere upstairs, Alicia was complaining about the beds, while his father insisted that the stubborn kitchen tap was “almost fixed”. The house creaked around them like an elderly person waking from a long sleep.
Then Irina’s cat shot past Max with its fur standing upright. It disappeared through a narrow doorway beneath the stairs. “Come back!” Max called, but the cat answered with a frightened yowl.
He followed it into a cramped cupboard that smelled of damp wood. Among broken picture frames and jars of rusty nails lay a small wooden box. The lid was decorated with a circle of tiny stars. Max wiped away the dust and discovered that the box had no lock, only a brass button shaped like an eye.
“Max!” Alicia shouted from the stairs. “Mum says lunch!”
“I’m coming,” he replied, slipping the box into his pocket. As he turned to leave, the cupboard door swung shut by itself. For a moment he stood in complete darkness, listening to a soft ticking sound that seemed to come from inside his pocket.
When he finally managed to open the door, the cat was waiting outside. It stared at the box and hissed.
Learn from the example
- The response reconnects with the source characters and situation instead of retelling the extract. This helps the new writing feel like part of the same scene.
- Compare the narrator, tense and first action with the passage's final moment. Keep any compulsory opening and paragraph limit when writing your own continuation.