The door of Michael’s chicken and chip shop opened. Two men walked in. There was one man at the counter.

‘What you gonna have?’ One of the men said.

‘I dunno yet,’ The other one said. ‘what are you going to have Al?’ Al ignored him. He was too busy looking at the food list above the counter. The lights were bright inside. It was about 7pm so it has gotten dark outside.

‘So,’ said Al ‘I’m going to have a chicken leg along with large chips.’

‘There are only wings left.’ The man behind the counter intruded.

‘What?’

‘There are no-‘

‘Why is it up there then?’

‘We ran out about ten minutes ago from the recent customers.’ A head poked out of the doorway leading to the kitchen. The cook knew arguments were going on. He went back round the corner of his small kitchen to stop getting involved.

‘Just give me what you have then.’ Said Al

‘Same here.’ Said Max, Staring at the counter. The two men were given a box with their food. They kept the hoods of their black coats on whilst eating.

‘What drinks do you have mate?’ Max said wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Um, Coke, Fanta, Sprite and more.’ The man replied.

‘Lucozade?’

‘What did you say?’

‘You trying to be funny? Do you have Lucozade, George?’ Max said looking at the name tag on the man’s shirt.

‘Sorry, no.’ George replied.

‘What kind of place is this!’

‘This place ain’t good enough.’ Al said. George was confused. Most people who want a drink let it pass if the place only has a certain selection of drinks. He wanted to be rude but realised it was better of trying to stay off arguments.

‘What’s that look on your face, huh?’ Max said. George quickly turned his face to look at the wall.

‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

‘No.’

‘Why you lying.’

‘I’m not.’

Max grabbed George by his shirt. ‘You’re annoying me now.’ Max said. A man in a business suit walked in. He was looking at the floor as he pushed the door open. Al turned round. ‘You better get out of here.’

‘Huh, what’s going on?’ The man looked up darting his eyes around.

‘Unless you wanna get banged, get out.’

The man slowly back stepped through the open door. He was shaking slightly. He walked round the corner until he was out of sight of Al. He reached for his phone in his back pocket. He tried to switch it on and it stayed black.

‘No, switch on!’ He said loudly. Al was about to help out Max until he heard the voice of the business man outside. He pulled open the door and took a look round the corner.

‘Ay you, I see that phone.’ Al shouted. ‘Do you think I’m that dumb, you calling the police.’

‘No I’m not, it is not what it looks like.’ The man said frightened. Al ran out towards him and snatched the out of battery phone.

‘Go home or we’ll get you later.’

The man scrambled off in the dark. Al tried to turn on his phone. The cracked screen stayed black.

‘He wasn’t lying.’ Al said. He returned to the shop. Things returned to a calmer state. Max was sitting on a chair with his arms rested on the table. He put his head down on the table.

‘Ay Al, what’s going on?’

‘Bruv, I had to make sure he didn’t call the police or something.’ Al said.

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘Did he do it?’

‘Nah, I stopped him.’ Al said looking for the man behind the counter. ‘Where’s, um, George?’

‘He’s been dealt with.’ Max said putting away a kitchen knife.

‘Alright then, we done here?’

‘Yeah, let’s get out of this budget place.’

Max and Al walked out the chicken and chip shop. They put their hands in their pockets.

‘You going home now?’ Max said to Al.

‘Yeah sure.’

‘K, see you later bruv.’

‘Cool, see ya.’

Max went the opposite direction of Al. However he realised someone was behind him. Max went into an alleyway but still heard someone’s footsteps at the same noise level.

‘No one goes down this short cut. They’re always afraid of getting mugged or something.’ Max whispered to himself. ‘Is it the police?’ He continued to think a walk. The person behind kept a steady pace.

‘Nothing’s going to happen if I turn round anyway.’ Max thought. ‘It’s probably someone just walking home as well.’ He then acted like he saw something on the wall as he walked past it a tried to catch a glimpse of the person.

‘Damn, didn’t see it properly,’ Max raged in his head. ‘I’ll try again.’ He turned around and flicked his head back. The person was a very tall man. His hands were in his coat pockets. Max walked out of the alleyway to a silent road. His flat was across it.

‘It’s been a busy day, I wanna go bed now.’ Max said to himself whilst rubbing his eyes a bit. The man’s footsteps behind were louder and faster. Max ignored that, he was rummaging all of his pockets for keys. Accidentally he dropped a small pocket knife.

‘Didn’t want to do that dammit, where are my keys?’ he said. The tall figure tailing Max whispers to himself  ‘Good, I’ve been following the right one.’ Max paused outside the flat door to find his keys. He thought he may have dropped them and turned around to see the man crossing the road towards him.

‘You looking for something?’ The man asked.

‘Yeah, I lost my keys somewhere.’ Max said rubbing his eyes again and yawning. His vision became quite blurry. The man noticed this.

‘Are they silver? Is it this?’ The man said getting closer.

‘I think so, pass it here.’

The man held the silvery object by a handle. Max realised too slow. The metal glinted before it pierced his stomach.

‘That’s what you get for killing George.’ The man said. He then put his hands back into his pockets and walked away. Max was left on the pavement bleeding.

I stand here alone. Watching the clouds drift by as the sun sets in the horizon. Soon it will be dark, and I have no where to go. All I do and can do is wander around aimlessly whilst observing everything carefully. It’s like some power I have. Whenever I look at something it’s like I analyse everything about it, almost like words just appear next to the object telling all info about it in front of my very eyes. It’s like not knowing how you move your body, you just somehow do it.

I don’t have a name. I don’t know who my parents are. And I have yet to find out these things. Someone probably murdered them since I can just recall some faint memories of my old village being very rough and dangerous. People were maniacs running around with no brains whilst threatening each other with weapons such as chainsaws. This mechanism must be very treacherous to others but to me not so much. No one would try to kill me. Why? No idea. The sun seems to be lowering slower than usual today. Another thing I have no answer for. I guess I should just sleep and work out what to do next other than to keep wandering around this whole world.

…

What is that!? A rift? Wait a minute. It just says ???. I mean that means it’s not even from this world. To see what’s through this would be amazing but clearly a stupid idea. But then again what else do I have to do with my pointless life. I’m in the middle of no where with nothing to do. Scarce on food and remaining water. Exactly 237ml remaining. I could probably survive and escape this area but what is the point when I had all the time in the world to do that yesterday. Here goes everything I guess…

The open rift instantly collapses inwards whilst ‘The Wanderer’ warps through unconscious. Then he gets spit back out into an old village. He awakes to a familiar sight. The environment is spamming him with numbers and letter in a random sequence due to his mysterious power. This Makes his  brain weak from all the ‘warping’ and is unable to cope all of it. The last sound he heard was a revving chainsaw swerving furiously about  before everything went pitch black.

Shakespeare, a well known man of literature, uses many methods to keep his audience interested in his plays. A play which has many of those methods is Macbeth. For example even things like how the characters argue, fight and influence each other is a sort of method for hooking the audience interest as well as keeping them interested. There ar more of these techniques that Shakespeare uses to make his plays so good.

A technique which is used often in the play Macbeth is ‘Soliloquies’. This is when a character says his thoughts aloud to the audience. Also the person which is saying the soliloquy is usually alone with nothing else around to listen. In a way it’s like when speak to yourself so quietly, no-one can hear it. An example of this is in act 2 scene 1. Macbeth can see a dagger but it isn’t real. “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand?” I think that this is a part where Macbeth starts to show signs of madness and being thirsty for power – to be the king. This is happening because Lady Macbeth has convinced him so much he can see illusions. This is a soliloquy because a couple lines before the quote in the scene showed that everyone had left the room.

A technique which is used throughout the whole play of Macbeth is ‘dramatic irony’. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something the characters may now know. An example of this is when there is a group of people plotting to do something that will lead to a disaster. Like when Lady Macbeth are plotting to commit treason. Only he two of them know about this. This technique kind of links to soliloquies because the person or people are revealing a plot to the audience with no one else around. Except soliloquies have only one person. “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”. This is showing that Lady Macbeth is kind of saying that it will be alright as long as we cover it up and not get suspected. By flower and serpent it means that act all innocent but inside you are actually horrible and a killer. This is dramatic irony as only Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the audience would know about this.

Dramatic irony maintains the audiences interest a lot because it may give a feeling that you want to shout out to the actors that they are going to be murdered. Also it makes the audience want to know how the plot turns out afterwards. Is it successful or not? It builds up a lot of tension which keeps everyone alert. In a way it’s like at the end if a TV show where they make some sort of climax to make you watch the next episode. For instance the main character is on the brink of death or a battle is about to commence.

Most likely one of the most important things which keeps to audience interest is simply the characters. Every story needs characters which are good, bad, trouble makers, etc. A large characteristic used in the play Macbeth is how they influence each other. Changing their thoughts, ambitions and making them a completely different person.

At the start of the play, Macbeth is quite a good, loyal soldier. He thought that king Duncan was a great man and stayed loyal to him. Then the three trouble maker witches came in. These three made a prophesy which made Macbeth have his first change of thought. Deep down, he actually wanted to become the king due to the witches telling him he would in the future. “Let not light see my dark and deep desires.” he says in one of his soliloquies. This quote shows his change of mind, It gradually gets worse and worse once he is convinced by Lady Macbeth to kill Duncan. Once he killed king Duncan, Macbeth becomes king and kind of goes on a blood rampage, killing anyone who might threat his crown. He soon does realise this but says in act 3 scene 4 “I am in blood stepp’d in so far, should I wade no more.” This explains that he has killed so many people already, why stop now? There is no going back. This keeps the audience attention because it makes them see how everything can change from a character’s influence on others.

Another thing that was mentioned a bit before is the large theme of ambition. This comes from and is very similar to the sense of influence. In the section before the changes of mind actually all links to ambition. Macbeth wanting to be king then killing all opposing him and Lady Macbeth wanting much more power. This throughout the play is like what leads the play making it more intense. Also it kind of teaches that power isn’t always the way to go and can change you a lot – but not in the right way.

A small part in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, is how it’s written as a script. The language is thought about quite carefully when it was written. You can tell this because the words have a sort of rhythm called the iambic pentameter. It can be said and written de DUM. In a way it’s like your heartbeat. There other ways of writing it too but these are the easiest to say. (when finished, example here) There are these rhythms all the way through the play. This may answer why someone might start talking in their script and then someone else talks and their text is like all the way on the right of the page beside where the first speaker’s text ended. It can mean that the people speaking are close friends or know each other well to recognise each others rhythm easily and almost finish their sentence.  This gives off some interest to the audience because it’s quite cool to know that it’s more than just words.

Another technique used is personification. This is when an object or something abstract is treated or talked to like a real living thing like a human. For example ‘The sky weeps’. The sky can’t actually weeps but it has been ‘personified’. In Macbeth an example for this is in act 2 scene 1 where he sees an imaginary dagger. “The handle towards my hand? Let me clutch thee… Thou mashall’st me the way I was going.”