The purpose of the story is to give an example of how peoples religious belifes can effect others when forced upon them. I was inspired by a documentary 'For the bible tells me so', which looks at the way different religious individuals react to homosexuality (which is another theme of the story). The documentary looked at the way parents reacted when they discovered their son or daughter was gay, and I found I was interested by the ones that reacted extremely negativly, so I tried to show what the effects of that could be. I also took inspiration from John Green's The Fault In Our Stars, which had a very well written funeral scene of someone having lost their loved one, so I tried to use the style he used to convey the sad emotions in here.
I tried to hook people in by creating a very fast tone change. By describing the day in the very begining of the story as being very bright and in a way that sets a posative tone, tricking the audience into thinking they were going to read something posative. Then I reveal more of the details, and the swift change from happy to sad creates a contrasts that is meant to suck people in. I tried to change my writing style depending on what I was descibing. When I was describing the funeral itself, I didn't focus on the detail to try to create a sense of shock and disbelief at the personal loss. When Felicity "turns her mind to funeral" she immidiatly looks at the people, unwilling to take in the actuallity of it at first. However when I wrote about the people Felicity is looking at, I wrote for quite awhile about the people, such as the mother, to again allow Felicitys mind to not focus on the funeral itself.
To create a sense of uncertanity for the audience, I did not say immediatly that Felicity and Ellen were in fact dating, using slightly vague sentances leading towards that idea such as, "She had been the closest to Ellen". However when she interacts with the coffin, putting her eulogy in the flowers and kissing the...