Written as an example for my Y10 class. I typed it with my back to the screen, so it may be riddled with errors :-)
The wind was howling through the trees as my brother and I entered the Old Settler’s Museum. It was a pretty boring holiday activity, but our parents had insisted on taking us to a remote part of the Coromandel. The museum was perched on the edge of a ravine. Early settlers had dug for Kauri gum down there, way back when.
The museum was empty as we stepped inside, the air still and stale. “Hello?” I asked nervously, feeling oddly guilty about breaking the silence of the dimly lit room. “Is anyone there?”
“Let’s just take a look around and get out of here,” muy brother said gruffly, pushing through the turnstile into the main area of the museum.
“Don’t we need tickets?” I asked, following him.
“Nah, it’s all goods,” he said, trying to be gangsta. He was just as white as me, the try-hard.
“But, I’m sure you’re supposed to…” I said. I didn’t finish the sentence, as the room began to shake violently. The first thing that popped into my head was that it was a terrorist attack of some kind. Stupid, I know, but I’d been watching 'Die Hard 4' the night before.
“Earthquake!” my brother yelled, grabbing hold of the verandah of a fake settler house. The building lurched again, and began to slide sideways.
“The gully!” I yelled, my voice straining with panic. “We’re falling into the gully!”...
6 comments:
It gripped me to the end. What happens next?
According to the task I gave the class:
Myself and one or two friends/family members are trapped for 1 - 24 hours
We face physical and/or emotional hardship
Nobody dies, no emergency cannibalism takes place
We are eventually rescued.
It is permissable for someone to be injured, though not Phantom-of-the-Opera disfigured :-)
I love that you had to put in the stuff about cannibalism and phantom-of-the-opera disfigurement.
Prohibiting cannibalism and horrendous disfigurement?! Enforced happy endings?! Sounds like your turning into some fuzzy, sappy English teacher. Some you'll start wearing lilac and ridiculously huge fruit-shaped earrings, and then you'll put up inspirational quotes on your wall.
No in all seriousness I can understand the requirements after years of reading Year 10 creative writing. They go through a gross, morbid stage and every story ends up with an overwritten, purple, angsty death/suicide/mutilation or combination of all three. Gross storylines is one thing, poorly written, cliched, gross storylines is unacceptable.
Hello. This is Jon. I like your story.
Terrible story ! Not nearly enough cannibalism or disfigurement ! ;-)
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