Creative Writing Club: Prose Writing
This half-term, we’ve been working on the structure of stories. The club all decided on a theme (‘fire’!) and wrote short stories that corresponded to the classic exposition/conflict/crisis/denouement structure.
Here’s an example of one, a great story written by Charlotte M in Year 7.
Mr Wilson’s monotone drawl was the only thing that I could hear, but I wasn’t listening. I was daydreaming, my ADHD had kicked in. My foot tapped on the floor and the pen was flicking like a cat’s tail in my hand, one finger tracing the same shape as it had been tracing for the whole lesson now. What was he saying? I couldn’t concentrate. This daydream had invaded my head, a vivid one this time. Burning hot embers popped at my feet and smoke filled my mouth, I couldn’t breathe. I clear snap broke the image, and I saw Mr Wilson’s wrinkled face was peering at me a hair-length next to mine, etched with irritation. I heard sniggers bubble around the classroom as he lectured me on the importance of listening and that my ADHD is not an excuse. For the third time this lesson. I wonder what would happen if I had a fourth.
“Bryans!”
I had drifted off again.
“Detention. Saturday this time.”
Whispers rippled around the class once more. I wanted to point out that I already had a detention on Saturday, but I was aware that it wouldn’t have the effect I thought it would. However, before I could slump onto my elbows once again a piercing BEEP BEEP BEEP stopped me in my tracks.
The alarmed blared, the panic palpable in the smoke, the fabric of the air shifting as the roaring grew louder. Burning orange tongues licked upwards on the bricks and clambered over the floor like a half-starved monster. Screams and shrieks were drowned by the raucous cries of the flames as I stumbled over fallen students, also pushed down by the hundreds of pounding feet. Fresh air was nowhere to be seen; not a door, not a window. But as soon as I was about to give up, the cold glint of a door handle flashed at me through the matte colour of the smoke. I groped through the darkness and grabbed onto the door handle and stumbled into the room. Dust even thicker than the smoke outside choked me but at least I had gotten away from it. Before I could crumple to the ground in exhaustion a figure crept from out of the shadows, then another. The deep voice of a sixth former sounded.
“Is it over?” he asked.
I let the silence drag on so he could hear the roaring of the flames and trampling of feet behind the door.
“What do you think?”
There was a girl next to him, around my age. She looked terrified. I recognised Selina from Mrs McShawley’s class, and I crept closer so they could see my face. The sixth former had a shabby goatee and floppy blonde hair, his eyes were a strange grey colour. Selina’s usually curly hair had become a wild ball of fuzz and were slightly singed at the tips. The blonde-haired student ran his fingers through his fringe.
“What should we do now? Wait the fire out?” he said in a gruff voice.
He sounded like nothing could be worse than being stuck with two year sevens in a humid janitor’s closet. No-one replied, and the silence grew louder. My ADHD pricked at my fingers, and I knew I had to stimulate my senses soon otherwise I was going to go crazy. With my foot tapping being the loudest sound anybody could hear we all abruptly realised that the fire had ceased its uncontrollable rage.
“It sounds like we already have,” said Selina. “Should we open the door?”
The sixth-former stood up and it was only then did I realise how abnormally tall he was — maybe 6’ 7– and he yanked and struggled with the doorknob. He shook his head, rubbing his forefingers along his brow.
“It looks like something is jamming it from the other side.”
“Maybe if we all put our weight on it, it might budge enough so we can push the door open.”
The sixth-former shrugged.
“I guess we could give it a try.”
Selina scrambled up and started leaning against the door. She looked at us expectantly. The shaggy-haired sixth former spread his fingers out on the charred wood, and his knuckles started turning chalk white with the strain. I quickly started pressing my shoulder against the door, my face heating up as a quick as the fire had disappeared. At least a couple of moments seemed like hours as the door started to begrudgingly open one inch, then two. I saw a burnt and black foldable chair lodged stubbornly against the doorknob on the other side.
“Come on, Conner!”
I heard the sixth-former snarl to himself. He did one last final push and the door flew open with a relieved sigh, followed by a huge plume of smoke and embers in its wake like a choking shadow. The landscape around was derelict and devastated, and it was hard to believe that only ten minutes earlier I had been bored in a classroom. All three of us stepped out and all three of us started coughing. It was time to get out of here. We picked our way over the landscape, which had been seared black, destitute and scorched. Usually we would’ve been able to get the front office in no time but the school had become a barren mess; one which had no familiarity to me. We had made it only a few yards when Selina and Connor both started, staring at something crouching by what once was a cabinet of awards, and now a pile of ash. There was Mr Wilson with a hacking cough, crouching forlornly like it was all over.
“Mr Wilson?” Connor kneeled and hoisted him on his shoulders in a steely grasp, glancing over back at us with a cold stare. “We have to get him out of here.”
Mr Wilson fell limp, and we trudged through the rubble for what seemed like hours. His wispy hair draped over his face like his energy had been burnt out like the school, and my legs ached. There was finally a speck of light across the corridor and I found a new spark of perseverance to ignite; I ran to the door and stood shocked as blaring lights and sounds filled my vision, doctors rushing to pick me and the others up in the stretcher.
It was over.
