I am in a PGCE session on storytelling and creative writing, and we have just been given the task of writing a scary story in 7 minutes.
Then we were just asked to share the first line of our stories - a great technique to get students comfortable with sharing their work without too much pressure.
The storytelling workshop was all about moving away from plot ("and then...") and thinking more about character and setting.
This is something that I will definitely be trying with my Year 7s, who I'm currently trying to teach to 'show not tell'.
Margaret Atwood said that "Plot is about the what and the what and the what. What about the how and the why?" Food for thought.
This is my attempt at writing a story from the perspective of an inanimate object in 7 minutes.
Down the Alley
Tracing my cobbled spine, she is alone, independent, striding, forthright. Her clicking heels stab the arch of my back as I lie flat. Her steps are quick and decisive. I can feel the pressure of her breath as she exhales the fumes of her cigarette, loudly, confidently.
And then a new pressure. Shuffling, unsure, soft-soled. The footprints are muted, disappearing even as they are created.
The clicks and the shuffles come together at that sensitive point somewhere around my kidneys. I feel the hairs on my back raise nervously.
The clicks stop clicking and scrape down my spine, drawing blood as she screams. She is lying now, lying on top of me as the soft soles kick her and trample her and stifle the clicks. The last thing I hear is one last exhaled breath. And his warm, wet panting.
