Just Some Writing

So I JUST discovered the forums.. level 33… pretty sad…. Anyway, I decided I’d like to post some of my 7th grade writing from school. Some of the titles are my own and others are prompts from my teacher. These ARE 7th grader writings so any constructive criticism is welcome, but please no hating.

Last Day:
As the door shuts and the footsteps die, I sit down on the plain white bed. I stare at the grey wall and its thousands of long scratches. Getting out a piece of stone, that I hid so long ago, I walk over and put a scratch on the last empty space. One more day to wait. One last day to live.

As the World Turns:
As the Sun goes down, the sky is painted red, pink, and purple. In those few minutes the sky is beautiful, and the world feels warm and happy. Then it all goes out; the beauty, the warmth, the happiness. Darkness envelops all and the world feels cold, but then, like a spark of hope in the evils of war, a silver light breaches the darkness. As that light shines down it reminds all that even when everything feels cold and lost, there is always hope.

Horror:
I walked in on horror
People chained to chairs
Gore covered the floor
Dogs were feasting
Flames were leaping
A river was flowing
Of blood and of tears
I walked in on horror

Battle:
The man lifted his sword and let out a war cry. He brought it down in an overhead stroke. As his sword slammed into his opponents shield, the man felt a sharp pain in his chest. He glanced down and fear paralyzed him when he saw blood pouring from a wound right over his heart.The sword dropped from his hand, and he stumbled forward. His opponent took the opportunity and strode forward, burying his sword deep in the man’s chest. The man tumbled over and hit the ground; darkness crept into the edges of his sight. His opponent sliced downward, and time slowed down. The man felt the sharpness of the blade as it cut through skin, muscle, and bone. Then all went black.

This next one we were required to write a story that had bats, a corn-dog, and a Ferris Wheel

As the boy sped towards the Ferris Wheel, the screeching of a thousand angry bats pierced his ears. When he turned his head to look, a blanket of black wings and red eyes flooded his vision. He immediately turned back around and continued to flee towards the Ferris Wheel.
When he reached the ride, he pulled the lever, bounded into a car, crouched low, and remained quiet. Then, the bats caught up to him. They started bashing the car, gnawing and scratching the glass, until the bow heard a single crack. Scared to death, the boy searched for something, anything, that would help him escape. Under the seat, he found the only thing left in the car, a half-eaten corn-dog.
Suddenly, a brilliant idea struck him, and, standing up, he screamed as loud as his lungs would allow, punched through the glass, pieces of it piercing his knuckles and fingers, and chucked the corn-dog out of the car.The bats immediately left him and soared after the food. When the blanket of darkness cleared, the boy peered out of the car, and feel back in horror. Below him, littering the streets, lay hundreds upon hundreds of bones.

And that’s all the ones I like. If you’ve read this far, thanks for reading. :)

I like “As the World Turns” the most, and “Last Day” is really close behind it. I feel as if you would write a good book, you use good imagery. Try writing out a chapter and see how you do with it. Maybe post it somewhere for feed back if you want to, but thats up to you

Hmmm… it’s been a while since I tried to write a book. The thing is that it’s really hard for me to come up with stuff to write about. These stories were the results of prompts from my teacher, except for “Last Day” which had been in my head for a while. I’ll try again though:) Thanks for the compliment.

If you struggle to come up with ideas, it may help you to take a more traditional approach to creative writing. Many people that are just starting out believe that writing is basically sitting down and putting together complete ideas, ready to read.

The reality is that almost all writers start by writing VERY loosely. They just throw down everything they can think of… almost like a stream-of-consciousness. Whatever pops into your head gets turned into words. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense, or if there are typos, or it’s just plan stupid. Write it all down. You’re going for quantity and not quality.

After you’ve written down everything you possibly can, or you just feel “done” with the ideas, that’s when you start refining and fixing it. Some writers have claimed that only 10% of their stories come from “writing” and the other 90% come from editing and refining.

National Novel Writing Month happens in November. The national exercise requires you to write 50,000 words in one month. It’s not terribly hard to do, especially if you type fast, but you quickly find that the biggest challenge is just coming up with things to write about. You might consider trying something like this.

If you are naturally drawn to a more methodical approach to writing, you might consider technical writing or journalism. These disciplines work better when you write within an outline, with specific topics you wish to cover.

I might try that, just throw everything down on the page, I’m used to thinking about every single word I put down as I do it.. but then again I guess I can do that for short little stories. For a book as you said it’s quantity and THEN quality. Thanks for the help I hadn’t thought about it like that. I’m starting on that chapter tonight or tomorrow night depending on how fast I crash:D.

I feel like you try to use imagery to draw people in, but you don’t use it so it captures the reader’s attention. If used badly, it turns awfully dull and I think you got kind of close to that place in a couple of your writings.

As The World Turns was the best I think, though the writing sounded a bit childish (I dunno, just…doesn’t feel like an adult would write that style, although ik that was 7th grade).

Originally posted by Zioloth:

I might try that, just throw everything down on the page, I’m used to thinking about every single word I put down as I do it.

Yeah, that’s your inner-editor at work. It’s a well-understood nuisance to writers of all genres and disciplines. If you continue to write throughout your life, you and your inner-editor will eventually become good friends… but you’ll only call on him (or her) when you feel up for their company.

I wrote what I felt was a pretty good short story once that came in around 8,000 words about a kid with a very trivial super power, (he could levitate a few inches off the ground). However, when I first wrote it, it was about 60,000 words and had zombies and space aliens and swarms of rabid, mutant squirrels and all kinds of shit. All of that stuff came out through the editing process. (I still have it for future reference, in the unlikely event I feel like writing a story about rabid, mutant squirrels.)

Writing a story is kind of like carving a statue out of marble where you first have to make the big block, THEN you remove bits until it takes shape.