Dystopian Fiction: Student Responses

Very excited to share extracts from two excellent written responses to my Creative Curators session on Dystopian Fiction at Stoke Newington School.

Following two storytelling sessions exploring creating stories from physical objects (more about that here) students wrote their own stories; either rewriting the beginning of our shared story or taking it in a new direction.

Within the sessions we created a story together, deciding on main characters and fundamental plot points. Outside of that, it was up to the students.

I followed up my visits to the school with a written version of the story, told on the spot. What's perhaps most impressive and interesting from the students' responses are how much detail they remember from the oral storytelling, even though their versions were written several weeks after the event.

I'm particularly impressed here by the way they evoke a dark, brooding atmosphere consistent with our original story and their careful, original use of simile and metaphor throughout.

Kian

Saffra and Precious could hear the wheels scrapping against the tracks, as if they were fingers nails scrapping against the whiteboard. The unbearable sound made the hair on the back of their neck stand up. They gathered their bags and coats and got up, as they realised they had missed their stop. The train began to pull up; it made saffra and precious fly across each side of the carriage. Instantly, they sprung and clung back to her tighter than before, as if she was a pregnant woman squeezing her husband’s hand, to relief the upmost agony she was in.

The doors opened...

Saffra saw the dark red eyes, no further than a centremitre away from her and her sister. They were paralysed with immense fear. Precious was speechless, another familiar face; this time metal and as tall as the Eiffel Tower.

Aaron

The sky was dark. Saffra left her house, as she walked down the dim road the eyes on the posters watched her. They watched her every second of the day, a cold breeze hit Saffra’s face so she hid her face in her woolly jacket.

Far out in the distance she could see a tall figure watching her he wore a full black suit, black jacket, black shirt, black shoes, black trousers but the thing that stood out the most was his tie because it was blood red. As he walked passed the posters the eyes looked down Saffra had never seen this before. As the man got closer Saffra froze.

She slowly walked back and bumped into a shop window she quickly entered the shop and hid in the corner Saffra could hear a quiet noise and slowly a poster was floating towards her and it said to her “Why are you hiding little girl” Saffra jumped and said “I I’m not hiding” she walked towards a can of beans and pretended to read the back of the tin and suddenly all of the tins were flashing green and shouting “EAT ME EAT ME EAT ME!” Saffra put down the can of beans because they were drawing too much attention to her and quickly left the shop.

I'd like to thank Aaron and Kian for letting me read (and share) their stories and hope to read more of their writing in the future...