English Literature and creative writing

When I was younger, I used to quite enjoy writing stories at school. It wasn't something that came up particularly often though and as time went on I found that English moved further and further away from being one of my favourite subjects. As I moved through secondary school and 'English' became 'English Literature', it felt like there was less of a creative focus and I can hardly think of any pieces of literature we covered that really grabbed me. Even if some of them were legitimate classics, I think the way we were taught to analyse them could probably destroy anyone's interest in them. Books would be picked apart in mind numbing detail, full of analysis like "the blue curtains represent the depressed mood of this character" when it hardly seemed likely to have crossed the writers mind in the first place. Most of the time I didn't really feel like I was writing what I thought of the literature, just parroting the teachers opinions.

What I would have liked to learn more about are things like the fundamentals of writing stories, character motivations etc. which I feel like I've only really picked up pieces of via some unlikely internet sources. It seems pretty funny that I've been most inspired recently by a fictional perverted old man and a 10 foot tall green rage monster... I didn't get the option of taking a subject like Media Studies or something similar when I was at school but I think that would be a subject I would have really appreciated. Hearing from a friend who now teaches and had the freedom to base work around aspects of Attack the Block for example - I would love to cover something like that and I'm sure it appeals to a lot of kids too. Though no matter what the subject, I'm sure the way a teacher approaches it is just as important.

So when I recently had to sort through a huge amount of my old school work (strangely those folders and folders full of Maths and Physics notes didn't seem so important anymore), I was surprised by how little English work I'd kept. I'm not even sure what this short story was - it doesn't have a name, just a heading of "Task 5C" and I think it's the earliest bit of creative writing I have, being from when I must have been about 13 or so. It's presented below as originally written, with all original spelling mistakes intact and teachers comments in red...

---

"Thats another dead one." said the young assistant "Perhaps we're doing something wrong?"
"Maybe," said the older scientist. "But we've got more than enough of these stupid mice and rats to find the right formula. Once we've found it we can test in on something bigger like the dogs and cats. We will make millions from doing this my boy, I promise you!"

Good start

The members of A.L.F. crouded into the room. There was about thirty of them and they met once a week to discuss important issues. The leader Frank Adams called everyone around the table and counted how many where there.
"Has anyone seen Mark Mc. Nabb?" enquired Frank without much hope of an answer. Mc. Nabb was always late. He was the rebel in the group but a lot of people liked him which annoyed Frank greatly.
He snapped back to the present when he heard someone thumping loudly on the outside door. He went to open it. As he slowly opened it to see who it was he was greeted by a familiar voice.
"Let me in you fool! Its freezing out here!" It was Mc. Nabb. "You're late again Mc. Nabb!" shouted Frank "And don't call me a fool!"
"Ach, who cares if Im late and if you're not a fool you're an idiot."
Mc. Nabb walked casualy to his seat leaving Frank fuming mad at the door. He tried to calm down and walked slowly back to his seat.
"Okay." said Frank "Has anyone got anything important they want to say?"
One hand was cautiously raised. "Ah Graham! What have you got to say?"
A small man with glasses stood up and looked nevously around him before starting to speak.
"Well you know the laboratory we got shut down because it was testing on animals?"
"Hmm." remarked Frank
"Well its still being used but only at night."
"What!!" came Mc Nabbs voice from the other side of the room.
"This is terrible! We have to tell the police!" cried Frank "Ach, Ya wimp!" Shouted Mc Nabb "Don't go the police, we can trash the place ourselves."
"Don't be such an Idiot!!"
"Eh? What ye sayn?" Mc Nabbs Scottish accent showed through more when he got irritable.
"If you'd have thought at all you would have noticed that you are more likely to be arrested than the actual criminals!"
"Well we've gotta do somethin. We can't just leave em!"
"Okay then!! I'm going to the police!" Shouted Frank before storming out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The room was silent for a few seconds before Mc. Nabb spoke up.
"So who wants to come with me?"

A good idea, Matthew.

 Excellent use of conversation - in

 fact, there is too much of this

 in comparison to description.

---

Looking back on that is in some ways slightly embarrassing (you have no idea how hard it is to not correct mistakes and tweak a few things) but at the same time feels like it was written by a completely different person. Someone who obviously had pretty strong feelings on animal testing. I still kind of like the detached attitude of the scientists in the opening - when I first picked this up again I thought it would make a good description of 'expendable' human subjects in some kind of lab test, I guess I hadn't got that dark yet.

It's also interesting that other than spelling, my biggest concerns are with cutting stuff out. Redundant sentences like "He went to open it" and extra words like "fuming mad", would be where I'd start culling. But I think school work tends to build up the importance of word count over being conservative with what you're trying to say. I read an article soon after I started writing again, which illustrated this idea very well - ruthlessly cutting down first drafts into the bare minimum of information required. This is something I'm still trying to apply to my own writing and it can be surprisingly difficult to let go of anything you've written sometimes. Of course there is a place for detailed descriptive prose but most of the time you are trying to create something that is easy for people to read and understand.

I did find some kind of plan for a whole story at the back of the exercise book this was written in. I'm not sure why it was cut short, whether the exercise was only to do so many pages or if I just ran out of steam. The group would go on to raid this lab and attempt to release the animals (though most were in too bad of a state to escape) and one of the activists (I assume Mc Nabb) ends up killing one of the scientists there. I didn't seem to have an idea for an ending or a larger point, so in a way I think it's better that it just became a short segment of a larger imagined story, with the last line hinting that people were obviously ready to follow Mc Nabb (not sure if I subconsciously nicked that last line from Van Damme in the Street Fighter movie).

I've always felt slightly apprehensive about writing fiction again and especially about sharing it with the world via the internet. But if I'm happy to share and critique the ramblings of my teenage self, how much worse could my current work be? Hopefully someday soon I'll feel like taking up the challenge of writing something other than criticism.