WRITING OBSTACLE

Open the nearest book to you and look at the very first word to catch your eye. Write a 10-line story centred around this word.

Try to think outside the box and write something creative surrounding this word.

Scramble

I don’t know what to tell you, it was so fast and everything is scrambles up. I just remembered her coming at me with the knife. I ran so fast, but she caught up and pushed me into the wall. Glass shattered everywhere and the mirror stunned us both. I was in the ground when she pounded my head into the floor. I didn’t have time to think, and I just grabbed the glass. I guess it did the trick, but every time I think about how she was gonna gut me like laney I want to throw up. “Anna we didn’t mention anything about laney.”

Comments 1

Tom N

3 years ago

Sounds like quite a chaotic scene. It was clear the narrator is panicking as she’s telling the story. Perhaps you could have experimented with some short broken sentences to help give the feeling of disjointedness and anxiety.

I think “scrambles” should have been “scrambled” in the first line. Since it was the word that gives the piece its title, it might be worth correcting that so it reads well and the reader doesn’t get stuck.

I got a little thrown by the imagery between the third and fourth lines. The third I was picturing the scene as happening outside against a brick wall, but the introduction of the mirror broke that imagery and I had to create a new scene inside instead. Perhaps you could address that by saying something like “I ran to the nearest room…” It would help us to know that it was happening inside and there’s no need to keep “so fast” - running itself implies speed and given the situation the reader wouldn’t expect you to run any other way except FAST.

I was a little confused by the ending too. Who was Laney? I assume that the narrator had been somehow involved with another murder and accidentally got caught out by mentioning it in the interrogation room. But that really wasn’t totally clear from the piece. Perhaps think of a way you could introduce this twist at the end with either more context, or a slightly different twist.

Keep it up, Georgia! What’s your favourite thing to write?

Scramble

Georgia Chura