Students' Creative Writing 

Creative writing class with Lili Wilkinson 

On Monday the 21st of September, myself, Sophie and Mrs Graham- Prowse all attended an online creative writing class run by the National Gallery of Victoria. There were over 100 students how were doing this online class. This was a great chance to improve on my creative writing skills and I learnt that writing a story takes a long time. This means many drafts and mistakes, but Lili taught me that taking your time, and using your mistakes are opportunities to make your story three times better than it was. 

In this class we had to create our own character. How we did that was Lilli asked us 20 questions which then made our character. My character is a fifteen-year-old girl called Everlyn who has schizophrenia. She hears these words in her head, “I shiver when you feel the cold, everything you say I hear, like a bomb and its fuse, we bring bright light, but I could be a devil to you, I could bite like a tarantula, right through the skin, and leave my poison dripping”. She will do whatever this person says because she doesn’t want to die. 

- Amber Holloway 9D 

For me it was as if I was learning something I never had before. It was a completely different environment than what a normal online class was like: people were communicating and asking questions and I was glad to be a part of an amazing experience. I learnt that with writing a story, it takes time because good things do not come to you easily; they have to be earnt and with hard work comes success. 

I had never heard of Lili Wilkinson before but as soon as the session was over, I found out that she has written a number of books, but the one I am most intrigued about is The Erasure Initiative.

I learnt so many new things and the character I came up with is actually similar to me. I based her off what I have been through and what I want because I wish for the world to be a better place and so does my character; Stella. 

As a journalist, you should know that telling a story depends on detail and sometimes it is the smallest thing that can set something apart from another because the details tell a story.  

- Sophie Evans 9D