When there are no rules, writers can really open themselves up and craft a memorable poem or story, says Jackie Oh.
It took her about an hour to crank out “Alphabetic Structure: Attempt at Originality,” a poem that took first place and earned her a $25 check in the recent Friends of the Bothell Library teen-writing contest for youths in grades 7-12.
“The creative process was hard,” said the 14-year-old Canyon Park Junior High student. “I wanted to do something that seemed fun. It’s an emotional feeling. It’s using your imagination and visual perspective when you read this poem.”
Her poem consists of five lines, with letters spread out to match with the words in each sentence. ABCDE: A boy constantly downs emotions. FGHIJKLM: Faster gone; he is joking? Knowingly losing many. NOPQR: Nausea. Of politeness, quiet refuge. STUV: Stunning, the universe veers. XYZ (no W listed): Will not use xylophone for the letter X.
Oh, who wrote poetry in the fourth grade and is now back on board with it, said that her victory has boosted her self-esteem about writing.
In the short-fiction category, 15-year-old Bothell High student Raelity Cayne snagged a $25 prize for “Dream,” a horror piece that features a boy experiencing a zombie outbreak and wondering if it’s really happening.
Here’s an excerpt: There was a moment of perfect silence, like the world was holding its breath, waiting for help, for something. It was a vacuum, and maybe — just maybe — if someone had called out, filled that space, then this wouldn’t have happened.
But it was best not to dwell on a thing like that, irrelevant things. After all, this was a dream. All he had to do was wait it out.
He cast his gaze toward the horizon. There! A lake. They didn’t like water — made them dissolve or rot or something — so he should be safe there. It was about a mile away; if he got going now he would probably get there before the light was gone.
Cayne said she wrote the piece a few years ago, and “found it lurking around in my hard drive somewhere, and said, ‘Hey, why not edit this and send it in? It’s pretty good.’”
With “Dream,” she focused on the type of horror writing “when you think everything went really well, and then you look back at it… you look at it a different way, and suddenly it’s a lot more horrifying. I just tried to create that cold-sweat feeling.”
She’s a fan of author Simon Holt’s “The Devouring” teen-horror series, which features demonic creatures called Vours. She’s thinking about writing a novel herself for her senior culminating project in the future.
Inspiration for Cayne’s writing comes in the form of people-watching and then creating a storyline with an imaginative twist here and turn there.
“You look at something and say, ‘How can I make this 10 times cooler?’ You pick out a person and say, ‘Whoa, they’re secretly a werewolf, how did that fit into their life?’ You sort of make it up,” she said.
In its third year, Catherine Schaeffer, King County Library System teen-services librarian for the Bothell, Kenmore and Kingsgate branches, said the contest drew an impressive group of writers. Two teens and two librarians judged the entries, and the winners were announced at a young writers’ coffeehouse, where the teens shared their stories and poems with each other.
One writer chronicled his sister’s wedding and another told about a friend going through a hard time, topics that struck a chord with attendees.
“Those were personal pieces, and it (was great) for them to be able to share something and get really positive feedback,” Schaeffer said.
