New student authors

​By: Samantha Scheeler, Contributing Writer

Writing a scary story is a great way for high school students to tap into their creativity while making it fun and exciting . ​

Creative writing challenges students to build suspense and surprise readers in a way that keeps them engaged and on edge. 

The creative writing class at Centralia High School (CHS) and the Language ll students had a fun and exciting assignment last fall. Students were asked to write a 100 word scary story for the Fright Club book, which is a part of the Young Writers organization. In this writing contest, if their story was chosen, it would be published in a book along with other student writers from across the United States.

This challenge becomes more interesting as every sentence must be carefully crafted to create a story that gets to the plot with minimal words. Whether it revolves around a haunted house or something completely unexpected, it forces students to focus on small details and build a sense of mystery. The ultimate goal was to create something that not only spooks but also leaves the reader thinking, “What was that?” Senior Lealia Whisler said her motivation to write this story was to, “write a cliffhanger that only I knew how it ended and the readers would have to guess.” Leaving the ending open and up for interpretation was a great way to end her story.

The students did enjoy writing their stories more than they initially thought they would. For some students this isn’t the first story they have written. Senior Tyler Moss said, “I wrote a story called The Missing, which was quite a few pages long.” However, trying to write a story that was only 100 words long was quite the challenge. This challenge has also given confidence to other students such as Kayne Walters. “Before this I had not written any other stories, because I did not think I could.”  This writing contest has made a difference with challenging students and bringing out their creativity.

In the end, writing a short but scary story allows students to have fun with their imagination while testing their skills in creating suspenseful gripping narratives.