Creative Writing Ideas

Native Americans

You are a young warrior who has suffered long and hard at the hands of the Americans.  They seem to continue moving further and further west, with many thousands of people, and they are not kind to you or your people.  Although some are good people, most have no respect for you, your people and your way of life.  You are planning to go off on a raiding party with some of your young friends.  You are willing to make whites pay for the humiliation you feel you have endured for many years.  Suddenly, your mother, an old and wise woman, comes in to your tent and catches you preparing to leave.  You remember a conversation you and she had the other night in which she was trying to tell you about the cycle of violence that the white man promotes.  She looks at you with great sadness and sits down next to you.  For a while, you are both silent…then you speak…[What are you feeling?  What are some of his arguments?  What happens to after your choice?  Take the story from here...]

Your family and tribe have been traveling for many hundreds of miles through the mountains because the American railroads have been bringing more and more people west for the last couple of years.  Small armies of vigilante Americans had been continually harassing your tribe, insulting your sisters and mothers, and openly starting fights with your young warriors while your council Elders decided that it was better to move the tribe than to die.  Many have been longing for the day when the traveling will stop because of the fierce weather.  Suddenly you come upon another tribe’s camp.  You see many fellow Native Americans around you and feel better.  Your Peace Chief exchanges greetings with the other Chiefs (there are many tribes here) and you overhear them talking.  “We should strike back!  They are weak and this is our land! Come join us!” one of them says.  “No, we should go north into the other country and prosper in peace!  Only then can our people recover and thrive once again!” the other Chief pleads.  Your Chief goes into a group of people in your tribe and asks them what they want to do.  [What do you say?  What does your tribe do?  Take the story from here…]

Write a story about World War One.  Make sure to include information about characters, setting and plot and as much detail as possible.  The story should be at least 4 written pages long.  It should focus on the war from a human perspective.  Since people are characters in your story, they should be full of life and as real as possible.  Try to fill them with emotions.  Include action in your story.  Make it live.  This story should take place in the years 1914 to 1918, but the rest is up to you.  There is a list of ideas below that might help you come up with material.  This writing assignment is due on Friday, October 30 and will count as a test grade.  A rough draft will be due on Friday, October 23, which will count as a quiz grade.

Requirements:

Your story should focus on the relationships of people. | Your story should include action and thought. | Your story should tell a lesson about either ethics (right/wrong) or morality (good/bad). |  

Possible character ideas:

A young woman who volunteers to work as a field nurse. | An African American soldier who goes to Europe to fight. | A French pilot who becomes a flying ace in the war. | A mother of four sons who all choose to fight in the war. | A retired general who is called back into service to lead. | A German soldier who is afraid of death but fights. | A female writer who journeys to the front lines and encounters discrimination. | Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, the leader of his nation. | An English soldier who writes poetry by day and launches poison gas at night. | An American captain that feels proud and strong, but becomes crippled in his first fight.

Possible setting ideas:

Trenches | Small European villages | American city | Paris, London, or Berlin | Verdun or the Somme

Possible plot ideas:

A person struggling within themselves about the ‘rightness’ of war. | Two friends who find themselves pulled apart over the years because of their nationality. | The psychological terror of shellshock. | The struggle to understand the changing technology of the new age. | Battle diaries written with great care and interrupted by war, people, and ideas about the world. | A man and a woman who find themselves trying to find happiness in the middle of chaos. | Children who live in villages affected by the fighting all around them. | A minority character fighting for democracy in Europe and against racism in America.

Directions:  Finish the story by placing yourself in this era of US History.  Many of your grandparents will have experiences that might match your stories.  Think about how they would have reacted in each circumstance.  

You have left your wife and two children (you may change this part of the story if you like) in New York City while you move across the country looking for work of any type.  The year is 1932 and you have heard that a new president has been elected.  You don’t know much about him, but anything has to be better than the last couple of years since the hard times began.  You have been hitching rides on trains, walking, and riding in carts in order to move from place to place.  Even though you want to be with your family, you know the traveling is necessary.  You have to find work.  You meet many different people on the road along the way and hear lots of stories.  Most of them are hard-luck cases, like you, looking for work.  Sometimes you get angry, thinking that they might get the job intended for you, but you don’t let it eat you up.  Suddenly, the car you are riding in stops.  You hop out and look at the clear spring sky.  It’s a good day.  You thank the driver for the lift and ask him where you are.  “New Bedford”, he says.  “Good luck to you, friend.”   You decide to try your luck and look for work.  Looking up at a sign, you see the names of the street corner: “Union and Pleasant Streets”.  

World War Two

Vietnam War

You are a Vietnamese villager who has lived in the same area and worked on the same farm for your entire life.  Your family is not poor by Vietnamese standards; you have enough to get by, but like everyone else, you cannot change your life.  This year has been more difficult than most.  The rains have come and it has not stopped for two months.  During the rain season, this is what you expect, but it does not make your work any easier.  Like your brothers and sisters, you must work to help the family, especially your great grandmother and great grandfather.  There are also the little babies to think of in the village from other families that rely on good crops to sell in order to buy food and medicine. 

One day an outsider comes into the village.  He is also Vietnamese but it looks like he has been walking for a long time through the jungles.  His clothes are dirty and he has a very tired look on his face, like he has been struggling with the demon-gods of the jungle.  Once he eats and is welcome into the village (as is the custom) he begins to talk to the elders.  You listen and hear that he tells them of foreigners who have come into your country killing and murdering.   The stranger then changes his story and tells of another great man, who is Vietnamese, and wants to protect his countrymen from this evil.  He believes everyone should be the same and live in peace, once the enemy has been driven out.  The elders listen to his story.  At the end, the stranger asks for their help to fight the invading enemy.  He would like to use this village to store weapons and train soldiers, and asks if the elders would like to volunteer some of their young to this bold cause.

Continue the story… 

• How do the elders respond?   What happens when the American soldiers come to the village?

• What do you decide to do?   What more do you learn about Ho Chi Minh's communist philosophy? 

• What more do you learn about the American way of life?   Does a battle occur?

• Introduce some American characters and describe them.   What do they act like? 

• How are they different from you, as a Vietnamese?

Other story ideas:

• Tell the story (with action and a plot) from an American soldier's point of view.  

• Tell the story of a college student in America who finds themselves becoming more and more active against/for the war. 

• Tell the story of an American GI doctor who has to take an emergency helicopter to find wounded soldiers.