Project piece 1 : WW1 Creative writing

For this piece of writing we were tasked with creating a tribute to those who fought in world war one. I decided that a piece of creative writing would best portray the horrors of war as I could use vivid imagery and sound to recreate the scene of the story in the readers mind. There is an underlying pace to which this piece can be read at, as it is meant to reflect how a soldiers heart would speed up in the build up to a battle. The passage begins fairly mundanely and slowly much like the heart at rest, but as the battle heats up, so does the pace of the story. I took a lot of inspiration from “Private Peaceful” by Michael Morpurgo as I like his style of writing. He uses imagery to put the reader into the scene itself which I find very immersive. One of the lines I use in my story ( “Many were piled up against the wire, like leaves blown against a fence by the wind”) is an edited version of a simile Morpurgo used in his book.

“A shell exploded nearby when the shattered remains of C-Company emerged from their dugout, which had begun to cave in under the sustained shock waves of artillery shells. The “steel rain” as the men called it, had began to fall like a monsoon and was peppering the front line trenches with sustained fury. This however was just a warm up for the main offensive as once the storm had subsided, the hordes of grey coated figures would spill out from their lair like angry ants and sweep towards them.

Silence. The guns had gone quiet and the signal was raised for machine gunners to get into position as the first brave German poked his head out from the opposite trench, with others quickly following suite. The men of C-Company lined up on the fire-step and locked eyes with the men who had killed many of their friends. The hatred they felt channeled into the way they fought, with no mercy and devilish relentlessness. As the enemy got to the first coils of wire, the machine guns and rifles opened up. A symphony of heavy firepower played up and down the line. Screams of the wounded were all but drowned out. The whole display was that of sinister magnificence as men fought and died for their countries, showing not an ounce of fear as bullets whizzed passed and flamethrowers spewed tongues of burning fuel onto hapless victims. This was the nature of the new era of combat, and the remains of C-company were already veterans.

As the last of the helpless Germans began to retreat, the dreaded shrill of the officers whistle sounded. It’s death call spread up and down the line, signaling for  C-company and the other British soldiers to give chase. Almost certain death awaited. The men knew that the battered and bruised German soldiers would be awaiting them, machine guns and rifles at the ready. Any man who did not go ‘over the top’ would be shot by his own commanding officer, so the men said their prayers, took a quick drink and clambered up into the hell hole which was no-mans land. The freshly deceased bodies of hundreds of dead enemy soldiers lay all over the battlefield. Many were piled up against the wire, like leaves blown against a fence by the wind. Some were not dead. They pleaded for help as the men advanced forward, but most were met with a swift bayonet to the heart or single shot to the head. No mercy. It was kill or be killed out here. C-company hadn’t even reached the middle of no-mans land before the first machine gun nest opened fire. The flashes, a haunting memory to those who survived them. Men were torn apart in seconds, they didn’t stand a chance. This was war, and war did not change…”

I feel my final piece of work matches up well with my original draft as I have stuck with the same idea throughout the entire time it took me to create this story. I have incorporated some elements of Michael Morpurgo’s style and adapted them to suit my ideas. If i were to change anything, I would probably like to make the story longer in order to paint a bigger picture of the scale of the conflict in WW1. I could set the scene by describing the surroundings of the soldiers and incorporating more of the soldiers senses e.g “The smell of cordite filled the nostrils like bacon on a Sunday morning”. Throughout this piece of work I have incorporated many different writing skills. The use of the simile ” Many were piled up against the wire, like leaves blown against a fence by the wind” is intended to show the soldiers bodies being like a pile of leaves discarded at the against a fence. It is meant to show how little value human lives had to those in higher power. I also used the oxymoron of “sinister magnificence” to describe attack by German forces. The sinister nature of death clashes with the magnificent display of courage and bravery by the men in order to create this oxymoron. If I were to compare this to a professionally written piece, it would be to “Private Peaceful” by Michael Morpurgo as well as taking influence from some of Wilfred Owens poetry. I have already mentioned that I like the style in which Morpurgo writes and I enjoy the detached narration of Wilfred Owens poetry. Like in my story, he does not mention the names of the men and often comments on how men’s lives are simply discarded.