Promising start for fresh writer

Kuranui College student Bella Goode was one of four winners of a Highly Commended award in the Young Writers category of the 2012 BNZ Literary awards.

The Year 9 student said she jumped at the chance to enter the competition.

"It's a simple story and I tried to put lots of character into it," she said.

"It's about this girl and her grandmother and it's about connection, growth, relationships and taking responsibility and about the fact they can't really do the same things they used to do because her grandmother is getting older.

"The girl is having to learn to help her grandmother out."

English teacher Claire Singer said the judges commended her for her imagery.

"This competition is a huge deal and has been the starting place for many of New Zealand's top contemporary writers. This is a good start for Bella," she said.

Bella said she writes short stories and acts especially screen acting in short films outside of school.

"When I write stories I like to observe people around me. I did that a bit with this story. I saw people who are around me, it could be family and friends, and I look at their behaviour and character and I put this in my writing," she said.

"I didn't really try and describe anything that wasn't true or something that I didn't know about.

"I thought of something like a skipping rope and thought how can I make that more real so it comes alive. I'm going to continue English onto Level 3 and I'll just keep writing stories and see where it goes."

Extract from Down Stream by Bella Goode: My skipping rope whips and whizzes through the sky, which is now pink icing blobbed with yellow candy. My cheeks burn as hot blood rushes into them, and my breath comes in white puffs. The silver river glistens and winks below.