As a judge in the youth section of the annual Joseph Furphy Literary Award, it’s my job to wade into the fertile, teeming ocean of teenage minds writing in the third decade of the 21st century.
I can tell you it’s a fascinating, enlightening and sometimes worrying process.
This year, we have 45 entries from young people aged between 13 and 17 years old from across the Goulburn Valley. The stories are mostly entered through secondary schools under the admirable encouragement and nurturing of teachers, but there are a few entries from youngsters who operate outside the formal education system under the precious guidance of parents and guardians.
It is heartening to know that in this age of global distraction through streaming and social media, there is still room for that fantastic, wild unicorn — the teenage voice. The digital media behemoths may try to control and steal the narratives of young people to sell stuff, but nothing can harness the excitement of a young person realising, perhaps for the first time, that they can invent and control whole worlds themselves through the written word.
As a judge, I have to come up with first, second and third placings, followed by a top 10 for highly commended and commended.
I’m not even halfway through this year’s Sargasso Sea of Stories, but I can see similar themes.
The chase is a popular one — people are chased down corridors, through forests, down streets and across rooftops. Fights are another reoccurring scenario — knife fights, gun fights, fist fights and food fights. Then there’s the historical fantasy — romance, battles and time warps.
Thankfully, zombies, blood-drinking monsters and vampires seem to be on the decline while a few happy first loves, migrant experiences and the ordinary dramas of family and school life trickle on, thankfully.
As I read these stories, I am not looking for perfect grammar, spelling or sentence construction — although these do help. I am looking for originality. An original thought or image is a priceless piece of furniture in the world that an engaging short story builds. At the same time, the cliché is a nail in the coffin (see what I did there?) of what otherwise might be a good story. So, whenever I read “tears welled in her eyes”, “what’s done is done” or “cold dark night”, my heart sinks.
I can tolerate a few tired old phrases — but a swag of them makes me desperate for something new, fresh, even wild.
Thankfully, wildness is the lifeblood of teenage writing. Doors and eyes that drip with blood, spaceships packed with terrifying alien plants, what it’s like to be dead and waiting for a new life, the honeyed gaze of first love.
However, I can hear you ask: what about the dreaded blood-sucking monster of Artificial Intelligence? Surely, teenagers entering writing competitions can just use AI to generate a cool story, particularly if there’s a cash prize for the top three.
My fellow Furphy judges and teachers are, of course, aware of the potential of AI to distort the creative process, and there is no doubt it is a potential problem. So, as an experiment, I asked ChatGPT to give me two examples of drama and horror written by teenagers. It replied with perfectly well-written short pieces. One was about doomed love, the other about a creature living under the bed. They were perfectly readable, perfectly constructed and perfectly ordinary. The trouble was — there was just no wildness.
That’s the tell-tale sign of the true teenage imagination — unrestrained, mad, dark, unpredictable and sparkling wildness. AI relies on the giant cliché. It can’t do wildness.
Thank goodness we have writing competitions such as the Furphy Youth Prize to keep the wildness alive.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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