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20 June 2026

Posted by Claire

Junior & Young Writers Week 8: Comedic Horror

Hi Writers,

This week we crept our way into Comedic Horror

We started with check-in, describing our week as a type of plant, we had:

  • a good & bad flower
  • a flower with a microphone & waterpistol
  • a daisy with pink petals
  • ivy creeping everywhere
  • a plant that blooms into lots of nice things but takes ages
  • a tree twisted beyond recognition by the wind
  • a yule log, but mage of foam
  • a rare, lucky 4 leaf clover
  • grass - same as always
  • talking trees (speaking Vietnamese)
Then we shared what we are currently reading:

  • Mr Men books
  • A script for a school play
  • Greek Mythology
  • A book about Rivers
  • Wordsearches & puzzles
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
  • HP Lovecraft
  • Lord of the Rings
  • Warrior Cats

To follow we played a warm-up game of Buzzy Bees; the letters P, T, I, C, and G produced some excellent Alliterative items/characters.

Exercise 1:

Absurd poetry: The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey

"A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears..." A classic, yet gothic, abecedarium [alphabet book]

The group had a go at writing their own, creepy but silly, alphabetical rhyming couplets, with some entertaining results.

Exercise 2:

Haunted House story cards [by StoryWorld] X Storyonics Cards [by Zoobookoo]

Each student selected a random card from both decks. The challenge was to write a story including as many of the elements as possible;

  • Mr Pumpkin + socks + a shipping container
  • A Vampire + Mexican flag + traffic lights
  • A Witch + Pirates + a manhole + carrots
  • the silver moon + a kilt + a croissant
  • a Monster Hunter + arrow + onions
  • a Werewolf + umbrella + armor
  • a kind stranger + a water bottle
  • Pumpkin Head + a bow tie + a suitcase
  • Scissor Man + a plastic bottle
  • Runaway eyeballs + a clock + a shipping container
  • the headless horseman + a carpet + a drain
  • Endless fog + a croissant 
This combination of prompts exercise resulted in some chilling tales, full of absurdity, strangeness and 'laugh out loud' gags. Brilliant work!

Reading

We looked at a section of 'Horrorstör', a 2014 horror-comedy novel written by Grady Hendrix. The story is set in ORSK, an IKEA-esque store that has been experiencing supernatural phenomena.

Exercise 3:

Strange Scenes for horror/creepy stories

The groups came up with some great ideas on everyday places where spooky tales could unfold.

  • a supermarket
  • a garden centre
  • a soft play centre
  • an allotment on a sunny day
  • a car boot sale
We then discussed what might happen in these settings and had a go at drafting the ideas:

  • McDonalds soft play x portal to the Other World
  • a ball pit x death trap
  • cherry trees at a garden centre x fertilized by bodies
  • a garden centre x plant pots with noses & toe nails
  • a tractor on a farm x gone bad
  • dentists x ominous gloves
  • soft play x 442000 year old man
  • school x a creepy forest surrounding it

To finish the session, the groups read out their tales and we all enjoyed being spooked, but also having a lot of fun & giggles.

Amazing work all round.

Keep reading. Keep writing.

See you next week.

Claire 

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