Overview

Human Nature was written as part of a Task Assessment for my Creative Writing Course which I took with the Open University nearly two years ago. The themes that appear in the story weren't thought out, planned or pin pointed they just came to me through writing.

I was very shocked and I'll admit a little disturbed by the finished product and I found myself asking 'What is this monstrousity that I have just written? Who on earth would want to read something like this?' Of course, this lead to my fiance relaying positives about the whole story, about how the characters were emotionally charged, about the way Callum reacted to Sam's news of expecting her dad's child. (He actually laughed and said that was exactly how a teenage boy would react). And so I began to feel a little better about this piece.

In the weeks that followed though, my new found happiness was thrust upon into the darkness as I sent it (by email) to other students who thought that a) the switching characters were confusing and b) they found the themes difficult to take in, along with the fact prostitution wasn't like the way I'd made it out to be. I even had some comments about it being about the shock factor which I thought was absurd as everything that you have read, was just what came out of my head and onto the computer screen.

With the reviews coming back as negative I decided to redraft it by using just one character (I chose Charlotte), still using the first person and the prostitution theme, I managed to develop it but found I wasn't entirely sure whether it was the winning piece. It is sad to say this one hasn't seen the light of day since it was posted on a group on Facebook. Shame, really.