CHAPTER 1: SCHOOL DAYS

It was a nice chilly day on Halloween, but not a school holiday for ten-year-old Dina. She had a bagless day though. As she got out of her dad’s car, and gave a goodbye kiss, walked into the gates of the decorated school. The trees were filled with orange leaves and apples on them were painted as pumpkins. Teachers were dressed as ghosts. 

 

 looked at the canteen table, which was covered with white satin. She recognized it as the place the children have a feast on in Halloweens. She walked into her school and swiftly jogged in the corridor, just as she was about to enter her class, the bully snatched the bag behind her. “Hey! Give me all your stuff!” He always smirked as usual and dumped her belongings onto the ground. 

 

She got seriously mad and punched him in the face. “HEY, WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE!” Said Ma’am Trumposky, her teacher. “Ma’am, he- he" ... “YOU’RE GETTING DETENTION DINA, this is your last warning. Go to the principal’s office with me.” 

 

She was carried away with the ear to the office and had to sit down. She saw Ma’am Trumposky walk out of the classroom and immediately predicted that she was going to call Ma’am Berkeley, their principal. Her stomach twisted as if snakes were crawling inside. Expelled? She couldn’t face her parents. Just as she was about to accept her fate, she saw the window was partially opened.  

 

The office was on the first floor, so there was no problem with going out. She opened the window with a soft creak and jumped out. But there was a problem. She leapt out from the other side and landed across the school walls and now she was outside school. She let out a sigh, and went walking down the road, as she had no idea what to do, knowing the school gates were closed. 

Reviews

[JayG]

If you truly are as young as you claim, you’re writing especially well, given that your only writing tools are the nonfiction skills given in school, to ready us for employment.

Writing fiction is a profession, and has lots of specialized skills and knowledge that aren’t part of what we’re given in school, and must be learned in addition to our school-day skills.

For example: Your approach in this is to “tell the reader a story,” as if they-can-hear-the-storyteller’s-voice, and the emotion YOU would place into it. But in reality, you’ve given them a storyteller’s script, which they must perform exactly as you would, for it to work. But how can they do that?

Have your computer read the story to you to hear what the reader would, and you'll hear part of the problem: As the storyteller, you, the storyteller are talking TO the reader. But there’s a much better way, which is to make the reader LIVE the story, as-the-protagonist, moment-by-moment.

Using the skills of fiction writing, we make the reader know the situation as the protagonist does. So, instead of your current opening, where you tell the reader everything, how about something like:

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As her father’s car came to a stop in front of the school, Dina couldn’t help but smile, thinking of the fun and surprises of this Halloween-day, when classes would be filled with surprises and treats, not study

With a quick kiss and “Love you, Daddy,” she left the car and hurried toward the school, where the decorations around the doors, and the adults holding them open—one dressed as a witch, the other a huge dog—turned her smile into a grin.

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Notice that there’s no one talking to the reader. Instead, it’s presented in HER viewpoint, mentioning what matters enough for her to react to, not what CAN be seen. That way it's living the events. Look at the sequence:

1. She reacts to the car stopping, as you would in her place, with a smile of anticipation.. And as she does we learn that she’s at school, that it’s Halloween, and that she’s excited—all without the narrator talking TO us. Instead, it’s what matters to HER, and in the way it does.

2. She acts on the car stopping by leaving it, building the mood with that hurried kiss, as she leaves.

3. SHE notices the decorations, and the costumes, and SHEreacts to it. And notice that she first notices and THEN reacts, as we do in life. My first impulse was to say that, “She grinned when she saw....” But that would place effect, her grin before its cause.

Part of how to make it real is to mentally live the scene as her, based on her personality, needs, background, etc. Had you done that you’d have known:

A bully does what they do because the one they bully can’t beat them. So her defeating that one with one bunch doesn’t ring true. You can still have the same effect, but, to seem real to the reader, it must be done realistically—which takes thinking about it as she would AND, as the bully would. They are both the stars of their own life story, and must act as they see best in THEIR viewpoint.

So perhaps, she sees the bully approaching, and tenses up, and then... In other words, have her live it instead of you talking about it. That way SHE will tell you what she wants to do. And SHE will evaluate the situation before acting.

And...you have the teacher “carried away with the ear.” So either she was carried, and also had the bully’s ear with her, which makes no sense, or, she was carried BY her ear, with her feet off the ground, which would have ripped it off, right? But though that’s not what you meant, it is what you said. Had you thought that through as her, she would have shouted OUCH! Right?

So here’s the deal: I think you writing stories is a great idea. But while you’ve learned skills like math and writing in school, as with any profession, you need the things they DON’T teach in our basic schooling. Things like: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” At the moment, you're giving the weather report. 😆

As Debra Dixon says, “If writing were easy, everyone would be writing.”

So, try this: Deb’s book, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict, is a warm easy read that will give you tricks and knowledge of writing fiction that your teachers will never mention. So, you can tell your parents that you need the book, and that it may get you better marks in school (actually true when they ask you to write a story) Or, you can download a copy from this archive site, free:

https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/gmc-goal-motivation-and-conflict-9781611943184.html

But whatever you do, hang in there and keep on writing. It never gets easier, but as with anything else, with study, we can become confused on a higher level.

Jay Greenstein

Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain

“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”
~ Alfred Hitchcock

“Your words are the lyrics. But gesture, expression, body attitude and movement—even the language spoken by the eyes—form the music. If you leave them out of your fiction the song is forever unfinished. And since our reader can't know the song as we would sing it, without our help, we must learn how to write the music.”
~ Me

Beware of advice—even this.
~ Carl Sandburg