Manny Skayton’s Awesome Christmas

Manny Skayton arrived home from school on a normal, Wednesday afternoon. School was normal, with the teachers being authoritative and the students being loud. He went to North High School in Reading, Indiana, and loved science. Although his circle of friends was small, he loved them since they made school enjoyable. School was extremely dull, but his friends and science made it bearable. 

Manny Skayton got on the couch and turned the television on. He saw the news and saw that it said Christmas in Reading would be chilly this year, with a low around freezing point and a high of sixty degrees. Manny couldn’t wait for Christmas. It was already in the middle of December. He couldn’t wait until Christmas came. Christmas was going to be fun, snowy, and enjoyable. He loved Christmas and everything about it because he loved hot chocolate, building snowmen, and watching the still and white landscape. He liked Christmas a lot because it was a time to celebrate and get presents from your parents. Christmas was very enjoyable to him because he loved the festive atmosphere of the holiday. 

On the second day before Christmas, Manny wrote a letter to Santa Claus because he still believed in him because he thought if you wrote a letter explaining what you wanted and why, you would get it. Manny was hopeful this year that he would get an iPod for Christmas. He thought iPods were useful, practical, and well-designed because they were small, portable, and could store thousands of songs. He wanted to buy an iPod because it was so useful. He wrote a letter to Santa explaining that he wanted an MP3 player for Christmas because he found it to be fun and easy to use. He hoped that his wish would come true. 

On Christmas Eve, Manny got into bed and couldn’t stop thinking about Christmas Day and how exciting it would be to wake up tomorrow and see what he got for Christmas. Manny thought Christmas was extremely entertaining and joyous. He was extremely energetic and could barely fall asleep. After an hour, he fell asleep and was excited for the morning tomorrow. He couldn’t wait to see what he got.

When Manny woke up, he saw outside his windowpane that there was some snow gently falling down and people walking outside. Manny found the snow to be intriguing yet delightful. He was also excited to see what he got for Christmas this year. 

Manny went into the living room and saw his Christmas present. It was a blue, ribbon-wrapped, and rather small box. He excitedly got it and opened it to see what he got. Inside, he saw an iPod and smiled with great happiness. Manny got the iPod and went to his room and placed it in the drawer of his computer desk. He was so excited because he knew he would play lots of music on it for several years. Manny was grateful for Christmas this year. He secretly thought Santa gave him what he wanted because of his letter. Christmas was awesome.

Reviews

[JayG]

Reads too much like a report. You need to look into the techniques of the Fiction-Writing profession. They're not at all like the nonfiction report-writing skills you're using for this. Anything written with those skills, of necessity, will read too much like a report to hook the fiction reader. They expect you to make the story seem so real that if someone throws a rock at the protagonist the reader will duck. But our school-day skills can't do that because you have no one on the stage but the narrator, who's reporting and explaining, in overview and summation. And that's a report not a story.

Because you're using nonfiction writing skills, your character uses none of the senses but sight, and we're never in his viewpoint. He has no conversations, and interacts with no one. We don't know how old he is, or anything meaqningful about him that would make the reader care what happens to him. So in the end, the story is: Some kid you don't know wrote a letter to Santa. Then, it turned out that his parents got him what he asked Santa for in the letter, so he was happy, and believed there really is a Santa. The end.

Where's the tension, and the human interaction? Instead, a voice devoid of emotion, because only you know how you intend it to be read, drones on about things the reader hasn't been made to want to know, and talking about people they've not been made to care about. To see how it should be done, take a look at one of the best short stories on Christmas presents ever written: O. Henry's, The Gift of the Maji. It appeared in December of 1905, so the writing style and language choices are far from those we use today, but still, bear with it, because it's filled with emotion. And though it's over 100 years old it still has the power to make the reader relate to the people in the story, and their situation.

The Gutenberg project has it up for reading, online. Copy/past the address below to the URL window of any internet page and hit return to go there and read it.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7256/7256-h/7256-h.htm

The author wastes not a word on irrelevant details. Every line either moves the plot, meaningfully sets the scene, or develops character. And in the end, it's not about what happens, it's about two people who are truly in love.

Bottom-line: To write fiction that will capture the reader's attention, and keep them reading, you need the tricks the pros take for granted. They're not remotely like the writing skills we were given in school. Where the ones you're currently using are fact-based and author-centric, and focused on informing, fiction's techniques are emotion-based and character-centric: focused on providing an emotional experience. To better understand my meaning, think of yourself reading a horror story. If the author uses nonfiction skills you'll be told that the protagonist feels terror. If they use the skills of fiction writing, they'll terrorize YOU. And that's where the fun of reading lies: living the story, not learning the history of someone who never lived.

The library's fiction-writing section is a great place to find what you need. But my suggestion is to download a copy of the best book on fiction-writing I've found to date. It's an older book, but still the best, and it has over 300 5-star reviews on Amazon. The download is free:

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

So dig in. And while you do, keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/