The Beginning

           Long ago a girl was going camping with her grandparents. The girl’s name was Alex and she did not know what was going to happen on this trip. Her parents were going on a work trip and sent her to her grandparents. She was excited for her camping trip and to see her grandparents.

                 At the campsite, she saw a RV and fire pit. Her grandma said, “Why don’t you explore, while we put everything away.” “ Okay,” she replied. She went to look around and saw the woods. She was walking towards the woods but her grandpa called for her. She walked back to the RV and saw that they lit the campfire. She smelled beans and hamburgers cooking, she saw her grandparents dancing to the radio. They saw her and her grandma turned off the radio. Grandma said, “ Hi sweetheart, dinner is almost done, why don’t you go wash up for dinner.” She went inside the RV and cleaned up, then they had dinner and chatted over smores.  She washed the dishes and headed to bed.

                  The next day, she went to explore the woods and she thought it was cool. She heard something fall behind her and she turned around. She sighed when she saw it was just a wolf and she went back to walking but the wolf followed her to the edge of the woods. It stopped when she stepped out of the woods and she turned around and looked at the wolf. The wolf turned and walked away. She shrugged and went back to the RV and took a nap. When she woke up, it was time for dinner. She went outside to eat, then washed the dishes and went to bed.

Reviews

[JayG]

Okay, you’re sixteen and like to write. That’s a good thing. But, you see problems with the writing and probably blame them on yourself, but don’t know how to fix them. Still, can’t help telling stories. Right?

First, congratulations. Like it or not, you’re a storyteller—or, as your friends might express it: A bullshit artist. It is, I’m afraid, an incurable condition.

The good news is that the problem has nothing to do with talent, and is caused by what I call, The Great Misunderstanding. Simply put, the problem is: School—and the skill we learn there, called, writing. Why? Because as with so many words, there are many meanings to the word, and, many varieties of writing. And because that’s not apparent, in our school years we make the flawed assumption that the wrirting skills we learn are universal to all “writing.”

If only…

Think of WHY you go to school. It’s not to make a novelist of you. All professional skills are acquired in-addition to the basics of school, where we're taught skills that are useful to employers. Public education readies us to make a living, with the writing skills employers need, like: reports, letters, and other nonfiction. It informs the reader, and is loaded with declarative sentences, like, “Long ago a girl was going camping with her grandparents, and, “The girl’s name was Alex and she did not know what was going to happen on this trip.”

Accurate? Sure. Entertaining? Nope, because it’s the transcribed words of an “explainer.” When you read it you ARE the storyteller, so the story's words are filled with the emotion the reader cannot know to place into them.

But...suppose instead of “telling” the reader about events, we made them live the events as her, and in real time.

(Bear in mind that this is a quick parallel, not your story):
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“We’re here Alex,” My mother said, as the car slowed.

I pushed send on my phone and looked up, to find that we were pulling into the parking lot of my grandparents apartment building, the beginning of an exciting weekend: My first camping trip.

Pulling the keys from the ignition, Mom turned to me, saying, “They’re taking you to Rickett’s Glenn, which has an amazing trail, and where they took me on my first trip. But…and this is important, Alex, don’t go wandering off by yourself. Okay?”

That remark brought a sigh, a headshake of frustration, and, “Come on Mom! I’m twelve, not a baby.” I couldn’t help the little smile that came as I gave a little slip of the hand, adding,” Stop worrying. I’ll take good care of your parents.”

With that, and, “So enjoy your seminar. I’ll be fine,” I collected my gear and headed for a weekend of fun.
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Look at the differences in approach:

Instead of the narrator talking TO the reader, they're NOT on stage as a performer. Instead, they work in service to the protagonist, who is actively living the events as-we-read, and doing it in a way that makes the reader know their decision-making. We do what storytellers and film can't: We take the reader into the mind of the protagonist.

We’re TOLD nothing. Instead we live the events, AS-ALEX. What she hears and sees we hear and see, in a way that makes it real. And she’s living the story events as we do, in a series of: motivation/reaction pairs:

1. Her mother speaks to her, and so she looks up, notices where she is, and is moved to think about why she’s there. So, we learn of the camping trip incidentally, not as a “Let me tell you why she’s here," from an outsider.
2. The car stopping motivates her mother to give her instructions, which, incidentally, lets the reader know where she’s bound, that her mother feels it’s a significant trip, and why. And, like any parent, Mom gives a “be good,” warning, that in this case is foreshadowing. When seeing that warning about wandering off, the reader will automatically say, “Oh-oh. This kid is going to wander off and get in trouble.”
3. Her mother’s remark causes her to react in frustration, that her mother seems to be babying her, so she voices her displeasure. But following that, her makes a small joke, which demonstrates a bit of character development, showing that she’s not too serious a person.
4. Having reacted to her mother’s remark, and with nothing more to say, she’s motivated to leave the car and begin the actual story.

So, in 5 paragraphs, of about 150 words, or, a bit more than the first page, we learn our avatar’s name, age, short-term scene-goal, and, have reason to WANT to learn what happens next.

See how different, and immersive the live action version can be? Instead of just learning what happened, each of the motivation-reaction pairs acted as a tick of the scene-clock, making time pass for the reader at the same rate it does for her, which gives the illusion of living the events in place of hearing about them, secondhand.

So…like everything else, writing fiction is an acquired skill, with a very different approach from the fact-based and author-centric skills you were given in school. Fiction, with its goal of entertaining the reader by making the events seem to be happening to them, requires an emotion-based and character-centric approach.

Does it involve study? What doesn’t? But given that you WANT to write, the learning will be filled with “So THAT’S how they do it!” And the practice is writing stories that get better and better. So, what’s not to love?

Try this: Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict is a gentle and thorough introduction to the ways of adding wings to your words. You can download it from:

https://dokumen.pub/a-poetry-handbook-0156724006.html

If that doesn’t work, you can read it online at:

https://archive.org/stream/goal.motivation.conflictdebradixon/Goal.Motivation.Conflict%20-%20Debra%20Dixon_djvu.txt

The layout to that is awful, though, so try the first one. And of course, the librasry may have a copy (but not the school library)

Not good news after all the work you’ve done, but since our own writing always works for us, and no one fixes the problem they don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

And for a kind of overview of the traps and gotchas awaiting the hopeful writer, you might want to try some of my articles and YouTube videos, linked to below.

Minor point: Wolves hunt in packs. And if you see one, it's already too late. And while you might have it be a werewolf, even a kid of 12 wouldn't treat it like a dog and just turn away. In real-life, wolves are both large and scary

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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“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“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

[Marie Kinnett]

Jay
thank you for this comment
I started writing this when I was nine so I haven't really worked on it since then. I'm starting to work on it again. I will think clearly about what you said
Thanks again