Chapter 1

 Jay and his sister May Williams stood at the stairs leading to the entrance of the school they would be spending the next few years of their lives at. Around them were other students making their way up the school.

Jay set down the suitcase he held in his hand and sighed before looking at his sister, who was looking at the stairs. He ran a hand through his brown hair before putting a hand on her shoulder.

"We can always turn around, you know. I'm sure Aunt Amber wouldn't mind keeping us for a year or two."

He told her and she just shook her head. "Yeah, Yeah. I know...Dad would skin us..." Jay said as he rubbed his neck. He picked up his suitcase and took his sister's hand before beginning to walk up the stairs.

Once they got up, they went to the main entrance but was stopped by a girl.

"Hello and welcome!" The girl exclaimed. Jay smiled a bit and after taking a second look at her, he noticed that she was wearing a black uniform instead of the blue ones everyone else was wearing.

"My name is Doku Saki! I am one of the six student council members at this wonderful school." Doku told them. Before Jay could say anything, she clapped her hands and two other students took the suitcases from May and Jay. "You two are clearly new here. We will make sure that your things make it safely to your rooms then we will come to find you once they are situated."

Doku told them and May nodded in response. "Now, you two need to head to the outside auditorium. Our student council president is going to make a speech to all the returning and new students that have joined us." Doku told them before she opened the door. "Just follow the signs and the crowd." May nodded and Jay waved as they walked in.

The inside of the school looked just as fancy as it did on the outside.

Jay held onto his sister’s hand tightly as they made their way to the auditorium. They walked through the school before they walked through another huge door, leading outside. The outside courtyard was filled with small tables and seats with flowers being planted everywhere they looked.

Jay looked forward and saw what looked like a mini coliseum. The students made their way in and found their seats. Jay looked around, seeing the different students before looking down at May, who was doing the same.

"This doesn't look too bad, May." Jay said with a smile. "So far, the students seem nice...Maybe it won't be so bad." Jay told her and she nodded. A few moments after they got there, there was a loud ringing until everyone had stopped talking and there was silence. Then, a girl with brown hair wearing a white school uniform came stepped forward, a boy wearing a black uniform stepping forward with her.

"Hi, Hi!" She exclaimed with a microphone in one hand while waving with the other. "It's so great to see so many students with us this morning!" As she talked, Jay looked around, noticing how many students there really were. "For those of you who don't know, My name is Emily Lanox. I am your student council president! And this cutie is Illaden, your student council vice president."

The girl named Emily put a hand on the boy and kissed his cheek before taking a step forward. "And the lovely people standing behind us are the rest of the council. Now, as you all know, it's a new year. And because of this, we need to go over the school’s rules." 

As Emily finished her sentence, the sound of groaning filled the area. "I know, this probably isn't the first thing you wanted to hear but it needs to be done. So, to begin, every single one of you in this school has a target on your back. Meaning, anyone here can kill you with no consequence."

Jay's blood went cold as Emily spoke, a chill going down his spine. "That's right. Every single one of you can die at this school; whether it be out of cold blood or just for the fun of it. But, to help keep everything calm, there are multiple safe points within the school. These safe points include your dorms, the cafeteria, the classrooms during school hours, the bathrooms, and finally when we have pep rallies or other school meetings. Also, no killing of any staff here. We had too many students killing teachers last year." Emily said with a small sigh as she continued.

"All students must be in a school uniform at all times while on campus. Lee and Li, I’m looking at you two!" She exclaimed before pointing to a random spot in the crowd. "Next, no guns are allowed on campus. The only guns that are allowed are the ones being carried by the principal and myself. Moving on, If you wish to go somewhere off campus, notify the nearest student council member and they will provide you with a bus pass and a time to be back. Finally, there are multiple clubs within this school. If you join a club, the club leaders will provide extra protection over you while you are here, but, you must follow their club rules if you are to join."

Emily finished as she looked around at the crowd. "If any of these rules are broken, the punishments range from expulsion to death." Emily said with a large smile. "Now, since that's out of the way... Today will be everyone's catch up day. You will find where your dorm rooms are, where your classrooms are, and to join a club, if you want to. I hope you all have a fun year!" Emily yelled before waving again, walking away with Illaden. As the students started to leave, so did Jay and May.

Before they could make it back inside, Doku stopped them.

"Hello again! We brought your things to your dorm room, I can show you where it is at if you want." She said with a bright smile. Jay smiled back at her and nodded.

"That would be great."

He said as they began to walk with her. "You two are siblings, right? I made sure that you two had the same room. Siblings here tend to want to be together." Doku explained. While they walked, Jay saw May looking around, watching as each person passed.

As they walked, two students ran past them, one tripping and falling. The other one stopped and turned around, grabbing his arm.

"Come on, Lee, she's gonna get us!" He said with a large smile. The one named Lee quickly stood up, grabbing the other one's arm as well. "Come on, Li, she's gaining on us."

The two quickly ran off again, May looking back in time to see a student in a male uniform running after the two, pushing May to the ground as they ran past her. "I'm gonna string your insides when I get a hold of you two!" The student screamed as they kept running. Jay looked at May and quickly helped her up, hearing Doku sigh.

"I will have to talk with Emily about those three later. Anyway, let's continue."

Doku said as she kept walking. They soon got to the dorms, Jay and May getting to theirs. Doku unlocked the door and opened it. "Welcome to your new home for the next year at least." She said as she handed them the key.

"Um, thank you." Jay said with a bright smile. Doku smiled back and gave a small wave.

"Not a problem. Come find me if you need anything else." She said before she closed the door, leaving them to their own space.

Reviews

[JayG]

Obviously, you enjoy writing, and hope the stories you share will please the reader. And, by writing them, you’ve demonstrated the desire, the perseverance, and the skills of grammar and word choice a writer of fiction needs. So that’s good. But because you’re still within the school system, you, like pretty much everyone else, aren’t aware of some fairly critical things that can make the difference between writing, and Writing.

In school we’re given a skill called writing. And, there’s a profession called Writing. Because both use the same word we assume that the skill we learn is related to the skills a Fiction-Writer uses. But what we universally miss is that all professional skills are learned IN-ADDITION to the general skills we’re given in our school days. And Fiction-Writing is a full profession—and not an easy one to master, at that. Think about it. When you leave your schooldays will you have the skills to write a script that a producer will see as professional? Of course not. How about Journalism? Are you ready to work in that field with no additional training? Again no. So why do we universally believe that we’re ready to write fiction that will appeal to the reader, with nothing more than a skill called writing? We shouldn’t, but we all do. In reality, we’re no more knowledgeable in the skills of writing fiction when we graduate our schooldays than in those used in performing an appendectomy. Luckily for our friends we don’t try to remove their appendix, and only inflict our writing on them. ;)

Think of school, and of the number of reports and essays you’ve been assigned over the years, compared to the number of stories. Think of how much time your teachers have spent on the elements of a scene, and how a scene on the page differs from one on the screen. None, right? But if you don’t know what the elements of a scene are, and how to make use of them, how can you write one?

Here’s the deal: The purpose of public education is to provide commerce and industry with a pool of trained workers, who have a set of useful, and predictable skills. And what do our prospective employers expect us to write? Mostly, reports and essays—nonfiction, whose goal is to inform the reader clearly and concisely. And because those are the skills you currently own, you’re using them in writing your stories. So… because they’re fact-based and author-centric, you, someone whose performance the reader can’t hear or see, are explaining the flow of the story TO the reader. Have your computer read the story aloud, to hear what the reader does when they read. All the emotion you would place into the telling? Gone. The way you tell it: the gestures; the body language; the facial expression; the eye-movement; the changes in intensity and cadence; Your performance… All missing.

Look at the opening line as a reader must:

• Jay and his sister May Williams stood at the stairs leading to the entrance of the school they would be spending the next few years of their lives at.

This is you, the narrator, setting the scene, as you would were you telling the story aloud. So this isn’t Jay or May living the scene, it’s you, someone not on the scene or ion the story. explaining it to the reader. But school? What does that mean? This could be day one of first grade, middle school, high school, college, or Hogworts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You know. Jay and May know. But the reader—the one this is written for—lacks context. And as we read on we don’t know where we are in time and space, why the pair is going to that school, or how old they are.

Sure, as you read, it’s all clear…to you. But you turn to page-one knowing what’s going on. You need to edit from the seat of someone who doesn’t. More than that, you need a few of the tricks of the trade that the pros take for granted. After all, you, like everyone else you know, have been choosing to read professionally written and polished fiction since you began reading. So isn’t that what you expect to see?

When you read fiction it’s not for an informational experience. It’s an emotional experience you crave. When you read a horror story, for example, you aren’t looking to know that the protagonist feels terror. That’s a fact, and most facts are boring. You want the writer to terrorize YOU, and make YOU afraid to turn out the lights. That’s where the fun of reading fiction lies: in the sense that the story is happening to you as-you-read. You want the author to play with your emotions, and make you care, not just know. And no way in hell can the nonfiction skills we learn in school do that. To make a reader care you need to write in an emotion-based and character-centric way, a writing style not even mentioned in your classes. And there, they never mentioned the three things you MUST address quickly on entering a scene. So you didn’t. They didn’t explain the function of the short-term scene-goal, and so, you didn’t make use of one. They never explained how viewpoint differs from point of view as defined by personal pronouns. That’s a HUGE issue, and makes the difference between the reader feeling as though they’re living the scene in real-time, and reading a report.

And here’s the thing: none of the things I’ve mentioned have to do with good or bad writing, or talent. They’re about the learned part of the profession, the craft of the fiction writer—something you’ve not known existed. But as the great Mark Twain once observed, “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.” And because you’ve not been aware of those missing skills, it’s those “just ain’t so” issues that you need to work on. And that’s not a bad thing, because as a writer, you’ll find that learning those skills is fun, and like going backstage at the theater. In fact, as you progress, you’ll find often yourself saying, “But that’s so obvious. Why didn’t I see that for myself?”

For a kind of overview of if the issues you need to build on, the articles in my writing blog were aimed at hopeful writers like yourself, and may be worth a look.

But in the end, you need to go to the pros. We may not always agree with their advice, but we do know that it at least worked for them. So devouring a few books on writing technique in your library’s fiction-writing section may be time well spent (but not the school library). My personal recommendation, at this point is to pick up a personal copy of, Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It’s a warm, easy read, one that feels a lot like sitting with Deb while she discusses writing. She’ll even tell you why a line like, “Ned grinned when Sue came through the door,” is a POV break, and should be avoided. I found that in no other book on writing.

So have at it. But whatever else you may do: Hang in there and keep-on-writing.

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