School Ramble

Jay's trying to cope living in a city where humans are the minority. He dreams of becoming part of the military to explore the universe.

Jay tapped his pencil against the notebook as the class lecture went on. He couldn’t say that he was paying too much attention to it. Considering he didn’t have much interest in the history of the world he lived in. It was a sad fact in reality, as a human he had a relatively short lifespan compared those who resided here. Even their government leaders had been around since the three hundred years that this country had existed. The boy sighed - hearing the teacher bark his name as he suddenly snapped his head towards the board.

“Jay if you don’t want to pay attention you can just get to the principal's office.” She said as she placed her hand on her hip. Jay looked boredly on, being sent to the principal's office would be a blessing actually. Though he knew if he told her that than it would just create an issue. The lion shifter could get cranky - a human could only naturally get nervous.

“What was it that we were talking about again then?” Jay asked as he sat up further in his chair. Trying to ignore the sound of rain that had pulled his attention out of the window to begin with. His teacher sighed, pointing to the whiteboard. The letters “the collapse” plastered on it. A well known event where the universe imploded on itself and had to start over again. It was where history began - after all only a handful of creatures survived the event and since then it was hard to get hold of any documents that held information on life before the collapse.

“What more is there to know about it? It really sucked and we all hope it doesn’t happen again.” Jay said as he shrugged his shoulders. The teacher crossed her arms.

“We want to know how it happened, so in the future we can avoid such a thing.” Jay scoffed.

“You’d have to get every country in the universe to get along for at least a few minutes for that to happen. Too many species like to keep to themselves. Not everyone is like the crystal kingdom.” He didn’t mean to sound snappy. Maybe it was his irritation getting the best of him.

“Out.” there was a silence among the students as they studies him. Jay had gotten himself kicked out of class without even trying. Sighing, he stood up and grabbed his pack from the back of the chair. Muttering an apology to the teacher as he opened the door and into the hallway. It was quiet other than the humming of the rain against the windows. The long hallway echoing the voices from the classrooms that lined this floor. Jay headed towards the left to the stairs that headed downwards. The school was made up of three large buildings being the most well known school in the capital city after all. It housed all sorts of species and even had an on campus college. Jay didn’t want to be stuck here though, he had a dream of joining the military. It was the first step to getting out of this planet and going to explore others. As a human he didn’t have the ability to create his own inter dimensional portals so he had to get a permit to use one of the hubs. The easiest way if you didn’t have family elsewhere, was to be part of the military.

Letting his day dreams take him until he reached the principal’s office at the end of the first floor. Located right near the exit out to the courtyard. Jay took in a deep breath and opened it, looking to the desk lady to his right. There was another student in there - with dark black hair. She turned to him and smiled.

“No sweat Barbra I’ll just hang out with my new friend here until the principal shows up.” She said to Jay as he felt his heart thumping against his chest. He didn’t do well in social situations, with a lot of high energy species as well being a human honestly just had a lot of drawbacks.

“You smell so plainnn! What’s your name, my name’s Cross.” She pointed to her chest. Now that she was turned towards him, he could see her purple eyes piercing back at him. Fangs in her teeth as she smiled. She was where a white undershirt with a black jacket above it. A necklace around her neck that had a raven crest on it. It took him a moment to realize it was a family crest as some wore due to the royal families throughout the universe.

“Isn’t it rude to tell a stranger they smell plain?” Jay would comment as he looked to the seats lining the wall on the left. Taking the first near the door as Cross came to his own left and sat down beside him. Seems like he wasn’t going to be able to shake her.

“No it’s just rude to touch you. I’m a Keridian! So what are you then?” Out right asking someone’s species too as far as he knew was rude. At least that’s what Jay’s father had told him, but he also came from a fully human family probably ashamed of that much.

“A human.” Jay muttered looking Cross in the eyes. She seemed to be rather attuned to him at least. “You’re a Keridian right? It’s a good thing you don’t touch people.” he noted. Keridians were known to be gatekeepers, they were a highly emotional and volatile species that were originally created before the collapse to watch over prisons. With the ability to read memories within any creature they came into skin to skin contact with. Though with the younger ones they could only hold on for so long otherwise it damaged their bodies. That was at least their main focus, other than that they shifted into partner animals to disguise themselves. Animals of their affinity usually flocked to them.

“A human… I don’t think I’ve ever met a human.” Cross placed a finger to her mouth as she crossed her arms. “Do you ever feel out of place here? I know there’s a lot of species because it’s so diverse but as far as I knew the human population was at an all time low.”

“That’s because we have a short life span. You probably have generations of family still alive. I just have my parents - my grandparents died when they were eighty.” Jay answered as Cross nodded her head. Becoming suddenly silent, Jay felt like she was simply feeling pity for him.

“Must be nice really - I hear a lot of Keridians go insane after a while. I have a older brother whose only two hundred and he’s locked up because he’s crazy.” Jay blinked, this was information he didn’t necessarily want to know. Not especially on a first meeting.

“Jeez, and that pendant around your neck? Aren’t you from the Mackury family?” Jay finally asked, he was curious after all. The Mackury family were from the country of Lockwood located in another dimension. Their planet housed three separate countries and Lockwood was the oldest. Since their founding father was actually from before the collapse. Cross brimmed with pride.

“Yes, I’m Kalen Mackury’s grand daughter!”  There was a name that had embedded itself in history for sure.

“You don’t look like a rich kid.” Jay said suddenly looking her up and down. No wonder her name was so odd too. She frowned, pulling up a lip.

“Excuse me, my mom and dad work hard. My mom’s actually a police officer here, the chief of police in River city!” That was the name of the capital city that they resided in. Jay’s eyes instantly brightened.

“You mean the Amachi Mackury?! She helps with missions doesn’t she.” The boy exclaimed. It was his last year of highschool, he was already eighteen that meant if he became friends with this woman… perhaps he could get in good. Cross grinned and nodded her head to him. Their conversation was cut short when a man stepped out of the back office. Clearing his throat and staring the kids down. Principal Hamilton, the son of the president. Jay wasn’t looking forward to what he was going to lecture them about.

Author's Note

I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time. I did a bit of a writing exercise to prepare for my novel that will include these characters. It's been months since I've written something like this to be honest and I am very satisfied with the outcome!

Reviews

[JayG]

• Jay tapped his pencil against the notebook as the class lecture went on. He couldn’t say that he was paying too much attention to it...

This is precisely how you would tell the story to an audience. But look at the problems you face using that method:

1. The reader can't hear the emotion in your voice. And given that they can't know what the sentences will say, they can't even guess at how you want ti read. So your tone, intensity, cadence, and all the tricks of vocal storytelling are replaced by an emotion free voice. Have your computer read the story aloud and you'll hear how different what the reader gets is from how you tell the story.

2. The reader has no idea of how you would PERFORM the storytelling. So the facial expressions you use to illustrate emotion are gone. Gone, too, are the gestures you visually punctuate with, your body language, eye movement, and all the performance tricks, leaving the reader with a storyteller's script, minus the stage directions and rehearsal time.

In short, for the reasons above you cannot use the skills of storytelling on the page, Our medium is very different, so the method of presenting a story is, and must be, too. Our schooldays writing is of little use, because that's designed to inform. Remember all those reports and essays? That was to give us skills employers require.

But fiction's goal is to entertain, which requires a very different approach. For fiction we don't explain what happens, we make the reader feel as if they're living the events. Knowing what the protagonist does, without knowing why s/he decided to do that removes reason to care it they're successful. To care about the character we must know them, not know about them.

It's not a matter of doing something wrong, or of talent/skill. It's that like any other profession there are tricks of the trade, and specialized knowledge that must be learned and mastered. Simply put: to write like a pro we need to know what the pro knows.

Bad news, I know, especially given how hard you've worked on this. But it is a problem you share with pretty much everyone, since in school we're not told that fiction is unlike the kind of writing we learn. And the good news is that the learning is fun, if you are meant to be a writer (And if it isn't, you've learned something important, so, win/win).

The local library's fiction writing department can be a huge help, in picking up the tricks you need. You might also want to dig around in the articles in my blog, for an idea of the issues involved.

But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

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

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good opening chapter. I liked the set-up of the story. Good characters and I liked the history shared and the opening of the story line. You have my attention. Well written and interesting. Please send me read requests. I like to read more. Thank you Kurt for sharing the excellent opening chapter.
Coyote