Chapter 1

"Lola, are you up yet? I've called from you at least three times now, this is getting ridiculous!"

Mom was getting all fired up, I could tell. It wouldn't be long before she came barging into my bedroom and snatched me right out of the cosy duvet and sheets. 

I rolled over and sat up slightly, my head was pounding. I always seem to have this niggling headache these days! Dad thinks it's because I needed glasses, he told mom to get me an appointment with the local optician. I'm not sure she will ever get round to that, she forgets a lot of stuff these days with her new job.

"LOOOOOOLLLAAAAAAA!"

She sure doesn't forget to get me up for school though.

"Coming mom! I just lost my hair brush, but I'm up, I swear!"

I'm lying, of course but moms always so angry these days. She says she can be doing without me and my brothers holding her up in the morning, now she has to rush off to this big posh office job in the city.

We live in the countryside, me, my parents and my two younger brothers. Benjamin is nine and Axel is four.. or maybe he's five? Wait.. Oh never mind, either way he's a crybaby. Benjamin is ok though, sometimes he shares his sweets with me that he gets from the local church on weekends, he's a choir boy, see? We aren't even religious, dad says he is something called an atheist, but mom insisted that my brother took part in extra curricular activities.

I did aswell, I used to volunteer on the local farm, milking the cows and stuff - that was until I started falling over and tripping alot. Mom and dad are sure I need glasses, but I think mom thinks I'm just being abit of a klutz. 

I brush my awful frizzy hair into some sort of manageable fashion, just a basic pony tail. Starting at my reflection in the mirror I sigh. I so wish I took after my brothers, they have this beautiful, curly blonde hair that is almost white. I have horrible mouse brown hair that is frizzy and wild. My dad sometimes jokes I'm the post mans daughter, I don't know what that means but I hope not! He's a terribly big fat man with a booming voice. He isn't scared of dogs either, like post men are meant to be.

We go to a private school, me and my brothers. Most kids in America just go to normal public schools, it's so awesome because they can wear WHATEVER they want. We have to wear this disgusting bottle green uniform. Mom says that's a good thing as it means nobody gets judged, I say it's a bad thing because I want to be individual. Dad laughed when I said this and told me I acted years older than 12, I love it when dad compliments me.

After tonnes more larking about at home and in the car we FINALLY arrive at school. It was obviously my irritating brothers doing the larking, not me.

First class mathematics. I HATE maths. The sums all muddle up inside my head, the equals and plus signs taunt me and swim around the page of my textbook. It's not all that bad though, I sit next to this dead brainy boy called Vincent, sometimes when he's distracted I look at his work and copy it down. I'm sure nobody is fooled though because I always fail tests.

We then had gym class. I can't entirely say I hate gym, if me and my friends were allowed to do our own thing I'm sure it'd be really fun to run up and down the school gymnasium with basketballs and footballs - but today it's track. Outside. In the cold. 

I set off jogging along side my best friend Harpeet. She's been my best friend since we were TINY. Her family is originally from India, and whenever I go over to her house they're always cooking strange, Indian dishes but they smell AND taste amazing so it's ok. 

As I run I start to feel strange, as though my vision is fading in and out. I really 'ought to drink more water. Suddenly I fall to the floor, I don't see anything after this, it's just like I fell to sleep.

I wake up in a strange room that reeked of the doctors office. Maybe I was in the doctors office?

"Ah you've come round, Lola!" 

I lift my head and look towards a desk, a plump lady in a blue dress is sat watching me. She must have been writing something before as she placed her pen down.

"You gave us all quite the fright, I've called your mom and dad to come and collect you, dear. I think you need checking over by a proper doctor."

I shook my head, confused.

"Who are you?"

The plump lady laughed,

"I can see you've always been in good health. I'm the school nurse, you're in the nurses office. You fainted whilst running track. Your parents will be coming to collect you soon, you probaly just have a strong case of dehydration but it's always best to get these things checked!"

I nodded and laid my head back down on the white pillow that was propped up behind me. I was so tired, my head hurt so badly. I wanted my mom and dad.

Reviews

[JayG]

I gave thought to passing by, since you made it a point to ask for gentle treatment. But at the same time you mentioned how much you liked writing. So, since you’re the victim of a misunderstanding we all leave high school with, and it’s standing in your way so solidly…

In the interest of being gentle, a disclaimer: nothing I have to say relates to you, your talent and potential as a writer, or the story. It is 100% about the single point we all get wrong, and which the vast majority of us never correct.

Simply put, what we get wrong is that we think we learned to write, and since writing is writing, we believe have the basics down, and need only a good story idea, a knack for words, and a bit of practice and luck.

But the simply fact is that we did not learn to write as a publisher of fiction defines that act. We learned nothing about the basics of structuring a scene for the page, and how to use that structure to build and hold a reader’s interest.

Think of the ratio of time spent on writing a report, in comparison to a discussion of the three things a reader needs, quickly on entering a scene. How much time did your teachers spend on using tags to best effect, the role of the scene-goal, and how to place the reader into the character’s viewpoint and keep the narrator invisible? Unless your teacher was a writer the answer is probably that no time was spent on the things I mentioned.

On the other hand, how much time was spent on writing essays and reports properly?

See the problem? We were taught business writing skills, where the goal is to inform the reader concisely and accuratly. As a result we learn author-centric and fact-based writing techniques. And if you look at the structure of your story, that’s precisely how you’re writing. You’re explaining the flow of the action. We’re not the protagonist living the scene in real time. Instead, you, the author, dressed in a wig and makeup, to make yourself seem to be the protagonist at some unknown time after the events, are talking ABOUT them. In other words, you’re explaining the story, in a narrator-centric way—a report.

And because our schooldays education told us nothing about what readers of fiction react to, you’re approaching this as a flow of events—again, reporting. So you begin with her waking, a mundane act we all do each day, and could be doing instead of reading. So while it’s factual, and informative, is it really entertaining to read the details of someone waking and dropping a huge info-dump of history on us? History, in place of story is a boring way to open a story. But it is how we’re taught to write. So it’s not a matter of good or bad writing. For all we know, given the necessary tools, you would be a brilliant writer.

Forget the idea that events—plot—are what readers come to learn. That’s as interesting as a history book. And how many people read them for entertainment? Damn few.

My point is that readers seek entertainment, not enlightenment. Think of yourself. If you read a romance are you seeking to know that the protagonist is falling in love? Or do you want to be made to love the object of their affection and to wish it was you living the story. To learn, or be made to FEEL?

And while you may presently be taking, or have taken a creative writing course, they do virtually nothing toward giving you the knowledge you need, for three reasons. First, most of the students are seeking an easy pass, and have no desire, or aptitude for writing, and that drags the learning to a crawl.

Second, because the course is focused on being creative, and learning about everything from poetry to technical writing in a semester, you spend only enough time on each writing discipline to get a taste, not a swallow of the meal.

And finally, the majority of CW courses have the students, who have skimmed the chapter, and who have not a clue of either the realities of writing fiction for the page or more than a passing acquaintance with the subject, are the ones giving the critiques. And how in the hell can you expect someone who read the chapter last night to give more than misinformed opinion?

So, I support your goal of writing fiction that will captivate your reader. The world needs more benign crazies like us. But I also believe, just as strongly, that if you want to write like a pro you need to know what the pro knows. Because as Mark Twain said long ago, “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.”

So should you keep writing? Absolutely. But at the same time, approach it intelligently and prepare yourself for the task. After all, can we call ourselves serious about writing if we spend no time or money acquiring the necessary skills? No.

For a bit of an overview on what we’re trying to accomplish, and why we need to know that, you might want to dig through the writing articles in my blog. They’re written with the newer writer in mind.

You also want to devour a few books from the library’s fiction writing section. My personal order of preference is to begin with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling writer, or Jack Bickham’s, Scene and Structure. Both taught commercial fiction writing at Oklahoma University. They will give you the background on the structure of fiction and the nuts and bolts issues.

Sol Stein’s, Sol Stein on Writing, is focused more strongly on issues of style, which is built on structure.

Donald Mass has, Writing the Breakout Novel. It gives an agent’s eye view, one well worth learning, in addition to the basics.

I know that what I’ve said is nowhere near what you were hoping to hear. And it’s not easy to take. But without doubt I am the last one to notice and slowest to learn. So if I can trade in my school-day writing skills for those of the fiction writer, I’m absolutely certain you can, more easily. And once you trade in the sturdy commercial dray horse we’re issued in school, and mount yourself on Pegasus, who knows where you’ll fly to?

I won’t lie to you. While the techniques are no harder to learn than were the skills you now own, it took you a good while to perfect them, and they will not surrender without a fight. But once you make those tricks yours you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of them yourself.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

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