Friday Feedback Teachers Write.
Josh and Gae,
https://ghpolisner.blogspot.com/2018/07/friday-feedback-josh-funk-dos-and-donts.html?showComment=1532717637779#c321592022190276236
Thank you for all your time! I teacher high school, and like to read picture books for bell work, so I will definitely be buying Lost in the Library. Everyone likes a good rhythm in a book, right? Your ideas and Do's and Don'ts are great. Gae - I want you to know that I used a quote from your book last year as a Bell Work - "Tuesday, and those planes, they've broken something. Permanently. And in the process, they've changed everything. And everyone." We talked about 9/11 and how our actions can also affect others. Love your books and feedback.
This is a story that I have worked on for a few years. These first two paragraphs are true, but some of the rest of the story I fictionalize. I don't like the first paragraph, and I have revised it quite a few times. I want to tell the reader right away how the accident happened, but it seems choppy. I could use any feedback.
It was the summer before my sophomore year into high school. I was finally going to Madison High and I felt grown up, but all that changed when a drunk driver hit the back of an open jeep causing my twenty year old brother, Chris, who was riding in the passenger side to be ejected, even though he was wearing his seat belt at the time. Although the doctors did all they could, he died two days later, August 2, 1977. I thought seat belts were supposed to save lives? I wasn't excited about anything anymore. Especially about starting high school.
We didn't always get along, but my last conversation with Chris was pretty positive. He had taken a spill on his motorcycle, and it was fixed and sitting in our garage. Mark, my little brother, and I were checking it out. He said to us, “Guess who’s going to be the first to go out for a spin this weekend?” I thought that this was a trick question. But he said, “You two.” “Wow,” I thought, “he really likes us.” Those were the last words that he spoke to me.
Kay B, first of all, thank you for that beautiful share about THE MEMORY OF THINGS. That really touched me. As for your piece about Chris, I remember it from last summer, right? It's still brutal and painful.
I'm giving you advice from my gut and hoping it helps and is "right" -- I think what you need to do for now is:
1. Write forward and don't worry about the beginning. It so often changes and it's only when we get to the middle or end, or even revisions of drafts that we see where the real opening should be; and
2. Slow all this down. Take me there with either your MC (narrator -- you?) or Chris, but let's say your MC for now, and let me get to know her. Let me see how it feels to walk into the school. Show all of this by luxuriating, breaking into chapters and trusting that the characters are interesting and we want to know them. Ask yourself Why and What questions: What is the story I'm telling. Why am I telling it. Why does it matter not only to me, but the characters? Show that. You actually have a TON here. Take your time. Break each part into the scene and take us there. The MC walking into school feeling mature, establishing herself, feeling ready to conquer the world. At home, SHOW us the scene with the brothers -- its whole own chapters. And when you're ready, write the scenes with Chris getting into the jeep, putting his seatbelt on, etc. So much powerful to mine here. Does this help.