My Twenty Seconds of Courage

I love this! I think you handled her internal dialogue and flashbacks perfectly well, too. The only change I might suggest is because this is present-tense, some internal dialogue doesn’t need to be italicized. For example:

Then I stopped. Oh my God! I can’t do this. I turned away and started walking toward a bench by the playground. I can’t leave my brother.

Those don’t seem to need it, since she’s actually thinking them at that moment, and we don’t need to be given the slight distance of an “in her head” reminder. Does that make sense?

Twenty seconds of courage. Boy, is that the truth.

Christie,

I think you hit it just right.

The internal monologue is effective,although I was a little surprised to find the speaker was on her way to 7th grade. I, too, thought she was older. Then again, when I was in 6-7th grade I thought I was pretty grown up. I don’t remember how I talked to myself.

When she couldn’t find her brother, I had momentary heart failure. I so didn’t want this story to be about a child snatching. Parker was great. He might not have known what was on his sister’s mind, but he put her in position to follow her mother’s advice. Actually, by refusing to leave the basketball court he forced her to talk to Seth. Well done, little bro!

It’s an engaging story. What happens next?

Hi Christy! I liked the piece, especially the part where you describe her looking for her brother and that whole interaction. The writing and the dialog seem most natural there. I also like the message, and how thrilled she is to find herself actually talking to Seth.

As others have pointed out, the narrator sounds older than 6th grade, and Parker sounds older than 6. Try to listen closer to them speaking (and to that age group in movies and tv) so you can capture their voices more naturally in your writing. For example: use more contractions, We’re older, We’re heading, etc. And my friend his friend- at those places she’d probably use names. Try to get into their heads so that when you start writing they do the talking, not you…

How did your daughter like the piece?

Christy, I like the idea of having 20 seconds of courage. That can be series of pieces and applicable in so many areas of life. Thanks for sharing. I liked the journal entry portion. It gave a fun element to the piece and the transition is GREAT from her thought world to real life and what was happening right in front of her. Awesome Job.

My only critique or advice is (and this may be bad advice so feel free not to take it) but I think in the journal part of the piece, you have more freedom to write stylistically. Its a kids journal and that can be messy. I know mine at that age had lines that were scratched out and misspelled words here and there. Not that you would intentionally make it grammatically incorrect but it would be fun to play around with different styles and structures of it. But really you did an awesome job just the way it is too!!!!Thanks for sharing.

Christy – This is a nice little story. Honestly – I have no experience being a twelve or thirteen year old girl. But the experience I have when I was a twelve or thirteen year old boy, is that I vividly recall being terrified of talking to twelve to thirteen year old girls. So that’s true for both boys and girls.

For me when I read your story, I thought the girl’s age to be more mid-high school age. The narrative seemed more grown up than I remember being at that age (which I assume was sixth grade). That’s just me.

However I agree wholeheartedly that the lesson here should be taught to our kids more. I hear so many negative things being put out there and so much pressure to excel. Kids need to be encouraged more knowing it’s OK to fail sometimes. I think the message of “Just take a chance – you never know what can happen for you when you do, but you know exactly what will happen if you don’t,” is extremely important.

As writers- that is a message that both you and I can identify with – otherwise we would be off watching TV instead of pounding away at our keyboards.

I mean – What fool would ever question the teachings of Matt Damon – Am I right?

James Schmidt (J.L.S.)