In which Leinad graduates from high school

On Tuesday, Leinad walked into a large, brick church building and sat down on an old sofa in the foyer. He waited around for a while, glancing briefly over a sheet of paper with some scribbled facts about Mexico City’s pollution and crown-of-thorns starfish, before standing up to chat nervously with a young man in a bow-tie. Presently, an elderly man entered the foyer and ushered the two young men into the large church hall, which was filled with desks — all empty, except for two which had booklets reading “2014 HSC Geography Exam” lying on them.

The two young men sat, nervously emptied their pencil-cases as the old man intoned the malpractice warning, and then tensed, ready to begin.

Three hours and five minutes later, having filled in 20 multiple choice bubbles, answered four sets of short-answer questions, and written eleven pages worth of essays, Leinad straightened up. As he walked out of the church hall into the bright, spring day, he was filled with one sublime thought: he was done with school forever. The only thing preventing him from skipping down the street was his backpack, filled to bursting with books to be returned to school.

******

I have, of course, been very busy with study and exams — and more study, and more exams — for quite some time. Two years ago, I quit homeschooling and started studying in the public school system by a distance. Though I was fortunate to have excellent teachers and classmates, and I learnt a lot of things, the sharp increase in workload kept me from regular blogging and recreational fiction-writing for quite some time.

But now it is over! After a hectic three and a half weeks, in which I sat 18 hours worth of exams (and wrote about 86 pages of essays, 18 pages of short answers, 20 pages of Maths working, and filled in 57 multiple choice bubbles), I am free. Just in time to catch the second half of NaNo WriMo!

As I write this post, I am on the plane home from my exams (I had to travel a fair way to sit them). Earlier in the flight, I began my NaNo Novel. It’s the first novel I’m writing since 2011, and I daresay my skills in writing long fiction have grown rusty (if I ever had them), but I am eagerly taking on the challenge. My hope is that by the time I start University in mid-February, I will have written and polished my first ever high-quality novel.

But I won’t bore you by blathering on about my life. I’m writing this because I’m so relieved and happy to done with school (and because I can’t seem to sleep on this flight). But you shouldn’t be relieved and happy. Your NaNo Novel is calling you. You should be writing.

Is this what dying feels like?

On Wednesday, I wrote a short story for a past exam paper question, in preparation for my end-of-school exams in October. The goal was to practice quickly writing a good story, as well as to produce something I might be able to adapt for my actual exam. The story I wrote, however — together with a Quora answer I read yesterday — did more than that. They taught me something very important about changing between points of view in a story, and about story-telling in general.

The question I attacked on Wednesday was this:

“Romanticism — a revolutionary search for feeling.” Using two imaginary voices, illustrate this concept.

Can you imagine opening your exam paper and finding yourself with just one hour to come up with a story for that question? Fortunately, for this practice, I was able to spend a good deal of time thinking about my story before I actually sat down to write. Nevertheless, I ran across a difficulty I had not anticipated. I found that changes in viewpoint character are really, really hard.

Before I tell you how I found it hard, let me tell you about the story I wrote. My story was set in Germany during the Napoleonic Wars (at which time the country was just a collection of un-unified states). A father and his son are passionately nationalistic and want to fight, not only to expel Napoleon, but eventually to unify all German-speaking peoples. However, a problem arises. Just as they are about to leave, the son falls very ill. The father leaves without him, and the son is left ailing at home. The story switches back and forth between the two characters (who take turns narrating in the first person) as they struggle to come to terms with the fact that the son won’t be able to fight.

So: how were the POV changes hard? Well, they were hard in that I found it very difficult to keep the story flowing through the changes. With each change, the story seemed to grind to a halt. There didn’t seem to be much reason for the narrative to keep moving.

Let me show you how I ended the son’s first turn of narration, and see if you agree:

“For now [for the time-being], I would observe the subtle beauties of the German country, and feel the pain, as great as the pain in my chest, that I could not fight for its unity.”

Now, leaving aside the fact that it’s a terrible sentence — really sappy, and clichéd, and boring, and all the rest of it — what’s wrong with that? Well, to me it sounds like the end of a story. It smacks of resignation. Everything has happened that will happen, the character has made all the actions he can make, and now he’s just resigned. Nothing is happening. There is closure.

That, I think, is exactly the problem — there is closure. The fact is, there shouldn’t be closure at this stage in the story.

There should always be unanswered questions, or problems that require not resignation but an active response. Resignation might be an alright emotion to finish up with (depending on the story), but it’s not an alright emotion to leave a character with if you ever mean to come back to him. If you want to come back, there has to be something happening for you to come back to.

So: right before you change POV, make sure something happens to your viewpoint character — something that demands a response. Don’t leave him sitting quietly in a garden.

Now, that would have been the extent of this post, if not for a brilliant answer I read on Quora yesterday which suggests that this applies much more broadly than just to POV changes. The question (which can be found here if you have a Quora account) was “How does one become a better story-teller?” and the brilliant answer I read was given by one Marcus Geduld. He gave many different tips in his answer, but two sections in particular related quite specifically to what I’d been thinking about. The first section was entitled “What happens next?” and the second was “Keep the mystery ball in the air”.

In “What happens next” Geduld points out a critical ingredient in story-telling — an ingredient that novice story-tellers (including me) often leave out. That ingredient is the creation of questions, and the delayed revelation of answers. To illustrate this concept, let me quote a section of his answer:

The number-one ingredient for a story is the tension of an unsolved mystery. Stories set up questions and delay answering them. The simplest example is a question in the first sentence with the answer delayed until the second sentence:

“You know who Bob’s favorite singer is? Meatloaf!”

That’s not a very interesting story, I know, but compare it to this:

“Bob’s favorite singer is Meatloaf.”

The first version evokes (just a little) tension. The second doesn’t.

Just a short snippet there, but the implications for story-telling are profound. It causes me to think, really, that the word “story-telling” is one big misnomer. You are not, in fact, telling the story — at least, not in the plainest, most straightforward manner. You giving the reader teases, little bites — inviting them to question what happens next. You are making them interested by not telling the story, and thus arousing their curiosity.

In his next section “Keep the mystery ball in the air”, Geduld expands on what he has said. This questioning, this evasion of directly telling the story, should continue throughout. From beginning to end, the story-“teller” has to engage the readers’ curiosity. So with every question that is answered, a new question must be asked. With every POV change, a mystery must be created surrounding the character we just left. With every moral dilemma solved, the character must be presented with a new moral difficulty. When there are no longer any questions, the story is over.

Going back to my practice short story — I was so disgusted with my first attempt that I went back two days later and tried again. This time, I mostly remembered to invoke questions at the POV changes. It’s still not a great story (and I was yet to read that Quora answer at this stage), but it’s an improvement. And I think the biggest improvement is the POV change I showed you before. The second time round, rather than having the son sit resignedly thinking about nature, I had him set off to join his father — despite his sickness. This is how I ended the segment the second time round:

“My breath comes sharp and painful. The ground swings crazily up to meet me with each step. My vision blackens. What is this? I wonder. Is this a weakness that can be overcome? My vision blacks out totally. Is this what dying feels like?”

Obviously, this still isn’t perfect. You can still tell that I’m writing at top speed, and that the story really lacks polish. But don’t you think it’s a much better way to leave my character than sitting resignedly in a garden? Which segment-ending would you rather come back to?

So story-telling, I think, is largely getting your reader to ask one long series of questions. Engage their curiosity. Ask: “You know who Bob’s favourite singer is?” “Is this what dying feels like?” Don’t give them closure until you’re done.

An Era Ends

Tomorrow morning, one era in my life ends and a new one begins. After years of home-schooling, tomorrow I enter the Australian public school system — albeit from afar. I will do Year 11 (my “Preliminary year” if you’re an Aussie, or “Junior year” if you’re American) through Karabar High School’s distance education department. No longer will I be fully home-schooled.

All my 11 years of study — from when I was four up till the present — have been home-school with Mum and Dad as my teachers. I have never studied at a school — or through a school — in my life until now. I’ve been to school, sure — every Sunday in Australia, because our church meets in one. And once when I went on a youth camp we slept in sleeping bags in a classroom. But I’ve never been in a classroom at classroom hours. Rather, I’m the bloke who makes sure that your desk is not in the same place on Monday morning as it was when you left it on Friday afternoon. Tomorrow, while I still won’t be in class at class hours, I’ll be enrolled.

The style of my curriculum is about to change dramatically. For the first few years of my schooling we used an Australian home-school curriculum, but for the past six years we have used an American curriculum called Sonlight. Sonlight is a heavily literature-focussed curriculum. It is tremendously fun opening the school boxes each year because they are always bursting (underneath the copious paper padding) with delicious new books. Opening the school box this year was fun too, because I had no idea what would be in there, but in the whole thing (school for the several weeks of the year) there was only one non-textbook — which I will have to return when I’m done with it. It seems English this year will be more about analysing a few books in depth than about reading a great deal.

Looking through the notes for each subject was quite different too, to what I’m used to. While Sonlight notes are written to be interesting to read, and the passive voice is almost non-existent (though I know I use plenty of passive voice myself, even though I studied Sonlight…), the Year 11 notes seem to be written for the sole purpose of conveying information — and the passive voice is abundant. It is also chock-full of “course outcomes”, which are quite formal to read: “a student will learn to communicate a knowledge and understanding of historical features and issues using appropriate and well-structured oral and written forms”. I don’t remember seeing any “course outcomes” listed in the Sonlight notes.

While public school work will clearly be very different to what I’m used to, I still expect to enjoy it and I’m keen to begin. I chose subjects I like, so I have no compunction about studying them. Neither have I any compunction about studying from an Australian perspective: Australia is, after all, where I am from, where I hope to go to uni (“college” in American english), and where I might even spend the rest of my life after I leave Cambodia. The lack of a Christian perspective will seem less of a boon, but after studying from a Christian perspective for 11 years it will be good to get exposure to secular education so that secular uni won’t be a complete shock.

In the Australian system, we have what we call “units” for Year 11 and Year 12. Most subjects are two units, for some you can do three units. I am doing three unit English, three unit Maths, and regular two unit Geography, Economics and Modern History. All of these look like they are going to be interesting. English and Maths look tough (they are three units after all). The others seem like they’ll be easier, but all very interesting. For Geography I get to do a year-long research project. Economics will be interesting because it is a completely new subject for me. And History is always interesting. So really I can hardly wait.

The book deficit I can fill on my own: this year I want to read some more Percy Jackson books (Rick Riordan); The Street Lawyer (John Grisham); St. Mallory’s Forever! (Miriam Joy, Charley Robson and Saffina Desforges);  Great Expectations (Charles Dickens); and The Silmarillion (JRR Tolkien) — just to name a few. I also want to reread Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Lynn Truss); The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien); and the Deltora Quests (Emily Rodda) — again, just to name a few. In fact, there are so many books I want to read and reread that I am almost pleased that I have no school books this year.

So really, while I greatly enjoyed my six years of Sonlight, I learned a lot, and I would not have minded doing it all the way to year 12 — I have no regrets about switching to distance education this year. Tomorrow a new era dawns, and I’m looking forward to it. Wish me luck.