My week teaching the nine-to-thirteen-year-olds is almost over. I'm pleased at the good work they've done on dialogue, description, characterization, even story arcs. Of the fifteen, twelve are writing their "big story" in some version of science fiction or fantasy, and most have made considerable progress. So far my favorite sentences are scolding dialogue from a teen-age girl to a witch: "You can't turn people into apples just because you hate them! That's considered rude!" As well it might be.
Here are The Young Fictioneers hard at work during the daily session of individual writing:
Tomorrow we tackle a harder question than what to include in your story: what to leave out. A lot of adult fiction stumbles on this issue (some of it published. Some of it mine.) Then award certificates all around and, in another twenty years or so, our competition for publishing spots in ASIMOV'S or at Bantam makes itself known. And so we nurture our own demise.
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