And the lucky winner of Hunted is....

S. E. R.!

Congratulations and happy reading!

And thanks again to Cheryl Rainfield!


Happy Valentine's Day 
from all of us here at
got teen fiction!

Creator, Preserver, Destroyer - Three Part Structure

In yogic philosophy the number three has great power. It represents beginnings, middles, and endings, just as in Hinduism Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer.

An old writer's maxim is that all stories need to have a beginning, middle, and end, even if their demarcations are subtle. Syd Field, author of Screenplay, says all screenplays should follow a three act structure with Act I getting your character into trouble (the first 30 minutes), Act II making the trouble much worse (the next 60 minutes), and Act III resolving it (the last 30 minutes).

There's something about the number three that speaks to storytelling.

If you've read a story that doesn't resolve you know there is something missing, just as if the beginning is wrong what comes after doesn't work, or if nothing happens in the middle it will make you put the work down.

This three-part structure can work for you whether you write sudden fiction, a full length novel, a song, or a play.

Writing prompt:
Here's my challenge for you today. Write a short-short or sudden fiction of 250 words or less (not one word longer) that has a beginning, middle, and end. Mark for yourself the number of words in your beginning, your middle, and your end and see if you can use 60, 130, and 60 words per section (25%/50%/25%). Use the number three in the story in some way, shape, or form. 

We'll take entries through the 23rd, and put up the best on Friday February 24.
- Joe Lunievicz

Our Scrabblicious results!

Thanks for all the fabulous entries, writers!
by, gelatin, fox, fair, remits, pi, rev, go, swag, zoom, hi, unites, is, owe, diet, lure, la, tapes, boot, shine, pan, quack, fig, rode, fire, gore, cue, vex, hi, zit, to, ego, eyed, lat, moods, nap, belt, injures, soaks

OUR TOP PICK WITH 12 WORDS:

Alex kicked his boot against the leg of his desk. Math class was endless on an ordinary day, but today was dragging on especially slowly. And try as he might, pi looked like nothing but nonsensical garbage as he stared at the equations scrawled on his paper. He tried to focus on math as he eyed the back of Angie’s head. But she sat right in front of him, adding to his torture and making it impossible for him to focus. He had loved her since the beginning, with such a fire that it hurt sometimes. He’d been wanting to go up and say hi to her for months, ever since they started in the same math class, but she had a mega popular boyfriend with an ego the size of a small planet and a certain swag that Alex couldn’t hope to compete with. Still, a voice inside his head told him that he did owe it to himself to talk to her. Tell her that he wouldn't do all the awful things to Angie that her boyfriend did. It was true, too. Angie would never have to go on a single diet for Alex. He thought she was perfect just the way she was. He won the argument with himself and reached out a hand to tap Angie on the shoulder when, as if on cue, the bell rang. Angie and all the students packed up their things, but Alex was frozen in place with embarrassment. Things just weren't fair for boys like Alex.
BY SYD CORDERO

HONORABLE MENTION:

"Hey Lawrence!" said Justin.  Lawrence was one of his best friends, and he hasn't seen him for weeks because he was really sick and was stuck in his house, but he finally got better.  He lost some weight.  He probably went on that diet he was talking about for a few years now.  
"How are you feeling, man?" asked Justin. 
  "Fine, I guess," replied Lawrence.  
"You ready to go to school,  and that $50 you owe me for that video game filled with blood and gore?"
"You still bugging me for that? It was like, 5 years ago."
"More like 5 weeks ago, but who's counting?"
"Hey,  look! It's a fox!"
Justin turned around and saw that there was no fox, and turned around again only to see that Lawrence had gone off running.  
"That's not fair!" yelled Justin.   

BY ANDREW P.

**********************************************************************

One day I saw a fox the color of fire. He was this orangish and reddish color. But, this isn’t why he looked so strange. His fur has such shine as if he put gelatin in it to make his fur look nicer. He looked as if he was trying to impress a lady fox. He also looked even stranger with the bright green boots that he had on. I was trying to figure out what a fox with shiny fur and bright green boots was doing. I asked this very fox where he was heading to. Of course I thought I was silly talking to a fox. In the snow that he was walking through, he wrote 3.14. I thought to myself, 3.14 isn’t that pi in math? I was now really wondering if this was a dream or was I just going crazy? In that very moment I woke up…

BY BLANKA K.




Stop by next week for an interview with Beth Fehlbaum, author of Hope in Patience and a chance to win a copy of her novel. In the mean time, Beth is running a contest of her own which ends on February 14th. Click on the link below.


http://www.bethfehlbaumya.com/apps/blog/show/12245774-peace-love-patience-a-valentine-s-day-contest-for-you-

Have great weekend!
~~Karen

got inspiration?

“First drafts are for learning what your novel is about. The first draft of a book is the most uncertain--where you need guts and the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.” --Bernard Malamud

I'm not one to outline or plot out everything in advance, though I do like having some sense of where I'm going. It's those unexpected twists and turns I take with my characters that make the first draft so thrilling. And if I hit a dead end? I just reprogram my writer's GPS during revisions.

~~Karen


There are two days left to enter to win Cheryl Rainfield's new novel, Hunted! Scroll down and leave a comment or email us at gotteenfiction@gmail.com

GOT WRITING?

Is it really plagiarism?

One of my daughter’s friends came to me the other day with a problem. The 4000 word essay she had written was found to be 12% plagiarized. Her first reaction was that it must be the literary quotes she used, but the teacher told her that Turnitin.com found that she had plagiarized another student’s work. The other student turned out to be her.

So how can it be plagiarism when you are using a paper you have previously written? I did a little internet searching to understand the problem better. It seems that much of the concern in centered on academic articles and journal publications. The understanding when reading these articles is that what is being published is new information and some people feel it is fraud to use your previously published work and present it as new.

Another concern is that of college professors, who object to a student using a paper previously written for another class for a paper they have assigned. Part of me agrees with this and understands the rationale but part of me feels like if a student has done the research and already written a paper that answers the question assigned, why not use it again?

My daughter’s friend’s situation was somewhere in between these two possibilities. She had used parts of a paper she had written two years earlier to answer a bigger, different question. The research was very relevant to her topic and she thought it made sense not to recreate the wheel. And when she told me about it as she was writing, I thought it was very logical—why not use the research she had already done?

Her advisors told her she needed to change the words enough so that they would not appear to be plagiarized. She could not use parts of her original paper, even if she credited it to herself. With a little creativity, she was able to do this.

I still don’t think this is plagiarism. Shouldn’t we have the right to use our thoughts and ideas again?

What do you think?

Writing prompt: Take the 1^st few paragraphs of a fairy tale or other familiar story and try to tell the same tale, using entirely different words. Send it to us at gotteenfiction@gmail.com by Wednesday, February 15th (my birthday!) and we will publish the best ones on Friday, February 17th.

~Shari

GOT WINNERS?

Well, we said we weren't going to call them "winners." We received lots of terrific entries, but these were the four that really stood out. We are happy to present them here.

Don't forget to go back to Monday's post for this week's prompt. We've already gotten some terrific stories and can't wait to read more.

Have a wonderful weekend!

~Shari

Here's the prompt:

Raife clicked his blade open behind his thigh. He trembled but held the slim blade tight. His father walked towards him slowly, his hands balling into fists, his lips curling up into a smile.

Not this time, Raife thought. Not this time.

With an upward swing he pushed the blade deep into his father’s –

groin.

From: Charles DeMoss
This will make him stop, Raife thought. After all, Patches was never the same after being neutered.

His father grunted and collapsed in a heap onto the floor. Blood began to stain his jeans, slowly seeping into the once white carpet. His mother would be furious if she saw the state of the carpet, but she had died years ago. Her death was what started everything: the beatings, the days without food, and the thing that his father did to him which he was never supposed to talk about. Well, that all has come to an end.

Not knowing what to do next, Raife lay down and decided to figure it out in the morning.

From Matthew McNish:

Raife the Red
Raife clicked his blade open behind his thigh. He trembled but held the slim blade tight. His father walked towards him slowly, his hands balling into fists, his lips curling up into a smile.
Not this time, Raife thought. Not this time.
With an upward swing he pushed the blade deep into his father’s hand, then pulled back, making several defensive slashes, hoping, praying he could ward the beating off.
But his father’s hands were stone. When his rage rolled vaporous from the bottom of an empty bottle, he felt no pain—not even a deep gash from a cheap switch-blade.
Raife stumbled backward, fell over his untied shoelaces, and crashed onto the hard linoleum, his tail-bone jarring up his spine to snap his teeth together.
His father listed forward—the air thick with spirits and the scent of blood.
His hands opened, grasped Raife’s neck, and painted a red necklace around his throat.

From S.E.R.:

With an upward swing he pushed the blade deep into his father’s almost completely exposed stomach. It was enough to get away, enough to run away. He had wished and wished for it to be over, but he could not bring himself to do it. He had to run away his hatred and pain. Raife looked back only for a split second. His father was gripping the red spot on his shirt and grimacing widely.

From Kristen:

With an upward swing, he pushed the blade deep into his father's chest, allowing warm blood to spurt out over his hand, soaking the blade and dripping onto the floor with hollow, echoing noises. The noises were accentuated by the hollow, choking noises his father made just before falling to the ground, gasping like a fish before finally expiring at Raife’s feet.

            In the corner, his sister slowly stood up, walking over to Raife and putting her hand gently on her shoulder.

            “Is it over?” her voice was soft.

            “Yes,” he told her, turning around and gently brushing her hair away from her bruised face. “It’s all over, now. We’re finally safe.”

Got Inspiration? Buttercup, Westly, Vizzini, Fezzik, Inigo Montoya...

"The easiest thing to do on earth is not write." - William Goldman, author, screenwriter, playwright

Seriously. This is so true. Anyone can not write. It is as easy as breathing. 

Once you put pen to paper, though, you become part of an exclusive club - one that's hard to enter, harder to stay in, but has many, many benefits - one of which is, if you are also lucky, occasional publication.

Posted by: Joe Lunievicz