October 1, 2017

WRITING ADVICE: What Went RIGHT #41 “Skipping School” (Submitted 5 times, Published June 2007, Aoife’s Kiss)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right” and I’m busy sharing that with you.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

I liked this world, but because it’s so dark, I haven’t gone back since.

Why is it dark? Because there is still racism; there is still poverty and its attendant violence; there is still despair; there is still child abuse.

Stan Schmidt didn’t want it for ANALOG because it was “too bleak”. I wonder what Trevor Quachri would think now? Bleakness seems to be the name of the game that our politicians are playing, no matter their stripe. Argument and bad-mouthing seem to be the order of the day – whether Republican or Democrat, with both loudly blaming the other for, well, everything.

So maybe “Skipping School” would play better today. I’ll have to see. You CAN read the story in its entirety here: https://theworkandworksheetsofguystewart.blogspot.com/2013/12/skipping-school.html

In it, I postulate matter transmission has become commonplace; but it doesn’t work over large distances. There are limiting factors, unlike in Star Trek where you can even do “transwarp beaming”. In my story, you can beam – or “skip” – only a fifteen meters. Strictly line-of-sight travel.

For safety reasons, the technology has been implemented as a way of crossing busy streets. I know, would you REALLY trust a skipgate to transfer you over a busy street without slowing down are stopping?

Hmmm…I can only say that it took about a half century for Humans to go from experimental heavier-than-air flight to commercial trans-Atlantic crossings, and now people don’t give a second thought to flying from Minneapolis to London, non-stop fully expecting to get there in eight hours. Few, if any, think of the possibility of crashing in the North Atlantic because it just doesn’t happen.

In my future, the skipgate has been accepted as the only way to cross a busy street and no one gives it a second thought. But there are rumblings that it’s possible to program the ‘gate to transmit to distant ‘gates.

The information is underground though probably in labs, too. A former street cop and teacher has the information, but none of the kids – skipsnatchers – trust her to learn the technique. They also don’t go to school because in this future, schools are entirely privatized. The government can hardly afford to feed and medicate the public, let alone educate it, too. (PS – I don’t see this as an impossible future. The school I work at is bogged down by both endless regulations and endless expectations. The system as it is can hardly take any more weight before it begins to hemorrhage both talent and resources – because the schools do not produce anything tangible. We can’t even agree on what it means to be “educated”…)

I’ve commented on “education” in the past: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2011/09/possibly-irritating-essays-educating.html, https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2014/10/possibly-irritating-essays-science.html, https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2017/07/slice-of-pie-another-stab-at-teaching.html, https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2016/08/slice-of-pie-does-science-fiction-still.html, so I won’t go on a rant here. But in this future, which I admit is bleak, Jonterrius has only had a rudimentary education because his father was an English teacher in one of the corporate schools. Also, don’t get me wrong, the aim of a corporate school would be to create educated workers, so the curriculum would be slanted at an angle designed to produce the best employees. This however, is no different from the stated goal of public education as condensed by Mortimor Adler in 1982: “to the develop citizenship, [stimulate] personal growth or self-improvement, and
occupational preparation.”

Is that what we SHOULD be developing? Or should we be working to create men and women who can think for themselves? But THAT wouldn’t be testable, would it?

At any rate, Jonterrius and the “legless woman in a wheelchair” strike a deal: he would lure homeless kids in with a key code to jump to one other skipgate. She would educate the kid – hopefully not at a desk and by rote…

It took me awhile to sell this one because it IS dark. But I think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. One commenter noted that the ending was too pedantic and obvious; I’d have to agree. I need to tighten it and maybe make parts of it more explicit. I don’t know. I DO know I’d like to update it and sell it again!


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