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@theducktator

I’m gonna be the parent whose kids can’t date until they graduate high school. At that point they’re 18 and free to roam the world anyway, but I think there’s something special about being able to focus the teenage years on building relationships with God, friends, and family, and being able to grow as a person and begin understanding who you are. I’d better just stop here before I go on another rant that doesn’t need to be here in this forum lol.

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@theducktator

If I remember correctly, John Adams fell down George’s chimney and landed in a boiling pot of oatmeal.

Oh my word, I was laughing out loud when I read this! And this:

but one of them had started a rebellion which had to be put down, and he was sentenced to have his hair dyed with glitter and wash all the palace dishes “except the knives. He can’t be trusted with them.”

Oh the horror of the glitter dye! Lol!

 

 

Anywayyyy… my first stories were not quite so dramatic. The first one I actually remember writing I did on paper when I was about six, and I roped my brothers into helping me. We basically created characters based on ourselves, and I let them name their characters, which maybe wasn’t the brightest idea, but it’s kinda funny. The three MC’s were Elizabeth, Ben, and Gummy (my youngest brother was like 2 at the time). Essentially, someone started leaving clues for them to follow, sort of like a treasure hunt. I don’t remember what the end of the treasure hunt was, or if I even finished the whole story. It was supposed to be a chapter book, but my chapters were like three paragraphs, if even that, lol.

I think I had a handful of other short stories that I never completed, but as I got a little older, I started writing stories based on my family’s vacations, with fictionalized characters based off my own family (adding a sister that I never had but wanted, lol).

At one point, probably in middle school, I was inspired by the game Forbidden Island and wrote a story about six siblings who fell through a doorway and all ended up in different parts of the island and had to try to find each other while facing the dangers of the island. They each were given certain abilities that correlated with the roles given to players of the game (like navigator, messenger, etc), and once they found one another, they had to discover four hidden treasures and get off the island before it all sank under water.

I should go back through some of my old notebooks and read some of my old stories… I bet I’d find things I forgot about.

 

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@esther-c

Lol I started the rant though… one of my biggest pet peeves is watching middle schoolers attempt to date. It just bothers me so much, and like you said, the chances of it actually working out are slim. Even the chances of a high school relationship working out aren’t that high, either.

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@theducktator

Yeah for real. My group of middle school girls ironically happens to be mostly homeschooled, but one of the other leaders has a group that is mostly public schoolers, and you can clearly see the difference. Quite often, I’ll come away from our small group time encouraged by the fact that my girls were sharing testimonies of things God is doing in their lives, and the other leader is like, “Getting them to answer questions about the teaching is like pulling teeth.” Pretty much all the public schoolers have phones and are preoccupied with boys and drama at school; some of my girls have phones, but those that do have more limitations on what they use them for, and they’re not distracted by their phones during small group time. I know they think about boys and have had a few friendship struggles, which is normal for that stage of their life, but I’m continually amazed at the way that they seek God in the midst of that.

I definitely believe God wants to move in the public schools (and I’m seeing Him do that here where I live), and I also feel that He’s going to call some homeschoolers who have had a firm foundation at home to go into the public schools as a mission field (that’s also my story). But at the same time, unless God specifically tells me to put my kids in a public school, I will definitely be homeschooling them!

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@esther-c

I definitely think you can either leave out any romance, or if you do mention the subject of boys and girls liking each other, do it in a way that is appropriate for the readers based on Biblical standards. I remember reading books when I was ten/eleven that gave me the idea that boy-girl relationships were normal at my age and that’s all that pre-teen girls think about. While it is something that this age group is becoming more aware of, and in public schools, yes this is normal, the message that came across to me was that I’m the weird one if I don’t have a crush or I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I don’t think we should ignore what the culture is pushing, but I think we should counter it with healthy, Biblical truths and conversations- like hey, maybe this is what your friends in school are doing, but here is why it’s not healthy for you, and here is what you can be focused on in this season instead. I work with middle school girls, and I see a huge difference in the spiritual maturity of the homeschoolers vs. the public schoolers. As someone who was a homeschooler and often found myself feeling like I was more spiritually mature than a lot of my peers, I was still negatively influenced by the books I read that sent the wrong messages about love (especially young love that was “clean”- crushes and maybe minor kissing), and I would have loved to have more wholesome fiction to read that aligned with my family’s values and sent the message that while those emotions and hormones are normal at that age, it is okay (in fact, it’s wise) to learn to handle them in a healthy way and wait to pursue those relationships until you’re older.

Anyway… that’s my long rant lol. I don’t know if that gives you any helpful tips or just dumps a bowl of my thoughts all over your table and isn’t actually that beneficial. I get a little passionate about this because there are things that weren’t told to me as a pre-teen that I wish were, and things that were told to me that I wish weren’t.

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@hybridlore

Cul-de-sac Kids,

Oh my goodness! I forgot those books existed! I used to read those, too!

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@whalekeeper

Oooh I like this question!

The first chapter book series I can remember reading is Little House on the Prairie. I was in like first grade and I loved those books! I had a bonnet and made forts that I pretended were the covered wagon.

The Boxcar Children were also some of my favorites. I read nearly all of them, but I quit when I reached the newest additions because I didn’t like the cover art and the stories weren’t as good as the older ones. Those books are the reason why I went through a soccer phase when I was eight (never played soccer, though, because I was too shy to join a team lol), because one of the mysteries revolved around a soccer team. Violet was my favorite character, but I liked them all! I still get the warm fuzzies thinking about those books.

I didn’t read the Chronicles of Narnia myself as a kid but my mom read them to us, usually reading a chapter each night before bed, and I’ve listened to the audio versions multiple times. I think I get something new out of them each time!

When I was like ten, I read through a bunch of the Babysitters Club books, and I liked them then, but now looking back I don’t think they had the greatest influence on me and set unrealistic expectations in my mind.

Anne of Green Gables was a fun one, too- my cousins and I tried to create a skit based on that and forced my brothers to join in, much to their annoyance.

I’m sure there are others, too, but those are the ones that come to mind for me first.

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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I use Slack for work, and that might work, but again there would be more limitations on how many channels can be created, and messages disappearing after 90 days. I also don’t think GroupMe would work very well, from the minimal experience I’ve had with it. I’ve never had Discord, so I can’t speak for that one.

Is anyone on here techy enough to create a new website, if it comes down to it?

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@whalekeeper

Most of the research I do for my writing has to do with history… quite often I’ll be writing and then suddenly I’m like hmmmm how did this little detail fit into their lives?

This past week I was researching Christmas traditions in the 1800s, what kinds of gifts people gave one another, and trying to dive into how it would differ depending on social status and where they lived.

I can’t remember a lot of the other things I’ve researched. I know at one point I also looked into journalism in the 1700s and how a printing press worked.

Some of my recent research had more to do with personalities and how different personalities interact with one another, since I’ve been trying to develop my characters a little more.

I also recently read through a list of Gen Z slang terms and their definitions, but that was more to get myself up to speed on my brothers’ lingo than for a writing project lol.

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@theducktator

This reminded me of a time a visitor to our church told my dad that the number of kids he had intimidated her. She was completely serious and never came back. There were only four of us at the time too. XD

Lol that lady would never survive where I live… I think the majority of families I know in church and outside of church have at least four kids! Big families are very common in this area.

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@theshadow

Nothing immediately comes to mind for the first idea you mentioned, but for the second one, maybe a point of conflict could be something that both brothers are trying to achieve and it turns into a competition… you could go as deep into this as you want, whether it’s just petty sibling arguments or if it goes farther into one of them doing something dirty to beat his brother and then they end up needing to reconcile and repair their relationship. Maybe their school or youth group has some sort of summer competition that is kind of like a scavenger hunt where they need to accomplish certain tasks or community service projects throughout the summer and they reach the point where they’re trying so hard to win that they try to sabotage each other… it could go as far as both of them getting disqualified from the competition to bring them back to common sense.

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@theshadow

I’ve written a handful of contemporary (not finished them though lol), and I’m by no means an expert in this field, but I’d say it really comes down to adding conflict, even if it’s as simple as a strained relationship with a family member. I don’t know your characters, and I’ve also never read The Penderwicks so it’s hard to know how to suggest some specifics. If you’re looking for something lighter than family or friendship problems, maybe you could swing the route of clean/cozy mysteries. That’s always a fun one to do with a summer setting and there’s a lot of options (visiting an elderly relative’s home and discovering some historic thing that leads into a search for more details about their past; a string of break-ins around town and your characters band together to try to figure out who is doing it).

If you’re able to share more details about the stories you were thinking of, I might be able to give some better suggestions!

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@esther-c

I’m loving this story! It has a warm and cozy feel but also real challenges high schoolers face.

Easton brought his sand bike to a halt a few feet from the campfire the rest were beginning to set up. He removed his helmet, shaking out his hair.

OK I was majorly confused here at first- I didn’t know who “the rest” was referring to until I read farther down and realized it was the friend group, because the previous section was a different setting. Might be good to clarify that, lol.

Also I think someone mentioned adding more descriptions of your characters? I think more descriptions of the settings too would be helpful- and not just descriptions like “the desert stretched on into the distance”, but words that engage the five senses (“warm breeze”, “sand under the feet”, “sand particles rubbing inside the shoe”, “the desperate cry of a hungry vulture”, “popping and crackling of the campfire”, etc.).

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@savannah_grace2009

Hahaha I forgot about Fire Face! That was hilarious!

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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@savannah_grace2009

Wow I forgot about this RP lol

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

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