This was Andrew’s conclusion last night. More precisely, it was: Writing a short story is hard. But he did it.
To cap off the mythology unit in English, his teacher had everyone write their own original myth (emphasis on original–apparently, she’s read many a variation on Harry Potter, Star Wars, and so on).
Andrew came up with: The Adventures of Gulix.
It has prophecy, an orphan hero, a wise old mentor/sage, fiery death, sword battles, skeleton armies, river journey, wolves with diamond teeth (now that’s original), and romance.
All in 1,250 words.
He was proud, but realistic, said to me, “You can tell a kid wrote it, can’t you?”
And I told him it was a really good story for a kid. And he knows to do things I’ve seen many an adult writer not know or understand. His writing has really improved this year (and yes, I’ll be sending his English teacher a thank you note).
Plus, his story contained lots of terrific action verbs. Andrew is all about the verbs. Of course, with all that fiery death, sword battles, how could he not be?
But you want to know about the romance, right? After the epic battle with Hades, Gulix comes to and sees the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen before. He asks her name (it’s Persephone). Apparently satisfied with this answer, he goes back to sleep.
I’m going to have to figure out how to work that scenario into one of my stories (minus all the fiery death and skeleton armies, of course).
Writing Wrongs 