dairy of Dylan Mac Plan

Diary of Dylan Mac Plan


July 10th 2006

Dear dairy



Its 7:00 am and time to get ready for school and I’m not looking forward to the 1st period its astronomy with Mr. Hedges and he’s one strange teacher. He gives us work and then doses off and you can see his dreaming when he starts to talk in his sleep but what I want to tell you about is the one time he was dreaming about wishing on the stars and he was behind enemy lines.


I’m ready for school and mom calls me down for breakfast its bacon and eggs my favorite. “Eat up son so you can be big and strong” “yes mom” sometimes I wonder if I’m the only normal one in this town. Breakfasts done and off to school I’m 18 so I’ve got my own car, it’s a black leopard and I love it.

The trip to school was fast private schools were in holiday so the traffic wasn’t bad. Arrived at school and parked where I usually park and my friends are waiting for me as per usual. Samantha aka Sam, Michael aka m dawg, Raymond aka Ray Ray and Simon aka bookworm. That’s all my friends and I love them. We have a band together it’s called escape I’m lead singer but enough about that let me get down to telling you the real story before the bell goes for class.


July 10th 2006 7:45 AM

“Morning class” “morning Mr. Hedges”. “I’d like you to take out you astronomy books and turn to page 200 please” Mr. Hedges never changes the tone of his voice so class is blooming boring. “Please read pages 200 to 204 and then do the exercises and please do be quite its individual work” Mr. Hedges goes and sits at his desk with his legs on the desk and this is where the fun begins.

He doses off and the talking starts. (Dialog now only Mr. Hedges)
Ooo that’s a pretty star um I think ill wish for big boy pants. And there goes another ill get mommy I new pair of teeth. Wow theirs so many stars I can wish on what do I want… I know I red bicycle o and I new computer shirt mine got burned when the TV blew up o and that reminds me I need a new TV. Hey what’s tat sound its sounds like gun fire and bombing. O shoot I’m behind enemy lines that’s the last time I watch that show with mommy dear, here’s comes a bomb duck! (Falls off desk and lands under it wit a book on his head) more gun fire where can I hide (he goes in the cupboard thinking it’s a tree) boom!! They’ve hit my tree I’m out in the open again (starts running in zig zags around the class) somebody help me get me out of her please (his screaming gets louder and louder) the principle walks in to find Mr. Hedges behind the chair. Ill promise ill behave and I wont sleep in class anymore. “YOU BETER NOT ELI OT ELSE YOULL BE FIRED” the principle shouted Mr. Hedges wakes up and jumps to full attention he even had a solute on his head.

Dialog with principle and Mr. Hedges only

Eli what the hell are you doing
I’m sorry peter I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately with my mother being ill
Is she ill? What has she got?
Just the flu but with mother it’s like she’ got cancer or something
Well that’s no excuse your suppose to be setting an example to your students not acting like a Looney bin on holiday from a crazy center
Yes sir it won’t happen again I promise
It better not because next time I won’t go easy on you at all
I understand sir

The principle leaves the class and from then one Mr. Hedges never slept in class any more he made lessons a lot more fun so he wouldn’t get bored. After that double lesson the rest of the day was a ball of fun and class were easy and fun.

Join me next time for more pieces out of my diary

Hey, dacoozed! I know it's been a few days, but welcome to YWS. ^_~

Oooh, diary format. You're a brave girl. XD Luckily, though, it seems that you have a few interesting and funny characters to latch onto. Also! I was really happy that your character wasn't whiny or annoying. He just kind of took in the world around him, and didn't try to be "rebellious" or anything like that. It made this story a lot more fun to read.

A few things:

ANDROGYNOUS PAT

One of the things that will really help out your writing is if, when writing in first person, we can tell whether your character is male or female. It sounds kind of obvious, but it's one of those things that is really hard for a lot of people. (Most people think my female first person characters are boys. -_-) In this piece, I would have thought your character was a girl, had his mom not called him 'son'. That's mainly because he bothers to keep a diary in the first place--we need to know why, because it's not something your average boy spends his leisure time doing. Usually, they have a pretty good reason for it.

Also, if you watch a few male and female stand-up comics, you'll note that girls are better at telling stories, but boys are better with quips and one liners. A sarcastic guy is a lot easier to place in the real world than a girl who can only tell knock-knock jokes. Have you read the Georgia Nicholson books? Granted, the main character is a girl, but her style of storytelling is quite mannish. She has a good mix of quips and stories, so much so that if she wasn't constantly mentioning boys and lipstick, you would think she was a guy.

ROOTED IN REALITY

It's odd--real-life stories are often funnier than ones that are completely made up. Why? We're always wanting our life to be "exciting", and are constantly looking for the weird, arcane stuff that happens so that we can repeat it later. It's the same with Dylan and his diary. He'll be on the lookout for the ridiculous, but if it's too ridiculous, your readers will get suspicious.

Take his astronomy teacher--it's a bit overboard. It would be really funny, though, if you had a teacher who dozed off and mumbled while his student had a free-for-all, and then the principal walked in. I have a few teachers where that would totally happen, just because they're so tired all of the time. Him having war flashbacks is a bit odd, too. I know it happens, but it's usually not that extreme. A teacher who talks constantly about the best buddy they saved in 'Nam is a lot more common, and adds a level of crustiness to your old-guy teachers that makes it all the more funny.

__

Thanks for the read, dacoozed! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. ^_^