Thank you to all the brave souls who entered this month’s Four on 400 contest!

Sharing your writing takes courage, and we appreciate your enthusiasm for our contest. Below, we’ve posted the first 400 words from this month’s winner, along with feedback from at least four of our members. We also encourage our readers to share their (constructive) suggestions and encouragement in the comments section below.

Middle Grade: HOPE FOR THE BEST

Friday, August 5th

School is fast approaching and every time I think about it, I throw up. Really. I see the commercials on TV or my mom walks in with a Target bag full of school supplies and it sends me into the bathroom to puke. I’m not sure why this is happening. But it is. It’s not that I don’t like school, because I do. It’s not that I don’t have friends either. I’ve always had friends, good ones. And, I’m not terrible looking or stupid. As a matter of fact, I, Samantha Baker, look pretty normal for a girl going into 7th grade. And I’m pretty smart, too.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Thankfully, my mom hasn’t noticed. Because if she does, oh boy, things will be crazy. She won’t leave a stone unturned until she finds out why I’m feeling this way. I’m hoping that I’ll figure it out before I throw up all of my insides. Gross.

Oh, and one more thing. I swear that I smell cigarette smoke in my bedroom. Weird.

The thing is, I’ve always been a pretty well adjusted kid. Even though it’s just my mom and me, we’ve always gotten by. Well, not just gotten by, but we’ve done okay. My mom, Claire, works in our town’s tax office. I’m sure it isn’t great money but we live in a nice little house, on a  quiet street. I’ve always gotten new sneaks and a few new things to wear to school. We even go out to eat every once in awhile. So, yeah, normal – schmormal. This is why it’s so hard for me to figure this out. I don’t like it and I want it to stop. But…it won’t. I’m going to keep it a secret for as long as I can. I have three weeks before school starts so I’m just gonna wait and hope for the best.

Saturday, August 6th

I stayed in bed as long as I could. I figured that if I didn’t turn on the TV or look at my growing number of  school supplies, I’d be okay. So I lay there looking around my room until my phone beeped. It was Callie, my best friend in the world. We go way back, all the way to nursery school.

Michelle: I love the voice in this and the hints you are slipping in for things we’ll find out later as the story progresses. My only suggestion is that you might want to consider telling this story both in a narrative style and through the diary entries. As it is now, we’re only in Samantha’s head. Adding a narrative opens up the perspectives for the story and may be more entertaining for your target reader.

Rebecca P: While there are tantalizing clues, I don’t feel grounded. I’d like a better sense of WHY she feels this needs to be a secret and in particular why she doesn’t seem to be afraid for herself. Puking at the thought of school suggests extreme social anxiety; the cigarette smoke suggests a physical disorder in the brain like a tumor. Both possibilities are scary. I don’t have a strong sense that her mom is hysterical and over-reactive rather than simply a good mom who would help her daughter. So I also don’t have a strong sense of where Samantha is coming from. I’d like to see a bit more context. Has she begun to keep a journal specifically because of what’s happening to her, to manage her fear or to have a space in which she can “tell” someone? Is she a long-time journalist who processes her feelings by writing them out? In that case, she might do a For – Against list regarding the decision to tell someone about what’s happening to her. That might be an effective way to show Samantha’s decision-making process and give the reader Voice. That might also be a more effective way to introduce Samantha, by showing us how she thinks, rather than by her telling us who she is. If you haven’t, study a number of novels written in diary or epistolary form and use two or three as mentor texts. (I highly recommend Kami Kinard‘s middle grade!)

Halli: Thank you for sharing! I love middle grade novels. I understand the nervousness about starting a new school year, I would imagine most kids feel at least some anxiety. It seems like Samantha has a new level of anxiety and I agree with Rebecca about this level of anxiety being a bit scary. Throwing up can be terrifying. I am definitely intrigued by your story so far, however, this part seems a little “telly.” The background information like where her mom works, her house, etc, may be better in another chapter. These first words and pages should be an introduction to the plot of the story. A suggestion would be to start with a scene where she actually runs to the bathroom to throw up.

Karin: You’ve opened your story with lots of questions, which is great! To some degree, it’s normal to be anxious before school starts, but Samantha seems to be extremely anxious. If she has never experienced this before, I would like her to try and actively figure out why, and I love Rebecca P’s suggestion that writing this journal is one of her strategies to figure out what’s going on. For me, your most interesting sentence is: “I swear that I smell cigarette smoke in my room. Weird.” And I think this would be a great first sentence. Then you could go into wondering if this is somehow tied to your pre-school terror. Thanks for sharing your beginning—good luck!