Writing a Young Adult Novel based on personal experience involving school harassment

I decided when planning it to use some elements of my personal life. Yes, I was the one who was bullied and called names at school.. oh some of them can be printed, most cannot.

Yes, I hated school

I dreaded going to school, wondering what next would I have to endure from classmates that seemingly could do no wrong from the administration, or had some form of protection.

I liked some of my teachers, but not all... after all, they turned a blind eye as to what happened in the playground, and the school library became a refuge from the rest of the bullies.

And to this day I cross to the other side of the street if I see (and that is an event) any of my classmates walking up

When I go down to visit parents I avoid the sports center, since I don't want to see them, even by accident.

Yet, the YA work involves a lot of this crap... and as I write... not only the actual chapters, but notes to myself from that experience, it is cathartic, but I have to realize that this is a form of torture. So next time you hear an adult claim that boys will be boys, feel free to slap them for me. Why even using this kid of abuse in a joke to me is all but acceptable.

But as a writer it also has a different effect. I need to write something that will help a kid get it... doing this is torture and you should not do that, And if you are bullied, stand up, if possible. But also hoping that a teacher or two may read it and get a clue... allowing this because boys will be boys, is not healthy for any school kid, both the victims and the victimizers.

My problem is how to avoid getting preachy.... and what plot devices to use to get my Dweeb! (Yes using the least insulting name calling) to shine and do the ethical things in-spite of what may happen on an every day basis. After all, our hero has to have problems... or it would not be a book.

I know sharing this is a pain. I also know that this is a special problem for a writer, how to stay "objective" while writing something that is closer to one's true experience... and to deal with the pain while at it.

Just sharing, and posing this as a subject for discussion, since we all know this crap goes on, regularly, at all schools across the country.

it will also be cathartic for you to try and understand why would a young child become a bully, what has happened to give them so much pain that they need to lash out?

without revealing names... one of our chief bullies lost his mom when he was seven, and his dad when he was twelve. And yes, today I feel sorry for him... but at the time... I wanted him dead... if it had been a different country, where guns were available... there are days I wonder about that, while writing this. Columbine starts to make a lot of sense.

But for a 12 year old... his pain didn't matter... but you could say that is WHY he lashed out. But more than once I wished he was dead. Not ashamed to admit it, hell I didn't remember that until I started dredging things...

I think you're being mild about the situation. I was sexually harassed, damn near raped, by a football player in high school. He was doubly pretected. He was a football player, and football players can do no wrong even when they rape girls and videotape them. (As happened recently.) And he was black, and white kid in the school could ever accuse a black student of doing wrong without being called a racist.

Guns weren't available then; the only incident involving weapons was a knife fight in the front of the school, which the administration (typically) did nothing about; it was up to a foreign student from South America to step in and stop the knife wielder. American kids, and of course American teachers, were cowards.

If I was in high school today, I know the same thing would happen, only worse. American teachers are just as sadistic and uncaring about their students. The punks now have a couple of generations of proof that the administration can't stop them, so they're bolder. And if I was in school today, I WOULD pack a firearm and would probably try use it to get out alive, if I got the chance. But with the state of American schools, I'd probably be dead before I could draw my weapon in self-defense.

With the complete failure of American education, Columbine-like incidents ought to be occurring every week. And for many students, facing AIDS, rape, drugs and a broken country, death will be a relief.

and private

Football teams were not an issue back then, soccer, football, those were not that important, so the football clique I am basing on what I saw at University while working with the team, to try to make them meet the bare academic minimum

But yes, the feelings that have emerged are fierce and painful.

Now sexual assault never happened to me... but physical, you betcha...

novel about something like that..where 2 girls who were bullies come to the lawyers office for help, and the lawyer turns out to be the girl they bullied. It's hard to look back without staring.

To say that the YA genre is "hot" right now in publishing is an understatement.

Good luck to you as you embark on a work that, while painful, will really speak to other young people who were also bullied.

Julie

this is a real departure from my usual sci fi.

:rofl:

Young ADULT Novel or YOUNG ADULT Novel? :P

:-)

I always started the parent teacher conferences with "how are they doing in the play yard?" not one of them had an answer. not one, and I'm talking 3 biological, 3 adopted, and about 50 foster kids. until the school sees the child differently, nothing will change. bullied kids are shy in class, and get very little attention. they are stressed and often appear sullen and angry. a vicious circle of crap is all that they get.

tend to leave us alone, or behind an understanding member of the staff, for me it was a janitor, and one of the guys doing printing for the school

Oh the school infirmary is also a good place to hide with all kinds of tummy aches... problem is when they become real

My mom tried to talk, finally I was transferred to another school

Oh and it does not matter if this is private or public, same crap, just a different price

I watch my nephews like a hawk. Don't want them to go through the same crap, EVER

I'm predicting a very awesome novel that will reach many needy kids.

thank you

They were about geeks and dweebs harassed by educators and fellow students after Columbine. Chilling stories. A friend's child was being worked over by the local school counselor for pointing out that the same potential lurked in her school. It was ugly.

my former lovely teachers... about that... she wasn't happy, I think I made her feel guilty.

It is never easy (for the school folks) to admit that Houston we have a real problem...

in 9th grade when I witnessed someone burning the seat of my bike, and my Honor's 9th grade teacher was standing beside me. I pointed out what the group was doing, and her only response was to ask me if they were upper classmen. How the heck would I know, and what kind of response is this from someone supposedly in authority?

I am fortunate that my girls attend school in a very good public school system, but I was about ready to pull my 7th grader out and home school her when she was harrassed by three boys on her first day of school! They broke one of her possessions as they grabbed stuff out of her locker when she had it opened.

Until about the second half of 10th grade, my school days were a nightmare (especially 3rd-9th grade). My family moved around frequently, and I could always count on encountering the next bully in my new school (I can still recite their names). It got better when we moved away from California.

until recently, they have come back in a rush... from hell

And it is not just the United States... sadly

I went to high school in the south. I tried to fit in with the other "smart kids" or "dweebs," but I was the only one that wasn't a fundamentalist Christian. I don't know if that was the sole reason or if there were others, but they went out of their way to make my life difficult. Oddly enough, the only people that were nice to me were the jocks and "popular kids." In pop culture, the bullies are always good at sports or good-looking, and they're never smart. I guess that wasn't my case.

I am a Evangelical Christian, and my best friend in High School was a Jew. Another close friend was an atheist. The main thing we cared about was doing well in school and trying to get into college and get scholarships.

One of my other friends turned out to be gay (I really did not know he was gay at the time). For me it was no big deal having grown up around my mom's friends (waiters - some of who were gay). I did find in my senior year he dropped out of our D&D group. I guess I remember some allusions my other friends made, but I never gave it much thought.

I was shocked at our 10 year reunion when I asked about Scott (Scott always loved to party), and I was told that Scott had died from AIDS about five years before (I had not stayed in contact since my family had moved away from the community and my friends had scattered to their various colleges). I regret that I did not stay in contact more. It saddens me to think such a young man so full of life and talent died at such a young age.

I am sorry for you loosing your friend

I wish we'd known then what we know now about AIDS and how to protect ourselves from it. Too many lives have been lost.

the bully and the bullied, try to show the life that led the bully down that path as well. Perhaps the book could take a non autobiographical road and actually have the characters suddenly see from the other's perspective, something we certainly need more of in this society, and change the behavior through understanding and compassion, a how-to book of sorts. Of course it is doubtful a bully will be looking for self improvement but it could be a great book to be assigned in high school classes. Sounds like an interesting book though!

careful with the preachiness. One reason why I set it in a very small town was to deal with insiders and outsiders. Even though I grew up in a large city, the community I belonged to was a small shtetl in the middle of a monster city. That actually, as I was writing down some of these memories... that struck me. Just how isolated the Jewish community is from the rest of the country

That's when the bullying got really ugly, and it didn't let up until I fled high school in the eleventh grade. I never felt safe. My stuff would get stolen or vandalized and I suffered quite a bit of physical and verbal abuse. I was skinny and awkward, reactive, and socially inept, so I was one of the very first targets bullies were drawn to.

The worst of the bullies started calling me "queer bait" early on, and I had to put up with that name until I got out of high school.

Almost every day someone would shove me against a wall or the lockers, off a sidewalk, or even down the stairs, saying "Get out of my way, queer-bait." The bullies thought that was hilarious and they never got tired of it.

In eighth grade I lashed out against a bully with some highly ineffective punches, and the teacher who broke up the fight counseled me that maybe if I acted "more like a man," I wouldn't get into so much trouble.

More often than not I was blamed for any trouble I got into. Some bully would shove me into the mud and I'd have to go to the school office so my mom could bring me fresh clothes, and I'd explain exactly what happened, but the bully would say "Oh, we were just messing around and he fell," and he wouldn't get into any trouble at all.

Fortunately I wasn't entirely friendless. Occasionally the invisible people would take me in and try to teach me their ways. I called them the invisible people because they were the ones who stayed out of trouble by being inconspicuous and blending into the furniture -- going to the library for lunch to do their homework, never raising their hands and speaking out in class, always getting a seat in front of the bus by the driver, etc. It wasn't a skill I ever mastered.

A funny thing happened after high school that made the bullies avoid me. I kept growing. When I was twenty I was working out in the gym, mostly for the sake of a woman who wanted me around as a decoration, and I was still getting taller. I was out shopping one day with my girlfriend and we ran into one of the guys who used to torment me the most in high school. My girlfriend, who was more than a tomboy and very physically fit herself, noticed the guy's discomfort upon seeing us and maneuvered him into a corner. He was so damned nice. He probably thought we were going to kill him.

When I think about it, though, it really sucks that biology alone ended the bullying. A couple of kids in my high school class who suffered similarly ended up killing themselves, and I know the bullying was a contributing factor, especially for one of my friends who I'm certain was gay.