Story Stats and Novel Excerpt!

Hello again everyone! Happy Leap Day! Last Leap Day, I was an eighth grader about to graduate. Now I'm a twelfth grader about to graduate. And next Leap Day, I could be a college senior about to graduate! It's crazy how these things seem to work in four-year stints.

Anyway, I am here with some new offerings: final stats on my stories and an excerpt for the novel I'm writing for my senior project.

First, the stats:

Overall, and not counting the title or the "The End" I would put at the end of each story, the total word count of my 52 stories is: 123,736 words!! That is about 16,000 more than Wuthering Heights and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and about 12,000 less than A Tale of Two Cities.

And in Microsoft Word 12-point Times New Roman font, single-spaced, again without the titles or "The End," my stories are: 228 pages!! In a novel, depending on how it's formatted, that could be around 460-480 pages.

I must say, I'm pretty happy with those stats. I'm curious to see how my novel will compare! Speaking of, read further if you'd like an excerpt...

Edit: I have added the prologue to the excerpt.

My novel is based on Story #18, Rebellion. I used the same world and similar situations (especially in the prologue), as well as a quote that you may recognize, but I didn't use the same characters, although I did reuse some names. This excerpt is the prologue and the first chapter. It's a rough draft, so everything is subject to change. 

Prologue

The mother pulls up the blanket to cover her son. His fingers grasp the edge of the sheet as he blinks his wide eyes.

“‘M not tired, Mommy,” the boy whines.

The mom ruffles his hair fondly and sits down at a chair next to her son’s bed. “How about I tell you a bedtime story?”

“Okay.”

“What should it be about?” the mom asks. Her bedtime stories are the stuff of legends. She has hundreds stored in her mind, and she can make up new stories instantly. Many times she’s woven a word-picture of the ocean for her son on a dry, hot day, or a calm meadow while thunder tries and fails to drown her voice. But now there is no weather condition, so she lets the boy decide.

“Su’cide,” he says.

“What?” the mom gasps, her face going pale. “Why, Will? You know we don’t talk about – that.”

Will makes an aborted attempt to shrug, but stops when he realizes he’s lying down. “Tommy talked about it before. He said anybody could do it. He said it’s not really bad.”

“Tommy said that, did he?” the mother asks, more to herself than to Will. Where can this talk be coming from? Surely no parent would tell their child something so obviously against the Regime’s philosophy. A child saying something like that – well, it can only mean rebellion. And if a rebellion is coming, she needs Will to be informed.

He is still so young. She had meant to tell him later. But what is a mother for if not to pass down her beliefs to her children? The mother takes a deep breath. Will needs to know.

“I’ll tell you a story about suicide, sweetie. But only if you promise to never tell it to a Regime official, but to hold it close to your heart to inspire others.”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” The mother leans forward on the wooden chair. “Here’s the most important thing to know about suicide. It’s not, as the Regime has told you, an evil act. You don’t go to Hell. And Tommy’s right, it’s not impossible. In fact, people accomplished it not too long ago. What you really need to know is that suicide is the most powerful form of protest, the ultimate act of rebellion against the Regime. It all started years ago…”

Chapter 1

“When it became clear that the Regime was going to win over the free people, many people were devastated. But then Jean-Baptiste had a great idea – a way to let the Regime know just how much they were hated, and inspire more rebellion in the rest of the populace. He organized a mass suicide. When the Regime overthrew the free people, they expected grudging acceptance and a lot of followers. Instead, they got hundreds of people publicly expressing their distaste and a loss of followers. Jean-Baptiste had at least three hundred people agree to commit suicide. The event was widely publicized. That’s why the Regime cracked down on the media. But still, everyone heard about it. The Regime had to spend a long time convincing everyone they really were in control. That’s why they’re so against suicide. It’s the most powerful form of protest, the ultimate act of rebellion.”

The boy Will is trying to convince still looks skeptical. Will feels a headache coming on and resists the urge to squeeze his eyes shut.

“Don’t you understand?” he says instead. “If you want to get back at the Regime, suicide is the best way to do it.”

“But I don’t want to get back at the Regime,” the boy says blankly. “I just want to die.”

“Yes, well, might as well spite the Regime while you’re at it,” Will says, trying vainly to keep the irritation out of his voice. This recruitment idea sounded a lot better before he started trying it.

The boy shrugs. “The Regime isn’t so bad. This place is okay. I’ve been feeling a little bit happier every day.”

Will stares at the boy in disbelief. They’d obviously managed to completely brainwash this one, if he thought Smile Camp was an okay place. The awful paint job done on the buildings should be enough to keep anyone suicidal.

“Never mind,” Will says. “Enjoy your day.”

The boy just nods at him, looking slightly confused. Will has that effect on a lot of people in Smile Camp. But at least he has someone who might not understand him, but is at least sympathetic. Walking quickly, Will makes it to his dorm and finds his brother, Jake, still sitting on the bed. It looks like he hasn’t moved since Will left at least half an hour ago.

“How’d it go?” his brother asks, looking up and affecting an air of interest.

Will huffs and sinks down on the bed across from him. “Awful. No one seems to understand. They either don’t care or are worried about getting caught, which is stupid, because they’ve already been caught.”

Jake shrugs. “They have a point, Will. If the Regime officials find out you’re planning a rebellion, regardless of whether you have any followers –”

“I’ll get some,” Will mutters. “I think I’m close to convincing Peter.”

“Whatever,” Jake says. “The point is, it’s dangerous, what you’re doing.”

Will glances at his brother pointedly. “I thought you were supposed to support me?”

“Not when you’re being an idiot. Which is actually quite often.”

Will sighs. “I’m being careful. But there’s a fine line between careful and useless. If I don’t say anything, I’ll never get anything going.”

“Would that be so bad?”

Will gave in to the urge to squeeze his eyes. “Jake, we’ve been over this. You know what Mom said –”

“I know, but we don’t have to do what she said.”

Will thinks back to the time his mother first told him about the power of suicide. She had painted a picture in his head like she always did, and this one had been impossible to resist – a world without the oppressive Regime, an escape that would help other people, and an in-your-face to the Regime. He can’t give up on that.

“Listen, I know you don’t care about what Mom wanted –”

“That’s not true.”

Will thinks about pressing the point (Jake didn’t know her like Will did, she died when Jake was still very young, he never heard her paint the word-picture), but he’s too tired to go into this right now. So, instead, he brings up the reason why Jake is in this suicide camp in the first place.

“You want revenge on the Regime, remember? And there’s no better way than to commit suicide. Which is a win-win, since you were going to kill yourself anyway.”

Jake nods, chewing on a thumbnail. He always starts biting his nails when he’s thinking too hard. “I know, you’re right. It’s just, so far all your plan has done is gotten us both in this prison, and we’re no closer to revenge or suicide than before. If anything, we’re farther away.”

“Maybe, but we’re closer to the enemy. We can see how they operate… make plans…” Will trails off, because as much as he blusters sometimes, they both know things aren’t going the way they want them to. Again, this plan sounded better in Will’s head. But now he’s dragged Jake into it (well, sort of, he didn’t make Jake try to commit suicide, but he didn’t stop him). It’s up to him to get them out.

“I’m working on it,” Will says. “Liberating the Smile Camps does not happen overnight.”

“Or over a few months, apparently,” Jake sasses. Will lets it go. Jake had one of his seizures earlier this morning, and they always leave him exhausted and grumpy.

“Just give me more time,” Will says calmly.

“Yeah,” Jake sighs. “Sorry.”

“No problem.” Will gets up and paces around their small room. After a few months and relatively good behavior, they’d earned the right to a room for just the two of them. It’s ridiculously small, but at least they have privacy, something Will’s really come to value after constantly being on suicide watch. As much as he hates it, ostensibly behaving in Smile Camp has been a good idea. It makes it easier (and more satisfying) to go behind their backs and try to recruit people.

“Try” being the operative word. But he’s been making some progress with Peter. Will decides to visit him tomorrow, after Reasons to Be Happy class. That class always puts Peter in a more receptive mood.

But for now, he’s all out of recruitment energy. Will quits his pacing and plops back on his bed. Jake still hasn’t moved much.

“You feeling okay?” Will asks.

“Huh?” Jake blinks, snapping out of a daze. “Oh, sure. I’m just a little achy. Nothing I can’t handle.”

Will frowns. “You don’t need more medicine?”

Jake smiles bitterly. “For some reason, that medicine doesn’t seem to help as much now that I know the Regime’s caused my… condition.”

“You still need it,” Will points out, realizing with a twist of amusement that he is actually the one being the voice of reason for the moment.

“I took enough,” Jake says, eyes flashing. Will decides to let it go.

“Classes tomorrow,” he says in an only slightly awkward subject change.

Jake gladly accepts the new topic. “Too bad. I was enjoying the weekend, even if we still had to go on Happy Runs and they monitored us nearly twenty-four seven.”

“They have to make sure we don’t get our hands on any sharp implements.”

“Like what? A really sharp piece of paper?” Jake jokes.

“You’d be surprised at what these guys can turn into weapons,” Will says seriously. “They might be lazy when it comes to rebellion, but most of them are quite resourceful. If we wanted to just kill ourselves instead of staging a rebellion, I bet you we could do it tomorrow. That’s how bad the Regime’s security is.”

Will sees a calculating look in Jake’s eyes and his blood runs cold. He should not have mentioned that. His brother has always put his own desire for suicide over Will’s desire for rebellion, and only when they match up nicely does this work. If Jake knew he could probably kill himself now and not wait for rebellion…

“But we don’t want to do that, of course, because then you wouldn’t get your revenge,” Will adds hastily.

“Of course,” Jake agrees, but the calculating look is still in his eyes. Will resolves to keep a closer eye on him. He can’t lose Jake so early.

If he doesn’t have his brother supporting him, then who does he have?