age issue and schools in sci-fi

[shamguy4]

I am writing a sci-fi / magial fiction book...

My character starts off at home with his family. My biggest problem is how he transitions to the 3rd chapter where major events change his life forever.

Im not really sure how it works in most sci-fi worlds, but he's 17 years old and I figured I would have him in school or at least finishing up.
For some weird reason when I think of school in a sci-fi book (especially one, where in a few chapters he enters into a galactical fight and the word school is barely heard again) it just doesnt fit. Perhaps my character is too young for him to fit in the rest of the story. (He'll be handling a gun soon) Perhaps he needs to be older.


I mean, thinking of star wars... Im not sure if there is or how a school sytem works but the story never focuses on that. Anakin was young when he handled a gun! Did Anakin go to school? Did he just learn math and stuff from playing around? I can't picture any of those characters ever going to school its just weird.

So I had my character working at a job for experience (sort of like an internship) hoping that he'll go and learn in a graduate school soon. I hope this would make him look more mature and ready for the rest of the story.

Perhaps I should say he was finishing up high school and was wondering what to do next. But that still makes him look like someone who not mature to enter into the rest of the story. Or maybe its just me...

 

[Saeltari]

Just you . Having him getting ready to finish high school and trying to figure what is next is fine. His maturity level will really just depend on how you write him. You can make the school a part of society and just show him with interests that give him a leg up, or family experience that would. Could even be gang background.

 

[Dave]

Maybe you should read something historical where the same kind of thing happened.

For example, in the period leading up to, and just following the start of the First World War in the UK, whole schools classes would join up together into the same 'School's Pals' Regiments when they turned 16. They even had military lessons within schools. Other youth organisations and occupations did the same - Church Army, Boy's Brigade, Scouts, Coal Miners, Railway Workers.

That seems a little odd today, but this was seen as a "just" War against an Imperialist Power that would conquer and dictate to the rest of Europe, a 'war to end all wars', and anyway, it would 'all be over by Christmas'. They had no idea that the 'new technologies' of tanks and trench warfare would prolong the war instead of shortening it.

I'm sure you could read Iraq and Afghanistan veteran's Blogs too.

You might also read Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, and The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (who is a Viet-Nam veteran himself.) They are both told from a youth's point of view.

 

[BookStop]

I agree - 17, not a problem. Kids all age differently and 17 in your world could be very mature, whereas 17 in mine quite obviously isn't (doh, did I type that in plain view - jsut ignore it girls, I didn't mean it, just making conversation you know)

 

[Blackrook]

17 is old enough to fight in a war and it was only recently that it was considered inappropriate to have soldiers this young in Western armies. Any society needing soldiers in a crisis situation will lower its draft age to lower than this, i.e. Germany near the end of World War I and World War II.

 

[shamguy4]

I guess then that is what I will do. have him coming out of school at age 17.
In a few pages he will meet a girl who is the same age and seems to know very well how to use a certain weapon. But I guess she will have her own background...
I figure I will make him a regular teenager and he gets more mature as the book moves foward. This way teenagers can feel similar -at least in the beginning. Then his life takes a big change.

 

[Blackrook]

If your hero lives on a colony or frontier planet he would be expected to know how to use a rifle, hunt and defend his home from hostile predators at a very early age. He would also be good at survival skills and tracking.

 

[shamguy4]

Well I now have to choose.

Do I leave it the way it is written? That is, I have it now that he works somewhere temporarily, sorta like an internship. He plans on going to a graduate school or something other than staying here.
He is very unsure of what he want to become or do. (although he does have a job as of now... perhaps I should write the bottom one as it makes sense with his feelings)

Or.

Change it and make it that he doesn't work anywhere, rather he's finishing up school, taking final exams and thinking of future. Same as above he is unsure of what to do next.
Although here it makes more sense that he doesnt know what to do next.

 

[shamguy4]

Great now Im stuck and I dont know what to do next!

how does one go about fixing a scene in his book? what are some methods? I tried writing a summary of what the chapter would look like depending on different angles and what it would be like but I feel its still not giving me the answer to what I should write.

 

[The Judge]

Is there a reason that you want him to be 17 years old? If you're writing for that age group, then fair enough. Also if you see him learning from someone older - eg a kind of Karate Kid - and/or you envisage the novel taking him through from a callow 17 up to maturity. Otherwise - why have him that age at all? It seems to be causing you more problems than seems justifiable.

As for your current block, I'd suggest leaving this problem for the moment and start writing chapters from further on in the book. There's no law that says you have to write in chronological order starting at chapter one, scene one. Go on to where he meets the girl, get that and several of the action chapters under your belt and then come back to this. If your protagonist is anything like mine, he will already have done/said something you hadn't bargained on which might throw all earlier ideas out the window anyway. (eg he confesses to the girl that he doesn't want to join his Dad's business - and it's the first you knew that his Dad had a business!)

J

 

[shamguy4]

tragedy will strike and cause him to be more mature and yes, he has a mentor who helps him through it all.

I kinda have a lot of whats gonna happen in the next chapters and it hinders on this one. I am afraid to skip chapters...

 

[Blackrook]

I think you should just sit down at your keyboard and type whatever pops into your head.

 

[jeff.s.p]

how does one go about fixing a scene in his book? what are some methods? I tried writing a summary of what the chapter would look like depending on different angles and what it would be like but I feel its still not giving me the answer to what I should write.

This is one of the problems that occurs when trying to plan too much ( I’m sometimes guilty of this myself). Too much freedom in a story can quickly become an overwhelming ocean of possibilities.
My advice would be to narrow this burden, make a decision and stick with it. You’ll be surprised to discover how many new ideas can be imagined, when working within constraints.

Firstly, is the school aspect vital to the plot of your story?.. or is it just background info.
If it’s not critical, then leave it out.
If it is, I’d suggest to make a very rough list of the pros and cons of each scenario you suggested. If one fits slightly better.. then just go with it… otherwise you’ll be stuck in this never ending loop of indecision.

 

[shamguy4]

Thanks for the responses.

I will try to do as you say Jeff s.p.

well the school aspect is slightly vital because he doesn't know what to do with his life at this point. It is a weakness he has that he cant make a decision, and I want to show this.
I also thought of leaving it out, but where does that place him? What has he been up to?
I tried to get rid of the school aspect by placing him at work. Now I had him working in a job, but it didn't seem right for him to be working when he's supposed to not be able to make a decision.

 

[jeff.s.p]

Perhaps this is one of those instances where telling the reader has more impact than showing.
A well worded sentence can reveal quite a bit.

“Just find any job, Pete. School’s been done for eight months and all you have to show for your Analytic degree are a pile of newspapers with job positions circled out”


... not the best, but you get the point .

 

[Ursa major]

Im not really sure how it works in most sci-fi worlds, but he's 17 years old and I figured I would have him in school or at least finishing up.

For some weird reason when I think of school in a sci-fi book (especially one, where in a few chapters he enters into a galactical fight and the word school is barely heard again) it just doesnt fit. Perhaps my character is too young for him to fit in the rest of the story. (He'll be handling a gun soon) Perhaps he needs to be older.

The age at which universal schooling ends is entirely dependent on the social norms of the society in which your story is set.

I've just read Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross, which has a character who's bemoaning her situation: she's nineteen and would have left school in her home society at seventeen or eighteen; as it is, she's been evacuated to a society where you have to be twenty-two to leave school (and is having to endure simple lessons that she thought she'd left behind years before).

So if you want an older portagonist who's still at school you can; or if you want a younger protagonist but you want him to be older than school age, you can have this as well.

 

[Glitch]

If he doesn't know what he wants to do then give him a dead end job or something simple, you could have him helping with his dads business until he figures out what he wants to do.

Have a look at school leavers today, there are loads of jobs that they do which none of them want to.

 

[shamguy4]

Thanks so much for all the replies. I think I have got it figured out! Well I guess I just have to write and see if my chapter works out.
I have so much information that has to be given in only three chapters because it sets up the rest of the book. Its kinda hard.

Like one of those books thats starts off with a murder. Then the rest of the book is about how they find the murderer. Similarly, stuff happens in the first few chapters of my book paving the way for the rest of the book.

 

[dustinzgirl]

I am writing a sci-fi / magial fiction book...

My character starts off at home with his family. My biggest problem is how he transitions to the 3rd chapter where major events change his life forever.

Im not really sure how it works in most sci-fi worlds, but he's 17 years old and I figured I would have him in school or at least finishing up.
For some weird reason when I think of school in a sci-fi book (especially one, where in a few chapters he enters into a galactical fight and the word school is barely heard again) it just doesnt fit. Perhaps my character is too young for him to fit in the rest of the story. (He'll be handling a gun soon) Perhaps he needs to be older.


I mean, thinking of star wars... Im not sure if there is or how a school sytem works but the story never focuses on that. Anakin was young when he handled a gun! Did Anakin go to school? Did he just learn math and stuff from playing around? I can't picture any of those characters ever going to school its just weird.

So I had my character working at a job for experience (sort of like an internship) hoping that he'll go and learn in a graduate school soon. I hope this would make him look more mature and ready for the rest of the story.

Perhaps I should say he was finishing up high school and was wondering what to do next. But that still makes him look like someone who not mature to enter into the rest of the story. Or maybe its just me...

Actually there are a lot of sci fi books that talk about school and ages and kids and families.

And, Star Wars does talk about school. Luke wants to leave the farm to go to flight school.

Devil on My Back by Monica Hughes is about a boy who lives in a bubble town and learns everything from a pack on his back that is plugged into his brain, and he leaves the bubble town due to nefarious going ons, and he's out in the wild freezing, so he tries to download how to make a fire from the thing plugged into his brain, but it only goes back a few thousand years to 'matches' which kind of screws him.