Josh's Twelve

[Savage Dragon]

Joe was as confused as the rest of them. He didn’t know where they came from or who sent it. It was strange and a little worrying. Stephanie and Jocelyn had been talking about it when he walked up.

 

“And he found them sitting on his backpack?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Right, he doesn’t know who put them there.” Jocelyn responded. This piqued Joe’s interests. Not the normal conversation he heard from his friends.

 

“What’s going on?” he interrupted.

 

“Joe,” Jocelyn said, startled, “Oh wait, you got one too. Let me get it,” and she ran up the aisle of the auditorium.

 

“What is she talking about?” Joe asked, turning to Stephanie.

 

“Here, look at mine,” she reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, “There all the same except for the name on the front. “It was just a white sheet of computer paper, folded in half. On the front it said, “#6 Stephanie Leotard” and that was it. On the inside there was a short, typed, three sentence message.

 

“Want to do some good? Then do a friend a favor and go to the men’s dressing room at 2:10 pm on Friday, April 2. It’s important.”

 

At the bottom it had the name –“Josh” in quotations, like it was an alias. That was it.

 

“Who is Josh?” Joe asked.

 

“That’s just it, we don’t know.”

 

Just then Jocelyn returned, “Here’s yours Joe,” and she handed him another paper. It was identical to the other except the words “#9 Joe Savage” on the front.

 

“Where did you get it?” he asked. He didn’t know what to think.

 

“They were sitting on Nick’s backpack after he dropped it off.” Jocelyn told him, “Just sitting there.”

 

“And we have no idea who put them there?”

 

“Nope, no one saw anything, there all typed so there is no handwriting to base it off of and no one knows anyone named Josh”

 

“What are the numbers for? How many people got these?”

 

“Twelve total,” Stephanie replied.

 

Indeed, she was right, there had been twelve. I had sent twelve letters to some of my most personal friends because I needed their help. They didn’t know why yet or how but it was important, the truth is even I didn’t know what it was about, but I felt the need to do it anyway. Twelve friends. #1 Will Brewskie, #2 Emil Christain, #3 Austin Coabble, #4 Jessica Dardy, #5 Brandon Harrber, #6 Stephanie Leotard, #7 Lee Magnum, #8 Sarah Premleton, #9 Joe Savage, #10 Andrew Scott, #11 Nick Waggle, #12 Whitney Zangeroo.

 

“I didn’t get one,” Jocelyn told him.

 

“Friday? That’s a bit odd,” Joe said.

 

“Why?” They both asked together.

 

“It’s Brandon’s birthday on Friday, could be he’s doing it,” he told them.

 

“Well, they were on Nick’s backpack, would’ve been easy for him to “find” them there” Jocelyn told them.

 

“Well, today’s Monday right? So if it’s this Friday… don’t we have play practice?”

 

“Yea,” Jocelyn answered, “but it doesn’t start till 3:30”

 

“Well, I guess I’ll go then, it says a friend.”

 

“There is one other possibility,” Stephanie said.

 

“What?”

 

“You know, the big sandwich boards we have to paint? Maybe this is just the director’s way of getting us all there to paint”

 

-----------------------------------

 

Any and all comments appreciated. from spelling to grammar to whatever. this one means something to me and i can use the help, so do a friend a favor.

Edited April 11, 2004 by MeThinksUFoolish

[Katzaniel]

It's a little hard to comment too much on this first post. It makes me curious what is going on, makes me want to read more, but beyond that I'm not sure what else to say. I did want to mention, since you noted that spelling comments were welcome, is that I think in the third paragraph you wanted the word "piqued" not "peaked". And I hope I understood properly and more is coming, since it doesn't exactly seem complete yet. I'll try to comment again when there is more.

[Yui-chan]

Joe was as confused as the rest of them. He didn’t know where they came from or who sent it. It was strange and a little worrying. Stephanie and Jocelyn had been talking about it when he walked up.

I have a little issue with the way you've begun the story. Unless I'm misunderstanding, there seems to be a chronology problem with starting out by saying that Joe was confused but then going into him first discovering what the issue was.

 

If you were trying to make it seem as if Joe's thoughts are the 'present' of the story and the subsequent dialogue between him, Stephanie and Jocelyn is in the near past, then I'd say you need to put the dialogue into the past participle tense to clarify. {i.e., Stephanie had asked. Jocelyn had responded.}

 

If not, then I would rethink the first few sentences and make sure that they fit with the timeline you've established in the story.

 

“Right, he doesn’t know who put them there,” Jocelyn responded. This piqued Joe’s interest - not the normal conversation he heard from his friends.

 

“What’s going on?” he interrupted.

 

“Joe,” Jocelyn said, startled. “Oh, wait. You got one, too. Let me get it,” she said, and she ran up the aisle of the auditorium.

 

“What is she talking about?” Joe asked, turning to Stephanie.

 

“Here, look at mine.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “They're all the same except for the name on the front. “It was just a white sheet of computer paper, folded in half. On the front it said(,)“#6 Stephanie Leotard”, and that was it. On the inside there was a short, typed, three-sentence message.

 

“Want to do some good? Then do a friend a favor and go to the men’s dressing room at 2:10 pm on Friday, April 2. It’s important.”

 

At the bottom it had the name (-)“Josh” in quotations, like it was an alias. That was it.

 

“Who is Josh?” Joe asked.

 

“That’s just it, we don’t know.”

 

Just then Jocelyn returned. “Here’s yours Joe,” she said, and she handed him another paper. It was identical to the other except the words “#9 Joe Savage” on the front.

 

“Where did you get it?” he asked. He didn’t know what to think.

 

“They were sitting on Nick’s backpack after he dropped it off,” Jocelyn told him. “Just sitting there.”

 

“And we have no idea who put them there?”

 

“Nope. No one saw anything. They're all typed, so there is no handwriting to base it off of, and no one knows anyone named Josh”

 

“What are the numbers for? How many people got these?”

 

“Twelve total,” Stephanie replied.

 

Indeed, she was right, there had been twelve. I had sent twelve letters to some of my most personal friends because I needed their help. They didn’t know why, yet, or how, but it was important. The truth is even I didn’t know what it was about, but I felt the need to do it anyway. Twelve friends. #1 Will Brewskie, #2 Emil Christain, #3 Austin Coabble, #4 Jessica Dardy, #5 Brandon Harrber, #6 Stephanie Leotard, #7 Lee Magnum, #8 Sarah Premleton, #9 Joe Savage, #10 Andrew Scott, #11 Nick Waggle, #12 Whitney Zangeroo.

 

“I didn’t get one,” Jocelyn told him.

 

“Friday? That’s a bit odd,” Joe said.

 

“Why?” they both asked together.

 

“It’s Brandon’s birthday on Friday; could be he’s doing it,” he told them.

 

“Well, they were on Nick’s backpack, would’ve been easy for him to “find” them there” Jocelyn told them.

 

“Well, today’s Monday right? So if it’s this Friday… don’t we have play practice?”

 

“Yea,” Jocelyn answered, “but it doesn’t start till 3:30”

 

“Well, I guess I’ll go then. It says a friend.”

 

“There is one other possibility,” Stephanie said.

 

“What?”

 

“You know(,) the big sandwich boards we have to paint? Maybe this is just the director’s way of getting us all there to paint.”

Corrections that I've put in parenthesis are items that I recommend deleting entirely.

 

I have made a number of grammar and punctuation corrections for you, MeThinks... I'm not going to take time to go through them one by one, but if you need more detailed explanation, I can do that at a later date. I'd sum it up by going over a mistake or two that I noticed you making more than once...

 

1) there --> they're : Be careful that you know which form of the word you're trying to use. Twice, you used there as in the place instead of they're as in the contraction of they are. It's such an easy mistake to make; I struggle all the time to get my fingers to type the write form of the word I'm thinking of.

 

2) {Dialogue}, and: This is going to take me a moment to explain, but first let me tell you that as a whole, I was impressed with how well you did in using your punctuation around the dialogue. A ga-jillion writers out there slaughter the dialogue rules on a regular basis, but you did a very accurate job.

 

Now, here's what I'm talking about with this point:

 

“Oh wait, you got one too. Let me get it,” and she ran up the aisle of the auditorium.

While this is comprehensible and punctuated correctly, a line like this falls under my definition of 'bad practice' because it's an awkward use of the English language. A piece of dialogue is not designed to be an entire half of a compound sentence, and I believe that technically it's not allowed to be. Your dialogue has to be identified with a 'he said'/'she said' subject outside of the quotes if you want to use it in a compound sentence like this one.

 

On a stylistic note, (and this is now purely personal opinion!) I recommend a smoother approach to thoughts like these. I think compound sentences tacked onto dialogue tend to be clunky and often disrupt the flow of the words. For example, I would probably write it as follows:

 

"Oh, wait! You got one, too. Let me get it," she exclaimed, turning to run up the aisle of the auditorium.

 

____

 

Okay, all that said, I'm hoping we'll get to see more of this soon. From what little you've given us of the premise, I'm curious to see where you'll take it.

 

Thank you for sharing.

 

Grammar and Punctuation Nazi,

~Yui

[Savage Dragon]

It was all anyone was talking about. Who's "Josh"? Why did he write the letters? How did he pick the twelve? Was it even a he? People talked about it during stretches, people talked about it during rehearsal, people talked about it afterwards too. Everyone was excited and suspicious. There were all sorts of theories being passed around. Was it a conspiracy? Was more than one person involved? Some said it was the director, but she was openly against it, saying "It better not interfere with rehearsal." Some said it was the girls in the group, four in total. "Leave it to a bunch of girls to come with something crazy like this," Will had said. Some said maybe it was Nick, the letters were discovered sitting on his backpack, kinda suspicious. One thing was for certain, everyone was going. well almost everyone. Austin would be in Germany. Emil was going to South Carolina. and Nick, one of the more likely suspects, was going to be in California the day of the meeting. But everyone else planned on going. Joe decided he would too, with any luck he wouldn't be dead by the end of the day. All of today he'd had reminders that today was the day. People asking him if he was going. asking what he thought about "Josh" and his twelve. heck, every time he looked at the date, he was reminded. and now he was on his way to the meeting, he knew what they’d find there. hopefully not a dead body or something. He headed to his locker first, to pick up his science book. He waved at Andrew on his way to the meeting as well. "You going?" Andrew asked. "Who isn't?" Joe responded, "But first I gotta go to my locker." Andrew nodded. Joe turned left into the locker bank, turning his combination. He opened the door and reached for hi science book. There was an envelope sitting on top of it. I said, "To the Twelve"

[Merelas]

I love this!

 

There are a few grammatical errors, and when I have time I promise I'll come back to them and write 'em out for you (if someone doesn't beat me to it).

 

This is a strange plot that I really want to read more of! Keep on it!

 

gimme MOOOOOOOOORRRRRRREEEEEEE!