Students working together to get through first chapter

Photo by clare jensen

TEAM WORK. The Novel Club at Larchmont Elementary, directed by Leif Wanager, (third from left) discusses character motives and plot for a passage in chapter one of “Gus the Glass Guy,” a novel the club is working together to write. The club wrote their first book, “Molly’s Meteorite,” last school year.

Most writers will agree that when they hit a case of writer's block, a friend or colleague to bounce ideas off of can do the trick to getting back on track.

Larchmont Elementary's after-school novel club, which consists of about 20 fourth and fifth-grade students and teacher Leif Wanager, wrote their first book last year, "Molly's Meteorite," a piece that the group of authors agree was a success.

A collaborative novel writing club provides for ample idea bouncing – but also terms for disagreement, and the authors at Larchmont are experiencing a lull in their literary process.

Last year the process was long and tedious at points, but Wanager said they got the product done just in the nick of time.

At almost three full months into this school year, the club is having trouble even getting through the first chapter, a reality that may push production into the following year or two.

"It might take a couple of years (to write the book)," Wanager said.

He said last year the first chapter was tough to get through too – it had be rewritten about 25 times, and although this year is off to an even slower start, the club hopes it will pick up. The first chapter is always the hardest, after all.

"You want good ideas because you want the person reading the book to keep reading after the first chapter," said fifth-grader Erika Burdett, who seems to agree with Wanager's credo: we don't want a good book – we want a great book.

"Last year it was like it wasn't going anywhere [at first]," said Burdett, who said she is happy with the way "Molly's Meteorite" turned out in the end. "We're hoping that this one is great too."

"Molly's Meteorite" and the current work in progress, "Gus the Glass Guy," are both aimed at young readers, and both set in 1976 Tacoma, the year when Wanager himself was a fifth-grader.

"Gus the Glass Guy" is slated to be a mystery novel and while the basic premise of the book is set (windows are being unexplainably broken at Cedric Sadmey Elementary school) motives, plot twists and character development are eagerly debated before they are re-worked, re-written and re-debated.  

On Nov. 16, Wanager was surrounded by a group of students' arms stretched in the air in hopes of being called upon. Ideas were thrown back and forth, referencing adult dilemmas such as identity theft, bribery, framing and domestic violence.

As the first chapter is still in the wee-beginnings, a lot still needs to be explained.

Why is the main character, Perry, sneaking into his own house? Why are windows being broken at Cedric Sadmey? What is Gus' motive? What are the character's connections? Should Perry's sister, Jente, be eliminated altogether?

These are the questions that must all be answered in a purely collaborative and democratic fashion.

"It's really interesting because you can get new ideas (by working with other people)," said fifth-grader Divine Char.

Wanager proceeded to read the passage he had composed since the group's last meeting, and said that 15 out of the 20 students thought the last thing he had written was boring.

"They see the first draft," said Wanager, who noted he rarely lets his own wife read what he's just written. "It's kind of embarrassing sometimes."

So Wanager went back to the writing board and tried to come up with something a little more entertaining.

"I can't argue with them," he said. "They're my target audience."

The latest revision revealed aspects of Perry's journal being read aloud by the main character to his sister, which the novel club said they liked. The setting for this scene was Perry's pink bedroom; a detail that wasn't as readily accepted; at which point Wanager brought up a concept for his team of authors to ponder: should the main character always be comfortable?

As the input and question portion of the hour-long weekly meeting went on, the "keep in" category grew fuller than the "take out" box.

That means Wanager and his Novel Club may be a step closer to getting a stamp of approval on chapter one and moving on to chapter two.

But if "Gus the Glass Guy" is going to follow in the first book's 20-chapter glory, the novel club may have a long road ahead if they keep at their three-month per chapter pace.

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