Mentor Text: The Lying Game!!!

            The Lying Game is a series of books written by Sara Shepard that was later produced into a movie. Books are always better than movies so I’ve read the first two books of the series and I’m waiting until February to get the next one when it comes out. The book is about two girls who are adopted twins that never knew each other until they met on facebook one day with intentions of meeting in Arizona, where one twin lives. The twin that lives in Arizona’s name is Sutton Mercer and the day they plan to meet, Sutton disappears. Emma is the other twin and she finds herself in Arizona among Sutton’s friends who all think that she is Sutton. Coincidentally, she slips into Sutton’s life hoping that she forgot to meet her and will be coming soon. Her life is turned upside down when she receives a note saying her sister is dead and she will be too if she doesn’t play along.

            Sutton is an antagonist and part of The Lying Game, which is a group of three of her friends who play mean pranks on people for fun. Emma is the opposite; she is a protagonist that came from many foster homes and just wants a real family to love her. She realizes her sister did many wrong things in her life and knows that she went too far with a prank that cost herself her life. The story is about Emma trying to find Sutton’s murderer when she is constantly being watched and no one believes that she is her twin sister. No missing body means no crime.

            The Lying Game relates to my book because it’s about bullying and my story is about one girl being bullied her whole life until someone finally stands up for her. The ideas I will take from the lying game are the pranks because my story is all about bullies hurting other kids verbally and physically. I like the idea of bullying through pranks so it’s not as obvious but everyone knows that it’s happening. Another thing I got out of The Lying Game is how the characters in it partied regularly and there were all different cliques. There are certain people that you just don’t talk to and I’d like to incorporate cliques into my story as well to make it seem more realistic. Not being invited to the parties that everyone goes to is embarrassing and something I could add to my main character’s troubled life.

            Reading The Lying Game gave me many new ideas for writing my children’s story because I was thinking about it while I read the books. I read both books in two weeks and was completely unable to put them down. When I stopped reading my book, I thought about it and wanted to know what happened next. Not only did I find a great mentor text for my book, but I also found an amazing book that I would recommend to anyone that loves to read. The book was recommended to me by my mother and it puts life into a new perspective once you read it.

20 Questions for Holly Mathews!

Interview By: Kailey Mazzilli

Interviewed: Holly Mathews

Q: What is your story about?

A: Her story is about a man named Bud who loves to hunt but finds himself in trouble when things don’t go as planned. There is a climax at the end that Holly refuses to give away to anyone that hasn’t read her story.

Q: Why did you change your storyline?

A: She felt that the original story was too complicated for her writing skills and she wanted to write about something she was more comfortable with. She chose hunting because she has firsthand experience with it so it is easy to write about in detail.

Q: Does the story relate to your life as a whole?

A: Yes. Hunting relates a lot to her life because her, her father and her brother grew up hunting together as a family. The story is also based in Nantucket where Holly remembers riding the ferry numerous times and making numerous memories. Lastly, the main character loves horses as well as Holly. Her passion is horses and she has one of her own at her home so she included them in her story.

Q: Did you reference any outside sources while writing your story?

A: No because the story relates to her life so all of her ideas come from real life experiences.

Q: Is there any romantic relationships in your story?

A: No relationships in the story are highlighted as much importance because it is not a love story. The only relationship in the story is between the main character and his wife who bear a child together. They are only talked about at the beginning of the story as a couple.

Q: Were there any points you struggled with while writing your story?

A: She struggled with the ending a lot because there were so many possible outcomes. She overcame it and chose to end her story with a surprise twist.

Q: What type of story are you writing? (Poem, novel…?)

A: Holly is writing a regular descriptive novel.

Q: Do you have a lot of dialogue in your story?

A: Yes there is a lot of dialogue but it is weaved in throughout the story. She loves dialogue and said “dialogue is my favorite!” when asked about it. One of her talents is weaving dialogue into a story so it is evenly matched with the words.

Q: Does the main character in your story resemble you or anyone in your life?

A: No. The main character is just the typical selfish, dominant male. He believes he is better than anyone else and is rude to others.

Q: What is your message or moral to writing your story?

A: The moral is to not be greedy like the story of the dog that sees’s two bones in the reflection of the pond. He has one bone in his mouth but when looking into the reflection of the pond, he sees his bone and it’s reflection. He believes it is two bones and goes to grab the second one but drops the one he already had. He is left with nothing and the moral is to not be greedy.

Q: Do the character’s names mean anything to your life?

A: The only name that means anything is the boy named Scott briefly mentioned in the story. He decorates a tree in the story but the name is a real name of a real person. The role of Scott is different than that of real life but it is based off a true personality.

Q: How is your story broken up? (Chapters, Sections…?)

A: Holly’s story is divided into sections with a line at the bottom of the text to separate each section. Each section is about one page long.

Q: How long do you plan on your story being?

A: Her story is almost done already and it is 15 pages. She still wants to go back and change some things and maybe even add a scene or two.

Q: What is the main climax of the story?

A: Bud and his friends find a huge deer on the island and decide to hunt it. While shooting at the deer, they miss and hit something else on accident. Holly refuses to reveal what gets hit to anyone who hasn’t read her story yet.

Q: What time period are you writing in?

A: The present time period of 2011.

Q: Who are the bad guys? (If any)

A: The main character is the bad guy because he is a braggart. He is a selfish character and realizes it at the end of the story. Once he realizes the way he is, he changes his ways completely and becomes a better person.

Q: Who is telling your story?

A: An all knowing narrator tells the story.

Q: Is there any points in writing that you felt were slow or hard to write about?

A: There is a point where the main character is in a tree stand waiting for a deer and it was hard for her to write about it without rushing it. She felt it was a boring point of her story but had to be included because it showed how Bud hunted for deer.

Q: Do you think that if you had more time you would have wrote your story differently?

A: No. A lot of thought was put into the story and it was changed a few times. There was enough time to realize that she didn’t want to write about her first subject and she included everything that she wanted to in her story.

Q: Is there anything you still need to work on specifically?

A: Not really. She just needs to re-read the story a few times and make sure it all sounds good. She wants to work on replacing weak words with stronger words for the final draft and maybe add a scene to her story. The story is almost done and just needs to be checked for errors.

Read Holly's Story HERE!

Rough Draft for My Children's Story

Story Title: To be announced (It's changed twice already though, I just don't like either of them)

It is 2011 and bullying is widely unnoticed in schools around the world. Freshman are especially targeted as victims of bullying crimes such as hitting, stalking, taunting, and even swirlies in the bathroom toilet. Teachers that witness these crimes would like to stay un-involved in them because of the process that followed prosecuting someone. Other teachers are completely oblivious to everything around them and don’t even notice the children around them want to kill themselves at times. At Cedar Heights High School in Maine, there is a group of bullies that are well known throughout the school. They believe they are better than anyone else and are known as the “cronies” to the kids in school. The trouble makers consist of the couple of Craig Bardsley and Alexa Greene, Matt Dublin, and Brad Aims. All of which wear leather and black clothing to intimidate other students into avoiding them. The smell of fear is in the halls and it empowers them to go on with their actions.

This bullying talk brings me to the story of a young girl of 15 years named Molly Calhoun. Molly has high honors in school and as a repercussion of it, she doesn’t have many friends. She is constantly doing homework or worrying about her grades. School is all she cares about because it is where she can sit alone in silence. Molly’s mother died in 2004, 7 years ago, of leukemia. Like most relationships between mothers and daughters, Molly was extremely close with her mother. They did everything together and Molly considered her the one best friend she had or needed. When thinking of her mother, Molly always would remember her sweet smell of vanilla that was natural to her. She was unable to bake anything since her mother died because they would always bake together. Her mother would show her how to press the forks into the peanut butter cookies to make a criss-cross and it wasn’t the same any other way.

Without a mother in the picture, the question is raised ‘who is raising this child?’ When her mother was alive, her parents were happily married with much unfinished business left to complete. The father took over since she died but Molly always struggled with building a meaningful relationship with him. He was constantly working when her mother was alive and never made an attempt to talk to her even when he was home. There was an awkward feeling between them in general while growing up because he never quite understood how to connect with a child. Anyways, Molly will connect with her father at the end of my story through many different obstacles they will overcome. I want them to fight a few different times in my story and have Molly feel bad afterwards as well as her father. I haven’t yet worked out the fight scenes but I have one dialogue scene so far:

Molly: I need some money for the store, dad.

Dad: What do you mean you need some money? You don’t ask me for money young lady, you ask me to bring you to the store.

Molly: DAD! I don’t understand why I can never just do anything on my own without you knowing every little thing about my life!

Dad: What’s the big problem with your father coming with you?

Molly: Ever stop to think that I’m getting older and I don’t want you knowing everything I buy at the store.

Dad: Where’s the incrimination?

Molly: If you really want to know so badly, I need to get pads. There. Are you happy now? Now you know that I’m currently having my period and I need pads. I hope you’re happy.

Dad: Molly! Don’t talk to me like that! And when something changes in your life like that you need to notify your father.

Molly: Mom knew all of these things about me, I just would never tell you because you never even cared until you had to. Now you’re overwhelmed and think you need to know everything at once.

Dad: You’re wrong Molly you know I love…

(Molly storms off in a rush and a door slams upstairs)

The walk to the bus stop is filled with anticipation and nervousness. Molly walks 1/3 of a mile alone, kicking stones up with every step to pass time. She moves at a slow pace because she is never excited to go to school. To be perfectly honest, sometimes she purposely missed the bus just because she didn’t want to go and knew her father would believe she missed the bus on accident. Three out of five days the school bus leaves without Molly, even if she is chasing after it. She runs trying to catch up to the bus, frantically waving her arms, until she gets to the fourth street down from hers. She walks on knowing that everyone saw her running the whole way and was just talking about her. “Wow Molly, Way to make us late to school again” and “Why don’t you just stay home, no one likes you anyways?” were among the comments Molly had directed towards her as she walked onto the bus. The front seat is always open so Molly sits there alone, listening to the children whisper things about her. The only problem was no one ever really whispered because it was loud and intended for the person to hear it.

When the bus arrives at school, Molly stands up and puts one foot out only to be shoved back into her seat by the girl in the seat behind her. It was a chain reaction after that because everyone thought of it as normal to push Molly into the seat since the first girl did it with ease. She decides to wait for the bus to evacuate before making her move into the school. When she walks into the school, she is greeted by her friendly teachers and granted her only safe time of the entire school day. While the teachers are around, no one can say anything mean to her and she is a whole different person. Walking into the classroom is dreadful because Molly anticipates the lack of seating from the start. All the classrooms are set up with 30 desks, rows of 5 and 6. The few open seats are occupied by book bags of un-approachable students. Molly is forced to go into the one open seat in the back row, the delinquent seat. The desk is covered in writing like ‘skool sucks’ and other words about the teacher. As someone who loves school, the environment seriously affected how Molly learned in school and listened. When she raises her hand in class, students glare at her to put it down. No matter what she does, people are mean to her and don’t even attempt to talk to her if they aren’t mean.

As she walks off the safety of the school bus to begin her journey home, she hears the 8 footsteps following her closely behind. She knows it is Craig Bardsley, Alexa Greene, Brad Aims, and Matt Dublin. The moment the bus pulls out of sight, Molly’s instincts kick in and she begins to walk noticeably faster. As presumed, the group does the same, only they jog to Molly and catch up extremely fast. Once Alexa grabs her shirt and pulls her to the ground, the boys begin to chime in with rude remarks. Alexa beats up Molly on the daily basis because she is the only girl in the group and Craig tells her to. They take her shoes from her so she has to walk home without them and explain what happened to her father. She is badly bruised from the beat down and contemplates ‘why do these things happen to me?’ When she finally gets home, her father notices the cuts right away.

Dad: Oh my God Molly! What in the world happened to you?

Molly: Don’t worry about it Dad, you never cared before mom died.

Dad: What’s all this ‘I never cared’ stuff you keep talking about? You know I always cared about you Molly and I would do anything to spend more time with you.

Molly: Pfft… (Sarcastic expression with mouth)

Dad: Molly, answer my question. What in the world happened to you?

Molly: I’m a loser dad if you didn’t realize by my appearance. People beat me up after school and pick on me in school. That’s my life. That’s me.

Dad: What! You can’t be taking that from anyone Molly. Any daughter of mine should be standing up for her rights and herself.

Molly: So this all goes back to you. Sorry I’m such an embarrassment to you Dad. Sorry I’m not your perfect athletic daughter you always wanted.

Dad: Molly, don’t say that you know it’s not true!

Molly: I’d like some space if that’s okay. In my room. Alone.

1.      I need to add the exciting scenes. I have a lot more I’m working with I just don’t have it all written.

2.      Molly and Alexa are going to become best friends at the end and Alexa will leave Craig. She realizes that he used her and doesn’t really love her. She also never wanted to be mean to Molly in the first place; she just did so Craig wouldn’t leave her.

3.      Molly will meet a guy in the story named Ben Dell who will stick up for her in front of Craig and the group. Alexa will influence her to be with him because she realizes he truly loves Molly.

4.      Molly and Ben will end up together and happy. Alexa will be best friends with Molly. Molly and her father will end up getting along in the end and working out their differences. There will be a huge conversation about when her mother was around between the two of them because it is brought up so many times in my story. One day they will really talk about it all and the truth will come out.