Ten year old Lyle and his twelve year old brother Bill were playing on the beach near their vacation home on Jewel Island, close to Bermuda. With Bill's new birthday present, a metal detector, they were sure that they would find pirate treasure.
"Are you sure this is where Timothy The Terrible scuttled his ship, Bill? We've been looking for over an hour!"
"That's what the big old history book at the library said. They didn't mention anything about treasure being found, so it has to be around here somewhere. All pirates have treasure!"
A little bored because of not finding anything right away, the two boys decided to take a break. Bringing the metal detector along, they went to the spot where a small creek emptied into the ocean. It looked like a good place to have lunch, and maybe do some fishing. They had hooks and could use green saplings for poles.
Their mother had made sack lunches with sandwiches, apples, chips, and homemade brownies. "Mom's brownies are the best part of any lunch!" Exclaimed Lyle. Bill agreed.
"Let's try the metal detector around here, I don't see any fish." Said Bill, determined to put his present to good use.
"Ok, but we won't find anything if the Captain buried his treasure way over there where he landed." Said Lyle sadly.
"There might be other things around worth finding." Said Bill.
They started searching along the creek, working towards the ocean. Bill noticed an indentation that somehow looked new in the creek bed, almost completely covered by beach sand brought in by the tide. He had read about such indentations in National Geographic. They were caused by erosion, and sometimes revealed old things like dinosaur bones or gold!
Bill and Lyle began to scoop out the sand. At first it was exciting, but the creek water was icy cold, and they didn't find anything but sand, mud, sharp rocks, and ice cold water. Bill stopped, dried his hands, and turned on the metal detector. It went wild!
"Let's go back to the house and get some shovels!" Said Bill. He was eager to find out what was in there, but digging in those conditions was not nearly as much fun as digging in warm, fine beach sand. Lyle readily agreed.
Soon the two boys were back at the creek armed with shovels, a spade, the metal detector, and even a large metal bucket.
With the aid of their new tools they soon uncovered a box which seemed to be made of heavy steel. It was tightly sealed. There was no lock, and it was small but very heavy. About the size of two loaves of bread.
With quite a bit of effort, the excited children managed to pry the lid off with the spade after working it loose with pocket knives. Inside was a crystal globe with moving parts almost like a Rubik's cube, but they looked a lot easier to arrange.
Each moving part had a picture or writing carved on it. A snowflake. A raindrop. The sun. Various other weather symbols. And there were other crystals with writing that neither of them recognized. Some were repeated more than once in different sizes, especially those which were obviously related to the weather.
Underneath but not touching the movable crystals was a remarkably detailed map of the Earth, but without any country boundaries or writing. It did however have the greens and blues, and even the tiny lights shown in pictures taken from space. This by itself would have been incredible. But in one part of the blue waters, Bill saw a swirling hurricane. It was huge and it was approaching land.
On impulse Bill selected a medium sized sun symbol and slid it directly over the hurricane. Nothing happened. He traced the shape lightly, just to feel it. The light pressure caused the crystal piece to go down. As soon as it came in contact with the globe the hurricane began to disperse.
The boys took everything home. After putting the tools away, they went into the living room and turned on the television. Finding the CNN news channel, they sat and witnessed the many problems in the world. Finally they heard what they were waiting for!
"And in a strange turn of events, Hurricane Carrie has suddenly broken up. It was just about to hit the Philippines in what may have been the most catastrophic event the nation has seen in over a decade. Veteran meteorologists are calling it a fluke. Some are even describing it as a miracle."
"YES!!!" Bill shouted triumphantly. This got their parents attention! Mom, who had been painting on the patio, and Dad, who had been checking in to make sure everything was fine at work, came running.
"What happened, son?" Asked Dad. The two children quickly told their story, often interrupting each other. Understandably, the adults thought it was a coincidence.
"Dad, where are we?" Asked Bill, holding up the globe they had found. Dad pointed out the small island, after consulting a map on a travel brochure.
"Uh, Bill? No hurricanes?" Said Dad, only partially joking.
"Oh I have something much better! How about a tornado that we can all ride to Oz?" Said Bill, laughing. His dad rolled his eyes at the joke.
Bill smiled to himself as he selected the smallest snowflake symbol. Five minutes later, he looked out the window. There was already a thin layer of snow sticking to the ground!
Calling their parents to witness the miracle, Bill then made it sunny again. The adults finally believed! "Boys, you have made the biggest discovery of the century! This is incredible!" Said Dad.
This is a 100% power up post!
#story #fiction #contest #inkwellsummercontest #theinkwell
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
Photo by Maksim Romashkin from Pexels
*Edited by me on Canva*
Delightful story! What child hasn't imagined what it would be like to wield this kind of power? I enjoyed that they decided to help humanity. It would have been a different story if these boys were the mischievous type! 😅
Good point :)
This story had so many possibilities!It was hard to decide where to take it, but I'm happy :)
Thanks for enjoying it :)
The pleasure was mine
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Wow, I didn't realize it had been two years! I just finished a post a few minutes ago too :)
Happy Hive Birthday!
Thank you :) I am so glad that I joined!!!
Congrats @wrestlingdesires, that's a pleasure to count you as a member since all this time
It's a privilege -I wish I had become active sooner!
Thank you for your unfailing support @wrestlingdesires, much appreciated!
Welcome to the contest, @wrestlingdesires. Your story creatively applies the logline:
The global implications seem even more relevant in these times when weather has become one of the biggest news stories.
You engage the reader and create credible characters. Your scene description is vivid. One small point that jumped out at this reader was in the exchange between father and son here:
In casual conversation between father and son we would expect the father to use the son's name, or nickname. Most parents don't refer to their children as "son" or "daughter". Even if you are familiar with a case where this happens, the use of 'son' will not sound colloquial (and therefore conversational) to most readers.
Congratulations on submitting the first story to the contest! More detailed feedback (in the spirit of a writing workshop) will follow from individual curators.
Thanks so much for the suggestion - as well as the compliments :) I look forward to much more feedback :) One of my main reasons for joining the prompt each week is to improve my writing skills.
Hello @wrestlingdesires,
Thank you for this wonderful story. It makes a great first entry into the contest. I am reading the story for the second time and flushing out my impression so I can give what I hope is constructive insight. Please remember that such insight reflects how I might approach the story. But, it's your story so you are welcome to reject all suggestions :)
This is a 'clean' story, so I will not nitpick but will make a structural suggestion.
Your first sentence is a true workhorse. It tells us who the boys are, their ages, where they are and what they are up to. Tremendous amount of information. However, it isn't a really effective hook. Try to think of a first sentence that has more energy. Even moving this line up might work:
In the next line you might start with Lyle and his twelve-year-old brother Bill... We don't really need to know Lyle's age because we know now they are both children. The sentence becomes more dynamic if you leave Lyle's age off.
That's what I would do. I might play around with that paragraph to make the information more compact, but you are really good at creating scene and motivation. Wouldn't want to mess that up.
Well, that's my suggestion. I hope you get others and that these will help you think constructively about your second draft.
Good luck!
Thank you, @agmoore - this is exactly what I needed :) !!! What a wonderful idea to start it off with more energy :)
My problem has always been making my posts too long. So I will definitely see where I can shave a few words off.
You're good at fiction Bro, you know how to buildup a plot and finish it!
Thanks :) Your photography is still the best :)
@wrestlingdesires, thank you very much for your participation.
It's a good story.
On the overall idea of the contest I'll make some comments so that, if they go with you, after thinking about them, you'll consider them.
The logline you chose is full of possibilities for the magical and the fantastic, to let your imagination run wild and ride on it.
I have read your writing several times and what I find most remarkable is that the brothers found an instrument that could be defined as a "weather manager". That is a fantastic discovery.
Just thinking about what you have written makes me get excited and I can think of many ideas, from the problems we could solve, from the simplest ones - for example, thinking like a child, I would make a fine, persistent, but harmless rain fall, alternating with bright sunshine. It would be a phenomenon bizarre enough to suspend classes in schools - to preventing a world war over the possession of such a device.
You might want to construct dialogues about the impact of the discovery on the imagination of the siblings, they might be amazed, talk very emotionally, project scenarios, and so on. In these dialogues you could show a lot about the character of your characters. Whether they are bold, fearful, whether they think differently, whether they have information about the world around them?
Your story ends at home, but it has elements to go anywhere in the universe.
One element of your story, also readable, are the text separators. I don't know how to interpret them. I particularly think they are not necessary.
Remember these are just constructive comments, I wish you much success in the contest.
Thanks so much :) I will definitely add the dialogue to my edit, I love the idea :)
The text separators are just because it's so long, I wasn't sure if they enhanced the story or not.
Thank you again for the feedback, and also for the workshop :) I have high hopes of improving my skills in the next couple of weeks :)
Oh my!!
What a fun story
I started imagining what I'd do with the globe and all the accessories that came with it.
I can already see a TV series made from it
I love where you took the story with this logline
Thanks for the kind words, I would so love to have one of those globes :) ... Do you have any suggestions for the story,please???
I see agmoore already addressed starting the story with a hook which is something I too find sets the tone for the story and drags the reader in...
Maybe if some of the sentences can include all the nitty-gritties, you have enough space in your word count to work in emotions, actions or teases... I hope you don't mind me giving you an example of what I'm gibbering about
| Soon the two boys were back at the creek armed with shovels, a spade, the metal detector, and even a large metal bucket.
With the aid of their new tools they soon uncovered a box which seemed to be made of heavy steel. It was tightly sealed. There was no lock, and it was small but very heavy. About the size of two loaves of bread.
For example only of course...
Back at the creek armed with shovels, a spade, the metal detector and a large metal bucket, the boys soon uncovered a box. Knocking it gently with the spade, the clinking sound of the heavy steel ran shivers of excitement down their spine.
The small heavy box, the size of two loaves of bread, was tightly sealed, with no lock.
I just rephrased it a little so my mind's eye can see the metal box and feel the boys emotions...but that's what I'd do - no right or wrong to it of course.
ps: I am still learning how to give feedback to fellow writers...
That's a great suggestion :) !!!! I'm getting more feedback than I ever imagined :)
I really enjoyed reading the draft of your story, @wrestlingdesires. It's off to a fantastic start. I see that you've gotten some great feedback. I especially like the comments about infusing the story with a bit more energy and helping us (your readers) to experience more of the excitement of the boys. One way writers achieve that is to tell the story from just one perspective. Here you've written the story in "omniscient" perspective, which does not give us insights into any one character's motivations, feelings or experiences. With third person perspective, we experience the heart and mind of one character, which tends to be a much richer reading experience.
If you do decide to make that change, one word of caution is to avoid the temptation to add things like "Bill was so excited." The best way to let us know Bill is excited is to "show" us. (See our writing tip about "show, don't tell." And note that if you convert to third person perspective, you do have to remove anything that indicates the thoughts or feelings of all other characters!)
For example, you could write "Bill gently touched the instrument, feeling its energy and its thrilling power. What if they could stop tsunamis, or shield the polar ice caps from the sun's glare?"
That's not a suggestion for your actual story, just an example of how to give the reader the feeling of excitement.
One other piece of feedback I have for you is about dialog.
Dialog tags (like "he said," or "exclaimed Dad,") can be a distraction from a story. So it's great if you can find ways to limit their use. For example, you can directly precede a line of dialog with an action. That tells us that the very next thing said is by the person taking that action. Let's say you write: "Bill pried open the box with a pocket knife." You could then write on the same line: "Whoa. Lyle, what is that?"
And then you don't need to say "Bill exclaimed."
When you do use dialog tags, the word after the quote should not be capitalized, unless it is a proper noun like someone's name. This is because it is technically part of the same sentence. Example:
This should be:
Good luck in the contest!
Thanks so much for the help, Jayna :) This advice makes me start to think about editing some old posts and reposting them sometime :) I now see that they could be a lot better :)
Will you be writing one? I can't wait to see it :)
I'm glad the feedback is useful, @wrestlingdesires. It's fun to continually learn new skills in the craft of fiction writing, isn't it?
I will not be writing a story this round, as I am traveling and on the go right now. But I'll post one to The Ink Well soon.
It's definitely fun and rewarding to learn more :)
You have a fun and safe trip, @jayna :)
Oh, see, good kids and a good family have been given the secret of how to control the weather of the world ... thank God! This could have gone bad so many different ways, but the treasure is in the right hands (the Ludlows and Trents and their friends are all approving)!
The only challenge I see in this story is how long it takes to get to the treasure itself ... the story is just a bit out of balance because as charming as the journey to the treasure is, this IS, after all, the discovery of the century ... a bit more detail of what it is and how the children learn to use it ... their local weather, for example, for there are winds and waves for them to experiment on, and maybe clouds... the dawning of the realization of what they have ... etc.
Definitely a good idea to cut back on the search - thanks so much :) That would leave me more paragraphs for the good stuff :)
Bingo ... more paragraphs for the good stuff ... you took the words right out of my mouth...
Thanks again for the suggestion :) I need to go see if you wrote one yet :)
I did... https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@deeanndmathews/the-ink-well-contest-week-one-draft-driving-through-stop-signs-for-a-jade-necklace
I replied with a little feedback. Really not much to suggest as it's already great :)
Great story! You have so much talent! :)
Thanks so much :) I hope to see your work in The Ink Well soon, Pouki :)
They're kids :) If you take them fishing in a large lake, they'll be sure that they will catch a whale or shark, too :)
I have yet to meet one who goes on a treasure hunt without expecting to make a huge discovery :)