Saturday, June 25, 2011

Spanner Chapter 5: I Lerned Alot in Skool (Revision 4)

Chapter 5

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 5: I Lerned Alot in Skool (Revision 4)

The beginning of Book 1’s School Arc. One of the most developed and excessively edited chapters in the whole novel turned out to need editing yet again, because now it has to fit a new revised continuity with new characters and story threads.

Shira and her cousin Jennifer go to high school, not as students but as tutors earning their college tuition. Karen is a student, and a cheerleader as well. Leila is there too, along with her twin brother. They find themselves caught in a power struggle that may destroy the school, and perhaps even the entire privatized Seattle-area school system with it. When a deadly plot unfolds against Karen and the Student Union, it’s war...

Fourth Revision Update: Now massively revised with a mostly all-new second half that’s much more dramatic and coherent. Final Revision posted August 2, 2012.

Table of Contents:
  1. Sky Surfer Goes to School (June 25, 2011, revised 10/22/11)
  2. Meet Your Friends While You Still Can (June 26, 2011)
  3. The Grand Introduction (June 27, 2011)
  4. You Think You’re All That (June 28, 2011)
  5. The Battle of Dictel Park (June 29-30, 2011)
  6. In Too Deep (July 1, 2011)
  7. Interlude 4: The Rules of Tournament (July 2, 2011, revised 8/11/12)

The original Revision 1 introduction remains entirely relevant:
The most “manga cliché” part of this novel I originally planned as a manga is the high school setting. Sure enough, here we are back in high school (even if the school in question is not the one I went to back in the day). But this onetime school outcast (I was the weird kid whom the jocks nicknamed “Space Helmet”) refuses to romanticize his teenage years. For, face it, my youth was hell. And so, probably, was yours, even if it wasn’t as bad as mine. And the jock, prep, and mean girl princess cliques remain as hellbent as ever on making life hell for those beneath them in the social hierarchy.

Now, into this unlit powderkeg where kids with adult pull persecute outcasts and misfits, where earnest educators struggle against fascistic boot-camp martinets, throw a Molotov cocktail. Better yet, fly her in on a hoverboard, just like the one that Spanner himself rides. And watch the chaos ensue.

Class is now in session. You had better hope that this turns out to be a positive learning experience.
Chapter 6

Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2011, 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.
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