No, there is no need to ignore this.

Different people have lived different lives and have had different things affect those lives. So what most of us see no problem with might be the trigger that causes one person to fly into a rage.

My current story has some people trying to deal with one person the same way they would anyone else - but they are discovering that he has a worldview none of them would have ever guessed.

Keep writing.

That was one of the general ideas behind this. To many young readers it might just be weird or disturbing but to one who'd lost someone under similar circumstances it could easily seem personal.

Well, as Vixyy would be sure to say ' words matter' . and there is no such thing as ' just a story' I know personally, stories have shaped my world view every bit as much as so called 'real life' after all we humans have not been evolved to perceive objective reality to any particular degree ( other than the very basic cases, ie if we see a wall but perceive we can still run full speed through it, we'll find out that perception was wrong and we'd have a reduced probability of surviving long enough to procreate. ) and as such stories can and do form our reality just as strongly as an apple is drawn to the ground from a tree. And this story points out that words do matter to reality in a very poignant way neither good or bad, just it's how it is. bravo :)

Yes, I've also had stories help shape the way I view the world. I've never had one come a little too close to home like this one did for Shannis, though. Lucky me.

When I read the story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" in junior high, I thought the protagonist was a moron and the situation unrealistically contrived. Of course I did not voice that opinion as I understood how school works being older than the child in this story, I basically said what I felt the teacher wanted to hear. Good thing too as I passed with an A. I had an even harder time in collage reading Old Man in the Sea, another "greatest literary work" nonsense I had to study and regurgitate what the teacher wanted to hear and not what I felt about it. I personally thought it stank on ice and a waste of my time, at best a story that might have made it into Field and Stream or Reader's Digest back in the 40's but nothing about the story interested me at all when I had to read it (I would have let some water in the boat to where I could get the fish in then bailed it out). To me, it is like having to look at blotches of paint on a canvas and try to describe great significance to it but it still just boils down to paint blotches. On the other hand, a painting like Edward Hopper's Nighthawks speaks to me on so many levels and there is a story waiting to be told in every nook and cranny. I never read anything in school that I related to or spoke to me in that same way but I did my best to report what my teacher wanted to hear. Telling a teacher "I hate it" would have gotten me sent to the principal's office for being disruptive in the little southern rural schools I went to. I would have loved to have been able to voice what I really thought about the vast majority of the crap that passed for education. Go Shannis on that point. Of course, the issues Shannis was likely dealing with could not be dealt with by a school counselor, kind of like taking a car with a blown engine to a quick oil change place.

As a story, it is way too incomplete to really call it anything more that a snippet really but it did prompt me to remember a bit of my childhood and I could relate to it in a way, although not as deeply as the protagonist I'm sure. And hey, it got me to write a comment almost as long as your story.

Children simply aren't equipped to handle complicated or nuanced representations, such as "Occurrence." I didn't read it but saw it as a film in 5th grade. I don't remember the film explaining why the guy was being hanged, I only knew I could sympathize with him and not the guys about to kill him. When the film made it look like he got away, only to kill him anyway, I realized the escape had only happened in the guy's mind. I understood it only that far, but that was enough to broaden my understanding of how messed up our perceptions can be when we're under stress.

Your example of the school reports reminds me of something that happened to me in grade school. I'm 6 or 7 and the teacher is explaining to us that when we're being punished by our parents it's done out of love to teach us right from wrong. By coincidence my mother asked me if I understood why she was punishing me for something I'd done. I figured she was looking for the answer the teacher had told me, so I said she did it out of love. She was stunned and so happy, saying ,"Yes, that's right." But it never felt right. It felt like BS to me. I couldn't express that thought, however, so I remained silent.

Many years later, as an older child, the subject came up again. This time I argued that my punishments were administered out of anger, not love. I told her that I understood that when I pulled some boneheaded stunt that I'd been warned against and did it anyway, it made her angry. That's why when she was tanning my hind end and yelling at me, to say it was done out of love was not true, not at the moment punishment was administered.

She had no answer for that.

I understand you might dislike feeling like you couldn't express your true feelings about the stories you were told to read in school. They might have been inappropriate stories if you weren't old enough to express your dislike beyond saying they 'stank on ice.' If you'd been older and able to clearly define why you thought they were bad stories then I think you should have called BS on them and told the teacher the truth.

Just my two cents.

I thought it was brilliant - but - YOU CAN'T LEAVE IT THERE!

*huffs and puffs a bit...

V.

Sorry, that's all I could manage. I expect a scene of the boy speaking to a counselor would be even darker than the bit already shown.

Thanks, hon. *hugs*

I went into this story cold. I have no exposure to Owl Creek in written or visual form.

Coming from that perspective, this short piece is still complete. If anything, not knowing - having to guess rather than nod with understanding - made it that much more harsh and real. There were no gaps or questions that I would not expect from any other written work of this caliber. Shannis and Mr. Cunningham and even the class all know something I don't, and that is fine, because in light of how Shannis reacts to the assignment, I don't particularly care what the assignment was. I care what Shannis is feeling. I wonder what he lived through to elicit that outburst.

It's a slow process, but I'm learning that a story can be difficult, even dark, but if the reader cares about the characters, they will brave through the worst of it to see if things turn out.

Glad to read this, and don't convince yourself any of your writing isn't worth sharing.

This is something I with which I struggle often. Even so short a piece as this hides aspects of itself from me. Granted, I wrote it. But I never tried to imagine someone reading it who wasn't aware of the source. I was too concerned about making the connection to those who had.

Your take on it highlights how often I create things that I myself don't fully understand or appreciate. Without someone else to point out these things I've overlooked, I'd never know they were there.

Thank you for helping educate me.

I create things that I myself don't fully understand or appreciate. Without someone else to point out these things I've overlooked, I'd never know they were there.

That's why I believe it is so important to share what we create with others. I feel the same way about my music. :3

I had to go look up what the story was, I didn't remember from the title...actually, I don't think I ever read it, I just saw the adaptation on Twilight Zone.

A lot of standard word problems would have to change in textbooks I've used; I'd feel funny talking about predator and prey models with some of the predators and prey sitting in front of me.