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No problem! I know what it’s like making typos — I make them all the time. I’m slightly dyslexic.
Hope you enjoy the tool!
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
@beth20 Can you check and make sure this email address is correct? I tried sending it to you but it says the email address does not exist. Thanks.
Marvel at His Providence
I don’t know how to insert a document, so what’s your email, and I’ll send it to you.
Oh, and sorry for it taking so long for me to reply. I get a bit distracted sometimes.
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
Thanks! I have a Google Doc I’m sending to all the beta readers, that way I have all the comments in one place. What email can I use to share it with you?
Marvel at His Providence
Hi! So, I have a 180 page novel that I would love someone to beta read, but everyone I’ve sent it have to tell me they’ve got too much on their plate already and can’t even read it, let alone give any feedback. It’s a fantasy genre, but I would love a different perspective, as everyone I sent it to writes fantasy. I can definitely use tightening in my narrative (and dialogue) and show vs. tell tips. BUT, if you don’t have time, and/or are not interested in reading/critiquing another genre, no problem. I’m taking a break from that novel and working on another one anyways. But I do want to get back to it at some point soon.
Please note this is my first novel I’ve ever finished a first draft, and I am pretty ignorant as to “correct” and official ways of doing things.
Marvel at His Providence
In answer to your question, there is the ability of sinful human nature to hide for a time, and then when it thinks the coast is clear, reveals itself.
What I mean by this is, the family that adopts Jane might seem like a nice family, but after the adoption is complete, the accountability is gone and things can get ugly. This might mean neglect, abuse, and even sexual abuse (which is ugly to think about, but sadly, it’s almost assumed to be true of children who go into foster care that they have been physically and/or sexually abused at least once by someone close to them. Girls are particularly more at risk, and it doesn’t really matter what age. Our 2 year old girl had been sexually abused before she came to us.) Adoptive parents are also able to do these repulsive things once the accountability is greatly lessened.
Now, the adoptive parents might not be monsters whose only purpose in adopting Jane was to neglect, abuse, or sexually use her. They might have honestly cared about her, gotten swept up in the charitable thing they were doing, had honestly good intentions, and then once the newness wore off and the humdrummery of life started again, the good intentions faded away, and she began to get neglected and/or abused. (I personally would not make them sexually abuse Jane mainly because there is A LOT of emotional and mental trust and physical issues that come afterward, and while it might be interesting to see how her faith helps her, I don’t think it’s worth opening that can of worms, particularly since you are so young. I’m 21, and I wish I didn’t know anything about that world. And, physical abuse has plenty of trauma of its own.)
Physical abuse could start a variety of ways. Maybe it hadn’t hit them yet that some of their treasured dreams were no longer a possibility because they had to save for her college, or the retreat they wanted to go to the following summer didn’t allow kids, or something like that. Resentment might build up, and they might start off by withholding things they know she wants but she hasn’t asked for, then maybe things she she did ask for, then maybe there would be harsh looks, then words, then maybe a little slap or two, and then maybe it progresses to kicking and beating.
Neglect could stem from the parents being overwhelmed with the new responsibility. Maybe grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends were excited at first, and very supportive, but now that the excitement is over, they don’t help out as much as they used to, and the parents were counting on them for the long term. This could result in neglect emotionally and physically. (It could also spark resentment, which might lead to abuse.)
The family dying didn’t actually cross my mind at all when I mentioned the adoption falling through.
I hope that was helpful. I hope you get your book’s plot and stuff straightened out, and I would love to read it again once you’ve finished it!
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
Technically, the parents can be involved if the problem involves genetics. For instance, if the mom was alcoholic or violent, people might assume that Jane will be too when she gets older, but the likelihood of the foster family actually knowing that is slim, so yeah, they don’t really affect much.
As for a non severe reason for slipping through the system so much, I have no idea. Honestly, if there are no parents in the way, and no family, then DSS’s goal is going to be to get her adopted.
Now, I just had a thought, and you can take it or leave it, as it might not fit into what you want with your story, but what if Jane had been adopted, and then a few months later, when they thought things had settled down and they weren’t being watched as closely, issues arose, and she was taken out of that home and put back into foster care. Then future foster families might wonder what was wrong with Jane to have to be put back into foster care. It’s a bit far fetched, but that’s the only thing I could think of that a “normal” kid might not be able to be adopted. Kind of like returned goods at a store.
I’d love to hear why she wasn’t adopted as a baby, as well as her backstory on her faith and mindset because those are the real big kickers for me. Those are the questions that made me scoff a little and mark it down as unrealistic and merely a feel-good story. So, I feel like those questions have to be answered satisfactorily. (That being said, I still greatly enjoyed the story, and I stayed up late at night to finish it, which is something I haven’t done to a book in a couple of years now, so don’t feel like it’s terrible and a waste of time — it’s not. It just needs a lot of work.
Guardian ad Litems: They are volunteers, and yes, I suppose they’re chosen at random. As far as I know, religious beliefs are not really factored in, so yeah, I guess a pastor could be one, as long as he meets the criteria. NOTE: Guardians are not for all foster care cases. They are for termination of parental rights cases and other child abuse cases, so Jane probably won’t have one. Basically, they are the representation of the child in court and do investigation in criminal matters. If Jane would not be going to court (there have been no criminal actions) then she wouldn’t need a voice in court.
Disclaimer: Please do your research for fostering in the state where your story is because laws can vary somewhat from state to state. For instance, while fire drills were required every month in my state, it is sometimes only required every quarter in others, or sometimes every week or every other week. (I guess depending on the likelihood of fires in the area.) So, research those things. My details were more as a handle on something to research because we all know it’s hard to research something when you don’t know where to start. Like, you might not have come up with the Guardians if you had just researched “foster care”.
Glad I could help! I like spreading awareness about fostering, because, to be honest, it’s kind of a secretive business. Sometimes it feels like we’re secret agents. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that most people just don’t talk about.
Let me know if there are any other questions you have, and I’ll be glad to answer them.
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
Okay, so about the number. It would greatly depend on why she has not been adopted by now. I mean, seriously, a newborn baby gets snapped up very quickly, especially if there are no parents to cause trouble. I’d say it would take about 9 months tops to both find an adoption family and complete the adoption unless there was something else going on. We had our 4 day old baby, who was also an abortion survivor, for 2 weeks before family got her. Now, that’s family, and that means half the battle is won for them already, but even non-family adoptions don’t last terribly long unless, like I said, there are complications. And you gave us no real complications.
Some complications would be a genetic disorder, physical disorder, and family barriers. Genetic disorders might be something like autism, down syndrome, etc., physical disorders might be missing limbs, brain damage, alcohol fetal syndrome, etc., and family barriers might be a mom who doesn’t want to give up her baby, but due to previous behavior, it was taken from her at the hospital, and she goes around making a big stink about it. (The latter usually happens only if the baby is born while the mom is under investigation for previous child abuse or neglect.) A little girl with nothing wrong with her is not likely going to simply slip through the system like this.
Even if she is one of the rare cases that do happen to slip through, I want to know why. Why didn’t her social worker work to get her in a good, adoption home as quickly as possible? Was it negligence, not enough families, ineptness, etc.?
So, as an example, one of the children in our home who had been to 11 different foster homes in the span of four years had severe allergies, and could basically only eat chicken and rice, and things made from them. No dairy, nuts, eggs, gluten, pork, beef, or corn. (That included corn syrup, which is in almost everything.) He also was labeled a trouble maker with ADHD. He did have trouble in school, but mostly because he had such a strict diet and he saw all the other kids eating fun things like mac and cheese, hot dogs, etc. and he couldn’t. Some of the kids made fun of him. And so he would fight with them and get suspended. My family loved all our foster kids, and my mom made a point of trying to understand every single one. She never gave up on them just because it was hard. But most of the other homes just accepted the report that he caused trouble and didn’t take the time or effort to make good meals without the ingredients he couldn’t have, and so yeah he lashed out and rebelled.
The other boy who had been in 12 foster homes had autism, and threw down china cabinets…still full of china…because someone wouldn’t give him pizza. Yeah, we learned not to say pizza unless we were prepared to give it to him.
Now, we did have a “normal” set of kids, age 9 and 1/2 months and 2 years, brother and sister, who (hopefully) only had 2 foster homes before they were adopted. (I say hopefully because they were taken away from us because of my parents’ faith and we weren’t allowed to even know what happened to them.) Another child I know who was taken from the hospital and only stayed in 1 foster home before being adopted (after 4 years). Complications with the mom who scared everyone by suing people was the reason why it took so long.
So, 41 is really drastic for a “normal” girl who has just been in the system for a long time.
For Jane, age 13, and assuming her to be “normal”, I would venture a high, plausible number would be about 20.
I like how you have portrayed Shannon and Daniel as “good” foster parents, and also have some “mediocre” parents who just couldn’t do it because of finances, and then “abusive” parents as well. That’s all good. But please don’t make it seem like it takes 40 foster homes before you find one good one. Surely there would have been several more who would have tried to keep Jane for much longer than only a few weeks.
On average (besides the newborn who only stayed 2 weeks because we were really just a stop-gap until her aunt could finish her home study) children stayed in our home for 10 months — they ranged from 1 month to almost 3 years. The 1 month one left because he was completely refusing to comply, and cursed my mom in the most obscene language I had ever heard, and my dad said he had to go. His brother (The one with ADHD and dietary restrictions) stayed with us for 4 months and only left because someone tried to break into our house, and we highly suspect some of his family members. The autistic boy stayed 7 months and only left because my mom was exhausted, having gotten at least one concussion, and his mom was sabotaging all our efforts to help him. The two children who stayed almost 3 years left because they were taken from us, because of my parents’ faith, but the reason they cited was that my mom washed them in the shower without a washcloth — they called it sexual abuse. So, in a good home, Jane could have stayed for months, and possibly years. If there’s no apparent reason for her to leave, why would they have let her go? It’s easier to keep a child you’ve gotten to know than to give that child up and get completely new children.
(Sorry, I got to rambling and couldn’t stop.)
Details in the Foster Care System The Outsiders Might Not Know About:
1. White cars. All social workers seem to drive white sedans. All of them. Seriously, you go to social services office, and you see white cars lined up, sometimes with stickers with numbers on the windshield, and orange permanent license plates.
2. Briefcases. Social workers carry briefcases, sometimes with those hard case clipboards inside them for when they come to home visits. The note down everything. They note how the different members of the family interact with the foster child, what the foster child says, what the house looks like, whether there’s enough food in the pantries, how excited/scared/nervous/etc. the child looks, etc. It’s kind of scary from the foster parent perspective.
3. Home visits are sometimes unscheduled. Social workers will pop up at your door for a home visit. Usually, when they do this, they are a bit more understanding of a messy house, but they still make note of it.
4. Foster care has agencies. What I mean by this is that they will “give” their cases to an independent agency, who have their own foster parents, and the agency will assign a foster home to a child. The foster parents usually get paid more, and they have their own agency worker who speaks for them, but they also have twice the accountability, for there are now 2 social workers who have to come for monthly home visits.
5. Fire drills. Every month, foster homes are required to have a fire drill. This would be a cool addition to a story that I never see. You could have so much fun exposing certain fears or mindsets with the children and parents. Ex. My mom loved to make a game out of fire drills, to try to make it not so scary. Some of our kids would respond to the game and laugh as we ran outside, collecting our shoes and respective kids ( my brother and I each had a child we had to make sure got outside) but other children would cry and cover their ears and have to be carried out the door into the grass by the mailbox.
6. Calling foster parents Mommy and Daddy. This might not be relevant in your story, since Shannon and Daniel don’t seem to have any children of their own, but if there is a natural child (as in, not foster) and they are naturally calling the foster parents “Mommy” and “Daddy”, younger children (even as old as ten or eleven) will sometimes start calling the foster parents that too, without any encouragement to do so. It just becomes natural, since the other kids are doing it.
7. You don’t know much about the kids before they arrive. Seriously, we wouldn’t even know the children’s names before they showed up at our door and told us themselves. Here’s what happened to us: we’d get a call, and our social worker (we were a part of an agency. See note 4.) would tell us how many kids, what ages, what genders, and maybe why they were removed. ( My mom wanted to know why because it affected what kind of preparation mentally she needed to have.) Then they would hang up after telling us about what time they would show up. A few hours later, a white car would pull up, and out would pop the kids. Then we would learn their names, birthdays, etc. But not before. Social workers do not usually talk and give a lot of superfluous details to experienced foster parents beforehand. (So in your story, Jane might not need to feel like she doesn’t need to say her name.)
8. Guardian ad Litems. These are people completely independent from social services, the child’s family, and anyone else ( a stranger to everyone involved in the case) who only speaks for the kids. They don’t care about what the foster parents, social worker(s), and bio-parents want — they want what’s best for the kids. Most children only have one, and that Guardian sticks with them even when they move to another foster home. (As do the children’s social worker who speaks for DSS, now that I think about it.) They don’t have to have legal experience. It’s their job to listen to the children and speak for them in court since the children probably wouldn’t be going to court themselves. Some of them can be so experienced being a Guardian that they can be even better than an attorney speaking for the kids. They get to know the court and how things work, they learn how to gather their own evidence, and they can get really fierce when it looks like people are not doing what’s best for “their” kids. They will also come for regular (not always monthly) visits to the foster home to check on the kids as well.
So, those are a few more notes and details. Let me know if you want anything more.
I’ve wanted to write a story about foster care myself, but I’ve found that I get too tense and upset whenever I try. Maybe you can guess why. But I started feeling that way again just by writing these things down. That being said, I’d be happy to give any further intel, but I might not give it in large chunks like this anymore.
The stories need to be told.
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
Hi @kayla-skywriter!’
I sneaked a look (like I read the entire thing!) of your story, and there are things I really like. However, there are also some things I don’t. Some notes before I start on my comments:
NOTE #1: I have not read all the replies to this, so I apologize if I repeat or even disagree with anyone else here.
NOTE #2: My family was a foster family for over 6 years. We had children ages 4 days to nine almost ten years old. My parents also fostered 15 years ago for a couple of years as well. So foster care is not new to me from the foster parent standpoint. (I was basically the 2nd mother of the family, so I had a lot of hands-on knowledge and intel from that.)
NOTE #3: I have not been writing for nearly as long as many of the people here. My comments on it have to do purely with the settings and people, not the story itself. So, please keep that in mind.
Now for my actual comments.
Firstly, I like the betrayal of the foster parents (all of them) and the social worker. They are very well done. Most of the time, I see one side of the coin, or even two sides, but people don’t always realize there are like…50 sides. No case is the same. No foster kid is the same. No foster family is the same. And no social worker is the same. There might be some similarities and patterns, but there are way more of even those than people realize. So, thumbs up for some accurate betrayals.
Now…41 foster homes is pretty…unbelievable. We had two children who ended up in over 11 homes over a five-year time span, but that was considered extreme. Most children, especially ones who enter the system as babies, don’t end up going to more than five to ten homes in their lifetimes. Jane is only 13. Yes, she’s been in the system a long time, but frankly, 41 is excessive.
Also, I’m pretty sure albinism is one of those things that require extra medical care, and so they might require a therapeutic foster license, which would limit the pool of foster parents. (We were therapeutic foster parents, and believe me, it’s a lot of work.) I’d have to research that though.
I’d like to see more details that people in the foster system would know about, but maybe not everybody else — it makes it more immersive, like world-building. Like that social worker’s cars are always white, and most of the time they’re sudans. (At least the ones we saw.) They store car seats in their trunks that are grey, so they can be used for either gender. Social workers wear their name tags all the time, even on home visits. Things like that.
But the biggest thing that struck me is that Jane is barely traumatized at all. You kind of attribute that to her faith, but be honest — where did she get it? You make no real mention of where and when she learned true faith, and how she managed to have stronger faith at times. She’s too good. Yes, she’s got issues, but you brush aside so many of the real problems foster kids have, even if they’ve been in the system for only a short time. You can’t make her an exception because of a faith that feels like it’s just been given to her by the writer. Make me believe it, and I’ll fall in love with her.
I love Daniel. He’s great.
Those are some of my random notes. I’d be glad to give more thoughts, but I’m a little cramped for time right now.
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
Hi @judylynn!
My name is Katy, and I’m from East Tennessee as well! We live in a beautiful little hollow nestled in the midst of green mountains. It’s funny — when people seem to think of mountains, they think of the rocky, sparsely vegetated peaks of pure grandeur, and they forget about how green and soft and quietly majestic an eastern mountain can be. Mountain trails can be some of the best places to find peaceful moments of solitude and meditation. But I digress.
I’m a novice writer, looking for a group of like-minded people to bounce ideas off of and receive and give encouragement to as well. So welcome to SE! I’ve only been on here less than a month, but I’ve already learned so much. Sadly, most of it has resulted in my eyes being opened to how sloppy and immature of a writer I am, but, as my mother sometimes says, there are times when you have to endure the cut of the knife before you can experience the joy of healing.
I look forward to seeing you around on the forums, and wish you blessed writing!
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
So…probably shouldn’t be having him climb a wall up into a third story? 😛
@w-o-holmes, @sarah-inkdragon, @kari-karast, and @seekjusticeThank you for all your help. I did take some of y’all’s suggestion and check out the Mayo Clinic, but they are pretty vague as to what you can actually do during the healing process. I got enough info from the rest of y’all that I should probably re-think my timeline and/or plot so that my recently injured MC is not climbing a wall into an abandoned house as fast as he can. Might want to make him go through the door instead.
Every shirt he wears is a <i>sweat</i>shirt, literally. He is a smith, and you always see them sweating. But thankfully, I don’t think his shirts have pockets that catch on door handles. 😉
Marvel at His Providence
So…can he at least walk around? I don’t need him to be fighting — in fact, it’s great that he can’t since it gives him an excuse to be cowardly — but it would be best if he didn’t have to stay in bed all day for weeks.
Can he use his other arm?
Marvel at His Providence
@emberynus-the-dragonslayer and @banana-peacock-warrior Thank you! The picture was taken when my son was just a week old and was barely opening his eyes at all.
@banana_peacock_warrior
Don’t worry about crazing over babies — I’m just like that too.
As for music I write…I don’t. We’ll just put it that way. I wrote one song when I was six. No more.
But, I do love to sing made up songs that I make up on the fly and forget right after I’m done. (Or even before I’m done)
I have songs I haven’t written down that I call “swing songs” that I would sing to my younger siblings when I was pushing them on the swings that stay decently the same each time. One goes something like:
Two little monkeys sittin’ on a swing, sittin’ on a swing going tick-tock, tick-tock
Two little monkeys sittin’ on a swing going…*insert monkey noises*
And so the song would go through all the animals we could think of until finally we got to the elephants and it would be:
Two little elephants sittin’ on a swing, sittin’ on a swing going tick-tock, tick CRASH!
And the song would end. Sometimes it was hippos, but mostly it was elephants because that was the favorite. (It was two because I was pushing two little ones at a time.)
And I would love to read your abortion poems. We are trying to support a group who go out to an abortion clinic and try to reach the ladies going inside, but recently we’ve encountered a lot of opposition from police and the “pink people” who have resorted to physical and mental harassment a lot lately. We’re trying to get some legal protection, but that’s an uphill battle.
Well, naptime is over, so I’m going to sign off for now. I was able to reach my word count goal for today, so I felt I could reply.
Until next time, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise!
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
I don’t think I’ve ever read a true “contemporary” story before. They’ve either been biographies or memoirs of people in WWII (which is one of my favorite time periods in American history to read about) or Historical fiction about that time period.
It’s been very nice chatting with you, but sadly my WIP has been suffering from me spending the majority of naptimes on SE, so I’m going back to work on it. I’m *almost* finished with the first draft, and I’m really excited to finally get that behind me so I can start fixing everything wrong with it that I’ve noticed over the past two years! (It’s not that it’s an epic. Just that it’s been a very busy two years.)
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
My son is a little over 6 months old. He just cut his first tooth! He has strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes, which is said to be the rarest of the combinations of hair and eye color. I hope they stay that way.
I don’t have any favorite music artists, to be honest. I know that sounds bad, but I just listen to whoever seems to have the best version of the particular song that I want, and sometimes, that means my dad or my brother!
Fun Fact: My brother and I once had nearly the entire Les Miserables musical memorized. We didn’t have the parts with inappropriate language or scenes memorized, but everything else…yeah, we really like that musical. I wanted to audition for the part of Eponine once upon a time, but God was pulling me somewhere else.
What makes a story “contemporary”? I’m not really familiar with all the qualifications of the different genres. I mean, I know that if it’s got dragons and goblins and elves and fantastical stuff like that it’s probably fantasy, and if it’s speculative history that it’s labeled Historical Fiction, but the other ones I’m kind of iffy on.
So, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you? If you don’t want to answer for any reason, I won’t be offended. I’m 21 by the way.
~Katy
Marvel at His Providence
