Gutter Child

Exclusive Extras

Want more content than just the story? Then scroll through this section for bonus items, including a series of questions for your readers’ group, because I know you want to talk about my books in your readers’ group.

Readers’ Group Discussion Questions

Thank you for choosing Gutter Child as the subject for your reading discussion. The following questions mean to guide readers through the conversation but should in no way limit its direction or focus during its exploration of ideas. If your group has a topic other reading groups should discuss, please e-mail me, and I may add them to a future edition of the book. Thanks. 

Note that the following questions may contain spoilers. Think of them as the test questions you look through ahead of time to validate the answers to questions you’ve already attempted (read: bonus test-taking tips!). 

Throughout the course of the story, Jimmy is concerned that he has been lied to. Has he actually been lied to, and if so, who stands as the story’s greatest liar? Why? 

Why would each of the characters who lie to Jimmy have a reason to lie, and are they justified in their reasons? 

How does Sun Underwater, Beth’s autobiography, affect the course of Jimmy’s story? How might his trajectory change if he were to read anything other than “Gutter Child” or “Prom Maid”? 

Why would the mover insist that Jimmy read “Gutter Child”? Is he justified in his recommendation? Or does he have an ulterior motive for choosing that one? If so, what might that be? 

Even though we learn a lot about Jimmy’s school throughout the narrative, we never find out its name. Why? What role does the school play in Jimmy’s story and character arc? For what reason would anyone dare to attend? Is it possible for a school like this to exist? Why? Finally, which part of the school’s design seems most horrifying? 

What role does Melanie, Jimmy’s girlfriend, really play in this story? How does she affect his trajectory throughout? 

What role does each member of Jimmy’s family play in this story? Are they mentors? Friends? Disciplinarians? Keepers of secrets? Are these roles traditional or unconventional? How would his journey go if they had different roles or different approaches to their current roles? 

What purpose do other characters have in Jimmy’s life, like Barry the roommate, the Role-playing Group, and the girl at the dorm party? Do these people help or hinder his growth as a character? 

What can we learn about Jimmy’s family through Grandma Edith? 

What effect does the quirky nature of this story have on the plot and characters involved? How would this story be different if it were more seriously grounded?

Gutter Child

Behind the Story

Author’s Note

Thank you for reading this far. As a reward for sticking with the book, I’ll give some background information on Gutter Child in case you’re the type of person who enjoys the “Special Features” selection on Blu-rays and DVDs (or whatever you use to watch movies at the time of this reading).

A Brief History: In early 1999, I took a class on writing fiction at UCF, as a follow-up to my creative writing class the semester before, and for my major assignments I had three full-length short stories to write and revise. The first, a coming of age story called “The Fallen Footwear,” which you’ll get to read an updated version of very soon, is about a young adult’s attempt to cope with the sudden abandonment of his much-loved girlfriend. The second, a desert fantasy called “Eve of Construction,” which I will not be redoing any time soon (but will after I write two or three prequels for it) is about a man getting banished from his city and sent on a quest to receive judgment for his crimes at a tower among the dunes. The third is “Gutter Child.”

When I wrote “Gutter Child,” I was attempting to cut against the grain. As a 22-year-old man, I was a fan of action, fantasy, and tales of hopeless romantics trying to win at life. But I was also a fan of improving and diversifying my craft. So when I thought about what to do for my final story of the semester, I figured I’d try something original, something I thought would make for a decent story, something that would challenge me as a writer. So I wrote the story of an eight-year-old girl breaking out of an orphanage, just to stumble on another discarded child who needed her help. I had it critiqued, many of the students agreed that it was a clever idea that needed work, and I fixed the main issues, like the legality of an old woman keeping two runaway children who did not belong to her without contacting the police or DCF first. Then I tucked it away into my thick binder to be forgotten, until 2004 when I dusted off my first round of stories (including the three listed above) for my first volume of The Collection of Junk series, which I called Nomadic Souls: The Collection of Junk, Volume 1 (no longer available for sale).

The problem I had with “Gutter Child” as a published work was simply a matter of image. By the time I was ready to push Nomadic Souls out onto the world, in a place where nobody would ever find it, I was a 28-year-old man, and I had no idea what business I, a 28-year-old man, had writing a story from the perspective of an eight-year-old girl. I was never an eight-year-old girl. Never had an idea what it was like being an eight-year-old girl. I thought it would never work in reality, even if the story itself was okay. So I wrote a frame about the baby growing up into an 18-year-old boy (something I actually was, once upon a time) and getting ready to go off to college when he finds his sister’s book and discovers his past, which, as of that 1999-2004 version, was the real story. In that version, he confronts his mom, she admits he and Beth were adopted, and then there’s something about his pet frog hopping away and his mom, even though she’s his adopted mother, still knowing how to read his mind, and it was just stale in retrospect. I didn’t care for the frame then—I definitely don’t care for it now—so I thought I needed to give it a newer one: a much crazier, interesting, disturbing frame.

The new frame is much longer than the old, and it deals with far more complicated issues than the main character finding out he might be adopted. The stuff with Melanie was actually layered in about halfway through the rewrite when I realized I needed a different conflict perpetuating the agony of the core conflict. If anything, it’s what makes the core conflict worse than it should be. In reality, Jimmy finding out he might be adopted isn’t as earth-shattering as he might make it seem. But with everything else crumbling around him, especially his relationship with Melanie taking the turn it does, all while he tries to adapt to a life away from home for the first time in one of the worst places to experience independence, and it suddenly becomes near impossible for him to stomach. I think if I had stuck to just the main conflict, the new frame would’ve been as dull as the old one.

That said, I think this is the right version of the story now. Is it the final? I don’t know. I may punch it up a little for Zippywings 2016, which if you don’t know by now, will be the annual collection of short stories and novellas I release this year in paperback form. Note: The 2015 edition is already available and features eight of the ten stories I released in e-book form from May to December 2015, with the other two being novel length and too long for a paperback. But I digress. There’s a chance I may update “Gutter Child” later this year when I’ve had more time to reflect on it. One of the problems with trying to release at least one story a month for an entire year, which I’ve already blown for January thanks to distraction and exhaustion (this was supposed to release last month, with “The Fallen Footwear” having February all to itself), is that I don’t have much time to decide if the story works until after it’s released. However, if you’re reading this, and if you think it’s as perfect as it needs to be, then please let me know in a review. But don’t worry; I’ll figure it out for myself, eventually.

Update 2018: Time away from a project allows us perspective that we don’t have during its creation. This version reflects the time I’d spent away from the version I wrote in 2016. There isn’t much to say about it, really. I just found a few areas in need of improvement and improved them. Most of the new material (the fraternity and role-playing group) are there to soften the constant downward drive the last version takes the reader on. Not everything can contribute to the main character’s misery, so I wanted to be sure he has moments of joy to keep him from going insane. That’s primarily how this version differs from the last. I also wanted to make sure I addressed any character discrepancy that may have survived the 2016 edition.

Also a separate note: I never produced Zippywings 2016, nor do I plan to now. As of this writing, there is no paperback version of this story. However, there may be a novelized version in the future, which will go well beyond the adoption mystery featured here. In fact, this story will likely become a subplot to a bigger story that I’ve already got ideas for developing. Consult my blog or mailing list for more information on that version as it develops.

Gutter Child

Revision History

The following is a list of milestones during Gutter Child’s development.

May 1999: Original short story version, printed and submitted for class critique.

January 2004: Added framing device to put the focus on Jimmy rather than Beth. The story is still basically about Beth, though.

July 2004: Revised and included into my CaféPress exclusive paperback anthology Nomadic Souls: The Collection of Junk, Volume 1.

February 2016: Original shallow frame ripped out and rewritten to include the current novella-sized narrative. New version converted to e-book format.

April 2016: Minor revisions and updated back matter information.

June 2018: New scenes added to balance Jimmy’s depressing situation with some comedy and additional lightheartedness. Added new back matter, including a “Readers’ Group Discussion Questions” section.

November 2018: Some metadata updates.

July 2019: Slight update to Chapter 1 to reduce on-the-nose foreshadowing. Updated interior formatting.

May 2020: ProWritingAid edit. Some minor style, spelling, and grammar fixes.