Hovering at just over 3000 words.  Have let several people read the rough draft and gotten feedback, which I’ve incorporated. Turns out that when you’re writing for this age level, if you don’t clearly say “and then he dies,” your reader won’t realize that the character has died. When I heard, “Wait, Laertes dies?!” discussed between my daughters I had to go back and look at what I’d written was this:

Laertes, now near death himself, tells Hamlet everything: how the wine was poisoned, how the sword was poisoned, how Hamlet himself is as good as dead and just hasn’t fallen down yet. He tells Hamlet that it was all Claudius, and begs Hamlet’s forgiveness.

I guess they’re right, it’s not exactly clear :).

I’ve also got some rudimentary structure in my head that hopefully I can flesh out enough to give to non-family members and have it not look half finished. I’ve started and restarted Hamlet guides many times over the years, and I’ve always found the hardest part is in having a lot to say and not knowing the best way to organize it.  This hard deadline and fixed audience is at least putting me on the right track to complete something, even if it doesn’t give Harold Bloom a run for his money.

Act I, Scene 3 

OPHELIA

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

LORD POLONIUS

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.

…

Act V, Scene 2 

OSRIC

How is’t, Laertes? 

LAERTES

Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.

Never noticed that before.

Wordcount : 2844

I was more interested in editing today. You look at what I’ve got written and it’s seven pages of nothing but lengthy paragraphs.  I don’t expect middle schoolers to dive right into that.

Here’s the conversation I had with my 11yr old test subject this morning (my daughter):

Me: Did you read the latest version?

Her: I did.

Me: What did you think, did you like it?

Her: I did like it. It’s good.

Me: What should I change?

Her: Nothing.

Me: Seriously, it won’t hurt my feelings, there’s got to be things that I can change to make it better.

Her: No, really, nothing. It’s good. Don’t change it.

Me: Really?  Nothing?

Her:  ….wellllll……who is Gertrude?

Me: …  ummm…..err……QUEEN Gertrude?  Hamlet’s MOTHER?

Her:  Ohhhhhhh!

Me:  That’s in the second sentence!

Her: Well I didn’t get it!

Me:  You just said it was good it was good don’t change a thing!

<later, in front of the computer>

Me: I used the word Gertrude 11 times.  I used the word mother 11 times. I’m not sure where it got confusing.

Her: Yeah but you never said mother Gertrude together!

Me: You mean other than here in the second sentence where I wrote Hamlet’s mother Gertrude?

Her:  There should be a comma there.

Me: What?

Her: After mother.  Hamlet’s mother, comma, Gertrude.

Me: That’s not the point!

Tonight we’re visiting friends, who have a daughter my own daughter’s age who is also into theatre.  The whole family is extraordinarily well-read but admittedly weak in Shakespeare. They also know I’m doing this project. I will almost certainly bring them a copy.

See Day 1 here, if you’re curious about why we’re 7 days in to November and I just started counting.


Today’s word count : 2545

My “brain dump” portion is relatively complete. As I explained to my daughter, this is the raw version where I just make sure that I get the information on the page.  It’s not even what I’d call a rough draft because there’s no formatting at all (short of paragraph breaks).

Now I want to go through and flesh it out, add what I missed, clarify thoughts, stuff like that. I found myself explaining what was up with Fortinbras, why the story has to end with him, rather than on “The rest is silence,” although some productions might well cut it there.

My daughter is reading it each day with the following guideline: “Could you give this to a friend to read? Would your friend understand it? Would your friend want to see Hamlet after reading it?”

All three questions are important. I don’t want to make something that you would tell a student she must read.  Then it’s just another form of homework. I’m aiming for “This was an enjoyable read all by itself, and now I want to go see this story performed on stage” rather than “I read this because you told me to and I’ll go see Hamlet if I have to.”