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All I know is that I bet those kids playing keep-away with Erndog's son never did that again.  My situation with Collin was different since his language is limited, so my teaching had to be very streamlined and blunt.  I believe Alex is verbal.  Social stories would still work with him, though.  A tool is a tool. 

So far, we have been lucky.  Collin's class thinks he is fun and love his movie quotes.  I'm hoping these kids will stick with him through the teenage years.  We'll see.  Kids change when they grow up.  I might end up having a hat incident.  When that comes, we'll deal with it.  There is a boy in Collin's special ed who was pointing his finger at people and making shooting noises.  I got called from the principle as he worried that my son might feel threatened.  I thanked him for informing me and told him I didn't care.  (You have to know the little boy and you'd be as unconcerned as I was).  They were making a mountain out of a molehill. 

I'm not sure where I'm going with these short stories.  It seems that I'm trying to teach other parents as well as celebrate my son.  He doesn't have the words, so I'm his translator.  We'll see how it pans out.

Janet,

I renamed and reposted the story under Aut-ku.  I've consolidated using your changes as a guide.  Nearly everything included.  THANKS!

I standeth corrected:-)

Dear and darling K,
You gave a great argument about how to start a first chapter.  You are spot on in your assessment about action and moving back 5 minutes from the true action  Then you blew it and used Hamlet as your example.  How could you say that Shakespeare should be used as a model?

1) it's a play.  Wrong medium.
2) There is a LOT of talking and conversation  By your logic, Romeo and Juliet should start after the lovers get married and when their families pull them apart (Even better, right before the suicide scene)
3)  Shakespeare always put the action in the end.  Here's a summary from a cliff-notes site on Hamlet. "Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s death a(fter speaking to his father's murdered ghost), but, because he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness.

Not the suspense I think you're looking for.  Here's a great first chapter I just read.  Blood Rites (by Jim Butcher)  Here is the link http://www.jim-butcher.com/books/dresde … -chapter-1

Here are the first four paragraphs.

The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.

My boots squeaked and squealed on the tile floor as I sprinted around a corner and toward the exit doors to the abandoned school building on the southwest edge of Chicagoland. Distant streetlights provided the only light in the dusty hall, and left huge swaths of blackness crouching in the old classroom doors.

I carried an elaborately carved wooden box about the size of a laundry basket in my arms, and its weight made my shoulders burn with effort. I’d been shot in both of them at one time or another, and the muscle burn quickly started changing into deep, aching stabs. The damned box was heavy, not even considering its contents.

Inside the box, a bunch of flop-eared grey and black puppies whimpered and whined, jostled back and forth as I ran. One of the puppies, his ear already notched where some kind of doggie misadventure had marked him, was either more brave or more stupid than his litter mates. He scrambled around until he got his paws onto the lip of the box, and set up a painfully high-pitched barking full of squeaky snarls, big dark eyes focused behind me.

Assessment: Great first line.  First three paragraphs: Lots of action, threat to the main character and a lot of ducking during an unexplained combat.  Fourth paragraph: Add in the puppies (innocents at risk.)

He has a system.  This isn't an accident and is a GREAT opening start to an action book.  There is a reason that he's on the best seller list.

I shall have well-travelled wine and think of thee... (glug)  Shan't waste a drop, ere the curse shall fall upon me!  (In Purgatory, it is said that all people are held upside down in a barrel filled with all the wasted spirits that they failed to consume during life.  If they drown in the barrel, then they can't go to heaven)

I shall not drown!

Hey, folks.  Don't run away just because we're doing the writing exercise.  Come on out of hiding.  This doesn't mean you have to stop talking in order to avoid Kenny and I. 

I miss you guys.  Where'd ya go?

I had some time yesterday, so I managed to burp out another autism story for anyone who has a free moment. 

Thanks in advance if you can find some time!

A

Whew!  Let's see if that continues for the next few chapters...

Thanks.  I've fought to give Jaylene a bigger presence.  First versions had her written as too passive.  I had to make it clear that she knows her job and where she fits within the church.  (without adding too much church to the story!)

Eh, baby steps.

A

I opened the link.  The first thing I saw was "eat the corpse".  Then I saw, "Have your pet eat the corpse."

As George would say, "Oh, Myyyyyyyy."

Life really does imitate art :-)