By the author:

I would like to prepare you for reading The Circle. It's not much, just some things to keep in mind while reading it that will probably help you to enjoy it a bit more; possibly a great deal more.

• The story is written from the point of view of the main character as if he were telling the events long past to you today. First-person past-tense is how I guess it is categorized. As such, the character has insights and knowledge that he did not in the years long past in which the story occurred, but only while narrating the story.
  • Often the narration will seem out of place for a sixteen year old, and according so, as the story is written by a much older "Alex" as he looks back on his journals from the past. However, the narrating "Alex" is allowed the insights and knowledge that his later years provided him. I used common, casual style grammar and punctuation rules, as I understand them, throughout the narrative elements of the story. They never made sense to me, but I think I am catching on. Anyone's help with those rules is most welcomed.
  • Every effort has been made to prevent the character's internal dialog from being out of place, experience, or time. "Alex's" thoughts outside of current narration are meant to reflect his state and knowledge at that time during the story. If you should find such an instance where "Alex" thinks something unlikely or out of experience for a sixteen year old, your email to point that out would be most welcomed. However, remember that "Alex" is intended to be outstanding in his clarity and wits, or it would be a less interesting story overall. It would also require that many plot lines and story elements would have to be 'explained' to a slower witted main character, inflating the story. It's already rather 'bulbous' as it is.
  • Character dialog is handled in the old fashioned, much-hated, and a pain in the ass to do, phonetic method. In other words, iffen a charactah spoke with a heavy dwawul, den his or her wurds maght well be spelt wrong 'n hard ta read. I 'pologize, but I likes this way 'a doin' it. It wurks s'long as ya don't overdoes it. Dey's grammah might even be reel bad and have dem runnin' on sentances 'n shit without any pun'tiation or nuttin'! Sometimes, someone speaks perfectly normally as far as, well. . . like, word usage, but. . . there's all these commas and periods and shit, as if the person, just, like, couldn't form the sentence, but kept talking without really stopping, or, like, making another sentence out of it. And then sometimes there aren't any commas and a person rattles off a huge, long sentence with almost no pauses and it really gets weird and goes on and on but if that's the way they said it, then, hey, that's the way they said it! If that is how I want a character to speak, it is written that way. I paid close attention to punctuation and grammar inside dialog as well, trying my best to make each character speak and react as that person would. If the sentence makes no sense, and you can't get any meaning from it, the person being spoken to probably had the same problem!

• Aside from the technical, remember that The Circle is as compact as I can make it. I have cut nearly a quarter of it out during the rewrite, shortening it by almost ten chapters. It is a huge story, and some chapters run over ten-thousand words. They are always broken up by page breaks or scene changes. Each chapter covers the period of time I wanted it to cover, even if it seems to have minor chapters inside of it. I apologize if you find long chapters difficult, and I've done my best to make convenient scene changes or page breaks so you can put it away every so often, without having to read longer than you care to.

• The Circle is based on my journals from my junior year of high school, but it is mostly fiction.

Forward by Alex

Hello! The Circle is the story of my sixteenth birthday, and the weeks around it. It covers a period of time about a month long, starting with my birthday. That was over twenty years ago now, and my memory isn't so great, but I found my journals from then, and they form the bones of the story. I tried to remember all that I didn't write down, so I think I didn't leave much out, that's why the story is so long. It was hard to decide what to tell you, and what to leave out, so I hope I don't leave any holes in it for you. If the guy typin' all this stuff told you about his real life, you'd probably stop after the first chapter or two 'n go looking for a nice, long technical manual on the manufacturing of salt to keep you entertained. So, I came along and spiced things up for 'im. I told 'im where to leave reality and visit fantasy land, where to drop a plot line and where to make up new ones. I helped him turn a pretty boring journal into a hopefully interesting story. You get to meet his friends, but I take his place in his past. Who knows, if he was anything like me when he grew up, he might have lived The Circle instead of written it - with my help - twenty years later. Dumbass. If things get confusing, blame me.

FOLLOW-UP by the author:

I invite you to read The Circle, and enjoy it, but once your done, go out and live your own story. Go out and hang with real people, make a fool of yourself, make mistakes, take a few light risks, have some fun. Tell the people you care about all about yourself. Anyone who does really care for you will react more like Alex's parents than Jeff's mom. And even she came around. Sure, it's a story, but there is a great deal of real experience in it, and I have lived being outted, recently, I know. No one cares when it comes down to it. The ones who do, I don't miss. Everyone else could give a rats ass. Then a whole world of support opens up for you. Remember that some people really do like to keep it to themselves. If you are sure you do, or you don't think it's the right time, or you're just not ready, then don't.

The earlier you do it, the better. Tell only the ones closest to you, and ask them to let you tell whom you want, but not to tell anyone themselves. It's your business, and the business of those you make it, no one else's. Let them know it's hard to share, but you care for them, and you don't want to hide it from them. Don't tell anyone you have a crush or those kinds of feelings for first! Almost always a bad outcome. Parents, family, closest straight friends, cousin who's close, that kind of person should be first.

And go find a sport or something active you like to do. Biking, walking, jogging, baseball, bowling, darts, play an instrument, read at the library, dance, acting, singing, checkers in the park, walk the dog in the mall - where permitted! - something. Get around people. Meet real people. People you only know from the internet are real people, sure, but after a few years, you'll see that they are very rarely worth the time you put into them, and most all of them are not the person you thought you knew. And don't trust them. Trust only the people in your real life that you know and get along with.

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