I'm writing a YA novel about a girl who wants to make it into student council and become a Social Justice Representative. I was told by my old critique group that student council stuff happens near the end of the year so that the people elected get to do their run in the following school year. Just wanted to know if anyone can confirm this or has had any experience with student council in high school, either direct or indirect--if someone you knew was part of it--and shed some light on it for me. Particularly for my story, I want it to start at the beginning of the year and have the first half of the book and school year to go towards my character campaigning for the position. In both of my first two drafts, I made it so that as candidates for the position, my main character and her opponent need to have a social cause to fight for, and the particular social issues they respectively choose are the ones they need to argue for as more important to tackle. The winner is of course picked by votes from the student body, but this is all based on my assumptions on how student council runs. Please let me know how this stuff actually works so that I could be more confident in tackling draft number three.
In the schools I'm familiar with now, the council is voted for in the spring, except for the ninth grade reps, who are elected in the fall. Having a council in place means there's someone on the job for planning all the start-up activities. But when I was actually in high school myself, we voted in September. So I don't think it's unheard of. Maybe a compromise? You could have the presidents and the social committee or whatever elected in the spring, and then have the other offices filled in the fall to allow the incoming ninth graders to be part of the process? It'd probably only take about one line of your story to convince readers that was a plausible setup.
Yeah I would hope so. The presidents being in the summer would be good because that means it's all dealt with once my story starts. That way I can focus on the other positions that are possibly elected in the fall. Ideally my character needs a 2-3 month period to develop speaking skills and a public image after being an introverted nerd. Or well unpopular person with their own social circle, not a complete loner. Anyways, I would it is a plausible set up and if it doesn't match up with reality to that degree, then I don't know. I can easily change the time frame of the story without much being compromised, but I prefer it takes place at the very beginning of the year to get that fresh feeling of new school, new people, new world, ya know? There are tiers in positions after all, right? Presidents get elected in spring, yours was in summer, the other stuff like club leaders and what not would and should be in the fall for the purpose of my story.
