Category Archives: Supernatural

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #9

After a week off for the Fourth of July, where I hid in the basement playing video games and spent a lovely evening by a campfire eating low country boil with friends, I am back, and ready to tackle Point of View. LeGuin describes it as “the narrative problem I have met most often in workshop stories (and often in published work)” It is the current plague stymying the manuscript a shaped briefly, and I already see how it will challenge the manuscript currently open on my laptop. In fact, If you look at what’s emerging in “Old Ghosts”, you can see point of view issues tugging at the shape of the story.

  • The first draft was written in first person, but seemed too omniscient.
  • The third person limited components are better, but again result in omniscience problems.
  • I did not attempt any version of an outside, detached narrator.
  • I have been leaning toward third person omniscient.

LeGuin’s exercise has four parts, asking writers to rewrite the narrative from multiple perspectives. No dialogue is involved, but it should involve three or more characters in some action. For my purposes, I am going to work with a new idea. Clayton is be the stream, and suddenly he sees, and can be seen by all the other people from across the many time periods. This is quickly emerging as a fulcrum point for the story, and it’s something that I haven’t written out or captured yet in any kind of satisfactory way.

After my attempts, I will paste in the existing draft of “Old Ghosts” with a capitalized note where the paragraph should appear, so you can try it with the different paragraphs in that slot.

*****

Part 1.1: Protagonist I

I was surrounded. No other way to describe it. I raised my hand in a slow wave. The father and son, sitting on the log I used so many times, mimicked me. The woman on the opposite bank, bronze skin and hide dress, she waved as well, the bowl of water abandoned at her feet. The boy on the bent tree, suspended over the river, gun temporarily forgotten, he waved as well. And the soldiers, they waved too, as did the helmeted shape, impossibly tall.  I hadn’t noticed him there. We all waved, and I was alone.

Part 1.2: Alternate I

I hadn’t seen the old guy there. He looked puzzled; he waved; I thought he might be surrendering. I could tell him a thing or two about surrender. But something in his features—the stumpy nose, the baggy eyes—I thought about my grandad. I missed him. And with everything else happening at school, at home… well. I became aware of the pistol, its heft, the way it dragged me down. If Mom found out I had it, she would beat my ass. Nothing new there. Just she and me and an ass beating. But I know the truth. I read the letter her boyfriend left. I know that when I go bock, no one will be there. It’ll just be me. She’s already escaped. But then I noticed he seemed to be looking around, gape-mouthed. I followed his stare. There was some kind of tin man on the opposite bank. tall. Inhuman tall. Effigy on the high school bonfire tall. And that’s when I saw them. I had an audience for my last act. A fat guy and his kid. A couple of women playing dress-up black hair in braids, all Pocahontas-style. Some refugees from a Civil war reenactment. Something wasn’t right. Well, what did it matter, the world was just following the way of my life—a sure sign to depart.

Part 2: “Fly on the Wall” Narrator

They converged at that place. The old man with the straw hat. He waved slowly, gaped at the sight. The rotund fisherman and his waifish son. The water women from among the reeds. One on the bank, her bowl at her feet. The other behind a tree. The soldiers [paused in their truck, skipping stones like the boys they were back a summer before. The figure in silver. The boy in black, his grip on that pistol loosening. Each of them waves, makes a sign of recognition. A tip of the hat from a soldier. A raised palm from the woman. The moment passes and they all disappear—all but the old man in the straw hat, who reaches back to scratch his ear, confused.

Part 3: Observer-Narrator

Everyone saw the exact moment their timelines crossed. Each became aware of the other. The women gestured a greeting specific to the pre-colonial Lenape. The boy waved to the hermit—Clayton—who had lived by the stream in the late twentieth century. The young fisherman and his father waved. So much was similar between the end of the-prior century and the first part of the next. The soldiers, little more than boys in dirty blue uniforms, waved as well; one tipped his cap. The Gliesian, drawn to this moment by data foreign to any earthly science, found zem caught in it. Zey waved, a m mimicry far from their own methods of greeting; what more could zey do? Then the moment passed and the Gliesian drifted back to his craft, already examining the data from instruments not only on the ship, but embedded in zem’s suit.

Part 4: Involved/Omniscient Author

The moments arrived. Clayton waved to the Baxters. Father and son waved back, the pail between them knocked back and forgotten. A woodpecker hammered at a poplar, causing the woman to look up. Clayton, pale and grizzled, was a foreign sight to her. She raised her palm in greeting, unsure of the response. The boy with the gun saw the exchange. The Baxters waved to him; he waved back and contemplated whether or not he wanted an audience for his final act. The soldiers, worn from the march, acknowledged the odd assortment, unsure if there was a confederate spy among them. The Gliesian with his instruments whirred and ticked beneath the shell armor. Six timelines converged and held just long enough for the woodpecker’s assault to end, then they slipped apart. 

The Baxters would scramble away, distressed by the moment, abandoning the pail of worms. The women would return to their camp, and before nightfall, the men would return. armed and wary. They would retrieve the pail, and the development of their technologies and belief system would change. 

The gun slipped from the boy’s hand. cursing, he would abandon it, just as his mother had abounded him. Local police would never find the body in the stream. Instead, the boy would seek help from his father’s family. The Gliesian would recover the gun and revise Zeir calculation for invasion back by three hundred Earth years. The gun would make invasion simpler, as those most likely to resist would have been wiped out beforehand. Those most likely to bear guns were also the least likely to think through their actions, making a simple delay practical. Hundreds of Gliesians would be spared a painful death.

The union soldiers would not speak of the moment again. One prayed with all his might, but still died in the hospital at Gettysburg. The other stopped believing in God and died in the wilderness. Belief seemed to make no difference at all.

As for Clayton, he puzzled over what he had seen all the way back to his cottage. That evening, he placed a call to New York.

*****

Old Ghosts

Clay thought his life ecclesiastical. He woke to the rooster’s crow. Fed the hens first, goats second—while he had them. In their absence, he made breakfast. Well, Clara was gone, wasn’t she? She couldn’t make his meals. Dwight, his nephew, managed the fields. Smarter than his father. He’d inherit the whole patch. Just as well. Clay had lost Clara, but he’d thrown Junior away. Junior lived in New York; they never talked. The pill tasted bitter, but Clay swallowed it every day. Afternoons belonged to the garden. He planted less each spring. Less planted, less to harvest. Less to can. Clara liked canning; he liked eating. Sometimes, after chores, he fished. The stream in the hollow beckoned. Light played on the water. Herons dropped in for trout. Well, so did he. Yes, everything had a season, and work was sacred, he still believed.

Clay stepped into the afternoon heat and surveyed his land from the back stoop. The orchard in full bloom gave him hope for a bumper harvest. He had put signs up: Pick your own apples. And that had brought out a a few townsfolk. Junior scampered among them, carrying bushel baskets to cars while he and Clara chatted with customers and took their cash. But without Clara and Junior, he couldn’t keep track of it all. He solved it with a farmstead at the top of the drive. Did Dwight’s wife or kids like to can fruit? Maybe he would just hire migrants to harvest them all, and sell to young families with a lot of mouths to feed. Families used to be bigger. 

Something disappeared into the tall grass at the end of the row. The grass shushed as it slipped away. He often saw deer, foxes—they all loved the orchard, though not usually in spring. He shrugged it off. His fishing gear awaited on the bench in the shed.

He meandered that afternoon, pole over his shoulder, tackle box in hand. Daffodils lifted their faces to the sun; wind-blown blossoms speckled the stream in pink and white. Same every year, the colors of Clara’s flowerbeds. Mums, begonias, pansies, snapdragons—he’d neglected them in the three years since. The beds had grown patchy: wild in some places, barren in others. Yes, he would have to tend them better. She would have long already chastised him for neglect. From the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of black. A darting form. He turned. Nothing.

“You are indeed losin’ it,” he announced. “Too much nostalgia. Not enough work.” He hoped it wasn’t a bear. His rifle sat secure and useless in the den, locked in the cabinet Clara insisted he buy.

The stream burbled and played. He listened to it through the trees long before he saw it. Then a glimpse, another through a break in the mountain laurel, and the trail followed the water’s edge. Snowmelt strengthened the headwaters, submerging the banks until summer. Clay would stay until the peepers chirped away the sun. So much of life was hiding. Bullfrogs croaked. Furry things scuttled beyond the rushes. Snakes slithered over logs and wound across the water. Shad and trout darted beneath the ripples. Life lived just out of view. 

A brown shape passed behind the dogwoods on the other side. Clay blinked. Deer? Maybe people? It better not be people. This was his land, bought and paid for with hard cash and forty-some years of blood and tears and sweat.

When he arrived at his fishing spot, Clay found it already occupied. A father and son from the look. The waterlogged overalls and dirty face suggested the boy’s natural lack of grace. Clay pictured him tumbling off a slippery bit of trail, or sliding sideways off a rock on the upstream crossing. He was fawnish, leggy and stumbling against the world, a lot like Junior used to be. He held a bamboo rod—an antique. They had gone out of style when Clay was a boy. 

His portly father sat on a log, baiting his hook. Sweat beads dripped down his face, despite his straw hat. He wiped his hand on a pantleg. They shadowed each other. The boy had his father’s round nose and basset hound eyes. The elder was a worn and overfed version of the younger. 

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line. The boy watched, then pulled his line in and recast.

“Better,” his father said.

Clay waved.

“You there!” He called. “How’s the fishin’?”

In the old days—Clay mourned the old days—he and Junior skipped stones. He taught the boy to select flat stones. To flick his wrist just so when throwing—spin and angle equalled skip. Skipping was an art. A skipper graduated from the bowl-sounding plop to the whispering taps—six or seven? ten?—before the stone slipped under for good. He chose one. Skipped it. A five-hopper. Not bad. Perhaps he had only shown the boy once or twice. It felt like more.

They nodded. The man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored him. The wind shook the leaves. The stream burbled. A woodpecker rat-a-tatted a poplar. Clay called out.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

He had hunted the woods and cleaned the carcasses in the shed behind the cottage. Fished the stream and scaled and cooked fish on coals from dying trees. Those trees warmed the cottage in winter. He cleared the dead wood, picked wild raspberries, planted the garden. Drove the stakes tied with white cloth to mark the corners. He worked it; it was his.

“It’s disrespectful of you—”

The boy got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The man punched his son’s shoulder.

“Now, look here,” Clay called. “I don’t mind you–“

The lad released his catch into their bucket, and the pair sat down on the log again.

Clay thought himself patient. When Clara had come up with the cancer and the doctors hemmed and hawed more than he cared for, he had been patient with them, though Clara’s bony hand on his had done much ’til it couldn’t anymore; and he had been patient with Junior, who hated farmin’ from the start alright, but loved the theatre so much that Clay and Clara had given up whole evenings to watch four years’ worth of school productions, which hadn’t gotten them anything but a visit from Markley come up over the hill, bitchin’ that his boy and Junior were makin’ hog sounds in the loft and threatenin’ to sue over Lord knows what, that had required patience; even when the boy came into the hospital in mascara and lipstick like a red light hussy he had’t yelled or nothin’ just told him to go home and clean up ‘fore his dyin’ mama saw it, and that was that forevermore; but now here this bulbous man and his ragamuffin ilk sat on his log on his stream on his property casting lines and takin’ his trout without the slimmest bit o decency to say “hello, how do you do?” or even recognize that Clay had worked that land for damn near fifty years and who were they to come replacin’ him since he wa’n’t dead yet nor read his name in the obituaries like he ‘spected to one day. 

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

The shotgun crack sent a flock of geese honking skyward. Silence slipped behind them. Suddenly I saw two Lenape women on the opposite bank: one bore a basket of plants, the other filled a clay bowl with water. A column of revolutionaries drank before marching on, muskets perched on their slumping shoulders. A weary-faced grandfather joined the man and boy. A teenager draped in a saggy black clothes sat on a log, a pistol in his hand. 

A stone skipped toward the woman, its whispering hits ending in a plop. She froze. Keen eyes scanned the banks. Across the stream, a demon—a crow-colored man—brooded on fallen log suspended over the water. He hadn’t noticed her, but he hadn’t thrown the rock.

Two boys in blue skipped stones upstream.

“Four,” the taller one said glumly. He chewed a bit of honeysuckle as the other boy skipped his stone.

“Five! Ha!”

“Best of five?”

Behind them the colonel coughed. “You boys don’t want to give away our position I hope?” The men snapped to attention.

“I didn’t think so.” He scanned the water. A father and son fished on the other side, but neither paid them any mind. “You might be lucky today, but luck runs out. Don’t waste it on this.” The men—barely men, the colonel knew—scurried back to camp.

NEW WORK MIGHT FIT HERE

Everything converged. The women retreated into the wild. The soldiers marched onward. Grandfather, son, and grandson cast their lines as one. The boy blew his head off. 

I dropped to my knees. Clutched my chest. Sweat tickled my nose. I hoisted myself up with my walking stick. They were gone—all of them. The stream dribbled along without a burble. The wind had calmed. No birdcalls. No rustling leaves. Scared, I swore to write down my experience. Just had to get home. I staggered. Shock—I’m sure it was. Yes. It was shock.

They turned and ran. I chased after them, but they disappeared up the path. Somewhere beyond the trees I heard an engine turn over. I dropped into the big guy’s seat on the log. The wood had been worn; it was well used. I looked into the pail. It was empty. Rusted through.

So Clay stood on the bank, skipping stones like he did when he was a boy, like he did when he taught his son, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. He considered going home, but opted to wait. It was his property, after all. He skipped a mother stone.

“Six hopper.” The sun warmed his face. The stream burbled along.

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula  K.. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 70). HMH Books. Kindle Edition. 

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #8

Chapter Six of Steering the Craft is titled “Verbs: Person and Tense”. LeGuin continues to call our attention to concepts and ideas that writers take for granted, often without really understanding what they are doing. 

For this activity, she wants two versions of the same reminiscence. The prompt involves an old woman moving back and forth in time between doing something and remembering something, but since my protagonist is doing a lot of the same kind of movement, I’m going to focus on his work on the farm. The goal today is to consider person and tense, and to not get them confused. Some version of the two paragraphs I’m writing today will likely become the second paragraph of the final piece.

Version One: Third Person, all in the past

Clay stepped into the afternoon heat and surveyed his land from the back stoop. The orchard in full bloom gave him hope for a bumper harvest. He had put signs up: Pick your own apples. And that had brought out a a few townsfolk. Junior scampered among them, carrying bushel baskets to cars while he and Clara chatted with customers and took their cash. But without Clara and Junior, he couldn’t keep track of it all. He solved it with a farmstead at the top of the drive. Did Dwight’s wife or kids like to can fruit? Maybe he would just hire migrants to harvest them all, and sell to young families with a lot of mouths to feed. Families used to be bigger. 

Something disappeared into the tall grass at the end of the row. The grass shushed as it slipped away. He often saw deer, foxes—they all loved the orchard, though not usually in spring. He shrugged it off. His fishing gear awaited on the bench in the shed. 

Version Two: First Person, present tense to show now, past tense to show then

The heat is oppressive. It doesn’t feel like spring. Summer’s getting a head start. My little apple orchard is in full bloom. Clara loved the orchard in spring—as much as she loved her flower beds in summer. I am walking in our footsteps. Here is where she chatted with the ladies from the church quilting bee. I told Junior to carry their baskets to the car. There is where I first taught Junior to climb trees, Clara alternating between concerns and amusement. The grass isn’t high yet, but it’s tall enough to shush under my feet. I love the sound of walking through tall grass. I—

Something disappears into the high weeds at the end of the row. A deer or fox. Maybe a raccoon, but should’t be in daytime. The orchard’s popular, but not spring. Once I’m racing to pick the harvest—probably with some migrants—we’ll all be in a race.

I look back a the house. For a moment I think it’s not there. Just a foundation and some charred timbers. I blink. Everything’s right with the world. The heat’s getting to me, so I hurry toward the shed. The fishing gear is waiting on the bench. An afternoon by the stream, resting on my favorite log in the shade of the willow… that’s what I need.

If you’re just joining me, here’s the in-process short story, so you can read where the paragraphs above might fit.

*****

Old Ghosts

Clay thought his life ecclesiastical. He woke to the rooster’s crow. Fed the hens first, goats second—while he had them. In their absence, he made breakfast. Well, Clara was gone, wasn’t she? She couldn’t make his meals. Dwight, his nephew, managed the fields. Smarter than his father. He’d inherit the whole patch. Just as well. Clay had lost Clara, but he’d thrown Junior away. Junior lived in New York; they never talked. The pill tasted bitter, but Clay swallowed it every day. Afternoons belonged to the garden. He planted less each spring. Less planted, less to harvest. Less to can. Clara liked canning; he liked eating. Sometimes, after chores, he fished. The stream in the hollow beckoned. Light played on the water. Herons dropped in for trout. Well, so did he. Yes, everything had a season, and work was sacred, he still believed.

PARAGRAPH ABOVE GOES HERE

He meandered that afternoon, pole over his shoulder, tackle box in hand. Daffodils lifted their faces to the sun; wind-blown blossoms speckled the stream in pink and white. Same every year, the colors of Clara’s flowerbeds. Mums, begonias, pansies, snapdragons—he’d neglected them in the three years since. The beds had grown patchy: wild in some places, barren in others. Yes, he would have to tend them better. She would have long already chastised him for neglect. From the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of black. A darting form. He turned. Nothing.

“You are indeed losin’ it,” he announced. “Too much nostalgia. Not enough work.” He hoped it wasn’t a bear. His rifle sat secure and useless in the den, locked in the cabinet Clara insisted he buy.

The stream burbled and played. He listened to it through the trees long before he saw it. Then a glimpse, another through a break in the mountain laurel, and the trail followed the water’s edge. Snowmelt strengthened the headwaters, submerging the banks until summer. Clay would stay until the peepers chirped away the sun. So much of life was hiding. Bullfrogs croaked. Furry things scuttled beyond the rushes. Snakes slithered over logs and wound across the water. Shad and trout darted beneath the ripples. Life lived just out of view. 

A brown shape passed behind the dogwoods on the other side. Clay blinked. Deer? Maybe people? It better not be people. This was his land, bought and paid for with hard cash and forty-some years of blood and tears and sweat.

When he arrived at his fishing spot, Clay found it already occupied. A father and son from the look. The waterlogged overalls and dirty face suggested the boy’s natural lack of grace. Clay pictured him tumbling off a slippery bit of trail, or sliding sideways off a rock on the upstream crossing. He was fawnish, leggy and stumbling against the world, a lot like Junior used to be. He held a bamboo rod—an antique. They had gone out of style when Clay was a boy. 

His portly father sat on a log, baiting his hook. Sweat beads dripped down his face, despite his straw hat. He wiped his hand on a pantleg. They shadowed each other. The boy had his father’s round nose and basset hound eyes. The elder was a worn and overfed version of the younger. 

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line. The boy watched, then pulled his line in and recast.

“Better,” his father said.

Clay waved.

“You there!” He called. “How’s the fishin’?”

In the old days—Clay mourned the old days—he and Junior skipped stones. He taught the boy to select flat stones. To flick his wrist just so when throwing—spin and angle equalled skip. Skipping was an art. A skipper graduated from the bowl-sounding plop to the whispering taps—six or seven? ten?—before the stone slipped under for good. He chose one. Skipped it. A five-hopper. Not bad. Perhaps he had only shown the boy once or twice. It felt like more.

They nodded. The man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored him. The wind shook the leaves. The stream burbled. A woodpecker rat-a-tatted a poplar. Clay called out.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

He had hunted the woods and cleaned the carcasses in the shed behind the cottage. Fished the stream and scaled and cooked fish on coals from dying trees. Those trees warmed the cottage in winter. He cleared the dead wood, picked wild raspberries, planted the garden. Drove the stakes tied with white cloth to mark the corners. He worked it; it was his.

“It’s disrespectful of you—”

The boy got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The man punched his son’s shoulder.

“Now, look here,” Clay called. “I don’t mind you–“

The lad released his catch into their bucket, and the pair sat down on the log again.

Clay thought himself patient. When Clara had come up with the cancer and the doctors hemmed and hawed more than he cared for, he had been patient with them, though Clara’s bony hand on his had done much ’til it couldn’t anymore; and he had been patient with Junior, who hated farmin’ from the start alright, but loved the theatre so much that Clay and Clara had given up whole evenings to watch four years’ worth of school productions, which hadn’t gotten them anything but a visit from Markley come up over the hill, bitchin’ that his boy and Junior were makin’ hog sounds in the loft and threatenin’ to sue over Lord knows what, that had required patience; even when the boy came into the hospital in mascara and lipstick like a red light hussy he had’t yelled or nothin’ just told him to go home and clean up ‘fore his dyin’ mama saw it, and that was that forevermore; but now here this bulbous man and his ragamuffin ilk sat on his log on his stream on his property casting lines and takin’ his trout without the slimmest bit o decency to say “hello, how do you do?” or even recognize that Clay had worked that land for damn near fifty years and who were they to come replacin’ him since he wa’n’t dead yet nor read his name in the obituaries like he ‘spected to one day. 

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

The shotgun crack sent a flock of geese honking skyward. Silence slipped behind them. Suddenly I saw two Lenape women on the opposite bank: one bore a basket of plants, the other filled a clay bowl with water. A column of revolutionaries drank before marching on, muskets perched on their slumping shoulders. A weary-faced grandfather joined the man and boy. A teenager draped in a saggy black clothes sat on a log, a pistol in his hand. 

A stone skipped toward the woman, its whispering hits ending in a plop. She froze. Keen eyes scanned the banks. Across the stream, a demon—a crow-colored man—brooded on fallen log suspended over the water. He hadn’t noticed her, but he hadn’t thrown the rock.

Two boys in blue skipped stones upstream.

“Four,” the taller one said glumly. He chewed a bit of honeysuckle as the other boy skipped his stone.

“Five! Ha!”

“Best of five?”

Behind them the colonel coughed. “You boys don’t want to give away our position I hope?” The men snapped to attention.

“I didn’t think so.” He scanned the water. A father and son fished on the other side, but neither paid them any mind. “You might be lucky today, but luck runs out. Don’t waste it on this.” The men—barely men, the colonel knew—scurried back to camp.

Everything converged. The women retreated into the wild. The soldiers marched onward. Grandfather, son, and grandson cast their lines as one. The boy blew his head off. 

I dropped to my knees. Clutched my chest. Sweat tickled my nose. I hoisted myself up with my walking stick. They were gone—all of them. The stream dribbled along without a burble. The wind had calmed. No birdcalls. No rustling leaves. Scared, I swore to write down my experience. Just had to get home. I staggered. Shock—I’m sure it was. Yes. It was shock.

They turned and ran. I chased after them, but they disappeared up the path. Somewhere beyond the trees I heard an engine turn over. I dropped into the big guy’s seat on the log. The wood had been worn; it was well used. I looked into the pail. It was empty. Rusted through.

So Clay stood on the bank, skipping stones like he did when he was a boy, like he did when he taught his son, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. He considered going home, but opted to wait. It was his property, after all. He skipped a mother stone.

“Six hopper.” The sun warmed his face. The stream burbled along.

*****

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story. HMH Books. Kindle Edition. 

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #7

I’m at the half way point of LeGuin’s Steering the Craft. This week: adjectives and adverbs. This is a beautiful little chapter, neatly summarizing a writer’s relationship to these parts of speech in what I think are very clear terms: 

“Adjectives and Adverbs are rich and good and nourishing. They add color, life, immediacy. They cause obesity in prose only when used lazily or overused. 

When the quality that the adverb indicates can be put in the verb itself (they ran quickly = they raced) or the quality the adjective indicates can be put in the noun itself (a growling voice = a growl), the prose will be cleaner, more intense, more vivid.” (43)

These sentences capture the contrast that writers often feel about these words: we are told to reduce them, cut them—do anything except use them—then we are reminded that the English lexicon has a rich array of words for capturing nuance so we should be fearless in their employ. But that second sentence captures the issue: not all adjectives and adverbs are equal. We should discern which to use based on the needs of our ideas, a task that takes time and care.

Her exercise is this: “Write a paragraph to a page (200–350 words) of descriptive narrative prose without adjectives or adverbs. No dialogue. The point is to give a vivid description of a scene or an action using only verbs, nouns, pronouns, and articles (45)”. She recommends that this work be done at home instead of in a writing group because of its difficulty.

So today I’m giving “Old Ghosts” the chop… kind of. Ins tead of completely new text, I’m revising old, hunting for adjectives and adverbs in the first part of the piece, and in the process searching for the right nouns and verbs. I’ll add a caveat. My priority will be on narrative, not dialogue, but I might add or cut a bit there as well.

*****

Old Ghosts

Clay thought his life ecclesiastical. He woke to the rooster’s crow. Fed the hens first, goats second—while he had them. In their absence, he made breakfast. Well, Clara was gone, wasn’t she? She couldn’t make his meals. Dwight, his nephew, managed the fields. Smarter than his father. He’d inherit the whole patch. Just as well. Clay had lost Clara, but he’d thrown Junior away. Junior lived in New York; they never talked. The pill tasted bitter, but Clay swallowed it every day. Afternoons belonged to the garden. He planted less each spring. Less planted, less to harvest. Less to can. Clara liked canning; he liked eating. Sometimes, after chores, he fished. The stream in the hollow beckoned. Light played on the water. Herons dropped in for trout. Well, so did he. Yes, everything had a season, and work was sacred, he still believed.

He meandered that afternoon, pole over his shoulder, tackle box in hand. Daffodils lifted their faces to the sun; wind-blown blossoms speckled the stream in pink and white. Same every year, the colors of Clara’s flowerbeds. Mums, begonias, pansies, snapdragons—he’d neglected them in the three years since. The beds had grown patchy: wild in some places, barren in others. Yes, he would have to tend them better. She would have long already chastised him for neglect. From the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of black. A darting form. He turned. Nothing.

“You are indeed losin’ it,” he announced. “Too much nostalgia. Not enough work.” He hoped it wasn’t a bear. His rifle sat secure and useless in the den, locked in the cabinet Clara insisted he buy.

The stream burbled and played. He listened to it through the trees long before he saw it. Then a glimpse, another through a break in the mountain laurel, and the trail followed the water’s edge. Snowmelt strengthened the headwaters, submerging the banks until summer. Clay would stay until the peepers chirped away the sun. So much of life was hiding. Bullfrogs croaked. Furry things scuttled beyond the rushes. Snakes slithered over logs and wound across the water. Shad and trout darted beneath the ripples. Life lived just out of view. 

A brown shape passed behind the dogwoods on the other side. Clay blinked. Deer? Maybe people? It better not be people. This was his land, bought and paid for with hard cash and forty-some years of blood and tears and sweat.

When he arrived at his fishing spot, Clay found it already occupied. A father and son from the look. The waterlogged overalls and dirty face suggested the boy’s natural lack of grace. Clay pictured him tumbling off a slippery bit of trail, or sliding sideways off a rock on the upstream crossing. He was fawnish, leggy and stumbling against the world, a lot like Junior used to be. He held a bamboo rod—an antique. They had gone out of style when Clay was a boy. 

His portly father sat on a log, baiting his hook. Sweat beads dripped down his face, despite his straw hat. He wiped his hand on a pantleg. They shadowed each other. The boy had his father’s round nose and basset hound eyes. The elder was a worn and overfed version of the younger. 

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line. The boy watched, then pulled his line in and recast.

“Better,” his father said.

Clay waved.

“You there!” He called. “How’s the fishin’?”

END OF ADJECTIVE & ADVERB REVISION

In the old days—Clay laughed ruefully at the idea of old days—he and Junior skipped stones from time to time. He taught the boy to select the flattest stones. To flick his wrist just so on the throw—spin was everything to the skip. Skipping was an art. You had to graduate from the hollowed out bowl-sound of a plopping rock to the whispering brush of six or seven taps before the stone slipped under water for good. He selected a stone from the bank and skipped it. A five-hopper. Not bad. Perhaps he had only shown the boy once or twice. It felt like more.

They nodded. The fat man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored me. The wind blew gently. The stream burbled. A woodpecker pecked a poplar. I could think of no earthly reason they should ignore me, so I called out.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

It was true. I hunted the woods and still cleaned the carcasses in the shed behind the stone cottage. Fished the stream and scaled and cooked that fish on red coals. Cut down the trees to keep the cottage warm in winter, to say nothing of cooking my meals. Cleared the dead wood, picked wild raspberries, planted the garden. Drove the stakes tied with white cloth to mark the corners. I worked it; it was mine.

“It’s disrespectful of you—”

Tee-and-Flannel got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The big man punched his shoulder. They continued to act as if I wasn’t there.

“Now, look here,” I called. “I don’t mind you–“

The younger fella released his catch, and the pair sat down on the bank again.

He thought himself patient about most things in life; like when Clara had come up with the cancer and the doctors hemmed and hawed more than he cared for, he had been patient with them, though Clara’s bony hand on his had done much ’til it couldn’t anymore; and he had been patient with Junior, who hated farmin’ from the start alright, but loved the theatre so much that Clay and Clara had given up whole evenings to watch four years’ worth of school productions, which hadn’t gotten them anything but a visit from Markley come up over the hill, bitchin’ that his boy and Junior were makin’ hog sounds in the loft and threatenin’ to sue over Lord knows what, that had required patience; even when the boy came into the hospital in mascara and lipstick like a red light hussy he had’t yelled or nothin’ just told him to go home and clean up ‘fore his dyin’ mama saw it, and that was that forevermore; but now here this bulbous man and his ragamuffin ilk sat on his log on his stream on his property casting lines and takin’ his trout without the slimmest bit o decency to say “hello, how do you do?” or even recognize that Clay had worked that land for damn near fifty years and who were they to come replacin’ him since he wa’n’t dead yet nor read his name in the obituaries like he ‘spected to one day. 

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

The shotgun crack sent a flock of geese honking skyward. Silence slipped behind them. Suddenly I saw two Lenape women on the opposite bank: one bore a basket of plants, the other filled a clay bowl with water. A column of revolutionaries drank before marching on, muskets perched on their slumping shoulders. A weary-faced grandfather joined the man and boy. A teenager draped in a saggy black clothes sat on a log, a pistol in his hand. 

A stone skipped toward the woman, its whispering hits ending in a plop. She froze. Keen eyes scanned the banks. Across the stream, a demon—a crow-colored man—brooded on fallen log suspended over the water. He hadn’t noticed her, but he hadn’t thrown the rock.

Two boys in blue skipped stones upstream.

“Four,” the taller one said glumly. He chewed a bit of honeysuckle as the other boy skipped his stone.

“Five! Ha!”

“Best of five?”

Behind them the colonel coughed. “You boys don’t want to give away our position I hope?” The men snapped to attention.

“I didn’t think so.” He scanned the water. A father and son fished on the other side, but neither paid them any mind. “You might be lucky today, but luck runs out. Don’t waste it on this.” The men—barely men, the colonel knew—scurried back to camp.

Everything converged. The women retreated into the wild. The soldiers marched onward. Grandfather, son, and grandson cast their lines as one. The boy blew his head off. 

I dropped to my knees. Clutched my chest. Sweat tickled my nose. I hoisted myself up with my walking stick. They were gone—all of them. The stream dribbled along without a burble. The wind had calmed. No birdcalls. No rustling leaves. Scared, I swore to write down my experience. Just had to get home. I staggered. Shock—I’m sure it was. Yes. It was shock.

They turned and ran. I chased after them, but they disappeared up the path. Somewhere beyond the trees I heard an engine turn over. I dropped into the big guy’s seat on the log. The wood had been worn; it was well used. I looked into the pail. It was empty. Rusted through.

So Clay stood on the bank, skipping stones like he did when he was a boy, like he did when he taught his son, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. He considered going home, but opted to wait. It was his property, after all. He skipped a mother stone.

“Six hopper.” The sun warmed his face. The stream burbled along.

*****

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story. HMH Books. Kindle Edition. 

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #6

My summer project with LeGuin’s Steering the Craft continues. Part Four of her book is on repetition, and the first time I read it, I thought of the opening to her book The Telling, book eight of The Hainish Cycle. The opening of description of Sutty’s experience of earth, told in layers of orange, its stunning and beautiful. The whole book, which is about storytelling, politics, and religion, is worth the time—but then, it’s LeGuin.

By now, my draft copy of “Old Ghosts” is a bit of a shambles.

  • The ending is disconnected because it’s changing
  • The point of view shifts from third to first person—old material is in 1st person, new material (Clay) in third. I think 3rd (probably going to be omniscient) is working better because it doesn’t carry the same limits as first.
  • I think the whole focus of the piece is shifting from a ghost story to a story about time that of course includes ghosts.
  • The names and descriptions of the father and son who are fishing need to be settled on—I have two very different ideas of what they might look like, but don’t know them well enough to decide.
  • The gun has to go. The gun really has to go.
  • The exercise paragraphs are contrasting each other now, so there will be a revision toward the end where I smooth it pout and settle on Clay’s voice and the voices of the other speakers, and find the narrative voice. But for right now, we play.

I originally intended to put the story in first, but I had to include the whole work for the second exercise, so I’ve opted only to include it once in the overall post.

In her discussion of repetition, LeGuin asks readers to consider the way repeated objections, actions, and descriptions might lay out themes that reemerge throughout the story. The underlying question is not what has been repeated, but why has it been repeated? Here are the two parts for this exercise:

“Part One: Verbal Repetition Write a paragraph of narrative (150 words) that includes at least three repetitions of a noun, verb, or adjective (a noticeable word, not an invisible one like was, said, did).”

In the old days—Clay laughed ruefully at the idea of old days—he and Junior skipped stones from time to time. He taught the boy to select the flattest stones. To flick his wrist just so on the throw—spin was everything to the skip. Skipping was an art. You had to graduate from the hollowed out bowl-sound of a plopping rock to the whispering brush of six or seven taps before the stone slipped under water for good. He selected a stone from the bank and skipped it. A five-hopper. Not bad. Perhaps he had only shown the boy once or twice. It felt like more.

“Part Two: Structural Repetition Write a short narrative (350–1000 words) in which something is said or done and then something is said or done that echoes or repeats it, perhaps in a different context, or by different people, or on a different scale. This can be a complete story, if you like, or a fragment of narrative.”

For this, I’m returning to the old ghosts narrative itself, and focusing on a repeating action across several characters. The whole thing, with changes woven throughout and the above verbal repetition exercise, is presented again below. I’m not telling you what’s new and what isn’t. I’m hoping you’ll see it emerge, but you can always open a second browser window and look at last week’s post for a comparison.

*****

Old Ghosts

Clay called his life ecclesiastical. He woke with the crowin’ rooster. The hens came first. Goats followed, while he had them. In their absence, he made breakfast. Well, Clara was gone, wasn’t she? She couldn’t make meals anymore. His nephew managed the fields. Smarter than his father, that one. He’d inherit the whole patch. Just as well. Clay’d lost Clara, but he’d thrown Tommy away, hadn’t he? Junior lived in New York. They never talked. The pill tasted bitter. But Clay swallowed it every day. Afternoons belonged to the garden. He planted less each spring. Less planted, less to harvest. He didn’t can as much. Clara liked cannin’. He liked eatin’. Sometimes, after the chores, he fished. The stream in the hollow beckoned. Light played on the water. Herons dropped in. Trout was good for beast and bird. Yes, to everything he had a season. Work was sacred, he still believed.

A spring wind whipped the woods to life. Daffodils lifted yellow faces to the sun, and blossoms blown from the trees speckled the stream in pinks and whites. Mountain ridge snowmelt strengthened the headwaters. The stream swelled; muddy banks submerged, lost until summer. The peepers chirped away the sun each night. Bullfrogs croaked. Little furry things scuttled beyond the rushes. Snakes slithered over bent logs and wound their way across the surface. Shad and trout returned. And with them came the people.

I happened upon a pair the other day, just after dawn. They set up camp on a fallen oak, a beaten metal pail between them. The older man was scruffy; his hat brim frayed from weather.  His trousers were patched in one knee, the waistband taut around his girth.

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line again.

The waif was a scrawnier version of his teacher. From the muddy, waterlogged state of his overalls and the dirt on his face and hands, it seemed the natural lack of grace in boys that age had already taken its toll that morning. Clay pictured him taking a tumble off a slippery bit of trail, or sliding sideways off a rock on the upstream crossing. He was like a skipping stone left untossed on the bank.

The fishing rods seemed antique, perhaps forced back into service? Bamboo rods had gone out of style even before I was a boy, and their lines were too visible, too thick to be modern.

I waved. My right, of course. They were on my property.

“You there!” I called. “How’s the fishin’?”

In the old days—Clay laughed ruefully at the idea of old days—he and Junior skipped stones from time to time. He taught the boy to select the flattest stones. To flick his wrist just so on the throw—spin was everything to the skip. Skipping was an art. You had to graduate from the hollowed out bowl-sound of a plopping rock to the whispering brush of six or seven taps before the stone slipped under water for good. He selected a stone from the bank and skipped it. A five-hopper. Not bad. Perhaps he had only shown the boy once or twice. It felt like more.

They nodded. The fat man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored me. The wind blew gently. The stream burbled. A woodpecker pecked a poplar. I could think of no earthly reason they should ignore me, so I called out.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

It was true. I hunted the woods and still cleaned the carcasses in the shed behind the stone cottage. Fished the stream and scaled and cooked that fish on red coals. Cut down the trees to keep the cottage warm in winter, to say nothing of cooking my meals. Cleared the dead wood, picked wild raspberries, planted the garden. Drove the stakes tied with white cloth to mark the corners. I worked it; it was mine.

“It’s disrespectful of you—”

Tee-and-Flannel got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The big man punched his shoulder. They continued to act as if I wasn’t there.

“Now, look here,” I called. “I don’t mind you–“

The younger fella released his catch, and the pair sat down on the bank again.

He thought himself patient about most things in life; like when Clara had come up with the cancer and the doctors hemmed and hawed more than he cared for, he had been patient with them, though Clara’s bony hand on his had done much ’til it couldn’t anymore; and he had been patient with Junior, who hated farmin’ from the start alright, but loved the theatre so much that Clay and Clara had given up whole evenings to watch four years’ worth of school productions, which hadn’t gotten them anything but a visit from Markley come up over the hill, bitchin’ that his boy and Junior were makin’ hog sounds in the loft and threatenin’ to sue over Lord knows what, that had required patience; even when the boy came into the hospital in mascara and lipstick like a red light hussy he had’t yelled or nothin’ just told him to go home and clean up ‘fore his dyin’ mama saw it, and that was that forevermore; but now here this bulbous man and his ragamuffin ilk sat on his log on his stream on his property casting lines and takin’ his trout without the slimmest bit o decency to say “hello, how do you do?” or even recognize that Clay had worked that land for damn near fifty years and who were they to come replacin’ him since he wa’n’t dead yet nor read his name in the obituaries like he ‘spected to one day. 

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

The shotgun crack sent a flock of geese honking skyward. Silence slipped behind them. Suddenly I saw two Lenape women on the opposite bank: one bore a basket of plants, the other filled a clay bowl with water. A column of revolutionaries drank before marching on, muskets perched on their slumping shoulders. A weary-faced grandfather joined the man and boy. A teenager draped in a saggy black clothes sat on a log, a pistol in his hand. 

A stone skipped toward the woman, its whispering hits ending in a plop. She froze. Keen eyes scanned the banks. Across the stream, a demon—a crow-colored man—brooded on fallen log suspended over the water. He hadn’t noticed her, but he hadn’t thrown the rock.

Two boys in blue skipped stones upstream.

“Four,” the taller one said glumly. He chewed a bit of honeysuckle as the other boy skipped his stone.

“Five! Ha!”

“Best of five?”

Behind them the colonel coughed. “You boys don’t want to give away our position I hope?” The men snapped to attention.

“I didn’t think so.” He scanned the water. A father and son fished on the other side, but neither paid them any mind. “You might be lucky today, but luck runs out. Don’t waste it on this.” The men—barely men, the colonel knew—scurried back to camp.

Everything converged. The women retreated into the wild. The soldiers marched onward. Grandfather, son, and grandson cast their lines as one. The boy blew his head off. 

I dropped to my knees. Clutched my chest. Sweat tickled my nose. I hoisted myself up with my walking stick. They were gone—all of them. The stream dribbled along without a burble. The wind had calmed. No birdcalls. No rustling leaves. Scared, I swore to write down my experience. Just had to get home. I staggered. Shock—I’m sure it was. Yes. It was shock.

They turned and ran. I chased after them, but they disappeared up the path. Somewhere beyond the trees I heard an engine turn over. I dropped into the big guy’s seat on the log. The wood had been worn; it was well used. I looked into the pail. It was empty. Rusted through.

So Clay stood on the bank, skipping stones like he did when he was a boy, like he did when he taught his son, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. He considered going home, but opted to wait. It was his property, after all. He skipped a mother stone.

“Six hopper.” The sun warmed his face. The stream burbled along.

*****

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 42). HMH Books. Kindle Edition. 

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #5

If you’re just checking out my blog, I’m in the early stages of a summer project: applying lessons from LeGuin’s Steering the Craft to a short story idea I had been messing with unsuccessfully.

Remember, if you’re part of the #WriteLGBTQ and #WritingCommunity groups on Twitter, maybe you’ll join me on this excursion by sharing your response to this post on Twitter! Use the hashtag #steeringthecraft and reply to me @nicanorabbott.

Here’s the draft of the short story “Old Ghosts”. I’m pretty sure I have to take it out of first person, and there’s a disjuncture near the end between old and new material. I am trying to speak about the temporary nature of people as a product of time in a given space.

*****

Old Ghosts

A spring wind whipped the woods to life. Daffodils lifted yellow faces to the sun, and blossoms blown from the trees speckled the stream in pinks and whites. Mountain ridge snowmelt strengthened the headwaters. The stream swelled; muddy banks submerged, lost until summer. The peepers chirped away the sun each night. Bullfrogs croaked. Little furry things scuttled beyond the rushes. Snakes slithered over bent logs and wound their way across the surface. Shad and trout returned. And with them came the people.

I happened upon a pair the other day, just after dawn. They set up camp on a fallen oak, a beaten metal pail between them. The older man was scruffy; his hat brim frayed from weather.  His trousers were patched in one knee, the waistband taut around his girth.

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line again.

The waif was a scrawnier version of his teacher. From the muddy, waterlogged state of his overalls and the dirt on his face and hands, it seemed the natural lack of grace in boys that age had already taken its toll that morning.

The fishing rods seemed antique, perhaps forced back into service? Bamboo rods had gone out of style even before I was a boy, and their lines were too visible, too thick to be modern.

I waved. My right, of course. They were on my property.

“You there!” I called. “How’s the fishin’?”

They nodded. The fat man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored me. The wind blew gently. The stream burbled. A woodpecker pecked a poplar. I could think of no earthly reason they should ignore me, so I called out.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

It was true. I hunted the woods and still cleaned the carcasses in the shed behind the stone cottage. Fished the stream and scaled and cooked that fish on red coals. Cut down the trees to keep the cottage warm in winter, to say nothing of cooking my meals. Cleared the dead wood, picked wild raspberries, planted the garden. Drove the stakes tied with white cloth to mark the corners. I worked it; it was mine.

“It’s disrespectful of you—”

Tee-and-Flannel got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The big man punched his shoulder. They continued to act as if I wasn’t there.

“Now, look here,” I called. “I don’t mind you–“

The younger fella released his catch, and the pair sat down on the bank again.

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

The shotgun crack sent a flock of geese honking skyward. Silence slipped behind them. Suddenly I saw two Lenape women on the opposite bank: one bore a basket of plants, the other filled a clay bowl with water. A column of revolutionaries drank before marching on, muskets perched on their slumping shoulders. A weary-faced grandfather joined the man and boy. A teenager draped in a saggy black clothes sat on a log, a pistol in his hand. 

Everything converged. The women retreated into the wild. The soldiers marched onward. Grandfather, son, and grandson cast their lines as one. The boy blew his head off. 

I dropped to my knees. Clutched my chest. Sweat tickled my nose. I hoisted myself up with my walking stick. They were gone—all of them. The stream dribbled along without a burble. The wind had calmed. No birdcalls. No rustling leaves. Scared, I swore to write down my experience. Just had to get home. I staggered. Shock—I’m sure it was. Yes. It was shock.

Outdated Ending

I kept walking toward them. They turned and ran. I chased after them, but they disappeared up the path. Somewhere beyond the trees I heard an engine turn over. I dropped into the big guy’s seat on the log. The wood had been worn; it was well used. I looked into the pail. It was empty. Rusted through.

So this is where I sit, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. Seems like it’s been a while. I should probably head home soon. It’s my property after all.

*****

In the Chapter “Sentence Length and Complex Syntax,” LeGuin provides several passages from other writers, including Twain, Stowe, and Woolf, and asks readers to look at how length and syntax shape the motion of the story and the development of voice, among other things. She then recommends “EXERCISE THREE: Short and Long. Part One: Write a paragraph of narrative, 100–150 words, in sentences of seven or fewer words. No sentence fragments! Each must have a subject and a verb. Part Two: Write a half page to a page of narrative, up to 350 words, that is all one sentence.

So here is the 100-150 words, in sentences seven words long or fewer, and in full sentences. This might be the new opening paragraph:

Clay called his life Ecclesiastical. He woke with the crowin’ rooster. The hens came first. Goats followed, while he had them. In their absence, he made breakfast. Well, Clara was gone, wasn’t she? She couldn’t make meals anymore. His nephew managed the fields. Smarter than his father, that one. He’d inherit the whole patch. Just as well. Clay’d lost Clara. He’d thrown Tommy away, hadn’t he? Junior lived in New York. They never talked. Pill tasted bitter. But Clay swallowed it every day. Afternoons belonged to the garden. He planted less each spring. Less planted, less to harvest. He didn’t can as much. Clara liked cannin’. He liked eatin’. Sometimes, after the chores, he fished. The stream in the hollow beckoned. Light played on the water. Herons dropped in. Trout was good for beast and bird. Yes, to everything he had a season. Work was sacred, he still believed.

Now one sentence up to 350 words. Clay (previously “I”) is working up a lather over being ignored by the father and son:

He thought himself patient about most things in life; like when Clara had come up with the cancer and the doctors hemmed and hawed more than he cared for, he had been patient with them, though Clara’s bony hand on his had done much ’til it couldn’t anymore; and he had been patient with Junior, who hated farmin’ from the start alright, but loved the theatre so much that Clay and Clara had given up whole evenings to watch four years’ worth of school productions, which hadn’t gotten them anything but a visit from Markley come up over the hill, bitchin’ that his boy and Junior were makin’ hog sounds in the loft and threatenin’ to sue over Lord knows what, that had required patience; even when the boy came into the hospital in mascara and lipstick like a red light hussy he hadn’t yelled or nothin’ just told him to go home and clean up ‘fore his dyin’ mama saw it, and that was that forevermore; but now here this bulbous man and his ragamuffin ilk sat on his log on his stream on his property casting lines and takin’ his trout without the slimmest bit o’ decency to say “hello, how do you do?” or even recognize that Clay had worked that land for damn near fifty years and who were they to come replacin’ him since he wa’n’t dead yet nor read his name in the obituaries like he ‘spected to one day. 

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 32). HMH Books. Kindle Edition. 

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #4

EXERCISE TWO: Am I Saramago (Part 2)

Last week, I offered up a new paragraph for my short story “Old Ghosts” sans punctuation. Here it is:

“The crack rent the morning sent a flock of geese skyward their honking cacophony carrying away all other sound silence slipped in behind them and I noticed the old Lenape woman with a basket of plants on the opposite bank another one fetched water in a clay bowl a column of revolutionaries stopped to drink before the dusty forward march muskets perched on slumping shoulders weary faced a grandfather joined the man and the waif a teenager in a saggy black drape and smudged eyes sat on a log a pistol in his hand at once the woman rose up the soldiers marched on grandfather, man, and son disappeared the boy blew his head off I dropped to my knees clutched my chest sweat tickled my nose I hoisted up with my walking stick but they were gone all of them gone from my stream so quiet it didn’t even burble and the wind had blown out a calm before a storm a chill raced through me and I swore to write it down just had to go back to my cottage up by the road I staggered with the shock I’m sure it was shock yes it was”

LeGuin’s instructions were to punctuate the passage after letting it sit for a week. Remember, if you’re part of the #WriteLGBTQ and #WritingCommunity groups on Twitter, maybe you’ll join me on this excursion by sharing your response to this post on Twitter! Use the hashtag #steeringthecraft. 

Oh my god I overuse commas. 

Just looking at the paragraph, I can see where I had expectations of pauses. She allows word changes as need, so I may need some of that. First though, what would it look like with minimal punctuation?

“The crack rent the morning sent a flock of geese skyward their honking cacophony carrying away all other sound. Silence slipped in behind them and I noticed the old Lenape woman with a basket of plants on the opposite bank. Another one fetched water in a clay bowl. A column of revolutionaries stopped to drink before the dusty forward march muskets perched on slumping shoulders weary faced. A grandfather joined the man and the waif. A teenager in a saggy black drape and smudged eyes sat on a log a pistol in his hand. At once the woman rose up the soldiers marched on grandfather, man, and son disappeared. The boy blew his head off. I dropped to my knees clutched my chest sweat tickled my nose I hoisted up with my walking stick but they were gone all of them gone from my stream. So quiet it didn’t even burble and the wind had blown out a calm before a storm a chill raced through me. And I swore to write it down just had to go back to my cottage up by the road I staggered with the shock I’m sure it was shock yes it was.”

Ok, that still feels gross. Fully punctuated then…

“The crack rent the morning, sent a flock of geese skyward, their honking cacophony carrying away all other sound. Silence slipped in behind them and I noticed the old Lenape woman with a basket of plants on the opposite bank. Another one fetched water in a clay bowl. A column of revolutionaries stopped to drink before the dusty forward march, muskets perched on slumping shoulders, weary-faced. A grandfather joined the man and the waif. A teenager in a saggy black drape and smudged eyes sat on a log, a pistol in his hand. At once the woman rose up; the soldiers marched on; grandfather, man, and son disappeared; the boy blew his head off. I dropped to my knees. Clutched my chest. Sweat tickled my nose. I hoisted myself up with my walking stick, but they were gone—all of them gone—from my stream. So quiet. It didn’t even burble. The wind had blown out—a calm before a storm. A chill raced through me and I swore to write what I had seen down, just had to go back to my cottage. I staggered with the shock—I’m sure it was—yes it was shock.”

A couple of word changes that that time as well. Getting better. Wonder if I can cut down he punctuation but cutting down and rearranging the sentences?

“The shotgun crack sent a flock of geese honking skyward. Silence slipped behind them. Suddenly I saw two Lenape women on the opposite bank: one bore a basket of plants, the other filled a clay bowl with water. A column of revolutionaries drank before marching on, muskets perched on their slumping shoulders. A weary-faced grandfather joined the man and boy. A teenager draped in a saggy black clothes sat on a log, a pistol in his hand. 

Everything converged. The women retreated into the wild. The soldiers marched onward. Grandfather, son, and grandson cast their lines as one. The boy blew his head off. 

I dropped to my knees. Clutched my chest. Sweat tickled my nose. I hoisted myself up with my walking stick. They were gone—all of them. The stream dribbled along without a burble. The wind had calmed. No birdcalls. No rustling leaves. Scared, I swore to write down my experience. Just had to get home. I staggered. Shock—I’m sure it was. Yes. It was shock.”

I’m starting to like it more, but it really is an eye opener to practice punctuation by ripping it out and putting it back in. It really is neat—the tempo changes in the unpunctuated passage vs. the others. Not just the punctuation, but the separation of the block into smaller paragraphs transforms the way the words are read.

Funny, years ago, I had a writing tutor do the same thing with a student who had been poorly taught about what punctuation does. The wheel keeps turning, doesn’t it?

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #3

EXERCISE TWO: Am I Saramago

LeGuin reminds her readers that punctuation is an essential tool of good writing, and so wants us to try this activity that includes a seven day interval.

First, we should “Write a paragraph to a page (150–350 words) of narrative with no punctuation (and no paragraphs or other breaking devices).” A week later, we should punctuate the passage.

Remember, if you’re part of the #WriteLGBTQ and #WritingCommunity groups on Twitter, maybe you’ll join me on this excursion by sharing your response to this post on Twitter! Use the hashtag #steeringthecraft. 

I am still working on “Old Ghosts”, but the assignment has forced me to move to an uptempo section, similar to the prompts suggested in Steering the Craft. But while I have a high tempo section, it’s not a part that I especially like. I think I can push this idea further if I add it in as a whole new idea. It’s noted in the text below.

Old Ghosts

A spring wind whipped the woods to life. Daffodils lifted yellow faces to the sun, and blossoms blown from the trees speckled the stream in pinks and whites. Mountain ridge snowmelt strengthened the headwaters. The stream swelled; muddy banks submerged, lost until summer. The peepers chirped away the sun each night. Bullfrogs croaked. Little furry things scuttled beyond the rushes. Snakes slithered over bent logs and wound their way across the surface. Shad and trout returned. And with them came the people.

I happened upon a pair the other day, just after dawn. They set up camp on a fallen oak, a beaten metal pail between them. The older man was scruffy; his hat brim frayed from weather.  His trousers were patched in one knee, the waistband taut around his girth.

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line again.

The waif was a scrawnier version of his teacher. From the muddy, waterlogged state of his overalls and the dirt on his face and hands, it seemed the natural lack of grace in boys that age had already taken its toll that morning.

The fishing rods seemed antique, perhaps forced back into service? Bamboo rods had gone out of style even before I was a boy, and their lines were too visible, too thick to be modern.

I waved. My right, of course. They were on my property.

“You there!” I called. “How’s the fishin’?”

They nodded. The fat man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored me. The wind blew gently. The stream burbled. A woodpecker pecked a poplar. I could think of no earthly reason they should ignore me, so I called out.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

It was true. I hunted the woods and still cleaned the carcasses in the shed behind the stone cottage. Fished the stream and scaled and cooked that fish on red coals. Cut down the trees to keep the cottage warm in winter, to say nothing of cooking my meals. Cleared the dead wood, picked wild raspberries, planted the garden. Drove the stakes tied with white cloth to mark the corners. I worked it; it was mine.

“It’s disrespectful of you—”

Tee-and-Flannel got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The big man punched his shoulder. They continued to act as if I wasn’t there.

“Now, look here,” I called. “I don’t mind you–“

The younger fella released his catch, and the pair sat down on the bank again.

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

NEW MATERIAL HERE

The crack rent the morning sent a flock of geese skyward their honking cacophony carrying away all other sound silence slipped in behind them and I noticed the old Lenape woman with a basket of plants on the opposite bank another one fetched water in a clay bowl a column of revolutionaries stopped to drink before the dusty forward march muskets perched on slumping shoulders weary faced a grandfather joined the man and the waif a teenager in a saggy black drape and smudged eyes sat on a log a pistol in his hand at once the woman rose up the soldiers marched on grandfather, man, and son disappeared the boy blew his head off I dropped to my knees clutched my chest sweat tickled my nose I hoisted up with my walking stick but they were gone all of them gone from my stream so quiet it didn’t even burble and the wind had blown out a calm before a storm a chill raced through me and I swore to write it down just had to go back to my cottage up by the road I staggered with the shock I’m sure it was shock yes it was 

END NEW MATERIAL

I kept walking toward them. They turned and ran. I chased after them, but they disappeared up the path. Somewhere beyond the trees I heard an engine turn over. I dropped into the big guy’s seat on the log. The wood had been worn; it was well used. I looked into the pail. It was empty. Rusted through.

So this is where I sit, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. Seems like it’s been a while. I should probably head home soon. It’s my property after all.

*****

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula  K.. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 18). HMH Books. Kindle Edition.

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #2

Week Two, and I’m going to continue with part two of lesson one. The use of writing for sound is not just for description, but for action and emotion as well. Below is the complete short piece integrating the revised passage from last week.

Remember, if you’re part of the #WriteLGBTQ and #WritingCommunity groups on Twitter, maybe you’ll join me on this excursion by sharing your response to this post on Twitter! Use the hashtag #steeringthecraft

Old Ghosts

A spring wind whipped the woods to life. Daffodils lifted yellow faces to the sun, and blossoms blown from the trees speckled the stream in pinks and whites. Mountain ridge snowmelt strengthened the headwaters. The stream swelled; muddy banks submerged, lost until summer. The peepers chirped away the sun each night. Bullfrogs croaked. Little furry things scuttled beyond the rushes. Snakes slithered over bent logs and wound their way across the surface. Shad and trout returned. And with them came the people.

I happened upon a pair the other day, just after dawn. They set up camp on a fallen oak, a beaten metal pail between them. The older man was scruffy; his hat brim frayed from weather.  His trousers were patched in one knee, the waistband taut around his girth.

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line again.

The waif was a scrawnier version of his teacher. From the muddy, waterlogged state of his overalls and the dirt on his face and hands, it seemed the natural lack of grace in boys that age had already taken its toll that morning.

The fishing rods seemed antique, perhaps forced back into service? Bamboo rods had gone out of style even before I was a boy, and their lines were too visible, too thick to be modern.

I waved. My right, of course. They were on my property.

“You there!” I called. “How’s the fishin’?”

They nodded. The fat man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored me.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

Tee-and-Flannel got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The big man punched his shoulder. They continued to act as if I wasn’t there.

“Now, look here,” I called. “I don’t mind you–“

The younger fella released his catch, and the pair sat down on the bank again.

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

I kept walking toward them. They turned and ran. I chased after them, but they disappeared up the path. Somewhere beyond the trees I heard an engine turn over. I dropped into the big guy’s seat on the log. The wood had been worn; it was well used. I looked into the pail. It was empty. Rusted through.

So this is where I sit, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. Seems like it’s been a while. I should probably head home soon. It’s my property after all.

*****

Lesson #1, Part 2. Being Gorgeous

LeGuin Writes “Part Two: In a paragraph or so, describe an action, or a person feeling strong emotion—joy, fear, grief. Try to make the rhythm and movement of the sentences embody or represent the physical reality you’re writing about.”

So here are the lines I’m working with from draft one:

They ignored me.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

And here’s my revision:

The wind blew gently. The stream burbled. A woodpecker pecked in a poplar. I could think of no earthly reason they should ignore me, so I called out.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

It was true. I hunted the woods and still cleaned the carcasses in the shed behind the stone cottage. Fished the stream and scaled and cooked that fish on red coals. Cut down the trees to keep the cottage warm in winter, to say nothing of cooking my meals. Cleared the dead wood, picked wild raspberries, planted the garden. Drove the stakes tied with white cloth to mark the corners. I worked it; it was mine.

“It’s disrespectful of you—”

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 9). HMH Books. Kindle Edition. 

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #1

With the change in circumstances that accompany the end of the semester, I find myself at a place where I can try a little different approach to this blog. I want to put more time into a book length project, but I don’t want to post too much from it here. 

However, it’s important to practice writing, and not just by throwing words on a page and seeing what sticks. To that end, I’ve picked up Ursula K. LeGuin’s Steering the Craft: A 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story. LeGuin is one of my favorite authors, her stories are forward thinking, and her prose is beautiful. Just look at the opening description in The Telling.

My goal is to work my way through LeGuin’s guide while revising (or really finishing) a single short story. I want to see how much the story is transformed when I tend to her suggestions for practice. The story I have chosen to work with is a piece—really a badly assembled skeleton with a lot of loose, flappy, flaking dialogue—called “Old Ghosts”. Here it is:

Old Ghosts

They sat on the log across the stream, each clutching a slender branch with a line tied to the end. I had never seen them before.

The first, a large, greasy man, wore overalls and no shirt. His head covered with a straw hat. The second, hungrier-looking fella wore a white tee with a flannel tied around his waist. A bucket of worms sat between them.

I waved. My right, of course. They were on my property.

“You there!” I called. “How’s the fishin’?”

They nodded. The fat man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored me.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

Tee-and-Flannel got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The big man punched his shoulder. They continued to act as if I wasn’t there.

“Now, look here,” I called. “I don’t mind you–“

The younger fella released his catch, and the pair sat down on the bank again.

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

I kept walking toward them. They turned and ran. I chased after them, but they disappeared up the path. Somewhere beyond the trees I heard an engine turn over. I dropped into the big guy’s seat on the log. The wood had been worn; it was well used. I looked into the pail. It was empty. Rusted through.

So this is where I sit, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. Seems like it’s been a while. I should probably head home soon. It’s my property after all.

*****

I’m not sure that the piece has much value—I’m not sure yet what it’s trying to say, but I have a few ideas. It’s part of a collection of gothic tales set in Pennsylvania, USA, but it still needs work.

Before I roll out lesson one, if you’re part of the #WriteLGBTQ and #WritingCommunity groups on Twitter, maybe you’ll join me on this excursion. If you have something you’d like to practice with, let’s practice together! Share your ideas as a response to this post on Twitter! Use the hashtag #steeringthecraft

Lesson #1. Being Gorgeous

LeGuin writes “Part One: Write a paragraph to a page of narrative that’s meant to be read aloud. Use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects, made-up words or names, dialect—any kind of sound effect you like—but NOT rhyme or meter.

I want you to write for pleasure—to play. Just listen to the sounds and rhythms of the sentences you write and play with them, like a kid with a kazoo. This isn’t “free writing,” but it’s similar in that you’re relaxing control: you’re encouraging the words themselves—the sounds of them, the beats and echoes—to lead you on. For the moment, forget all the good advice that says good style is invisible, good art conceals art. Show off! Use the whole orchestra our wonderful language offers us!”

So here’s the line I’m working with from draft one:

They sat on the log across the stream, each clutching a slender branch with a line tied to the end. I had never seen them before.

And here’s my first stab at “being gorgeous”:

A spring wind whipped the woods to life. Daffodils lifted yellow faces to the sun, and blossoms blown from the trees speckled the stream in pinks and whites. Mountain ridge snowmelt strengthened the headwaters. The stream swelled; muddy banks submerged, lost until summer. The peepers chirped away the sun each night. Bullfrogs croaked. Little furry things scuttled beyond the rushes. Snakes slithered over bent logs and wound their way across the surface. Shad and trout returned. And with them came the people.

I happened upon a pair the other day, just after dawn. They set up camp on a fallen oak, a beaten metal pail between them. The older man was scruffy; his hat brim frayed from weather.  His trousers were patched in one knee, the waistband taut around his girth.

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line again.

The waif was a scrawnier, smaller version of his teacher. From the muddy, waterlogged state of his overalls and the dirt on his face and hands, it seemed the natural lack of grace in boys that age had already taken its toll that morning.

The fishing rods seemed antique, perhaps forced back into service? Bamboo rods had gone out of style even before I was a boy, and their lines were too visible, too thick to be modern.

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 8). HMH Books. Kindle Edition. 

Olmstead

Author’s Note: I wanted to tell a story that would challenge the traditional horror story, which, at least in American culture, is often used to reinforce values that young people are expected to fulfill without question.

“It’s like a tombstone.” 

Jason cracked his gum and peered through the wrought iron gate as the school bus pulled away. Olmstead House sat on the rise, partially obscured by icy naked oaks and snowy thickets.

“Yeah?” Derek ran a thumb along the teeth of his house key. After his punishment for losing the first key, he attached the second one to three linked chains: a Pirate Parrot tag from his mom, an Allegheny Mill penlight from his dad, and a Pokéball chain he won in fourth grade for getting the highest score on a math test. If he was lucky, Jason would invite him over. He could have dinner with his best friend’s family and stave off using his key a couple more hours.

“Uh-huh. Look—“ Jason had sprouted early and stood a full head taller than the rest of their sixth grade peers. Now he draped an arm around Derek’s shoulder and pointed through the gate.

“See there, where the roof stands above the trees? And the windows? They could be letters being worn away, couldn’t they? Now turn—“

They pivoted to look down the hill. Jason held Derek’s threadbare coat to steady him. “Main Street ends right here at the gate.”

“Or begins,” Derek corrected. “It’s how you see it. It also tees into Ridge, so maybe it doesn’t end at all?”

“The name ends, Derek. It becomes something else.”

“Okay. I was just saying.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Sure. Now look—” 

They surveyed the bleak downtown. Cinder-caked snow piled on the sidewalks. The display windows of Lena’s Clothier had been painted over. Casey Drugs was boarded up. Derek’s mom waitressed second shift at The Fine Diner until they shuttered last August. Within a week she abandoned Derek and his father. The Dollar Mart, a desperate survivor where Jason’s mom worked day shifts, sat diagonal from Casey’s. Few pedestrians—mostly bank employees—shuffled along the five block stretch. Weeds reclaimed blighted, empty lots. Cars spewed toxic blue fumes as they passed. Not every streetlamp lit up; darkness crept into the corners of Coleridge.

“See, everything on Main Street is dead or dying. It’s like the oldest graves at St. Francis’s. The stones crumble. The words get worn off. They fall over. The grass grows high until somebody mows it. Our town is weedy and abandoned, too, and here—“ He motioned back to the Olmstead House. “Here’s the tombstone.”

“I think you should be a writer.”

“My dad wants me to play football. I hate it,” Jason admitted, then fished for another topic. “Is your dad home tonight?”

“It’s Friday.” Derek slipped off a mitten and chewed a nail. “He’ll be at the bar until late.”

“You want to do something fun?”

“Is it inside or out? I’m getting cold.”

Jason flashed his mischievous grin. “Kinda both.”

“Huh?”

“Go home, drop off your stuff, and meet me back here in an hour.”

“Why?”

“Trust me.”

Forty minutes later, the boys met on Ridge Avenue, both trudging uphill toward the gate. Derek panted from the exertion. He preferred to curl up with a horror story  instead of climbing icy hills in the dark. He pulled his hat down tighter. 

Jason’s backpack humped off his shoulders, stuffed to bursting.

“What’s in the bag?”

His best friend ignored him. Instead of continuing toward the gate, they descended the hill. Derek half-trotted, half-slid. Where the fence angled into the woods, Jason left the sidewalk.

“Are you serious? My sneakers are already soaked.”

“Just step where I step,” he suggested, already three steps into a drift.

“Why?”

“Because I can get us into the mansion.”

Derek gaped. “Really?” He tried to match Jason’s long strides, often falling short but never wanting to lag behind.

After following the fence deep into the woods, they arrived at a gap where a section had fallen inward. 

“Remember the story about the couple who tried to break in?” Jason asked.

“The one they tell at the library every Halloween? Of course!”

Jason nodded and clicked his flashlight, illuminating his face from below. “It happened just after Netta Olmstead died. She bequeathed the house to itself, and people came snooping from around the world. The couple claimed to be relatives. They snuck in right here. But Netta had placed a curse on the house, and nobody ever saw them again.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “I’ve read The Shining, Jason. You’ll have to do better. Lead on.” 

Jason clicked off the flashlight and climbed over the fence. It creaked under his weight, collapsing into the snow. 

“Damn,” he barked and fell over with a laugh. Derek traversed it much more easily, helped Jason up, and dusted him off.

The pair picked their way through the woods. Raspberry thickets scratched and tore at their coats. Burrs caught one of Derek’s laces and covered his shoe in a cluster. Jason accidentally let go of a low branch too quickly; Derek ducked to avoid getting whipped in the face.

“Watch it!” he snapped.

“Sorry.”

They emerged on the drive just below the house. Weather and disuse had reduced the paving to rubble, but that only made the walk easier. 

“No ice,” Jason observed. “Less chance of falling.”

They stopped when the house came fully into view. 

“Whoa,” Derek said. “I didn’t know it was so big. It’s huge.” 

Jason laughed at the way his friend’s mouth hung open, the way his eyes grew wide. “Like the Overlook Hotel?”

Derek nodded. “Kind of. Not as big—but big enough.” 

The house was chiseled gray stone, three stories high with a slate roof. A dozen windows were spaced evenly across the front face, with a large wooden door and small porch at the center. Thirteen windows spanned the second floor width. Five dormer windows marked a third floor.

“No lights on. Guess nobody’s home,” Jason joked.

“I half expected somebody to peer down at us from one of those upper rooms,” Derek admitted. “That’s how it always goes in the movies.”

The boys climbed the half dozen steps and looked back through the trees toward town. A few lights twinkled below.

“You can’t see how bad it is from here,” Jason observed.

“It feels like another world.” Derek shivered. “So how do we get in?”

“Well, According to Mr. Blundt at the public library…”

“…the house is locked against anyone but a true Olmstead.”

“You know my mother’s maiden name?”

Derek shook his head.

Jason smiled and reached for the door handle. It rattled, resisted, then opened with a crack that echoed through the trees. He swung the door wide.

“Pull out your penlight and follow me.”

The foyer connected to a central hall, with a staircase halfway back. Two sets of doors stood on each side, with another door at the rear.

“This way.” Jason turned toward the first door on the left.

“How do you know?”

“Trust me.”

They paused to study a portrait hung between the doorways. A high-collared man with a large nose and thick eyebrows glared down at them.

“Coleridge Olmstead,” Jason said. “Town founder. Lumber and coal baron.”

“He looks as grouchy as his statue in the park.”

Jason nodded and turned. A severe, thin-lipped woman stared back from the portrait on the opposite wall. Derek yipped.

“That’s Leonetta Olmstead. The last owner. She swore that no one but a true Olmstead could ever live here again.”

“She doesn’t look a thing like you,” Derek noted.

“No? I guess not.”

“Your mom is really an Olmstead?”

Jason smiled and guided Derek into a drawing room. The floorboards creaked and groaned under their steps. 

“I have to pee,” Derek announced.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Go back into the main hall, past the stairs, and through the back door. There’s a back hallway. The first door is a bathroom.”

“Where are you going?”

He motioned to the next doorway. “I’ll be in there.”

Derek eyed the doorway dubiously.

“You scared?” Jason asked.

“How do you know so much about this place?”

He chuckled. “I’ve been up here before. Now get going. I’ll wait for you in the next room.”

Derek scurried through the central hall, keenly aware of the eyes that seemed to watch from both sides. The washroom was outdated but somehow still functional. He set his penlight on the sink. Halfway through his business, he heard the tap of footsteps directly overhead.

“Jason, you jerk…” he began.

The footsteps ceased.

He rushed to finish and flushed quickly. The footsteps returned at a quicker pace.

“Oh, you’re such a—“

The door flew open. Derek screamed. Jason stared back at him, then down at his open pants.

“Come on!”

“Hold up—” Derek fumbled with his fly.

“No time for that!” 

Jason yanked him out of the room. Instead of going back the same way, they ran down the back hall into a walk-in pantry with a spiral staircase. 

“Is this a joke?” Derek asked. A heavier pair of footsteps joined the first. Muttering voices echoed downward. Jason pushed Derek ahead into a black and white checkerboard kitchen. While he slammed and latched the pantry door, Derek finally zipped up.

“What are you stopping for?” Jason snapped. “Go!”

Mobs descended from above, their footsteps thunder, their  susserations insistent, growing into growls as they descended both staircases.

“I don’t believe—“

“Believe!” Jason said, pelting into the dining room. He slammed the door and shoved a chair under the knob to bar it shut. 

Derek did the same with the drawing room door, catching a flicker out of the corner of his eye. He turned to find candles lit at the fireplace end of the table. Two places had been set with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Cokes. His favorite sour cream and onion chips. An Almond Joy above  the plate.

He glanced over at Jason, who was trying to pull the window open. The crush of footsteps and angry voices surrounded them. Someone pounded on the kitchen door.

“We gotta get out.” Jason shook with panic.

The doors rattled. The muttering became audible. They called for Derek.  

“I thought you were an Olmstead?” he hissed, eyes widening in fear.

“I am!” Jason pulled at the handle, but the window wouldn’t budge. 

“Then why are they freaking out?”

“I think—cause I brought you in. They said—”

Derek glanced at the candlelit table, then at Jason. The doors creaked and groaned under pressure. The backs of the chairs snapped as they buckled. He remembered Netta’s curse.

“They said only family, right?”

Jason nodded. “I’m gonna break the window.”

“Wait.” Derek pulled Jason’s sleeve and took out his keychains. He detached the Parrot and Pokéball rings, and slipped the rest back into his pocket.

“Take it apart.” He handed over the Parrot then stripped the Pokéball charm from the ring. 

“Quick. Gimme your hand.” Jason wiped his sweaty palm on his hoodie. 

“Now!” Derek grabbed Jason’s hand and slipped the ring on his finger. It hung loosely, but it stayed. Jason stared at it stupidly, as if it was something new.

The doors bounced and cracked under the pounding. Voices shrieked Derek’s name. Called him an outsider. A trespasser. The drawing room door bowed inward. 

“Quick! Now me!”

Jason fumbled the band, nearly dropped it, but slipped it around Derek’s ring finger as the kitchen door splintered down the middle.

“Do you?” Derek asked.

They locked eyes. Jason’s were wet. He nodded.

“I do.”

“Good. So do I.”

The chair blocking the drawing room door exploded, shooting splinters of wood across the room. Jason threw Derek to the floor and fell on top of him as shrapnel blew holes in the walls and shattered a window.

The door hung open, askew.

No one was there.

They stood up, checked for injuries, and pushed the battered kitchen door back to free the splintered dining chair. Nothing awaited on the other side.

“Put it back,” Derek said. “Just to be safe.” He blocked the drawing room door with another chair.

“But we need to get out.”

He shook his head. “This is my first date. Ever. I’d at least like to have dinner before we run for our lives.”

Jason’s laugh verged on hysterical. Derek joined in. From portraits and mirrors across the house, the Olmsteads waited, watching.