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Howdy! The following is the beginning of my first serious attempt at a short story. I would like comments on style of course, but more particularly, is it--in the context of short-story writing--too slow diving into the meat of the story? The very next paragraph after what is written here will introduce that meat, which is a little old lady who's mind has skipped 60 years or so and she's telling of visitations with King Arthur. So, Watcha think?
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The care center was quiet the last time I spoke with my grandmother. Not that she died that day. But it was the last time I ever heard her speak.
She was in the fourth year of suffering from the more obvious ravages of Alzheimer’s, and it had been a couple of months since she had broken through the fogginess that pervaded her gaze almost constantly now enough to even see me. She didn’t recognize me though. But she spoke.
“Good morning, Grams,” I had said, just like I did every day, not expecting an answer. She looked at me and smiled.
She smiled!
Her eyes were amazingly clear and focused, the expression behind them lucid. But when she reached her hand out to me, with its mottled tissue-paper skin, it was not my name she called.
“Anne! There you are,” she said in a voice calm and intelligent and bright—-her voice. The voice I remembered before the forgetfulness, before the death-knell of her diagnosis sounded, pealing away in a hollow reverberation that slowly carried my grandmother away with it. I was so delighted at seeing her again that I could not bring myself to care that it was not me she was speaking to.
See second version below. I'm trying to bring the meat in sooner!
[This message has been edited by djvdakota (edited May 12, 2004).]
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From just those first 13, I confess I would not really be interested in reading more. However, the mention of visitations from King Arthur in your introduction to the lines did catch my interest. So, I'd have to suggest giving the reader a hint, at least, of that sooner.
Posts: 41 | Registered: May 2004
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"Anne..there you are!..... I think it's a strong opening, I have no idea if there are stylistic issues regarding opening with a conversation and I don't really care. By introducing us to Gram in the first bit and telling us she's not all there i get a sense of something very interesting that makes me want to explore further.
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Kitcross: You must be new to this forum. Do you know how much flack I would get for starting with a line of dialogue? OUCH!!
Anyway, I've really only been seriously writing for a year and a half. But in that time I've completed two novels--one an exercise I gave myself just to prove to myself that I couldn't really do it. But I found out I could! The second I finished about a month ago and I'm sitting on it, giving it a rest before I edit the h-- out of it. I've also been doing a lot of research into this writing thing and come to find out that the best way to get into the biz is to get shorts published first. So shorts it is, for now.
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WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T DO IT??? Speaking strictly from the point of view of a reader who determines what catches my attention based on what I read, it works for me. Possibly it defies several laws of grammatical correctness, but in the words of Bugs Bunny, "I never studied law".
2 Novels? Wow! I'm suitably impressed. I have too short an attention span
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Kitcross--OSC is just one of many who warn against it. The thing is, it tends to drop you at the side of the road without letting the bus stop first. You land a little off-balance and confused--especially if the bus is traveling through foreign territory in the middle of the night, which every story is before you've become involved in it. And since I'm already dropping the reader into the middle of whatever is going on inside the old lady's head, it would be doubly confusing to do it twice. I
As far as novel writing, I suppose my attention span is too long. The second novel just kept coming and turned into an unwieldly monster of over 300,000 words. I'm dreading rewrite and hoping to carve it down to a more manageable 200 thou. I think crafting my short story skills will help tighten that up as well.
I've done a little editing. Any improvement?
*****
The care center was quiet the last time I spoke with my grandmother. Not that she died that day. But it was the last time I ever heard her speak.
“Good morning, Grams,” I had said, just like I did every day, not expecting an answer. She looked at me and smiled.
She smiled! Her eyes were amazingly clear and focused, the expression behind them lucid. But when she reached her hand out to me, with its mottled tissue-paper skin, it was not my name she called.
“Anne! There you are. As I was saying, he was never king,” she said, carrying on in the middle of a conversation that could have begun thirty years or thirty minutes ago.
She was in the fourth year of suffering from the more obvious ravages of Alzheimer’s, and it had been a couple of months since she had broken through the fogginess that pervaded her gaze almost constantly now enough to even see me. Her voice was calm and intelligent and bright—the voice I remembered before the forgetfulness, before the death-knell of her diagnosis sounded, pealing away in a hollow reverberation that slowly carried my grandmother away with it. I was so delighted at seeing her again that I could not bring myself to care that it was not me she was speaking to.
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Ow. That's so much better it hurts. For anyone that has a friend or family member with any sort of dementia you are definitely catching the sense of it. If you want someone to read the rest of it, I'd be happy to.
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Actually, I liked the first version better.
As for opening with a line of dialogue, I say you can't do it Okay, it can be done, sometimes it must be done. But if you have any other option, then take it.
As for meat, "The care center was quiet the last time I spoke with my grandmother."
That's the meat. Right there, that's the whole story in a nutshell. When she starts to speak (to someone not present, no less), the story is in full swing. I want to read the whole thing.
Setting "She smiled!" off in its own paragraph definitely worked for me, it creates a solid break with the expectation that she will be in the grip of dementia. And so, even though she clearly is not fully in our reality when she begins speaking, the wariness that her words will be meaningless has been broken up. It changes the whole mood with which we read.
Of course, it isn't all good news in Survivor-land The second paragraph is a downer. That isn't bad in and of itself, you reverse that down very effectively, after all. But it also suffers from using the same tense used elsewhere to describe the "present" of the story's action to describe the "past". And you end by saying, "she spoke." Not a problem, if you were to move to her line, but you go with the narrator's line instead. Instant confusion.
"I had said, just like I did every day, not expecting an answer." Some things about this line kinda fall flat. "I'd" would be my preferred usage, unless you mean "I had said," which would imply that the character had said one thing, but was now saying something different. Since this doesn't make sense, go with the contraction. I would also put a longer where that second comma falls, to emphasize the final phrase and make it a result or dependent of the first. "I'd said, just like I did every day...without expecting an answer." Also, "reached her hand out to me," doesn't mean what you're trying to say here. It looks too much like "reached her hand-out to me," and sounds identical. Yeah, nitpicky, but be glad I started with the good news.
I could go either way on "a voice calm and intelligent and bright—-her voice." Overall, I think I'll buy into it, the lyric quality works too well to quibble over the syntactic irregularity. And it works with the next line, which is dangerously close to Falknerian in tone. Preps and supports it, the reversal of noun and adjective does Yoda gives it a thumbs up, all considered.
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Yes, I do like this better. It gives me a reason to read on, and hopefully find out what this old lady is talking about and whether or not it has anything to do with her improved state of health. I would be happy to read more if you would like to send it to matriarchmcnabb@hotmail.com
Posts: 41 | Registered: May 2004
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Since I am in the dangerous position of disagreeing with Survivor, I'll tell you why I liked the second version better. It delays the exposition about the Alzheimer's. Anyone who's dealt with dementia in any form, will hit that paragraph and skip it, because it contains information that they know. You know what I mean? It's clearly important to the story but, if you've already experienced it, it's like describing rain. It's not that all rain is the same, but unless there is something important about the diference, or it means something to the character it is often enough to say "It was raining." Here, the thing that will be important is the difference between her dementia and others. So describing the normal state is only important for those readers that haven't dealt with it before. It becomes exposition, and I'd rather not have exposition so close to the beginning of a short story.
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Mary is right. That second paragraph is a problem, and the expositive tone is a big part of that. You could cut it down to "It had been a couple of months since she'd broken through the mental fog enough to even see me."
The exposition isn't necessary at all. Putting it later isn't as good as just cutting it altogether.
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Okay, it can be done, sometimes it must be done. But if you have any other option, then take it.
