Dark as Night

It is midnight. There is rain outside. The smell of must and hay fills my nostrils. I stand up from my resting place. This is some sort of barn.

How did I get here?

I look for a door or window of sorts but I only see the outline of a barrel five feet away from me and the hay that is on the floor.

How big is this place?

I hear the building creak under pressure as the wind blows and rain hits the side of the barn. There is a hole in the roof. A puddle is forming several feet from me, the hay getting damp and the soft ground underneath becoming a form of sludge.

How do I get out?

I begin to feel my way around, walking here and there, reaching for a wall. I eventually find one to my left and I followed my way along the room until I reached a doorway. I stopped turned and looked in. There was the faintest light glowing in the back of the room. Not daylight, but a glow from some source.

Is it a flashlight?

I advance toward the glow. I reach my hand out at the source, I can see my fingertips. There is something dark underneath my fingernails. It might be dirt or blood. I can't tell. If it is blood, it is not mine. I touch the glowing light. It is a dying flashlight, with only a little life left.

Will it last long enough?

That voice. I am hearing that voice.

Is it my thoughts?

It cannot be my thoughts. I am thinking right now. I cannot speak.

Why can I not speak?

That does not sound like my voice nor my thoughts. There is someone else with me. Something else.

Who is there?

I pick up the flashlight and turn to walk back down the narrow corridor of which I came. There is a shadowy figure standing in the doorway. It appears to be a woman.

Who is that?

The woman turns and walks out of the doorway. I chase after her using what little light I have and once I have gone through the doorway, I quickly turn left and then right.

Where did she go?

That voice. I am not saying that. It is coming from above me...no...to my left...no...to my right...no...behind me...I quickly turn around and see who is there...no.

Where is that voice coming from?

I feel as if I am being taunted. This voice can read my thoughts, it knows my confusion, it knows my pain.

It knows my confusion, how?

I need to find that voice. It needs to stop. I turn to my left and continue to walk through the room. The light from the flashlight lets me see about three feet in front of me and below me. There is a large hole in the floor.

Is that where the voice is?

That voice might be coming from down there. I would climb into the hole, if I actually had the courage to do so. I keep on walking. There is a slight shuffling next to me. I turn and shine the light at whatever moved. I see nothing but darkness. The room is too big for the light to reach fully across.

Is there any way out of here?

If that voice does not stop I will scream my eyeballs out. I just realized. I cannot open my mouth. I reach my hand to feel my lips.

Where did my lips go?

The voice, the voice took my lips, my mouth. I cannot speak, I cannot eat. I can breathe, I still have my nose.

What if my nose gets stuffy?

The voice knows my fear. It knows where I am, the only way of escaping is finding a way out. I begin to run. The room seems nearly endless, as big as a ballroom.

Will I ever reach the end?

I am still running. I trip. There was another hole in the ground. This one was smaller. I am lucky I didn't fall in, under the floorboards where the voice may dwell. I scramble back up and keep moving. There must be an end. I take one more step and my flashlight goes out.

How will I find my way?

Every time the voice asks a question, it gets louder. It wants me to be scared, it wants me to be angry. It is getting what it wants. I need to leave. I take several more steps and fall. There was a hole in the floor. I am underneath the floorboards. I hear footsteps above me.

Who is up there?

I hear footsteps behind me and then someone or something falls through the hole. I turn and run the way I came. I do not know where I am going, I am under the floor. If I can reach the hole near where I woke up, I can climb out, maybe I can break through the boards in the room where the flashlight was.

Who is behind me?

The voice is behind me. It knows. It continues to ask the questions.

How much further till the hole?

I keep running, this seems to be taking longer than it did before.

What if I already passed the hole?

I begin to reach above my head while running. I feel the floorboards, the boards are wet and soggy. I must be near the leak. I stop and frantically feel above my head. I rub my fingers across dirt, the dirt falls on my face and I quickly brush it off. The floorboards stop and there is space. I stick my hands through the hole and pull myself out.

Where is the flashlight room?

I jump over the hole and feel my way along the hole until I reach the room. I turn and run down the corridor until I hit the wall.

What about that shadow?

I remember this is where I saw the shadow. I begin to hit the wall harder. The boards begin to crack. I hit again.

Is it coming?

I break my fist through the board and I begin to rip pieces out. I reach my hands through and feel empty space. I pull myself up in an attempt to climb through the hole in the wall.

What if I cannot fit?

I cannot fit. I hear the footsteps approaching. I turn and see the woman walking down the corridor. I look and see there are more figures in the room.

Who are they?

The figures approach me slowly. I try with all of the strength I possess to force my way through the hole. It isn't working.

Who are you?

The voice is no longer just there. It is right in my ear. I turn and look to see what is there. I see nothing. I fall out from the hole in the wall. I hit the floor. I blackout. I do not remember what happens next.

It is midnight. There is rain outside. The smell of must and hay fills my nostrils...I stand up from my resting place. This is some sort of barn...

How did I get here?

And then I remember...

Reviews

[JayG]

• It is midnight. There is rain outside. The smell of must and hay fills my nostrils. I stand up from my resting place. This is some sort of barn.

Forgetting that the person can't know what time it is when they wake, to see the real problem, let's reverse this to describe my situation:
- - - -
It is 11:30 AM. The sun shines outside. The smell of the cookie in the plate next to the computer fills my nostrils. I sit in a chair. This is an apartment.
- - - -
The above is as true and accurate description of my situation as yours was of the protagonist. But...did you learn where we are in time sand space? No. Did you learn what's going on? No. Did you learn whose skin you wear? Again no. In fact, did you learn anything that would make you WANT to know more? No, because you read the words of a report, not a story

The answer to that final question matters because it's all impersonal data, and stories are personal. Yes, a reader learns what there is to see, but that's not nearly the same as seeing it. And having someone not on the scene explain what happens in it is not the same as having the protagonist live it. Yes, you're using first person pronouns, but the viewpoint is that of a narrator, not the one actively living the story. And that external voice is, and must be dispassionate, because the narrator—even if it's the protagonist at a later time—lives at a different time from the one living the story, and so cannot be in the story. More to the point, the reader can't either herar, or know how the narrator speaks their lines.

Suppose, instead, you'd opened with:
- - - - -
The patter of rain striking a roof above me brought me awake, but only darkness greeted my eyes. Wherever I was, I had no memory of going there. In fact, I had no memory of anything before waking.

But solving that problem had to wait wait, because learning my situation and ensuring safety came first.

To that end, I reached out to investigate my surroundings. The floor beneath me is wood, worn and old, with a scattering of musty smelling hay covering it. Near me I can just make out the outline of a barrel, just visible in the trace of light that steals through a small hole in the roof some ten meters away. Based on that, the place is a barn, and an old one at that. The lack of animal sounds, and the smell of decay say it may be abandoned. Not a good place to wake in, especially when you have no idea of how you came to be there.

But again, there was no time for that, so after I determined that I was dressed, wearing shoes, and uninjured, I...
- - - - -
It's not your story or your character, just a quick parallel in, example, to show a more natural way of ening and preesenting the scene. Notice that instead of talking about what happened, we're learning what the protagonist is experiencing, in the moment that person calls now. So none of what's there is in summation or overview. Instead, it's what's being actively lived.

We not only learn what happens, we learn how what's observed influences the observer to act. And the actions taken are the direct result of what's observed, as it is in life. History is told in summation. Life is experienced. You inform with a report but it can't entertain. And isn't your reader is with you for an entertaining, not an informative experience?

So, instead of opening with a time check and a weather report, our protagonist is brought awake by the rain. We learn of the rain by the protagonist reacting to it, not informing us of conditions. Their reaction, as your would be, is to open their eyes. And that brings darkness, which motivates them to wonder where they are, just as you or I would in that situation. In other words, instead of a report, there's a natural progression of events.

When you list what CAN be seen, and what the situation is, it reads like a report, devoid of emotion. But when the one living the events notices and reacts, each event brings a feeling of time passing in the story. And without that, and as entertaining as any other report.

Stories happen, they're not talked about. And they happen in the moment the protagonist calls now, in a way that calls for action on the part of the protagonist.

In short: There's a LOT to telling a story on the page that's not obvious, and we were taught none of it in our school days, because professions, like medicine or writing fiction are learned after our primary schooling. There we learn only those skills that employers require, like nonfiction writing skills. The skills of fiction writing are very different in approach, and if we want to write fiction, those skills must be acquired and perfected till they are as intuitive as those our teachers gave us have become over the years.

You have the desire, and the perseverance. But to write like a pro you need the knowledge of one. And given that readers have been reading the work of professionals all their lives, it's what they expect to see. So to please them takes more than sincerity and desire. So devour a few books on fiction writing technique. They won't make a pro of you. That's your job. But they will give you the necessary tools, and the knowledge of what they can do for you.

My personal suggestion is one of three books. The easiest is Debra Dixon's, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It's a warm easy read, and covers the nuts-and-bolts issues of creating fiction well.

Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling writer, a more difficult book, is older, but far more complete, as is Jack Bickham's, Scene and Structure. Any of those would be well worth the time to read.

Not what you were hoping to hear, I know. But I thought you might want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/