The beginning

The beginning to a story which I have wanted to put down on paper for quite a while. Hope you enjoy!

The world was on fire as a lone figure dressed in black walked calmly through a scene that can only be described as hell. In her arms was a swaddled figure which she closely hugged to her torso, protecting it frown what ensured around her.  Screams and cries rose up to the night sky sounding like a chilling lament among the crackling sounds of a city burning to the ground. As she walked through the carnage the flames reflected and highlighted off her ginger hair setting a red hued halo around her face. 

The smoldering skeletons of houses and stores glimmered as their embers where battered by the acidic air that had settled in the area, and trees that once once bloomed with immortal beauty were now crumbling to ash as leaves of red flame wound their way along knobbled branches, consuming the last of the spring blooms. As the flames spread they gracefully flung ribbons of fire out like a fountain, which quickly caught and consumed whatever vegetation was left standing. 

A fountain which had once danced and exploded with drops of liquid diamond now lay in rubble, it's still water the color of crimson which gradually turned murky as ash gently settled upon its surface . The cobbled streets, once grey, had longed turned black and muddy as the blood of an entire continent began to mix with the ash of their civilization. Bodies now devoid of life lay in the middle of roads, some accompanied by family members who were passionately mourning over their loss kin and others who lay half buried under their homes. 

As the stranger slowly exited the burning citadel, a murder of crows began to flock towards the carnage and as they landed upon their meal their glossy feathers turned slick with the iron moisture which idled in the air.  With the sun began to slowly creep above the horizon,  the bundle began to stir before once again going still, oblivious to the scene which unfolded around the pair.

Finally reaching what had once been the city gate, the stranger turned to the left and walked into what had once been the stables for travelers who had animals which needed to be looked after. After looking through each stall, she miraculously found a small horse that had been spared from the same fate of its neighbors. Taking advantage of this fateful turn of events the stranger quickly walked towards the young mare.  

Shrinking into the dark corner of its enclosure the black horse began to snort nervously at the sight of the dark figure which was slowly reaching out their free hand towards it.  After some time, and after sensing no danger, the young Freisan inched closer to the feverish and clammy touch of the gentle hand which hovered inches in front of the horses face. 

Wasting no time, the woman quickly grabbed onto the horses main and lead it to its tethering ring which was still tied with a fraying rope and a simple bridle. Gently setting down the bundle in the feeding trough (which was still full of the soft hay used to feed the horse the morning prior) and making sure the young child was still unconscious, she quickly found a spare saddle and blankets and expertly prepared  the horse for the  long journey which lay ahead of them. 

Finishing her task she quickly mounted the mare and used the remaining rope to secure the motionless form to her chest, making sure not to damage anything in the process. As the horse exited the stable and slowly started along the dirt path leading away from the city, the women glanced once more over her shoulder at the ancient city that had been cut down overnight. As the sun rose above the castle spires the scene was swathed in taunting rays of warmth and light. And odd contrast to the thick smoke which hung like a drape over all those who lay among the ruins. 

Turning her head back to the road ahead she stirred the horse to a gallop, traveling away from what lay behind and into the dark forest which calmly stood in front. Looking down at the thing she risked her life to save,  two almond shaped eyes calmly looking back into her own yet reflecting the red spires which were now reaching over the walls that had stood throughout time. As the darkness of the forest swallowed the trio the sounds that had once deafened the night were now muted by the expanding silence of the unknown. 

Author's Note

If you see any grammar problems please point them out!! Other wise enjoy the story and tell me what you think!!!

Reviews

[JayG]

You’re working hard, and using every trick you can to make the writing vivid and evocative. And that’s great. But in doing that you’re always in danger of reaching the level of “purple prose.” Another problem is that it’s easy to get lost in the beauty of the description and forget to include enough story to keep the reader wanting to go on. Failure to do that will put you into the situation Jack Bickham was thinking about when he said, “To describe something in detail, you have to stop the action. But without the action, the description has no meaning.”

We can never lose sight of the fact that—as E. L. Doctorow observed, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

You write well. But some things jumped out at me, and I thought you might want to know.

One of the pitfalls of the “Let me tell you a story,” approach you’re using is that because you know the story so well, and have intent for how the words are to be taken, you’ll leave out information that’s obvious to you, but necessary to the reader. Look at the opening, not as someone who knows who we are, where we are, and what’s going on. Instead, let’s view it as a reader, who hears no emotion in the voice of the narrator but that which punctuation suggests, and who has only what the words suggest based on THEIR background, not your intent.

• The world was on fire as a lone figure dressed in black walked calmly through a scene that can only be described as hell.

Here, you’re as detached as you can be from the actual event. You’re presenting a high level overview—a report. You’re talking about the setting you envision, not what the protagonist is focused in in order to survive. Because of her immediate needs, she has an immediate objective that matters to her. But we don’t know what that is, so she can’t be our avatar. Nor do we know the setting, only that it’s a generic “scene from hell.”

We could be anywhere in time and space, including a fantasy world or on another planet. But how can the reader create a meaningful mental image—an image matching what you intend—without knowing what’s going on?

Yes, you clarify, as we go along, but does that retroactively remove the confusion as it’s read? No.

And: “the world was on fire?” Literally, you just said that everything on the planet is burning. Not what you intended, but it was what you said. Again, clarifying later helps not at all—especially if the reader has said, “What in the hell is going on,” and closed the cover.

And: A lone figure dressed in black? As in a leotard? A suit? A fire-suit? No way to tell, and since the “figure” lacks a name, they’re obviously not important to the story…or are they?

My point is that this isn’t story. This is you, someone not on the scene or in the story talking ABOUT it in general terms. And you’re thinking visually, trying to place the picture you visualized as you wrote into the reader’s mind. But given that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” it would take a lot more words than you use to do that. And do we need to?

In this scene, an unnamed female carrying what is apparently a baby is leaving a burning citadel (which is a fortress, not the walled town you seem to describe). It takes you 760 words to do that. That’s three full standard-manuscript-pages. In the film version of what you’re presenting it would take a minute or two to watch, and much of what you describe would be noted by the reader “in passing,” as ambiance, because our senses of sight and sound are parallel senses. In an eyeblink’s time we pull in a huge amount of data, which is constantly updated. But on the page? It must be laboriously spelled out, one-item-at-a-time. And no matter how beautifully you state it, those three pages took the reader about fifteen minutes to read, not the two it would take to view, with the action running in slooooow-motion.

Think about it. I can’t see her. So why do I care what color she’s wearing? Why does it matter which way she turns at the gate I can’t see, in a town in an unknown place? Why would a reader care that crows were there? Would the story change were they starlings, or not there at all? No, So they don’t set the scene, move the plot, or develop character. And a line that does none of those three has no place in the story. Those crows provide detail, not story, and mention of them serves only to slow the narrative.

Here’s the deal: Story happens, it’s not talked about. And it happens within the moment the protagonist calls “now,” from within THEIR viewpoint. Because if they are the protagonist it’s THEIR story. What matters to the protagonist matters to the reader. And they wantsto live the story, not hear about it second-hand from someone not in the story or on the scene.

So why aren’t you writing that way now, and making the reader feel as if they’re living the story as her? Why are you presenting what amounts to a report, instead? Because that’s how we’re taught to write as our schooldays prepare us to hold a job. Professions are learned in addition to those schoolday skills. And Fiction-Writing is a profession. After all, how many stories were you assigned to write in school, compared to essays and reports? Damn few, right? That will tell you how well prepared we are to write fiction when we graduate. In other words: not at all.

But that’s fixable. The skills you now own are fact-based and author-centric. We use them to inform and educate. But fiction’s job is to entertain the reader by giving them an emotional experience. And that requires a skill-set that’s emotion-based and character-centric—a methodology not even mentioned during our school days.

Look at a parallel to your opening section, stripped of the unnecessary detail, and presented in her viewpoint:
- - - - -
The sounds of battle had faded when Stella pushed the heavy bench away from the wall and eased from her hiding place, clutching the babe tightly to her. No one was in sight, which brought a sigh of relief. The tapestries were smoldering, adding to the smoke that had driven her from her hiding place, making a safe refuge a necessity.

But that wasn’t to be found within the walls of the citadel. It reeked of death and offered no sanctuary. So, cautiously, but quickly, she threaded her way through the carnal house the citadel had become and into the walled city, proper. That was scarcely better. The market square lay in ruins, and the houses still standing were in flame. But apparently, the invaders were busy elsewhere, because the streets were clear of enemy soldiers. So keeping her eyes averted from the bodies littering the street she hurried to the gate, where, in a stable just outside the walls she found a terrified but uninjured pony. Not the ideal steed, but it would do to carry her and the babe from the ruins of the town.

As the silence of the little-used forest trail brought a measure or relief she took a moment to check on her precious burden, then kicked the pony into motion and turned to the business of keeping them both alive.
- - - - -

Your story? No. It’s a quick parallel to illustrate another approach. Nor is it brilliant writing. But several things may be worth noting.

1. While there is a narrator, that narrator isn't telling the story, only working in service of the protagonist. Nothing is explained by the narrator, who reports only what the protagonist IS doing, and what that character is taking into account as they make the necessary decisions.

2. Note, too, that time is passing for her in a series of beats—a series of Motivations, followed by the Response to that motivation, giving the reader the feeling that time is passing, moment-by-moment as we read:

Motivation: The sounds of battle have faded. This tells her it may be safe to act.

Response: Stella exits her hiding place. Note that by naming her I give the reader a real person to identify with. Note, too, that I introduced the concept of the babe as a constant passenger, in passing. What does she look like? Who cares. No one is reacting to her, and she's not thinking about what she looks like. And in the reader's mind, lacking information to the contrary, she looks like them—she IS them.

M: She looks around and notes the smoldering tapestries that were making her leaving her hiding place a necessity. As part of her analysis she notes the local conditions to calibrate the reader's perceptions to hers.

R: The result of her analysis is that she must leave, and that it appears that she can, so she moves out of the citadel into the city.

M: An analysis of the city, which, incidentally gives the reader a summation of the damage, says that there’s no safety in remaining. That’s her decision, though, not something the narrator points out or explains.

R: She hurries out of the city and toward what is, hopefully, safety. Here, I rubber-banded time and provided a summation of her finding transportation. Since what happens in the stable doesn’t relate to the plot, demonstrate character, or provide the reader with necessary background, I simply reported the result of the visit. Does it matter if the other horses are dead or just gone? No, so I glossed over that time. I did make the animal a pony, both as an interesting factoid, and because I might find the pony’s size useful later—for example, not being able to outrun another horse, or, being small enough not to be noticed. Another reason was that because the pony wasn't as desirable as a full sized horse, that explains why it was there.

M: I closed the scene by giving her a feeling of relief, which tells the reader that the sequence—the scene—is ended.

R: She turns to taking care of necessary things like checking the child, a mundane act that reassures the reader, and at the same time is, in effect, her recovering and taking a breath before a new start. It’s called the sequel to the scene, and it acts as a pressure-release of the tension the scene has built, and a starting point for the next scene.
- - - - - - - -

Total for the scene: 224 words of her living in the moment she calls now, where the future is uncertain, and therefore, interesting, vs 760 words of the narrator talking about events in overview. It was 224 words showing the scene as she perceives it, in real-time, as against 760 words of the narrator telling ABOUT the scene. And in the end, the difference is that one is in her viewpoint, the other in yours. So another word for showing—as in the writer’s admonishment to show, not tell—is viewpoint.

And since any problems I noted above are not a matter of talent or potential as a writer, or of the story, the solution is obvious and simple: Add the professional skills of fiction-writing to the nonfiction skills you now own. They’re no harder to learn than nonfiction, so it won’t be a problem. And if you are meant to write you’ll find the learning fun.

I won’t kid you. Simple and easy are not interchangeable words. But any profession takes time, study, and practice to master. So it’s more a rite-of-passage than a disaster. In fact, because your current writing reflexes, honed till they feel intuitive, are going to howl in outrage when you try to change your approach, and grab for the controls, changing might be one of the more difficult things you’ve done. It was for me. But once you do master them, the ACT of writing becomes a lot more fun, as the protagonist becomes your writing partner, whispering suggestions and objections in your ear. And in addition to that the whispering the protagonist will keep you from making the character smart when smart is needed, and dumb when the plot needs that—which can’t seem real to a reader. Your character will even refuse to do what you want if it's not right for them, with a, “Hell no. That’s not something I’d do.” And till they’ve done that they’re not real to either you or the reader.

Some suggestions:

1. The fiction writing section of the library system has lots of books on the subject. They show the views of pros in writing, publishing, and teaching. Time spent there is time wisely invested.

2. Given your current skills I suggest you pick up a personal copy of, Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It’s an older book, but still, I’ve found none better at imparting the nuts-and-bolts skills of writing fiction. It’s a book to read slowly, with time spent thinking about each point as it’s raised, and how it relates to your needs. Then practice the point till it becomes yours, rather than a point to note and then forget a day later.

And finally, six months after reading it, with a bit of practice in using the techniques, read it again. Knowing where he’s headed, you’ll pick up as much the second time as you did the first.

3. You might want to scan a few of the articles in my writing blog to get a feel for how different fiction is from the skills we’re given in school.

So dive in. And while you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

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