fiction

How bad is this. I called it “Blue Whale” in my previous post but it’s really called Red Whale. Makes me feel pretty bad, though the only person I insulted was myself. Besides the point – away we go.

The original:

The roar of the plane overhead was so close that all he could hear was the rumble of fuel spilling into the engines and his breathing, as if he was pushing his hands over his ears. The steel gray of the plane drifted over the building, and the road in front of him rose back up to volume; people greeting and saying goodbye, cars lunging in and out of lines. He could hear the next incoming plane, he tried to prepare himself for the noise. This plane was louder and much larger, he looked down the semi-circle street at the people. He saw their lips moving but didn’t hear anything but the cry of the turbines and his breath. The low hum of the vehicles and clicking of high heels in front of him bridging the gap between flights washed ashore in his ears once again.

Edits:

First sentence is alright, but has bothered me for some reason. Cut it down to:

All he could hear was the rumble of fuel spilling into the engines and his breathing, as if his ears were being pushed in by his hands.

We’re cutting out the whole image of the plane, but I think we’re getting enough of the it in the very next sentence. I’ve also rearranged the second part to focus more on the ‘sound’ instead of the action.

The steel-gray plane drifted overhead and the lane at his feet came back up to volume: people greeting and saying goodbye, cars idling and revving in a bumpy, asymmetric orchestra.

I must have been in love with “of the” during this previous edit. I was advised previously to cut out “at his feet” and I think the image of him standing there lost a lot of it’s proximity and setting doing so – now it’s back in. I also want to keep the ‘sound’ playing through with the cars and people.

The following sentences need to be combined in a new way.

The next incoming plane roar rose quickly and he tried to prepare himself for the noise. This one was louder and much larger. He looked down the semi-circle street at the people, saw greetings exchanged but heard nothing but the cry of the turbines and his breath.

I brought back the ‘roar’ taken out previously and refocused the tail end of the second sentence to be a lot more ‘important’.

The low hum of the vehicles and clicking of high heels around him that bridged the gap between flights washed ashore in his ears once again.

People wouldn’t be walking all over the busy pick-up lane in front of him, and it sounded sort of wonky that it was ‘bridging the gap’ instead of ‘bridged.’

So where does that leave us?

All he could hear was the rumble of fuel spilling into the engines and his breathing, as if his ears were being pushed in by his hands. The steel-gray plane drifted overhead and the lane at his feet came back up to volume: people greeting and saying goodbye, cars idling and revving in a bumpy, asymmetric orchestra. The next incoming plane roar rose quickly and tried he to prepare himself for the noise. This one was louder and much larger. He looked down the semi-circle street at the people, saw greetings exchanged but heard nothing but the cry of the turbines and his breath. The low hum of the vehicles and clicking of high heels around him that bridged the gap between flights washed ashore in his ears once again.

Sounds better to me. I think cutting down a page sentence by sentence works well to finding out how they fit together. They are a piece of the puzzle, a single chair in the filling sound of the band. Next time, we’ll go WAY back.

There you are sitting on your computer, or hunched over a phone, even a fancy pants iPad. Coaxing the shapes and loops to form a semblance of structure. You could be thinking of me, sitting in bed writing this or you could be stuck on a small phone or some such thing. But either way you go bumbling along on my words putting together my thoughts and making your own. You are in my world now.

There can, and likely are, entire writing courses on the first page. It may go without saying but a great many number of reasons why the first page is painfully important, stoking the flames of writer’s block for some, some choosing to ignore a ‘true’ first page and come back, pulling details out like a slow working dentist. The first page, at it’s most annoying, is the attention grabber – a way for some authors to get readers to buy a book, or to pull a person from their world into that of the story,or just to simply snatch up a reader’s attention. Plop down in nearly any book, fiction, non-fiction and there it is, like a shining beacon in the misty pages – the ‘first page’.

This is where I come in. I’ve written off and on most my memorable life and in those years of high school where putting words together and placing adjectives one right after another like a shopping list to grad school where I realized I wasn’t talented like my peers – I wrote some things. We’ll be going back, hopefully one a week (hopefully more than once) to the first peek into my brief life as a “writer,” and hack away, but explaining why/how my attacks. In this, my hope is to writer better and maybe, just maybe help someone else. Because writing isn’t easy.

First up, the first page of my unfinished novella: “Blue Whale.” Coming tomorrow.

A porcelain ditch sat pulled through a small town on the edges of the New River, surrounding the city were puffy hills covered in mature trees. Dragged into the distance in both directions, the object was a mystery to all and ignored by most. In town of Pembroke most of their waking life was spent working – until spring vacation.

Our story focuses on two of the Pembroke kids, whom had grown up near each other. Their knack for adventure landed them stranded in the foothills past the lighting of the street lamps. No police were called, but butts were spanked. Sal, the older of the two pondered day and night over the tub. It haunted his dreams and collected itself like a swelling ball inside this mind – he’d catch himself watching the way the leaves or snow fell and wondered where they’d end up after falling into the tub. Sal would cast small paper boats into the tub’s shallow water, keeping a watchful eye until his eyes couldn’t separate the alabaster sides of the vessel from the notebook paper boat.

Henry, the younger and lesser of the dreamers couldn’t care less about it. He kept at Sal that it was just always there, will always be there and wouldn’t lead to anywhere interesting. He was always bringing Sal back down to earth – burying his dreams of finding the end of the tub.

Spring sprung in Pembroke and the week’s vacation for all the middle school kids had broken out. All winter long Sal watched the flakes melt and collect in the basin that ran through their town and he hatched an idea to explore the tub.

Sal and Henry walked over the small wooden bridge over the tub they took every day on their way home from school.

They stopped in the middle of the tiny foot bridge. “Meet me back here tomorrow. We’re going…” Sal trailed off and looked out to the horizon where there white tank seemed to split the tree coated hills forever.

Henry knew he’d have to go along and tired to think of some excuse. “What about food Sal? Huh? Our parents, they’ll lose it.” He did all he could to reel him back, but somehow Henry knew this would prove fruitless. Sal was going this time if Henry came along or not. “What do we tell ‘um?”

“We’ll say we’re spending the night at each other’s place. After the second night they’ll just think we’re spending spring break at each other’s house.” Sal’s face fixated on the far hills, and the thin ivory line stretching into infinity.

“Tomorrow?” Henry was ready to go home.

“Yeah, early. Pack for a hike Henry, not for a slumber party.”

Henry was already walking away and said over his shoulder: “Got is Sal. Tomorrow!”

That night, Sal was restless. The growing idea of this tub had been brewing away in his young mind for as long as he can remember. He packed his bag first thing getting home, laying out each piece, a small pillow, his pocket knife, a small pad of paper and pen, socks, granola bars, a few changes of clothes, and his sleeping bag. Imagining the end of the tub was filling his mind; a simple drain, a hole to the ends of the earth, maybe it just wrapped all the way around the world. It was part of who Sal was, finding out about the tub. No one in town ever talked about it and even acted as though it was a normal fixture to have, like a tree or bush in your yard, something that placed itself against the scenery and backdrop of everyday life. Sal cannot ignore it anymore, the hollow space it carves into his world, was coming to a point. Something was out there and they were going to find out what.

The first morning birds spotted the sun before Sal finally fell asleep.