An Experiment in Writing – Part 5: More on Openings – Establishing Voice, Atmosphere, Setting, POV, and Narrator

Picking up from where we left off in past experiments in writing…

What I’ve discovered so far is these posts are going to be all over the place. Don’t look for a thread because, as I mention in this entry, something I mention in experiment 3 triggers something important and worth sharing but who knows when it’ll get into its own post?

I’ve learned to live with my shortcomings and would appreciate it if you’d do the same.

Both with mine and your own.

Because you know you have them and if you don’t admit to and acknowledge them, your characters will be flat, bland, and hollow, and who wants to read about characters like that? The world is already full of shallow, bland people. No need to populate your writing with them.

Anyway, on to establishing voice, atmosphere, setting, and narrator…

 
Think I’m onto something? Take a class with me or schedule a critique of your work.
Think I’m an idiot? Let me know in a comment.
Either way, we’ll both learn something.

Great Opening Lines posts
Katherine Mansfield via Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Mar 2019’s Great Opening Lines)
JD Salinger via Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Jan 2019’s Great Opening Lines)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan of the Apes) via Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Nov 2024’s Great Opening Lines)

Thom Schilling’s “My Fifth Biggest Fear” in The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here

I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

And now, Thom Schilling’s My Fifth Biggest Fear:

I enjoyed spending my teen-year summers at my Grandmother’s house in the hills of southern Indiana. Sure, I loved my granny, but some of my best times were when I was with Ray, my summertime best friend. He had a zest for life and a way of telling stories beyond belief. And that’s exactly what they were – beyond belief. He lived on the farm down the road from Grandma’s and we would wile-away the summers. His stories weren’t lies, they were embellishments; kind of like Fictional Truths. I often had trouble distinguishing his Fictional Truths from his whale-sized whoppers. For instance, every time we’d hike the hills behind Old Man Calhoun’s still we’d drop into a deep ravine and Ray always pointed at another ravine branching off the main trail. “The Wooly Man lives up there.”

Continue reading “Thom Schilling’s “My Fifth Biggest Fear” in The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here“

H. Donovan Lyón’s “BLUE-EYED HORSES” in The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here

I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

And now, H. Donovan Lyón’s BLUE-EYED HORSES:

Father had many men in his employ, the majority of whom had spent considerable time in both saddles and jails, either in Texas or in Northern Mexico. Juan Pablo Nuñez, however, unlike our garden variety cowhands from las fronterizos de Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico, was an elderly and weather-beaten gaucho, or so he claimed, from Southern Argentina near the Chilean border. He bristled at being referred to as a “cowboy,” saying, in his very broken English, that cowboys weren’t fit to work as grooms on the horses of working gauchos.

Continue reading “H. Donovan Lyón’s “BLUE-EYED HORSES” in The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here“

The Book of the Wounded Healers (A Study in Perception) – Chapter 10 – “Choice versus Obligation”

The Book of the Wounded Healers (A Study in Perception) – Chapter 10 – “Choice versus Obligation”

 
By the time we get to Manhattan Community College, CNN stops following us. The police, escorts, news crews, and curious are more news-worthy than we are. Even the Enquirer‘s and Midnight Sun‘s psychics have forgotten us, more concerned with some women in Toronto having Beriah’s child.

He hasn’t even been here a month.

CNN pays a crew to follow us and keep a directional mike on us at all times. People tire of Beriah’s snoring, even though it sounds more like a cat wheezing at night.

All we ever do is walk. We never challenge anybody and, now that the word is out, nobody challenges us. People have even stopped coming to be healed, although I hear there is a cult in Indianapolis which worships us from afar.

We stop in front of a boarding house on Albany. The manager comes to the door as he sees us walking across the street.

Beriah reads the sign in front. “We can sleep here.”

I scan the sign and, ever articulate, agree. “Huh? Yeah, yes.”

We start up the steps and the manager opens the door towards us. “You looking for a room?” He scans up and down the street then up at the windows on the buildings across the street. He keeps the door between us, him inside and the four of us outside, only his head and chest peering past the edge as if he were some Hollywood Indian gazing from around some tree at a wagon train of settlers crossing the plains. The image is insane. He stands behind a glass door.

“Yes, we are.”

He continues to look up and down the street.

I reach for the door. “May we come in?”

He looks at us hard, as if maybe to figure us out. He licks his lips. The skin just below his nose starts to glisten. “I – ”

The Healers walk away. The man points at their backs. “Guess you won’t be staying.” He steps back inside and closes the door before I can turn around.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t you want to go in there?”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you? He couldn’t keep you out. It would have been against the law.”

Beriah doesn’t stop, doesn’t ponder, only explains. “A law created by one to create an obligation in another.”

Cetaf doesn’t glance back, keeps moving forward “He didn’t want us there.”

Thinking I was learning, I said, “He was just afraid of you. He doesn’t know you.”

Beriah stops, considers. “Perhaps…Perhaps he resents us.”

“How can he resent you? He doesn’t know you.”

“Knowledge has never been a prerequisite to resentment. Besides, obligation breeds resentment, choice breeds acceptance.”

Previous entries in The Book of the Wounded Healers (A Study in Perception) series

H. Donovan Lyón’s “HAVING A MONOTREME TO TEA” in The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here

I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

And now, H. Donovan Lyón’s HAVING A MONOTREME TO TEA:

Meltwater leaking in through the fuel line connector to the generator had diluted the remaining diesel fuel to the point of rendering it incapable of combustion. That, coupled with week-long overcast skies with dropping temperatures, utterly depleted stores, and a badly mangled foot, meant I had little choice but to hike out without delay if I aimed to survive. The overused creek and paddle metaphor was certainly appropriate under the circumstances, and the infection and fever resulting from my chainsaw mishap made the chances of a favorable outlook particularly bleak. As I took my last bite of salt-pork and pulled my blanket up to my chin, I vowed to begin the twelve-mile journey to Three-Forks Landing at first light — if I could outlast the damp and cold lurking just a few feet away from my bunk on this dreadful night.

Continue reading “H. Donovan Lyón’s “HAVING A MONOTREME TO TEA” in The Rabbit Hole VII: Not From Here“

From the original postings in 2022:

From 2024: