Marsha’s Story Chat Feedback for Writers

Y3 Story Chat #12: “Home Ship Home” by Amanda Forestwood

Over at Marsha’s blog, Story Chat is a piece of prose written by a blogger, posted twice a month. Other writers are invited to comment about the story and give feedback. My story ‘Home Ship Home,’ was posted earlier this week and has received some very detailed and interesting analysis from the readers. So much so, that I have been moved to re-blog the post – something so unusual that it has only been done once or before – in fourteen years of blogging!

Opening Lines in Narratives

In particular, one blogger wrote that he liked my opening gambit – a line of dialogue aimed at grabbing the reader’s attention – in the middle of the action, rather than a lengthy setting description or back story. Goal achieved.

My topic was a difficult one. I wrote this as a tragedy not a suicide.

Some readers wondered about whether the protagonists’ relationship was romantic. It might have been, but their lifestyles and background were diametrically opposed. It is something I might need to clarify so that readers aren’t confused.

I also needed to expand on Manny’s backstory and his work history that revealed his impulsive nature. This suggestion was that the character saying that the job sucks was overblown. Fair point but did it communicate his un-employability? I was hoping his expectations of starting a company when he couldn’t hold down a unskilled job were also indicative of his exuberance and youthful impracticality.

Lost in Translation

Highlighting how stories can get lost in translations in other countries, languages or cultures, outside one’s social milieu, one blogger questioned the switch from full name to using a nickname for Manfred. We do that in Australia – all the time! Shortening one’s name is a way to show the other person affection, a closer friendship, or bonding. I am now mindful that a global audience has different interpretations and expectations in creative writing! Thank you!

There were plot junctures I found more difficult when I wrote and updated this story and it wasn’t lost by the Story Chat readers. When Holly is at home hearing the news report, one suggestion was that the news should have just taken Holly’s breath away with hopes that this wasn’t her friend who was involved. And another wrote that she could have a short conversation with herself about why she was so optimistic that it couldn’t be her friend.

These are excellent suggestions I will use!

I do agree I also conveyed a plot hole – getting the plotline to sit for a week and how Holly discovers Manfred was indeed the victim was tricky for me to plan. The police were in fact, no longer at the bridge, but their cordon was still in place on a section of rail, because police investigations take time to complete. Perhaps the time frame of a week wasn’t plausible?

How long would a police cordon of crime scene yellow tape stay in place? Only 24 hours, or a week?

And the torn cardboard with the ominous words – a clue left for the reader – might indeed have been snavelled as police evidence, or would it?

How would a random bit of cardboard be important in an accidental death? Only the reader and the main characters have any knowledge of its significance.

All the comments were very well appreciated and I will use them to improve the story. Were the quotes necessary and could the story stand alone without them?

Another excellent point I will take on board.

Happy Endings in Stories

As a tragedy along Freytag’s pyramid lines, this story doesn’t have a happy ending but the end quote sums up the lesson therein.

Various other commenters mentioned they prefer happy ending. That this might be an American preference. I am more realistic in my stories and I like to leave the reader with a message or something deeper to think about. In this case, treasure the present moments with friends.

Do you prefer happy endings to stories? Or realism?

The comments so generously shared contributed to a very big smile for me this week so I am including this in fellow story-writer and blogger Trent’s Weekly Smile. There you will find more than a few happy endings.

Davo’s Idea of Fun

I used to see Davo and his ute (read: Pickup truck) driving around the suburb each and every Monday, no doubt on his way to work. Then, he simply disappeared.

I didn’t know him but imagined Davo’s life was somewhat tragic. It turned out it was.

Here is his story.

Photo by Hassan OUAJBIR on Pexels.com

Davo dared to do things. Why? As a teen, he came to realise his life was boring. No one noticed Davo, so he decided he had to be a little quicker, a little faster and try to be a little better than others.

Never a particularly diligent student, Davo worked as a ‘tradie,’ in concreting and over time, made enough to buy a sleek late-model ‘ute,’ (read: Pickup truck) and modified it to suit his personality.

His car was a means to achieve something – what it was he wasn’t sure of yet. He just knew he needed a turbo engine, eardrum-busting subwoofers, mag wheels and a jacked-up rear end. He added a personal touch too – a number plate reading DAVO- 36. Not that the 36 meant anything – it was just the next number available from the car registry.

As much as Davo enjoyed overtaking other cars in the weekly drag races, it didn’t bring him the satisfaction he anticipated. He didn’t know how to find what he was seeking – hell he couldn’t even put a name to the goal – he guessed it was some kind of inner joy.

He’d never felt connected. Davo’s home life consisted of a distant Uncle, who provided the roof over Davo’s head, a loose aggregation of possible cousins, and randoms who slept on the couch, on a week-to-week basis. They were young people as transient as the labouring jobs that Davo undertook.

There was no one he called Mum or Dad because that role had not existed for him. Disappearing so long ago, no one could remember the woman who birthed him. A cousin had dropped him off at his Uncle’s house when he was small and never came back. So Davo faced life head-on, by himself. It wasn’t a big deal as it had always been like this for as long as he could remember.

Saturdays were his opportunity to drive around in his Ute, revving the engine and winking at any female who looked his way. He was sure they were impressed by his car, his long blonde mullet and the various tattoos he flaunted on his biceps that protruded out the car window. But try as he might with the ladies, his relationships always petered out after the first date.

That is until Sandy came into his life. An unlikely match if ever there was one. Sandy, a short, stereotypical librarian met Davo at the local servo when she was trying unsuccessfully to use the pump to inflate her bicycle tyres. Davo had offered to help. Brazenly, he’d asked for her number and she’d agreed. Davo was astonished.

They’d been on a few dates already if you could call it that – Davo’s concept of taking a woman out to dinner was takeaway burgers and chips on the beach, but Sandy loved it and incredibly, their personalities were complementary. Davo took life in his stride, exuding a self-assurance, that Sandy lacked. Sandy was besotted by her rough diamond whom she affectionately called ‘Davos.’ And her quiet, non-judgemental manner triggered something in Davo. She permeated his every thought.

Sandy’s friends were confused by this unlikely pair, postulating that opposites attract, while Davo’s friends were more perfunctory in their reactions, shrugging shoulders and mumbling “Whatever,” when Davo mentioned Sandy.

A few months later, Davo told Jaiden, a fellow concreting mate that he was thinking about settling down and had a question to ask Sandy on Saturday night. Jaiden was taken aback and said, “Oh no mate. Not the big question?” Davo’s forced laugh as he walked away left the question unanswered.

Jaiden didn’t approve of marriage and thought it wasn’t right for Davo. The couple were worlds apart and the last thing Jaiden wanted was to lose another mate to marriage and the kids that inevitably followed. Jaiden wasn’t impressed and resolved to tell Sandy about Davo’s unstable family environment on the Saturday night drag races.

Photo by Vlad on Pexels.com

Both Davo and Sandy were looking forward to the races. He did warn Sandy they could get pretty raw – there’d be a few drinks and drugs floating about and although the races weren’t strictly legal, it was pretty harmless, and she’d no doubt get to see him win the race as he invariably did. When Davo’s race was underway and the cars were temporarily out of sight, Jaiden pulled Sandy aside and suggested she move to the bus shelter behind the crowd, so she’d have a better view of Davo’s car. Sandy thanked Jaiden and positioned herself ready to cheer him towards the finish.

The engines screamed into that final corner. Davo’s car was neck and neck with another vehicle. Sandy waved madly and shouted encouragement. Surprised to see her standing at the bus shelter, Davo instinctively groped his shirt pocket to check the tiny box, he’d placed there earlier, was safe.

The pocket was empty and Davo panicked, stealing a glance at the car floor. To think he’d lost something so precious distracted his focus and he misjudged the final turn. The car’s rear end, always notoriously difficult to handle due to Davo’s modifications, spun out. The Ute careered sideways into a tree with a sickening thud and the howl of wrenching metal. Pain and blackness followed Davo’s final thought that Sandy would be disappointed he’d lost the ring.

Jaiden called 000 and the paramedics arrived within minutes, but Davo was already gone. As Sandy sobbed in the arms of a police officer he asked, “Is there someone we should call? His family?”

“No,” Sandy replied, “There’s only me. No one else cared.”

“Then perhaps you should have this,” the policeman said, “We found it in his back pocket,” handing her an ivory box containing a diamond ring engraved with the words, ‘To the love I’ve found. Forever yours, Davos.’

#FOWC – Thanks to Fandango’s prompt of ‘boring.’

#Creative Writing

Always Losing Your Umbrella?

It seemed almost coincidental how it happened. So fortuitous. Like fate had lent a hand.

Ella had travelled to Hong Kong on a whim, ostensibly to shop. A snap decision to get away from the mounting conflict at home. Living next door and sharing a common wall with one’s ageing parents had its advantages, but she had little privacy. She so needed to escape the relentless nagging of her conservative Icelandic Mother, who thought she should stop burying herself in work and start dating someone. Something she had never done in her 32 years.

The morning after arrival, Kowloon’s museums and shopping precincts were first on Ella’s itinerary. She visited the museum and shops, but soon found Hong Kong a dizzying assault on the senses for a country-born girl from Iceland’s open spaces and cool climate. Everywhere she turned, a cornucopia of street vendors and shopkeepers spruiking bargains greeted her. It was loud, busy, and humid. The strident mishmash of English spoken in Mandarin and amplified through loudspeakers transformed a simple shopping trip into a cacophonous sensory overload.

Ella sought out a side alley that appeared to be quieter, lined with high-rise apartments on each side and various shops on the ground level. Some upper-floor residents extended a pole across the alley to dry their washing. Mostly smalls that flapped about amidst a spider web of communication wires and neon advertising signs.

The pace was slower here. Ella could browse lazily for a memento of her trip. Not for too long, though, as she noticed the clouds thickening over her head. Minutes later, monsoonal-sized raindrops polka-dotted the hot asphalt road like dollops of soft serve dripping from an ice cream cone in summer. Ella sought shelter in an emporium selling a diversity of cheap Chinese imports. She thought she’d find a brolly to keep her dry on her walk back to the hotel.

Being a tall girl standing over six feet, Ella had to bend down to enter the emporium’s low doorway. This caused the proprietor to look up from his work. With a bow, he greeted the attractive tourist with her slim build and waist-length blonde hair, which she’d casually tied with a ribbon.

He ushered her quickly to the counter, “Such a beautiful lady from the beautiful sky,” he proclaimed. “This way. Mr. Wong has something special just for you. I have been waiting just for you.”

“Thank you. I am sure you have,” Ella began, “but really, I’d prefer to just look around myself,” she retorted in a soft but firm way, so as not to cause offence.

“Ah, I promise you, no disappointments. You so beautiful; I have something just right. Very special for a special lady,” he said, flashing her a look she couldn’t fully interpret. Flicking aside a red curtain hanging behind the counter, he disappeared into the darkness beyond the door.

Suspicious that Mr. Wong was a shyster, Ella turned back to the shelves. Her hesitation rapidly turned to curiosity when Mr. Wong returned with a folded brown umbrella and held it out for her. An umbrella! But its colour, she thought and smiled reluctantly, her face belying her inner dislike for its dirty brown appearance. It seemed a little dull, given so many bright designs were hanging on the rack beside her.

This did not go unnoticed by Mr. Wong.

“You think it boring,” he said, “But this one very special, you see. A real bargain. Follow me,” he instructed, beckoning towards the street. Ella sheepishly followed.

The rain had eased substantially now, falling softly like fairies’ tears. The air, however, remained stifling as the sun shoveled its way through the clouds. Ella thought that elusive sunbeams and the constrained light appeared atmospheric, almost magical. Almost.

Mr. Wong opened the brown umbrella and stretched up to hold it above Ella’s head. The dampened rays of sunlight illuminated the umbrella’s underside, revealing an intricate cherry blossom design. “This one, hand-painted – by my great-grandfather,” he announced proudly. “Just for you.”

Photo by Evgeny Tchebotarev on Pexels.com

Ella looked at the umbrella with its bamboo handle and struts. She thought it did indeed look old and authentic – the cherry blossoms could possibly be a woodblock design that had been printed by hand. She had seen designs similar to this in the museum exhibition of traditional art, earlier that day.

“Oh, it is so beautiful,” she said. You must treasure it. After all, your great-grandfather painted it.”
“No, I have many others,” Wong said. “This one bargain for you. Worth lot of money, but I give you good price.”

“I… I…don’t know… I do love it,” she paused, imagining the dilemma of removing a family heirloom from China, so she continued making excuses. “But I’m not sure I could handle the responsibility of caring for such a precious item. I always seem to lose umbrellas and this one …your grandfather…it’s not right.”

“It’s for you. Bargain. It’s been waiting for you to come. All these years. I sell to nobody else. Only the right lady. It is yours, okay? For the beautiful lady from the beautiful sky. We take Visa and MasterCard. Not Amex – Sorry,” he prattled, grinning widely and producing a portable EFTPOS machine deep from within his pocket.

Ella relaxed in the lounge after making her way back to the hotel. She sipped a refreshing drink from the bar and smiled as she recalled Mr. Wong’s words.Her umbrella purchase, now carefully folded, rested by the leg of her bar stool. She reached down and rotated it in her hand…lightly caressing the oiled fabric with her fingertips. It felt old, fragile almost, like an elderly lady with breakable skin and more than a few wobbly wrinkles.

Ella was someone who was constantly losing umbrellas. Especially in rain-ridden Iceland. She furrowed her brow. What if she lost this treasure too? Or someone took it in error? Any hint of a shower of rain at finishing time at her work and any umbrellas would disappear into some bottomless vortex where lost umbrellas go. She’d have to be careful.

Ella’s concentration was broken by the feeling of someone watching her. It’s funny how one can sense the eyes without actually seeing them directly. She looked around. A smartly suited gentleman with a broad smile and neatly trimmed fashionable beard met Ella’s gaze. He stood and made his way to her table.

“Pardon the intrusion, Ma’am, but I have been admiring your umber-ella,” he said in perfect Hong Kong English. “You know the umber colour is exceptional. It indicates the umbrella is quite and very valuable. But of course, you must know this already?”
“Umber? Valuable? I – ah…”
“I am a trader in Chinese antiques, you see,” the man continued. “I have an eye for these things. That umbrella is at least 160 years old.

But you must excuse my rudeness. I am forgetting my manners. Allow me to introduce myself: – Thomas Sotheby.” He held out his hand.His touch felt warm and comforting.

“Ella Martinsson,” she spluttered, and assumed his name meant he was connected with the famous auction house in England.

“Please tell me what a sophisticated lady, such as yourself, is doing in Hong Kong with an antique ‘Umber-Ella?'” he said, smiling cheekily at the word pun. A smile Ella found genuine and attractive at the same time. Her Mother might be pleased with her, after all.

Responsibility was the word prompt from the dailyspur and new2writing’s #writephoto

Friendly Friday – The Colour of Purple Prose

Purple prose is flowery and ornate language. It sacrifices plot and clarity for indulgent detail. A piece of prose can be entirely purple, or it can have ornate bits sprinkled throughout. We call cases of the latter “purple patches. Purple prose is like showing up in stilettos to go on a hike. The language doesn’t match the occasion or the character. It draws attention to itself. It doesn’t advance the action, clarify the plot, or reveal a character’s intentions or thoughts. It’s fluff — description for description’s sake. Imagine being thirsty and drinking out of a fire hose instead of just getting a glass of water. This is what purple prose does. It drowns the reader.”

blog.usejournal.com/

Sandy’s prompt for Friendly Friday is all about purple and she included an explanation of purple prose. She also threw out a challenge to finish a sentence using the most purplish prose and also how she would be challenged at Uni to shorten a piece of prose by 50%. I could not resist this kind of writing challenge.

Which of the following versions do you like best? Like the above photo, the first passage is OTT and I warn you it is so purple, it’s blue!

Prompt:

Purple – Complete the sentence: It was a dark and stormy night …

It was a dark and stormy night, of the kind that is punctuated intermittently with angry, tense thunderclaps, and a murky iron blackness that swallowed any chance a moonbeam might stray upon the field of still blossoming, lemon-yellow canola flowers, or the leafy green hedgerow that stoically hugged the rain-soaked asphalt, when a decrepit, rust-ridden jalopy, complete with chrome plating and red vinyl upholstery with loosening stitching, wobbled and slid unceremoniously along the narrow lane; its similarly torpid, disheveled driver with whisky soaked breath blissfully unaware a malevolent evil waited within the protracted, wispy shadows of the grim, concrete-grey mansion positioned atop the hill.

And now for the shortened version:

It was a dark and stormy night, punctuated with thunder and a blackness that blocked any view of the surroundings, when a disheveled whisky-soaked man drove his aging vehicle haphazardly towards the foreboding mansion on the hill, blissfully unaware of the evil that awaited him.

Join in with the Friendly Friday Blog Challenge. A new prompt will be posted here in two weeks time.

Sunday Sayings – “Home, Ship, Home”

If you want to live on the edge of life, you need to be flexible.”
~ Kim Novak

“I just can’t do it! I can’t,” he implored. Manfred was clearly beside himself.

Holly paused to let the tension digest before replying, “Can’t you negotiate with him, Mannie?“

Manfred looked sad, then stubbornly fixed his jaw, explaining, “No, I just can’t go back. It won’t work.“

Holly decided Manfred wasn’t going to budge. It was hard to understand why he was fixated on quitting the job he’d started just a week or two before. After all, working in a food truck was good work experience for an unskilled youth, even if the Manager had abused him and rostered him to work long hours at the weekends.

Holly quietly suspected that if Manfred quit this job, he’d find it difficult to survive and worse still, he’d lose the routine and direction he sorely needed in his life. Teenage boys with time on their hands tended to create trouble; something Holly had witnessed when her own brothers were growing up.

“So, ah – what’s your plan now?” she ventured, after letting the silence hang for a minute.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about doing some busking or street entertainment, so I can start a business of my own, Manfred began enthusiastically. I have this idea to remodel shipping containers as cheap accommodation. They’re portable, readily available and almost everyone wants one.”

“A business, hey? You could call it, Home, Ship, Home,“ Holly joked.

Manfred’s face lit up, which gave Holly a warm feeling inside.

Since meeting Manfred on the park bench some months before, she’d grown to like his confidence and enthusiasm. He’d charmed her with easy conversation and a good dose of charisma, but she knew he was dangerously impulsive. And that she thought was worrisome.

After their usual promises to meet again the following week, they parted ways. Holly back to her family in the suburbs, and Manfred to who knows where. Holly wondered where he’d sleep that night. He had explained several times that it was often safer for him to walk the streets at night and then ‘crash’ in the park, once daylight came. On those nights, he’d confessed to using certain things to help him cope with his inner demons. Holly decided she’d have to convince him to get some better help when they met up again.

While idly washing the dishes from Mum’s casserole dinner, with the 6 o’clock news chattering in the background, Holly’s legs suddenly collapsed under her.

“The unidentified man fell from the City Bridge in a daring stunt gone wrong,” the TV droned.

After Holly’s head hit the floor, and she came ‘to,’ again, it was easy to dismiss the news story. Surely, she’d see Manfred’s smiling face again, at the end of the week.

The week dragged by ever so slowly. When 5 o’clock Friday came, she rushed to the City Bridge anxiously looking for Manfred’s slouching figure on the bench seat where they always met. She was sure he would be waiting for her, as he always did, in their usual spot.

But the bench seat was empty. Holly sat down and waited. 5.15pm passed, then 5.30. By 6pm, she could no longer ignore the sense of despair mixed with utter hopelessness that blinded every minute that passed. Was Manfred really gone?

With trepidation, Holly peered over the police tape that cordoned the City Bridge’s narrow railing and reached for a gum wrapper she suspected someone had absent-mindedly twisted around a wire in the fence. Her heart broke as she read the words scrawled thereon in scratchy ink: “Home, ship Home.”

Something different for Sunday Sayings this week

Appreciate and treasure the moments with others.

There isn’t always a second chance.

“The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest” – Bob Hawke

Harassment in a Heartbeat

Can you smell that? I questioned my husband. More interested in the television screen and suffering from slight industrial deafness, his reply was an inaudible mumble of agreement.

“Those kids are smoking,” I hissed. Without waiting to hear a response, I continued, “The rules are the rules, after all.” I’d had serious misgivings about hosting a party for my daughter Kim, and her young teenage school friends, but she’d convinced me they’d stick to the rules – No smoking, and no bad behaviour, if I allowed the, “gatho,” to go ahead. An hour or two had passed without incident before their voices became more animated, sharper and rising in crescendo. Then I smelt the smoke.

I did want to be able to trust the kids. I didn’t want to be that helicopter parent, hovering like some unwanted apparition at the periphery of the group. How else could kids be themselves? Even so, the responsibility nagged at me, giving me no rest as the evening progressed. I felt compelled to check things out. Surely, just a peek through the curtains to quieten my suspicious conscience would not hurt?

A half dozen or so adolescents were gathered in an undisciplined circle under the street light’s nebulous illumination. A sudden crimson glow burnt bright as I watched one of the boys drag heavily on a cigarette. With my heartbeat hammering in my eardrums, I stormed outside to confront them, just in time to see one of the lads hit Kim squarely, in the middle of her back. 

Completely horrified, I yelled, “Right you, put that out, or get out,” to the boy with the cigarette still hanging from his lips. Then, turning to the boy who had hit Kim in the back, I blurted, “And you can get out, too! You never ever hit a girl or anyone for that matter.”

“It’s alright, Mrs B.” explained another of Kim’s young friends soothingly. “He’s my brother Daniel. He’s with me. It is his way of saying ‘Hello,’ because he can’t speak. He’s got a disability.”

February 2018

Linking to Sammi’s Prose Challenge – write a story that uses the sound of a beating heart for dramatic effect.