This is my attempt at the Writing Blind - An Exercise in "Headfirst Narrative challenge issued by Alberto Turner here: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976856212
I keep the picture, still hidden, to remind me how much he loved us. I was pregnant with you when this was taken; otherwise, I would have forced him to leave that job. As it was, I told him not to return, but I didn't put up enough of a fuss. I could have had my way with a little effort. Always could, you know that.
Oh, how he hated that job and the insufferable Lawrence Frat. He called him fuckin' Frat when we were alone. Only time I ever heard your father use a dirty word, but it fit and it was deserved. That's what Lawrence did and what he was. He abused the female employees, in exactly that way, demanding favors for promotions. With one poor girl, there wasn't even a promotion involved; he pulled the old put out or get out on her. She was a pathetically- thin mousey little thing with two babies and a good-for-nothing sot of a husband. That paycheck was food on their table and he knew it.
Your dad walked into fuckin' Frat's moldy office one day and caught him tormenting that girl. Frat, laughing at her tears, had her smashed against his slimy desk, his knee between her legs as he fumbled with his zipper. Dave tore into him without mercy - threatened physical violence and you know that wasn't in his character. Frat tried to fire him, but Dave threatened right back. If he or the girl left, he would feed the story to his cousin, James, who was both a newspaper reporter and a member at Frat's church. Dave wouldn't really have done that to Frat's wife and kids, but Frat fell for it.
After that, Frat pulled Dave off his bookkeeping every chance he got and assigned him shit work, literally. He brought the janitor in to drink and smoke with him and sent your dad to clean the johns. Once, he sent Dave to the alley to root through trashcans for a missing document. The day this picture was taken, he sent your dad to deliver that damned, naked mannequin to a store five blocks away and when Dave arrived at the address Frat had given him, he found an empty building.
I never believed it was by coincidence that a friend of Frat's just happened to be out there with a camera. Dave accepted that story, only because he gave everyone the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. I didn't buy the story then and I don't now. Frat made a fool of your dad, plain and simple. Fucker.
When Dave came in with the snapshot, I told him to quit. Jobs were hard to come by at the time, but he was a good man and damned good with numbers. I had faith in him. He refused to give it a second thought. His baby was not coming into the world to an unemployed father.
I told him the only lie in fifty-two years. I said I tore that picture to bits and burned it in the ashtray because I knew he would never understand why I wanted to keep a picture of him toting a naked manikin. That smile and those proud shoulders are permanent parts of my memory, so I'm handing this picture over to you now. Promise you will keep it hidden under your drawer.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 70
Minor errors: mannequin
"Dave wouldn't really have don that".... 'done'
Thank you, Nancy and Rene. I enjoyed this exercise. This picture came from a game (Picture, Picture), where you place a picture (printed on both sides) in a plastic frame, set the timer, and each person tries to find something in the picture that starts with each letter of the alphabet. That's the children's version - I might play it now with these adult rules.
The narrative is powerful. The most powerful of the stories of yours I've read. It demands attention and deserves it. But technically it seems weak to me.
"Fuckin' Frat" is too obvious, a bit too alliterative, and doesn't really fit with someone who never cusses. "Fuckin" is too extreme for someone who never cusses. Perhaps "the Bastard," always in quotes?
"That paycheck was food on their table and he knew it."
Her paycheck was the only dependable food on their table...
"Dave wouldn't really have done that to Frat's wife and kids, but Frat fell for it."
Is this needed?
"I never believed it was by coincidence that a friend of Frat's just happened to be out there with a camera."
This doesn't make sense to me as something someone would do.
" said I tore that picture to bits and burned it in the ashtray because I knew he would never understand why I wanted to keep a picture of him toting a naked manikin."
I don't understand why either -- but I really want to.
As an aside, it's a bit of a relief when you -- or any of the other seriously good writers on Gather -- fall a tad below your ordinary standards. Offering thoughtful and, hopefully, useful critiques to the best writers on Gather would be a fulltime job -- as opposed to offering critiques to the worst writers, which only requires a semblance of wakefulness.
I have to respectfully disagree with Kevin in a couple of areas tho.
Fuckin' works with the name Frat. The fact that the man used it goes to explaining his extreme emotion about the character. Bastard Frat just doesn't have the same ring. As a society that nicknames on sounds...Fuckin' works better for me. (But then again, I can out cuss a sailor any day.)
Her paycheck was the only dependable food on their table...
Takes too much out of the simplicity of the statement. The dependable part is explained by the sot. The sentence is a tad awkward, but I think it would be better amended by:
That paycheck meant food on their table and he knew it.
"Dave wouldn't really have done that..."
Yes. Needed. This is a letter to a child regarding the nature of the photo and the character of the father. This goes to that character. It gives him strength and yet shows a compassionate underside.
I dunno about the rest. I was too caught up in the story to think about what was real and what didn't ring as real as a motive I could explain.
I guess you can take that for what it's worth, which isn't much, but I heartily enjoyed this thank you for taking the challenge. It was certainly worth it!
I did wonder about one thing, if I may critique here. You say you tore the picture into pieces and burned it in the ashtray. Then you passed it on to your daughter. Sorry, I just got hung up on that part.
She said the one lie she had told him was that she destroyed the picture. Actually, (first line - I keep the picture, still hidden, to remind me how much he loved us) she had kept it hidden.
Peter, thank you. I enjoyed this exercise and plan to do more photo-graphic writing. However, writer's block is something I hear a lot about but have no experience with. My problem is just the opposite, so your comment about wiping the slat clean applies more to me. I always have several projects going and ideas for more interrupting my attention to those. I stop mid-paragraph in another window, jump over here to comment on an article, and want to start something new.
Part of what I enjoy about doing these kinds of exercises is that they not only spark my creative energy, but I allow myself greater liberties than when I sit down at the desk to do some "serious" writing. I see these kind of exercises as warm-ups to the actual "competition," and so I write and express myself in ways that I might not usually allow.
I'm still feeling a bit bruised over being called your "lap dog," Sandy, so I'll leave it at that (lest I be accused of fawning), but I enjoyed this very much.
thank you for posting
same love and light as always
I appreciate your comment also, Marinela. And I agree, there is nothing admirable about people who lie (except maybe in this woman's situation).
More biscuits, please!
You did good on this excercise, Sandy. Since you loved writing this short story, you should rewrite it.
As far as not publishing yours, it looks like you aren't alone. Either I jumped on what was meant as a hypothetical challenge, or this idea flopped. It was posted to Writing Tips (250 members) with few takers. I thought if it went over well, we could try all using the same picture next time and see how many different stories would come out of it - like expanding the "caption this" project. Maybe this project is better suited for a writing group.
10
Amber, thank you for your attempt at critique (almost didn't recognize you with the new name and icon, and without the huge flashing picture in your comment) and use of exclamation points to indicate your humor and strong emotion. I disagree with your opinion that my language was vulgar and my character development lacking, but understand that sometimes those who aren't studied in character have a hard time seeing it. I refer you to this website for a detailed lesson on character development, and this one for more information regarding the correct use of the exclamation point. (Beware of overusing exclamation points. Using them too frequently makes them less meaningful. Usually, the ironic tone should be clear from the words, but sometimes this special punctuation is added for emphasis. Some authorities do not consider this construction necessary, and it is of very limited use in most standard English writing.)
I appreciate that June overcame her previously stated opinion that "A professionally trained editor, Professor or English Teacher are the only ones who can really critique an article" and that both of you recognized the safety of coming here, where I would accept your attempts in "Old Schooler" spirit, to show your change of heart. That is encouraging.
Sandy, you really do have an acute sense of humor; which I admire, when the jest is funny and not intended to hurt.
Thank you. I appreciate your input regarding my exercise, and enjoyed your interpretation of the same picture. As with your other story, I am impressed with your description and ability to transport me directly into your story. One line in your version caused me to gnash my teeth and wish, damn, why can't I think like that - You were three months in our future. That's poetic, and I'm envious.
At the risk of sounding ungrateful, (I hope you don't think I am, or that I will disregard anything you have said to me) you did not make your point about emotional investment with me, but I will continue to study both versions and try to understand your point. I think my version delivers more emotional depth, in both the husband and wife characters. (and will explain why below). The difference might be that you thought the mannequin was the most interesting thing in the photo, while I thought the man carrying it was, and that you wanted my story to be about transferring the picture, but I was transferring the mother's respect for the father and the picture was incidental.
Since you have given so much of your time to my work, I will try to do the same with yours. Understanding the different perspectives we bring might help (me, anyway).
When you were a baby I propped her in a chair beside your pram as I showered.
If I used this sentence, I would stick a comma after baby. However, I don't think I would use this sentence, since I can't picture the mother being in the shower (as), with the baby in a pram and chair close enough to reach out and prop a stiff-legged, stiff-armed mannequin in it.
She'd sit there quietly, (are mannequins any other way) arms unbending, and keep you calm.
If she sat there with you, you never cried. With words at a premium, I don't think this adds anything that 'and keep you calm' didn't already tell me.
I called her "Nan" back then, and read aloud to you both when the winter nights crept in and I hadn't paid the gas bill. Back then adds ambience, but could be cut to make room for the successful finish.
Reading kept my mind off the cold. I felt sympathy for the narrator with the last line, and lost it with this one. She went from caring about the baby and being in a tough position to 'poor me'.
When you were six, she fell out of a closet as you rummaged for your Wellies. You screamed so loudly that the Chapmans downstairs thought I'd come for you with a butcher's knife. How does she know what the Chapmans thought?
You ran so fast that your tiny yellow socks leapt up in the air behind you. Again, if words are at a premium, tiny is not necessary. I have a strange obsession with repeated words (but, unfortunately, see them in everyone's work but my own), so I don't like 'so fast' being this close to 'so loudly'.
After that I called her "Tippy," and laughed to myself with the memory. I would use a comma after that, and I would put the comma after Tippy outside the quotation mark.
Those socks in the air like little puffs of yellow smoke. I'm not sure this information is important enough to repeat, or deserves an incomplete sentences pass.
When you were ten you dressed her in my clothes, practiced putting on make-up by applying rouge in great dusty wings to her cheeks; by painting her lips in half a tube of my best Summer Violet. I like the visual 'great dusty wings' creates, but can't even imagine what half a tube of lipstick would look like on a mannequin, or that a ten-year-old would go to that extreme. Suggested change: When you were ten, you dressed her in my clothes and practiced putting my make-up on her, applying rouge in great, dusty wings and my best Summer Violet lipstick. We know rouge goes on cheeks and lipstick on lips, so those words aren't necessary. At this point, I question the mother's sanity. The 'thing' with the mannequin is strange enough, but dressing and applying make-up to a mannequin is something the daughter should remember without the mother telling her about it. However, that question makes me want to continue reading to find out what's up with this woman.
You did her hair and shared your secrets and giggled when you thought I wasn't listening. I would take out the first and
You called her Adele. I never asked why. Again, 'never asked why' makes the mother's behavior seem odd to me. I'm curious.
There's a photograph—or was, I suppose; it's long since faded, it's edges curled—of your father carrying her home across Piccadilly Circus. I hate semicolons (did you know that?), don't pretend to be an expert on the use of the semicolon, but think this one accidentally fell in here in the middle of the phrase, separating I suppose from the supposition.
It was raining and your father carried an umbrella in one hand, cradled her bum in the other, a silly grin on his face. My suggestion: It was raining. Your father carried an umbrella in one hand, cradled her bum in the other, and wore a silly grin on his face.
I remember that smile; the jaunty way he held the brolly; the determined look on Adele's face, as if she were watching for traffic. My suggestion: I remember his smile, the jaunty way he held the brolly, the determined look on Adele's face, as if watching for traffic.
I took that picture, walking backwards beside him. Doesn't work with the picture.
So proud of him. This doesn't work for me.
We were giddy with our crime. This confused me on the first read, since I didn't think it was a crime to take a picture of a man with a mannequin.
You were three months in our future. I really like this line.
There was nothing giddy about our lives then. I would try to tie this giddy and the last one together.
Your father had been fired for refusing to keep secrets. A week later his tests came back positive. Need a comma after later. What tests? We don't know he is sick yet, so this looks like the tests have something to do with the lost job.
I took a job at the launderette on the corner and did some sewing in the evenings. Discovered some small talent there. Did she find talent at the launderette or in the sewing?
I cut paper patterns and held pins between my lips and felt you kick as your father sat dozing in his chair, listening to the cancer eating him up inside. I can smell cancer, but I've never heard it. Suggested change: I cut patterns and felt your life growing in me, while across the room cancer at your father's life away.
Adele—still nameless, untrustworthy—leaned against the kitchen sink and wore my latest designs poorly. I'm not sure I can buy untrustworthy.
The explanation of how they came to have the mannequin would work better with the giddy part.
And when your father died just six weeks after you were born and the evenings seemed never to end, I talked to Adele about the sort of little girl I wanted you to become. Ouch. I feel put upon. This adult daughter surely knows that her father died when she was "just" six weeks old, so the narrator is throwing this in for my benefit.
Told her ashamedly that I would need her help; she must wear my designs more proudly because now they were all we'd got. Told her I didn't think I could do it alone, raise you by myself; told her how much I loved and missed your father. She listened and never doubted me. Not once. I would cut ashamedly and proudly, change the semicolons to commas, and use complete sentences. Also, I would have shown instead of telling about the love for the father.
I keep the picture, still hidden, to remind me how much he loved us. First line - she keeps the picture still (sentimental), includes the person she is speaking to in the love (generous, caring).
With one poor girl, there wasn't even a promotion involved. Since she is revealing the story second-hand, I thought the use of the word poor showed that she and her husband were compassionate about this situation. And, Dave wouldn't really have done that to Frat's wife and kids added to the picture of Dave as a loving husband and father.
I tried to show this woman's respect for her husband's altruism with "only because he gave everyone the benefit of the doubt", and "his baby was not coming into the world to an unemployed father," which I think gives both of them character/depth.
I am still thinking about the unbelievability aspect of the word 'fuck'. It seems "the only lie in fifty-two years" would cover it, and show how much the father disliked the man he caught abusing women. However, if I decide to salvage this into a keeper, I will keep all of your comments and suggestions in mind.
Also, the use of obscenity just seems out of place given the time period that the picture was taken. That's not to say that people didn't use that type of language back then, or that older folks don't use it now (I've heard my 85-year-old Jewish grandmother utter the 'f-word' more times than I care to admit), but it seems like it would have been phrased differently, somehow, especially as spoken by a Brit.
I liked Alberto's version better. But that's just me. And I'm nobody special.
Thanks, Gretel. I wasn't sure what the time period was in the picture, so just chose one that felt right. The guy reminded me of an uncle who would be in his nineties now.
Renie, I understand how that could be a disconnect for you. The challenge was to write what the picture says to me. I am American, and think in American vernacular, so that's what I used for this writing blind exercise. My understanding of a 'writing blind' exercise is that you just start writing and don't stop to work out the details on the blind writing. That comes later. I closed my eyes, pulled a picture from a box, and wrote what came off the top of my head. I would have had to stop and think (or even study) to write this as spoken by a Brit, and that wouldn't have been blind, or honest for me. Alberto's version will probably appeal more to those who look for external characterization and mine to those (minority) who are drawn to internal/subliminal characterization.
Embrace the semicolon? It looks so cold to me. Sigh. But I will have him over for dinner and see if I can warm up.
Thanks, Donna. Please let Al help with the menu.
(Jackie streaks across the article, holding a semicolon in a clenched fist, defiantly thrusting it to the sky)
(I haven't read Sandy's yet. I just saw someone defending the precious semicolon and I felt the need to shed my clothes and jump in)
Sandy, here's my .02 (which is actually worth far less than two cents, especially in Canada):
Always could, you know that.
Always could- you know that. OR Always could. You know that.
-I agree that "fuckin'" and "fucker" feel wrong in this piece, somehow. That's just an instinctive reaction.
Oh, how he hated that job and the insufferable Lawrence Frat.
How he hated that job, and Lawrence Frat. I dunno why, but the "Oh" and "insufferable" feels fussy to me, and not quite the same tone as the rest of the narration. Just my instinct, again.
I told him the only lie in fifty-two years.
I told him the only lie I told him in fifty-two years. OR I told him the only lie I would tell him in fifty-two years of marriage. OR I lied to him for the first and only time in our fifty-two years of marriage. (Yes, I know it's wordier.) I'm torn between using the period here, or a colon. That's right: A COLON. Not a SEMICOLON.
And then I think the rest kicks ass.
Bottom line - you've made me think about semicolons. I will consider their place in my work. I appreciate this conversation and all it has challenged me to consider.
Let's go watch Jackie for awhile.
The semicolon is a tool. If you know how and when to use it it is useful. All tools are part of the communication between the writer and the reader. If you don't know how to use it, how often you do is a moot question. If you choose to disdain some tools for reasons of personal style, or whatever, then you are limiting your arsenal. The way you express yourself (style) dictates how often semicolons or any other tool will be proper. You don't choose to use them or not in order to drive your style. That's an awkwardly reversed horse and cart.
The best advice I can give is to learn how to use all punctuation marks. Particularly with semicolons, which can be used optionally in many contexts, learn what they do to a paragraph. Write drafts of the same thought with and without them. See how they read. See how they differ. In other words, familiarize yourself with your tools and they will come naturally, in their proper places, when you write.
P. S. I enjoyed your 'free write'.