creative Writing

Series: Tales of the Other Earth Tale: Halloween Story part 9 M/F Story

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

             “Here’s the one.”  The Wizard suddenly announced.  He was standing in front of Barten-Cur.  “But, oh.”  The Wizard looked up from his crystal.  “It isn’t the girl or the Princess Arosa.”

            The Queen stepped forward.  “Well?  Explain yourself.”

            “Barten-Cur, Majesty.”  Barten-Cur said with a genuine bow.  “Family retainer to the house of Nova for many generations.”

            “Barten-Cur.”  The Wizard said with some surprise, a life coming into his eyes which had not previously been present.  He stroked his beard.  “I have heard of you.”

            “And where is Lila?  Where is Arosa?”  The Queen came straight to the point.

            Barten-Cur shrugged.  “Alas, her highness is not present at this time.  As for the young girl, I cannot say.”

            The Queen looked around the room.  She was sure Lila was there among the children, but there was no way of singling her out by sight, even if there were no masks and make-up in the way.  “Wizard?”  She asked.

            The Wizard simply shook his head.  “There is too much lingering magic in the air, and with the interference in this world, I could not guarantee to find her even if each young girl presented themselves for personal examination, and that would take all night.”

            “Some wizard.”  The Count scoffed.

            “Quiet.”  The Queen was thinking.

            “If I may suggest.”  Barten-Cur raised his voice, humbly.  “My Lady has promised to come before the party is over.  That would be in a mere two hours.  Perhaps you would care to wait?”  He knew enough to want the soldiers away from the children, or at least settled in to wait, but after that he would have to think of what to do.

            The Queen nodded.  “Captain Tor.  I want all doors guarded.  No one must leave this building, and to be sure we have the cooperation of the children, we will be taking some hostages.”

            “Now wait a minute.”  Principal Barlow stepped forward.  “The children are innocent here.  Who are you to come barging in here threatening children.  I have never heard of anything so despicable.”

            Count Severas winced at the words, and the Wizard ducked a little expecting the Queen’s explosion.  They were genuinely surprised at her response.  “Quite right.”  She said.  “We did not come here to frighten children or to hurt them.”  She turned to her people.  “Take the adults hostage, and Captain Tor, be sure none of the children leave the building.  When Princess Arosa arrives, I want her brought to me.”  She turned and looked around the crowd.  “Children.  You may have your masquerade ball, only for your own safety, please do not try to leave the building or my soldiers may have to hurt you after all.”  The curious way she smiled as she said those words made even the least among them understand that she was not joking.  She spun around and headed back toward the door by which she had entered.  The Wizard and Barten-Cur followed.  The teachers were less inclined.

            “Now wait a minute.”  Principal Barlow began again, but Count Severas stepped up and slapped the man with enough strength to knock him to the ground.  Even as swords came out to force the issue, Coach Beemer wanted to punch the Count’s lights out; but with a look at old Ms Finster and young Ms Addams, he kept his fist to himself.  The teachers got escorted out between soldiers, and when the door closed there was a moment of panic among some of the children.

            “Lila?”

            “Grandpa!”  Lila shouted and threw her arms around the man.  Wendel Carter straightened up as well as he could.  He had gotten stiff standing still for some time.

            “I hid in the corner with the other scarecrow.”  He said.  “It will be all right.”

            “I’m scared.”  Lila admitted.  “They are here for me and Mama.”

            Wendel understood and could not help nodding.  “But everything will be fine.”  He insisted.

            “But what can we do, sir?”  Chris, the knight asked.

            “Ninja.”  Peter suggested, but it was not funny.  What could a bunch of twelve and thirteen year olds do against trained soldiers?

            “First we do this.”  Wendel Carter said, and he led his granddaughter to the microphone, and all of her friends followed.  He told Lila what to say, but he let her speak to the crowd, imagining that his adult voice might be picked up by the Queen or her troops.

            “Attention please.  Gather round.”  Lila spoke, and most of the kids readily responded; glad that someone was taking charge.  Lila saw Brittany and her witches to one side.  Jessica and her ladies in waiting were on the far other side, and she briefly wondered what Jessica would say if she knew that Lila was a real Princess.  Tyler Hamm and his football players took up the middle.  To their right, beside Brittany’s witches, the ROTC crowd was dressed in marine and navy uniforms except for Aaron, who came dressed like an old sea captain, and the seventh graders, Warren and Kate, who were dressed like black belt karate champions.  On the other side of the football team, beside Jessica and her ladies in waiting, there were the Gangstas, the enemies of ROTC.  Owen was actually dressed like a gangster and Terry was dressed like his moll.  There was Rapper Bob, and Celeste, dressed like a rock star.  There was also Kyle, the sex fiend, dressed appropriately as a pimp.  Far in the back, and last of all, there were the eighth grade geeks.  George was a doctor and Shirley a nurse.  Ethan looked to be dressed like a dentist, though perhaps a mad one.  And Lucy, the class clown was with them, dressed most appropriately of all, as a clown.  Beyond that, there were a few more eighth graders and a whole host of seventh graders, most of whom Lila did not know by name.

            Once they were gathered and quiet, though the whispers in the little groups never really stopped, Lila began.  “The question has been asked.  What can we do in this crisis?  Is there anything we can do to warn Mrs. Carter or help the teachers?”  Lila deliberately did not say, “warn my mom.”

            “Who wants to help teachers?”  Someone asked as a joke.  Only a few people thought it was funny.

            “Or would it be best for us to just stay here and do as we are told.  I don’t want, I mean, the superintendent doesn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

            “I can’t see how these poor kids won’t be changed by this experience, though.”  Wendel Carter mumbled to himself and then the most remarkable thing happened.

One Writer’s Writing Secrets 3: Something to Say

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

I am still enjoying Mark Twain.  Love him or hate him, the man could write, and more importantly, in the American tradition, he could tell a good story:  Tom Sawyer at home and abroad with the Tramp and the Innocents (roughing it or otherwise on the equator), Life on the Mississippi, The Prince and the Pauper, Pudd’nhead Wilson, and the great Connecticut Yankee which I believe he named just to see how many times he could find Connecticut misspelled in the reviews.

            Motive for writing in the first place is as difficult as trying to pin down a motive for murder (a close kin in some cases).  I think, though, Twain was on to something with the notice he gave at the beginning of Huckleberry Finn:

NOTICE

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR

Per G. G., Chief of Ordnance.

            Writers want to say something – at least most have something to say.  Some do write mainstream drivel in a sort of stream of consciousness (Zzzz); but I believe most want their views about life, liberty and the pursuit to be heard.  (Unlike the Blues Brothers, they may not be on a mission from God, but still…  And whether or not what is said is worth listening to is another debate).  But whenever a writer focuses in on what they are trying to say instead of on the story, the writing is lost, abandon ship!

            Mark Twain was first of all a storyteller.  All the great writers were.  Even a socially conscious writer like Dickens first told a good story. 

 

Writing Tip 3:

I cannot speak for the plot because that might be a handy thing for a story to have; but as for motive and moral, I recommend not thinking about them at all.  Yes, I believe every piece of writing should have something to say, but while in the writing process, I recommend just focusing on telling a good story, and I believe the motive/moral will shine through without help, thank you very much, and maybe some other things not intended will shine through as well, things which may turn out to be pretty good!  (I hadn’t thought of that).  We can call it stream of unconsciousness writing.

Series: Tales of the Other Earth Tale: Halloween Story part 8 M/F Story

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

            “In here, your majesty.”  The grizzled old man said, holding his box with the crystal close to his face and staring hard as if seeing something in the glittering stone that no other eyes could perceive.  “There was much magic present for a moment, and then all at once it was over, like the undoing of a half-woven spell.”

            The Queen nodded and turned to her troops.  “Be on your guard, Captain Tor.”  She said.  “We stumbled innocently into that hedge of warning, so at least someone knows we are coming.  And Count Severas.”  She turned to the man who was dressed like a sixteenth century dandy complete with gold-hilted saber at his side.  “We are not here to fight these people.  We only want the girl.”

            The Count nodded, as if giving a slight bow to his Queen, but his eyes betrayed other thoughts in his mind.

            “Wizard!”  The Queen called and the grizzled old man came to her, showing far more respect in his bow than the Count had shown.  “Are you sure?”  This woman was demanding.

            The Wizard looked around at the Count, Captain Tor and several of the soldiers, but he saw no support in any of them.  “Majesty.”  He hedged.  “I was told there was no magic in this world, but there is much interference in the atmosphere.  The Princess and her daughter should have been easy to locate, sticking out in the midst of the crowd like a goat among sheep, but it has not been so.”  The Queen’s look hardened.  The Wizard winced a little.  “I am reasonably sure there is magic active in this place, but of the source and person, I cannot honestly say.”

            “Are there no other sources?”  The Queen clearly wanted some assurance.

            The Wizard shook his head, slowly.  “I have picked up something, but it is some distance from here, and I am not certain.  There is much interference in the atmosphere, but of this place, I am certain, though who or what may be responsible, I cannot say.”

            The Queen nodded.  She signaled the soldiers and motioned for Captain Tor to precede her while she and the Count and her Wizard brought up the rear.

                                                            ————

            Mister Deal finally got the music turned down.  “Fire Alarm?”  He asked above many voices which were asking the same thing.

            “Hold on.  Hold on.”  The baby Principal was saying.  He stepped over to the music riser.  “Hold on.”  He said to the squeal of feedback as he turned on the microphone.  Mister Deal quickly adjusted the volume.  “That’s not the fire alarm or any other bell I know.”  The class bell in the school was really a loud buzzer.  “Don’t panic.  I am sure it is nothing to be concerned about and there is a simple explanation.”

            With that, the explanation for the bell entered the room.  They were soldiers, dressed in late medieval garb, and they spread themselves around the gym, surrounding the middle school students.  Clearly, the soldiers were surprised to find so many children and even more surprised to find them dressed up in costumes, though they hardly recognized most of the characters they were pretending to be.  An old man with a limp and a young one with gold braid and a swagger entered next, and then came the woman.  She was dressed in a gown that fitted her shapely figure, but her hair was gray, indicating the fact that she was a good bit older than she might have wanted to appear.  The woman had deep-set, but very active eyes.  She was clearly a woman of power, used to being obeyed without question, and she was presently speaking to the soldiers in a tongue that she assumed no one knew.  But Barten-Cur knew the words, and so did Wendel Carter.  Wendel slid up to the scarecrow in the corner and did his best to blend into the decorations.

            Finally, the woman, who was evidently in charge, turned to the slack-jawed crowd and spoke in English.  “All right.  Where is she?”

            Principal Barlow paused a minute before he responded into the microphone.  “Where is who?”

                                                            ————

            Arosa sipped her coffee and looked at David.  David still hardly knew what to say.  He had accepted her story.  He could not reasonably do otherwise; but it was not every day a person had undeniable evidence that there were not only other worlds filled with other, intelligent life in the universe, but your girlfriend, to say the least, was one of those other… People?

            “After the rebellion failed, my Mother-in-law made overtures of peace with the Empire.  I do not blame her.  It was what she had to do in the lost cause, and I suppose it was wise, after all, that she stayed away from any hint of rebellion from the beginning.  The Emperor was willing to allow for that, because he was so preoccupied in the North and West.  That much was true.”

            “Politics.”  David said.  “Bad as the school system.”

            “Oh, not that bad.”  Arosa said with a smile.  “But bad enough.”

            “But it was not safe for you and your baby.”  David understood.

            Arosa confirmed and shook her head.  “Who knows if we will ever be able to go home again?”  She looked sad for a moment before she shouted.  “Ouch!”

            “Umph.”  The fat man grunted at her as he got off her wing and headed back to his seat.

            A tear came to Arosa’s eye as she reached back and pulled her wing forward.  It was completely resilient and flexible and not easily broken, but the foot and shoe of the clumsy fat man was painful.  A few more tears came as Arosa stroked her wing like a wounded bird.

            “Hey!”  David shouted at the man.  “At least apologize you klutz.”  He was angry, partly because he knew the wings were real, and partly because he was really feeling for the unfairness of Arosa, and Lila’s exile.

            The fat man looked at his little wife and pulled out a wad of money.  “Here.”  He said, throwing a five-dollar bill in David’s direction.  “Buy your woman a new costume.”  He laughed, thinking he was funny.  David hardly clenched his fist before striking the fat man in the jaw, knocking him right out of the chair.

            The man got up screaming mad, but he was a stranger in town while David was the High School Principal and Arosa was the Middle School Librarian.  There were three farmers and two merchants from town who grabbed the fat man and showed him the door.  The man’s poor wife got up and she did lean over to Arosa to quietly apologize.

            “I’ll be all right.”  Arosa said, and since no one else was looking, their eyes all being focused on the struggle at the front door, she spread her wing and fluttered it a minute.  “He didn’t break anything.”

            The woman’s eyes got big.  She screamed and ran after her husband.

One Writer’s Writing Secrets 2: Finding your Voice

M G Kizzia 2 Comments

            I just finished rereading Huckleberry Finn, so if I break out in a twang, please bear with me.  (I ain’t agwyne do’t if I can hep it).  Dialect is a bear, and not recommended – unless it is who you are, and you know the dialect like the proverbial back of your hand (and your spelling is consistent).

            Allow me to share a bit of family folklore that floated down to me from my writer brother in Alaska.  It concerns a person named Tom (not Sawyer, but of the same type as I hear tell), though how true the story is, I cannot say.

            Tom went to the University of Michigan for one semester where he had a Freshman English professor who said something like this:

            “Tom.  You have a wonderful voice when you speak.  It is lively and very different from the dry papers you have been turning in.  You know, I believe you have the potential to be a good writer, but you have to stop trying to write the way you think it is supposed to be written.  Instead, I want you to try writing in a way that is most natural to you.  That is the secret to good writing.  Try writing the way you talk and it will be much better.”

            Now, Tom decided that was good advice; but if his best writing was simply writing the way he talked, and since he already knew how to talk, he also decided there was no more to be learned from that institution; so he dropped out and wandered his way up to Alaska where he took a job hosting a national radio show for NPR and writing just the way he talked, and though I don’t want to give everything away, the end of the story is if you ever go traveling across this country, I am sure he will “leave a light on for ya.”

Writing Tip 2: 

For most of us our talk can get pretty sloppy and might not be a good guide, but on principle, don’t worry about the way good writing is supposed to be writ!  Write the way that is most natural and comfortable for you.  That is your voice, and it will invariably be much better than imitating someone else.

One Writer’s mid-week Writing Secrets 1: Tell a Story.

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Sorry, I don’t have a link but I would recommend reading the Wall Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday, August 29-30, page W3 in the culture section.  The article is by Lev Grossman, and it is titled:  Storytelling.  Good Books Don’t Have to Be Hard.  And it is subtitled:  A novelist on the pleasure of reading stories that don’t bore… My response is:  Amen.  Whether you are writing fiction or embarked on some journalistic enterprise (or writing journalistic-fiction which is all too common these days) it helps to have a story! 

Grossman blames our view of what constitutes “great writing” (literature) on the modernists in the 1920s who objected to the Victorian novels that tied everything up in a nice, neat ending.  Faced with all of the changes that came with modern life, these authors said, (recognized) that life did not work out in nice and neat ways, and so they produced such works as “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” “The Age of Innocence,” “Ulysses,” “A Passage to India,” “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “The Sound and the Fury,” and so on.  These all may be great books in their way, but the truth is (and Grossman says it well) they are too hard on the reader.  As he points out, “imagine what it felt like the first time somebody opened up “The Waste Land” and saw that it came with footnotes.” 

To be sure, all of these great works by great writers have produced in us a sense that quality writing must be like theirs:  “Mainstream” or “Literary;” yet, like the impressionist painters that revolutionized the art world, they have had their day.  The day of the “Mainstream” or “Literary” novel (so-called) is over.  To put it more succinctly:  modern literature had its time and place, but we are now living in a post modern age.

Thank goodness story is making a comeback.  Clearly, story is what readers want.    As Grossman points out, “Sales of young adult books (where the unblushing embrace of storytelling is allowed) are up 30.7% so far this year (through June)… while adult hardcovers are down 17.8%.  Nam Lee’s “The Boat,” one of the best reviewed books of fiction in 2008 has sold 16,000 copies in hardcover and trade paperback according to Nielsen Bookscan… (while) the author of the “Twilight” series, Stephanie Meyer, sold eight million.”

My point would be that it pays to have a story to tell.  Readers want this.  Writers – Serious Writers are discovering this.  Agents and Publishers are a little slower, but I believe they will follow the money.  My hope is that someday maybe even the reviewers will catch up.

You remember story:  Beginning, middle and End.  Yes, I said end.  True, these days we might not wrap everything up in a neat Victorian ribbon.  (The lessons of the modernists were valid to some extent).  In our day, Scrooge might have a relapse.  (We would call that a sequel).  But still, a story ought to have some resolution, some conclusion; it needs to reach a point where one can honestly type:  THE END.  It should no longer be acceptable to end a story, “because my fingers got tired of typing so I went to bed.”

“But what of Great Literature and true Stream of Consciousness writing, and etc.?”  As Jessica would say, with a snap of her gum, a click of her tongue and a roll of her eyes, “That is so last century!”

 

Writing Tip 1: 

Tell a story.  Tell a good story.  Grab the reader.  Take them through whatever twists or turns exist, and when you are done, let them go.  This can still be great literature, and I believe it will be how the future sees literature.  You can say all you want to say about life, liberty and the pursuit in a story.  You can make great points, Dickens did, but first of all make it a good read, because if it is good enough, along with lasting beyond the lifetime of a blog, someone just might pay you for it.

— Michael