Show off your voice

[Caged Maiden]

We've talked about voice in the past but not in a while. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and how it relates to a novel's success. I'm not trying to debate anything, but I wanted to invite you to join me, Scribes, as I think about voice and how it plays into a novel's overall uniqueness.

I just finished my Clichea story and it's all voice. I mean, other than a character and its (because it isn't a he or a she) voice, nothing really happens in the story. The voice is the story. In fact, I'd go so far as to say my best writing voice comes out in short stories, rather than in novels...an oddity I plan to remedy.

Show me a couple paragraphs you think really have a clear voice and describe what you did. What was your motivation in creating this unique view with your character? How does the story's voice impact the work (I don't want to limit it to only novels)?

 

[Caged Maiden]

Here's one of mine (yes, from a novel, even though I mentioned often losing the voices in longer works). I really like the tone of this passage and I think I like it so much because of Rafe's POV and his voice. The two characters are in an opium den and Rafe, the lawyer, isn't enamored with working with Vincenzo, the reckless swordsman. I tried to use the character's voice present in his thoughts as well as the dialogue.

The swordsman blew a cloud of smoke upwards, where it mixed with the haze. Rafe ground his teeth, fighting to keep his thoughts to himself. It didn’t work. “While you’re busy impairing your mind with poisons, I’m contemplating putting a knife to the throat of one of Kanassa’s most powerful nobles. I don’t reckon you’ll do me much good in there.”

Vincenzo sighed. “Why must you always be so difficult?”

“Me, the difficult one?” Rafe thrust his chin at the smoking pipe in his partner’s hand. “You’ll be useless in ten minutes, staring at the ceiling like that fellow over there.”

“Perhaps you’d be happier outside. Besides, you don’t have a knife, I do, remember?”

“I’d be happier if you put down the pipe and considered how we’re going to get in. We can’t cause a scene and get arrested.”

“I’ll get in, don’t worry about that—but you aren’t coming with me.”

“Why not?”

Vincenzo smirked. “You aren’t cut out for this kind of work. You’re a lawyer.” Proud words from a man who slept in a stable and wore patches in need of patching.

Rafe waved away the cloud Vincenzo blew at him and considered snatching the pipe, if for nothing else than to bean the lousy greybeard swordsman has-been with it. “I’ll wait for you to pass out before I allow you to foul this up.”

Vincenzo laughed. “Relax. I’m just keeping up appearances—a few fake puffs so they don’t throw us out. But if you keep talking, I’ll reconsider wasting my money.”

Rafe crossed his arms. “I should have come alone.” Except, he didn’t know if he had the guts to cut an unarmed man’s throat. Better to have Vincenzo there, just in case.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Stupid sewers, blasted rats, and godforsaken stench were all Shurrif had for company. He had control of every thieving crew in Dursen and here he was trudging through piss and rain water to find some hide out of some thug who fancied himself a crime lord. Sure, he had some influence, but this forsaken city was rife with criminal turmoil. A simple push would create a bloodbath. He planned on being that push, and expanding his empire. That he could serve his king was just a plus. One that should pay dividends in the future.

He sloshed through the waters, mentally cursing Garren for dragging him into this. Sure he volunteered but what was he supposed to do for the guy that helped him survive so that he didn’t need the streets. His money and protection helped make him the youngest crime boss Dursen had ever seen. For the first time since, well ever, he had made the streets safer for the common man than the King’s Guard did. Useless fools that they were, everyone of them on the take. His take sure, but the take nonetheless. Still, he kept offering money and they took it.

Another turn, more piss. Another turn more stink. Another turn three men staring from various alcoves and side-tunnels. Rif said over his shoulder, “You can come out now gentlemen, or thugs, whichever you prefer. I seek Louim. I want to join your organization.”

One large man walked out of the shadows and ran-sloshed his way towards Shurrif, who rolled his eyes. This again. The man’s galumphing gait betrayed his stiff knees. The barreled chest and huge arms indicated his lumbering strength. Leaning in, the man growled, baring his teeth like a dog would, most were rotting or rotten. His breath reeked of decay and alcohol.

“Phaw, just get a Wind Dancer and you on the front lines and you two’d kill the lot of those northern dogs.”

The other two men laughed and the one trying to scare Shurrif said, “What did you say?”

“I said you reek so bad that but for the stench of this sewer you would be smelt five miles back, instead of the hundred or so yards.” Shurrif peeked around the man’s shoulder and said, “You two should know better was well. Your hiding spots were just awful.”

The other two men reached for short swords on their sides and slowly walked forward. Shurrif held up his hand and said, backing away from the larger man, “Let’s dispense with the pleasantries. I am here to speak with Loium, your Thief Lord.”

The large man said, “Why do you want to speak with our Lord.”

Shurrif looked at him and said, “Because I am a thief.”

The man growled, “You don’t look like a thief. Too skinny.”

“I said thief, not highway man, big difference.”

Spitting the man replied, “Still you look too young to join us.”

“Funny, I thought most people would consider you too stupid.”

“I ain’t stupid boy.”

“Pfft, if you weren’t so stupid why did you lose your sword to me,” Shurrif said twirling the man’s short sword.

My purpose here was to get across first that Shurrif, while intelligent and capable, is impetuous. I also wanted to show his youth via his complaining. Next I wanted to indicate his scheming nature. Finally, the last couple of parts were kind of serious so I wanted a little humor.

 

[Penpilot]

Ran out of sleeping pills last night but managed to get a few hours of shut-eye before dawn. The long, sweaty-feet, aftertaste of cheap Vodka still clung to inside of my mouth when I boarded the plane to Vancouver. In hindsight, I should have walked. The three-hour flight turned into twenty-four hour pain-in-the-ass.

Mechanical troubles had us touchdown in Portland, where we were supposed to switch over to a second plane that never showed. I overheard the flight attendants whisper the second plane was waiting for us in Vegas, rushed to the wrong place at the right time.

Airline offered the passengers two choices: seats on another airline or, since the day was a near wash, a hotel room for the night and seats on the first flight out in the morning. The lingering hangover made me choose the room.

Didn’t hear them mention we had to share. Another bad choice in a long line of bad choices.

Ended up sharing a room with a middle-aged insurance salesman slash exercise addict named Vic LeBrock. He spent the better part of the evening doing jumping-jacks, push-ups, while hogging the sweat-covered remote so he could channel surf. Seemed like a guy who watched everything but saw nothing.

As he jumped like an overly sweaty Vitruvian Man in motion, he sold me hard, pitching me his company’s entire catalog of policies. “You look like a guy who’s looking for some security, some peace of mind. Well that’s what our D46A ‘Eternal Care’ policy will give you. Think of it as a home that follows you everywhere you go, safe, secure, and where the heart is. Because dude, if anything happens to you, it just keeps on giving, no complaints, no hassles, just 24-7 love, taking care of your needs forever. Now that’s the type of love money can buy. You know what I mean?”

I pretended to pop a sleeping pill. Put the empty bottle prominently on display on the nightstand, and faked snoring. Didn’t even put a speed bump in front of Vic’s jabbering.

This character and his friends come from a made up neighborhood that I placed in my home town. I wanted them to speak in a certain way, specifically cooler than me in real life. The voice got stronger as I wrote the novel that he's in. Strong enough that I think I cold jump back into his head at any time. Basically all I did was strategically remove nouns from the beginning of sentences. So instead of writing, "I walked a block down to see Frank," I'd write, "Walked down the block to see Frank."

The character's voice obviously gives it a certain feel, and I think/hope from the way I wrote it, if one were paying attention carefully, they could tell who was from this neighborhood and who wasn't based on how they spoke.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I'd like to draw a comparison, just to show where I came from. First, a passage from Orson Scott Card, who was the original source of "my" writing style:

A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a speaker for the dead, has told me of two other rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.)

The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. "Is there anyone here," he says to them, "who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?"

They murmur and say, "We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it."

The rabbi says, "Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong." He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, "Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he'll know I am his loyal servant."

So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.

Another rabbi, another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story, and says, "Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone."

The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated.

As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones.

"Nor am I without sin," he says to the people. "But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it."

So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him.

And now a passage I wrote myself:

The recess bell rang, and a river of small children flowed out the door onto the playground. The teacher smiled to see a few stragglers—the morning’s lesson had evidently proven interesting. Still, none of them ultimately resisted the call of slides and tire swings.

None save one.

Annie was filling up a sketchbook, outlining detailed landscapes in plain black and white. She didn’t look up when the teacher approached, but she turned the book and set it down. “You can see it if you want, Mrs. Wilcox.”

Mrs. Wilcox studied the page. It was only half finished, but it was leaps and bounds above anything Annie had done for art assignments. For that matter, it was more expressive than many of the drawings the eighth graders made. Even in pencil, with no colors added, precise shading created the illusion of a vivid sunrise over a grassy hill. And at the base of the hill . . .

“Horses?” she asked. “I’ve never seen you draw anything living before.”

“Ponies,” Annie said. “At first, I wanted to make something like my Pony Princess dolls, but those are silly. These need to be better.”

Mrs. Wilcox thumbed through the pages. A pony with bat wings, fighting some kind of scorpion monster . . . A pony with a horn, riding on a griffon’s back . . . Two ponies playing chess inside a cave . . . “These are really good,” she said.

“You don’t need to patronize me, Mrs. Wilcox,” Annie said, still looking down at her desk.

The teacher combed through her memory, trying unsuccessfully to think of another time she’d heard a child Annie’s age use the word “patronize.” She’d taught gifted students before, of course, but Annie always made her feel distinctly outmatched.

“There’s going to be a schoolwide art contest in March,” Mrs. Wilcox attempted. “Almost every year, the grand winner is from seventh or eighth grade. But I think you might win with one of these.”

“They’re not perfect,” Annie said. “Not yet.”

“They don’t have to be,” Mrs. Wilcox said. “None of the other drawings in the contest will be perfect.”

Annie finally looked up to meet the teacher’s eyes. “They do have to be perfect. There needs to be a world that’s better than Earth.”

Mrs. Wilcox called Annie’s parents that night, leaving a message saying that she was worried about their daughter. Annie deleted it before anyone else could hear it.

Even after all the time I've spent writing, the flow and the patterns are surprisingly similar. The difference is one of focus. Card looks at the world from a distance, speaking generally of what happens. I look at it through a magnifying glass, precisely focused on specifics. Both of us create sketches rather than paintings, with relatively light description just to show what's going on, but I think mine are a lot more personal. My focus on specific interactions, usually with only two people in isolation from the world around them, also helps to create a claustrophobic feeling to emphasize how lonely many of my characters are.

 

[MineOwnKing]

Their talk wandered back to the shuffling noises on the hull. Wide is the imagination of seamen, for those who have never stepped off shore cannot fathom oceanic majesty. It fuels an imagination-spiced orchard of wonders, nurtured on the first day that green hands with virgin legs walk the wooden deck. Upon their first voyage they feel the ship mount a rolling wave. It is not a high wave, nor is it dangerous, but is immeasurable in width and resounding in certainty. Self-importance washes overboard as rising the crest, a prickling tingle branches upward through the body. Plummeting realization of self-worth humbles the greenhorns, as if found newly akin to some drip upon the waves of watery immensity. That experience, amplified in the cradling bowl of the skull, reverberates raw-gnawed emotion. Tender state rises witness to a harbor of willful allegiance in respectful servitude. A night sky encompasses this inward thought. There upon its dark pallet, multitudinous vestiges blink; whole galaxies of imaginings orbit, prodding the senses. Expired are notions of immortality; death’s certainty swirls before them, carrying them on its current to forge their courage in its roaring whirlpool.

 

[Gryphos]

Nearing the shop, window, I turned an eye to the street. Cotts Avenue didn’t appear to be as congested as the main thoroughfare, and, by my estimate, only allowed a single horse-drawn carriage. At the moment it was quite sparsely occupied by no one of note, just a horse-drawn mechanical street sweeper and a group of boys it enraptured, so I turned my attention back to the shop.

Drawn curtains blocked my view inside, and Florian didn’t seem to have bothered with newfangled, exotic installations like a windowed door. Perhaps I might have been able to peer through the crack between the wall and the curtains. I leant in until my cheek met the glass, at which point I jerked away.

“Cold… Of course it’s sodding cold.”

Well, what choice did I have but to break in? Luckily, Ilsa’s immortal habit had granted us right of way in the form of Deltz’s skeleton key, able to open most doors in the northern district as well as any Constabulary shackles. He thought he lost it, so discretely had a new one made. Everybody wins.

I produced the slender key from my tool belt and inserted it into the lock. After a click I let the door swing open.

A blizzard swept over me. Like the furious winter storms of the Vark southern reaches, but in a mild autumn in Voltun, and minus any actual snow. I drew my jacket tight and entered, closing the door behind me.

To put it simply, the place was wrecked. Tables split apart, chairs in splinters, open watches and busted clocks littering the floor. And Florian? He lay in the centre of it all, spread-eagle on his back and deathly still.

“Shit.”

I could have been more ‘civilised’ in my exclamation, but to whose benefit? My … profound parents, Aven and Zahrah, taught me that sometimes all you need to express can be channelled into a single word, usually one with four letters.

“Shit von Shittington.” I went with haste over to Florian, crunching broken pieces of glass and clockwork underfoot.

In this first person project what I wanted to really focus on was the main character's voice, intelligent, sarcastic, but also crude and impulsive.

 

[Ruby]

Hi Feo Takahari,

I love your writing style. Your story is intriguing, especially the twist at the end!

 

[skip.knox]

I'm not sure I have a voice. I'm quite sure my characters do, and to a certain extent each story has its own voice. But something consistent across all that I've written? I think I would need others to judge that for me. Anyway, here's the opening to the novelette I'm just finishing.


The island was a black fist thrusting out of the Atlantic. We put off from the ketch and bounced away in the longboat, and I wanted to be anywhere but there. Sprites hate ships, as is well known. Humans think we’re afraid of the sea, but that’s not it. We’re a sensible folk, preferring not to travel on a bunch of sticks over an abyss, hoping we don’t sink. We don’t jump over fires either. Same sort of thing.

The captain refused to get close, claiming reefs or some such, so I was in a small boat full of smelly humans—no prejudice there, just stating facts—who rowed us through the choppy waves. The basalt cliffs that gave the Black Isle its name rose straight up from the sea like an immense wall. At the base, clung a tiny dock that looked to give way at a touch, and on that dock stood an elf and an ogre. The elf wore the brown robes of a Chapterhouse wizard. The island was home to one of the oldest Chapterhouses in the world, built back in one of the Dark Ages, I can never remember which one, so the place was lousy with wizards.

Which is why I was here.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I feel my voice slightly changes, depending on the story I'm telling and the POV choice. For example, in the 3rd person excerpt, the voice is standard...my default, if you will. In the first person excerpt, I tried for a hard-boiled detective style of voice. Still, there are consistencies of style in both.

3rd Person:

Tucked inside the piled debris of blackened and crumbling walls, rows of buildings sat in ruin. Their contents spilled through open doorways and broken shutters, or through gaping holes where large blocks of quarried stone had crashed down, smashing roofs and walls to rubble. Warian Kherne hunkered down amid their remains, in the early morning shadow of Veldstan's perimeter.

All around, small fires burned and died, reaching upward with hazy, grey fingers and filling the air with the caustic scent of a thousand campfires. Broken tables and chairs, their surfaces charred and sparkling with the dull orange light of coals burning under blackened crusts, sent wisps of smoke coiling around his head and arms as he sifted through abandoned possessions. He heard nothing, save his own movements and the muffled crackling of slow burning wood. Scorched sheets and bedding, trunks full of clothes, and the occasional bauble, all lay scattered in the streets. He'd seen the same throughout.

Kherne's hands squeezed down tight on the doll he held. Fabric, that once formed a head of hair, had burnt away to brittle curls of thread and protruding nubs of waxy cloth. One remaining wooden eye, cracked near the center, stared back from behind worn and faded blue paint. The other had torn away, leaving a puffy mound of stuffing punching through the ripped socket. Splotches of clean, ivory colored material poked through a covering stain of grey and brown. Smoke and blood.

1st Person:

When they're talking free, you let em go. Maybe prod when needed, ask questions to clarify. Otherwise, you shut the **** up and let them ramble. Moments like these, when they know you've caught them, that you're smarter, that's when they relax and let it all go.

Nate's head snapped up and turned toward me, gawking with a blank, open-mouthed expression. The tired, drawn look clung to his face as he spoke. "It's hard to accept when you see past evil's veil for the first time, when you know the darkness for what it is. That's when I met Gabrielle."

"Your first kill?"

"No, hunter like me. A guiding hand, come for my awakening. I was so young. She helped me learn new skills, how to survive, stay hidden."

"You mean she taught you to avoid police detection."

"That and other things. Didn't finish the job though. Disappeared before my first culling. Took a long time to discover what happened to her."

"Culling, huh? That's the term we're using?"

"That's what it is." Nate settled back again, his gaze returning to focus on some point in the textured ceiling tiles. "Anyway, that's the way it's intended, at least, awakening to the truth. New hunters require some nudging before realizing purpose." He lifted his hands toward his face, pulling the chains taut. His eyes widened in time with spreading, wiggling fingers. "Need someone to open our eyes."

Another long silence spread over the room, broken by the intermittent beeping of monitors.

"You kill witches then, not people. That's what you're selling?"

"Not entirely. I kill people who happened to be witches, or warlocks. And I'm not talking about your garden variety Wiccan or the silly girl you met who believes she's magically gifted because an occasional streetlight pops as she walks on by." Nate's fingers snapped with a loud crack. He shook his head and dropped his gaze to toes poking from the blanket's hem. "Naw, I'm talking about true evil, ritual black magic. Trading one's humanity through acts of insanity, depravity in exchange for power, the psychic ability to alter our physical and mental world."

Nate's stare inched up the length of his legs, crawling back to me, waiting in the chair. His lips parted with a gasp, short and quick. Dazed eyes cut back to mine, returning to their characteristic dullness. The shocked expression melted away. Words spilled faster.

"Understand, Jonah, I had no choice. Once you recognize them for what they are, they'll know you for a Hunter just the same. You lay eyes on them, and they you, the jig is up." Nate's Adam's apple rose and dropped with a hard swallow. "Learned that lesson early, figured it on my own how to protect myself."

He passed a hand over his unblinking eyes. "Hunters view the world different from innocents. We're the watchers behind drawn blinds, the head peering around corners. We're silhouettes behind the glass, faces shielded by reflection. Can't afford to be seen in return." He turned his head, looking the opposite way, falling silent.

When the killer shuts down like that, it's time to push. You have to work them up again, remind them who's driving the train. But, you give them a moment, some time to stew in their own dark delusions.

 

[Terry Greer]

The following I wrote as a one-off for a writers meeting a couple of years ago.

Kate +9
'Can he see us?.
Katie asked quietly in the blue-tinged darkness. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the plesiosaur since it first swam into view several minutes before.
It was a magnificent creature with a dusky mottled pattern reminiscent of whale shark. At the end of a long neck it sported a large-eyed goofy head with a mouth that seemed overstuffed with needle sharp teeth designed for capturing fish, but which nonetheless sported a friendly air with a baked-in toothy smile that remined me of a dolphin.
‘Yes – almost certainly’ I said, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about, although to be honest my knowledge of the science behind it all was somewhat hazy. All I knew, and this was half remembered from the company manual, was that it was a trick of amplifying photons that were quantum tunnelling across a tethered M-brane.
What all that really meant though was simply that it was a window to the past.
‘He’s beautiful dad,’ she said, her face clearly enraptured by the creature that drifted in the water before us. Katie was nine years old and clearly smitten.
‘Thanks for bringing me’
‘No problem Katie’ I said staring at the beast myself. ‘I know how much you like dinosaurs.’
‘It’s not a dinosaur dad.’ She said condescendingly, her gaze never wavering while the plesiosaur looked back, four huge paddle-shaped fins slowly scything through the water and keeping the creature static in what seemed to be a mild current.

It had been coming to the wall every day now, so obviously lived nearby. The M-brane was of course invisible, tethered in place by massive superconducting magnetic coils somewhere out of sight. The visible part, the wall, was really a mass of independent light sensors and amplifiers, almost 5 million of them. Their one task to amplify that one photon in a billion (or less) that made it across the brane, and convert it into a meaningful image. Inevitably that amplification meant loss of resolution and close to the wall the image became fuzzy and indistinct, like pressing your face up against a television screen.
Bizarrely quantum physics demanded that the amplification was symmetrical, so there was little doubt that it could also see us.

‘He looks so alive’ Katie said excitedly sidling over to give me a hug.
‘She, it’s a female, is alive from her perspective; we’re just temporal ghosts to her.’ I hugged her back, ‘The brane is locked to somewhere near the Jurassic and Cretaceous boundary, probably a hundred and forty million years ago’. It was a rough time period, I could have told her exactly to the second how long ago it was, but in truth the exact date and time was meaningless as both day and year length, not to mention the orbits of the earth and moon had changed significantly over that period.
Katie nodded and gasped as the plesiosaur swam towards us and through the wall and its inner organs were briefly glimpsed in cross section like a bizarre animated MRI scan that took us from its head to the tip of its tail.
For a few moments it was gone, and then it swam back and we saw the whole thing in reverse.
Katie giggled.
‘Wow that was impressive’ she whispered barely audibly.
‘If she does it again watch out for her belly,’ I said pointing out a bulge in the creature’s lower abdomen, ‘plesiosaurs were livebearers and there’s a baby in there, must be about 3 feet long, she’ll give birth soon I think. If she’s slow you can clearly see it.’
Katie radiated pleasure and we stood in silence for several minutes as the beast scrutinized the wall from its side of the temporal divide.
‘She’s long dead now isn’t she’ she said at last. I looked at her and she suddenly seemed incredibly sad, and I could see her eyes beginning to water.
‘Couldn’t we just reach through the membrane thingy and pull her here – she’d be safe.’ she asked biting her lower lip in uncertainty.
She is safe,’ I said hugging her again, ‘it's millions of years before they became extinct, the comet’s not due for a long time.’
I stroked Katie’s hair.
‘Besides,’ I said trying to sound scientific, ‘it’s impossible – only the occasional photon can cross that barrier – nothing else.’
Katie sniffed and wiped her eyes and nose with the edge of her sleeve.
‘But dad, until the membrane thingy was discovered. It was also impossible to see them alive like this wasn’t it?’
‘True, ’I said nodding.
Katie leant forwards and touched the surface of the wall briefly, gently sending up a myriad interference stress patterns radiating out from her fingertips.
‘Then I’m going to find a way she said simply.’




I was tying to write with more dialogue than i normally do and get across an event that sparks a lifelong obsession in an individual. But I couldn't forget it - and have since started fleshing it out into a longer novel with every chapter based on Kate's age.

 

[Micheale]

You’re back again, Kade?

The creature is beginning to take shape now, in the darkness of the cell. In the light of the single, suffocating candle he can see her transforming, the jagged edges of black and cream and grey are melting away into something definite. Roundness now to her arching back. Fullness to her four massive wings. Her talons are razor sharp, and he knows that any quick move on his part will likely end in blood. With every small movement of his hand another fang is revealed, another glistening scale, another claw, a tail now, arching its ridges towards the sky-*‐less ceiling of the cell. The seraphim turns. She is liquid fire, and her fierce glowing eyes meet Kade’s cold gray ones.

Are you ready this time, Kade? Are you tired enough yet?

The seraphim speaks with Kade’s mother’s voice. Kade isn’t sure why. Maybe hers is the only woman’s voice he remembers? Maybe she is being comforting? They stare at each other for some time. Angel and beast. Kade flicks his carving knife again, and the quicksilver serpent lifts another claw. Kade is painfully aware of the sweat dripping from his chest, down his arms, covering his fingers in a slippery sheen that makes holding his small knife virtually impossible. There is no sound from either of them. The seraphim speaks directly to Kade’s soul. Every word piercing so deeply into his brain that it feels like fire behind his eyes. He wishes it were. He would love to burn to death. He wishes this seraphim breathed fire, like the ones in the stories. The silence is stifling. Heavy. Kade finds it hard to breath. Every small breath he takes fills the tiny stone room with a resonance so deafening that he regrets it immediately and holds his breath again. Longer. He can hold his breath forever. If he holds his breath long enough he might pass out. He knows this. This is what he wants anyway. He should just let the seraphim slice him. Kade feels his own broken wings twitch. Hears the soft rustle of another cluster of black feathers dropping to the floor. Don’t move, Kade. Don’t breath.

Picture it Kade. Let me make it easy for you. Kade can picture it as he has pictured it a thousand times before. It would be easy. Kade. Come to me Kade. Kade’s heart breaks at the calm in his mother’s voice. But then another wave of nausea takes him. He isn’t going to last long. He is going to lose consciousness soon. He knows it is coming. He has become accustom to the signs. The taste of vomit still permeates his mouth and burns his throat from the last time. The last time he had almost drowned in it. That would have been nice. Kade seems to have a nasty habit of evading death, no matter how hard he searches for it. Kade trembles as he becomes acutely aware of how cold his sweat feels in the cell. He tries to be still. No sudden moves. He will approach the seraphim slowly. She will embrace him, as his mother would have. She will be warm, and her belly will be soft. She will hold him for a while in her strong arms, enveloping him in her liquid fire. Maybe she will sing to him some seraphim lullaby.
Maybe he will sleep. And when he is calm and ready he will lift one heavy claw to his throat and make the cut himself. He will watch himself bleed out. He will lie down on the cold floor and count his breaths as his blood drains from his body through the cracks of the stone floor and know that he will finally have some rest. He will finally sleep. He will have some peace. He deserves this. He has done enough. There has to be an end. She knows what he wants. Come to me, Kade. Let me finish this. The seraphim doesn’t move her shimmering eyes. They pierce through Kade’s, taunting him with rest. Finally his lungs can no longer hold the air. He burns for a breath. Kade exhales and the echo of his breath off the rock makes him shudder. He slowly lowers his tiny carving knife and reaches out a filthy finger to gently stroke the beast’s sharp talon. He stretches his own shattered black wings out towards the edges of the cell, pushing the smashed bone and muscle hard against the cold stone. He embraces the pain as it radiates through his shoulder blades and shoots down his spine. The seraphim turns again, this time letting Kade draw her claws up, reaching her long, shiny black talons towards his throat. She holds still as he pulls one claw along the dark stubble under his jaw, just hard enough to draw a bead of blood. Kade knows he is testing himself as much as she is testing him. Bright red in the candlelight it drips down to Kade’s collarbone and mixes with the sweat in his filthy white shirt.
This is it, Kade. This is the end.

Kade bites the inside of his lip. His eyes burn with tears this time. He can’t hold on much longer. His hand slips slightly, and Kade throws the seraphim against the granite wall. No bigger than his fist, the stone carving smashes against the cold, dripping rock and lands in a pile of dust and shards on the floor. A shattered head. Shattered wings.

Like me. Kade thinks. And Kade knows that the pain will continue for another day. There are no seraphim in Ramiel.
The vomit comes up as quickly as the floor. But Kade is gone before his head smashes on the wet stone.

 

[Svrtnsse]

In my current WIP I'm swapping back and forth between two narrative styles, and two voices. One is intended to have a bit of a fairy tale feel and I'm using it to explain things that happen between the more detailed scenes. It's a bit like this:

Her chores done, a young woman steps out from her mother’s burrow. Snow groans under her bare feet, and high above, the stars sing the song of the night, in words that no one can hear.

She hurries through the garden and past the stables, where horses dream of warmer days. Up the road through the village, to the inn at the top of the hill, she turns. It has a name, the inn, and sometimes the villagers argue about what it is, but just for fun. No one really cares. There’s just one inn.

It’s a small village.

The other bits are more detailed, and a lot closer to the PoV character. They're a bit like this:

Torkel crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t say a thing, just sat there, looking at her.

“You’re a great guy – and a good friend. It’s just…” She sighed and averted her eyes, looking down the table in front of her. “I don’t know…” Grabbing her mug she lifted it to her face to drink, but stopped herself and sat it down again. “I’m not sure I’m ready.”

“You’ve had a year. I’m tired of waiting.” Torkel slapped his palm against the table and raised a warning finger against her. “If you haven’t made up your mind by First Green I’ll find someone else.”

Emma gasped. He couldn’t do that. No. No way. He couldn’t.

“You heard me.” His face grim, Torkel leaned back in his chair and, once more, crossed his arms over his chest.

He’d find someone else. He’d reject her.

What would her mother say? The village? He couldn’t do that to her.

Could he?

So far, this swapping back and forth is working out pretty well. It establishes the setting and the feel of the story in an interesting way.
Also, the first and second chapters are available on my blog here: Emma’s Story – Draft 1 – Chapter 1 | s v r t n s s e
I'll be putting up one chapter a week until the story is done (so it's not a teaser where you'll get the first bit free and have to pay for the rest later). Chapter three is due on Tuesday.

 

[Hainted]

First Draft. Opening paragraphs. Trying to establish setting.

“Move!”

That was all the warning Kalli Wurtz and Dana Ball got before Hunter Fogerty plowed into them. Kalli, short and round,wobbled but kept her balance. All she lost was the contents of her backpack. Dana, taller and bigger nosed, staggered like a drunk zombie before flopping onto the wet grass.

“Douchecanoe!” Kalli yelled as two uniformed cops sprinted past in pursuit. She didn’t envy them. Given the usual state of Hunter’s clothing and hair it would be like wrestling a greased pig to catch him. As she bent to get her stuff Dana yelled in frustration.

“Seriously! Why couldn’t it have been you?”

Kalli waved her damp sketchbook. “Uh, Hello? I didn’t escape scott-free myself, you know.”

“Ha Ha, but these are new clothes, not your thrift store finds, and I need to look my best.”

“Why? After these last two exams we’re just heading to my house. Who you trying to impress, my Mom?”

“We might get invited somewhere. You never know.”

“KALLI! DANA!”

Melody Galang came jogging across the school lawn. Her long dark hair had been reduced to a pixie cut, but her huge grin was unmistakable.Dana winced. “Why is she here? I thought-”

Melody grabbed Dana, then Kalli in a hug. Kalli hugged her back. Melody looked like herself again.

“Mel? What are you doing here?” Kalli asked.

Dana was less kind.“Yeah, Melody, shouldn’t you be at The Ranch?” Kalli shot her a hard glance. Melody didn’t seem to notice though.

“They let me come back to take my exams. I have to take them in the detention room. Alone.” She laughed nervously. ”I haven’t seen anyone from school since, you know.”

“Since you freaked out at the State Finals and had to be carted off by the DHA.” Dana said with a huge fake smile.

Melody looked at the ground. “Yeah.”