There developed over the next several days a routine of my eating breakfast with Hope and then heading off to school for the day, coming home in the afternoon and having dinner and then going off to bed. Hope would help Mother and Grandma around the house. She glided into our family effortlessly, becoming one of us in no time. One would almost think she’d always been there. Little did I realize that she almost had been, once upon a time.
When the weekend came we ate breakfast together as usual, only this time we both went outside together, taking a long walk through the pastures. The air had that fresh coolness of early spring, that sweet smell that seems a harbinger of the rains that precede the flowers. The sun was climbing in the sky, occasionally disappearing behind grey clouds that hung in the sky. Those clouds seemed heavy, as if they were about to let loose their burden and drop it from the sky.
“It looks like rain.” I said, pointing.
“Those clouds have been there all week, Gwen. It hasn’t rained yet, not since I got here. What makes you think it will?” Hope asked. She didn’t sound at all condescending about my idea like some big people could. Instead it seemed as if she thought that she could learn something from me.
“Smell the air. There’s this kind of wetness to it. Eth…uh, my big brother told me about that.” I quieted quickly, realizing that I had almost said his name, an unforgivable sin in our home lately. Hope seemed just as sensitive about it as everyone else, even though she was newest to the house.
She stopped and stared at the clouds for a moment, as if consulting them. Whatever was said in that silent conversation I’ll never know, but something changed. She seemed to shrug, then she turned to me.
“You know, it’s alright to talk about him with me. About Ethan.” She spoke his name aloud, the first I had heard it from anyone else in months. It seemed hard for her to say, but once she did it was like a great weight had been lifted.
“I know it’s sad,” She continued, “but I think that’s why we need to talk about it…to get it out, so it doesn’t eat us up inside.”
I nodded and then put my tiny hand in hers. I started walking again, forcing her to come with me.
“Where are we going?” She asked laughingly as I hurried, my tiny little legs scampering along. She had to walk briskly to keep pace, despite her longer legs.
“I want to show you something. It’s a place I know. We can talk there.”
We must have seemed quite the pair on that cloudy spring morning, a tiny girl of six with long dark hair blowing carelessly in the wind as I guided us through the pastures, she a young woman with flowing golden tresses being led by the hand like a child.
I led her through trees and we emerged by the pond. An old fort built of rocks, lumber and logs was close at hand. I had discovered it a few weeks before while exploring.
“Isn’t it great?” I asked, looking at Hope with a smile, expecting her to love it as much as I did.
Upon her face was a look of total shock. It seemed as if the place had struck a chord in her memories, like my brother’s room had, only this seemed a happier remembrance.
“I can’t believe it…” Her voice was almost a whisper, but it was filled with a childlike joy. “You found it.”
“What? What did we find?” I asked, wondering why it seemed like such a big deal to her.
“It’s from a game we played.” She explained, going closer to the fort and surveying it, looking at every detail. “Camelot, the Lady of the Lake… I was the Lady, and this was my fairy palace. We were young, just a few years older than you.”
“That sounds like fun!” I exclaimed. “Who was Arthur?”
“Our friend, Neal. He was my age, a year older than your brother. He led us, but Ethan created the game. It was all his idea.” She had sat down upon a moss-covered stone inside the fort, and was looking about with eyes as wide as saucers.
“Tell me about it. I want to hear everything!” I said, eager for stories about my brother and sister, but also curious about the game.
“Well, back then this was your grandparents’ farm, it was before your granddad died and left it to your father. Ethan and Genevieve were staying with them for the summer while your mom and dad went to Europe.” Hope began, spinning a story of her childhood as we sat.
Next Chapter: Continue Gwen’s story
or, read about the Camelot Summer in The Companions
16 comments
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November 1, 2007 at 3:26 am
Bertram
I’ve read what you’ve written so far, and all things considered, I’d say you were a good writer. My concerns are personal ones. I found that every time I got interested, you’d switch to a different time, a different place. It was too distracting, and kept me from caring about your characters. I know you are going somewhere with this, but all that switching around gave the story a feeling of aimlessness. Before you went elsewhere, I would have liked to see more of what happened to your characters after they were saved from the plane. It would have given the story an anchor. But, in the end, it’s your book, your vision, your world, so you have to write it as you need to.
November 1, 2007 at 11:42 am
nomananisland
First of all, thank you for the “good writer” compliment. That means something coming from a writer, because we’re terribly analytical. It also means something coming from a reader, because they know what they like.
But I do need to give some serious consideration to your comments on how much you care about the characters. My hope was that the time in the cave coupled with a flashback to their childhood would create interest in these characters, even though that meant switching from the cave to the past, because it would give a snapshot of “now” and of their history together as well.
I do, however, need the passage of time and tension because they’re missing, and that’s what Gwen’s chapter is supposed to be about — they disappear for months, which meant disappearing for a little while from the narrative. They’ll be back within seven posts, but I need that “wow, they were missing a long time!” factor.
I need to think about this. Thank you.
November 1, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Bertram
In Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Renni Brown and David King said, “too many flashbacks rob the story of drive, give it a sense of aimlessness. Spending the largest portion of time in the present gives the story a quality of inexorability.”
Whose is the present in your story? The people in the cave, or the people who are aware they are missing? The problem with the “wow, they were missing a long time!” factor is that a reader would tend to forget them, and when you get back to the cave, I’m not sure they will care.
Someone else (don’t remember who) said if you need lots of flashbacks, start the story further back.
Keep in mind my comments are only for me as a reader.
This is just a bit of musing: could you rework the story where their being saved and sent to the cave is prologue, then go back to the past and work forward?
November 1, 2007 at 5:01 pm
nomananisland
So far, the story timeline is like this:
February 2001 – the group is flying for their ski vacation.
Summer 1987 – the group first met
Spring 2001 – Gwen and Hope worry about the missing group, and Hope refers to the summer they met.
After this point, the narrative will be linear for awhile, so basically the digression to ’87 is to fill in some necessary history and hopefully make you like the characters a little more. Doing the prologue and then starting the narrative in ’87 doesn’t make a lot of sense for me because the story isn’t about ’88 through ’01, it’s mostly about what happens after.
I don’t think the text has mentioned the years yet, but it will. And I’m pretty sure the “feeling of inexorability” will kick in. My question as a writer, for you as a reader, is if the plane/cave chapters and the childhood chapters make you care about the story/characters enough to keep reading and see what happens next?
November 1, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Bertram
It’s nice to have the timeline; it was confusing without it. Surprisingly, I did like the plane/cave chapters very much. In fact, I’ve been thinking about them all day. So you did accomplish that. But you lost me with the childhood chapters. Made me care LESS about the characters, rather than more. What would have made me care more for them is finding out about their present circumstances and what they are doing about it. Keep in mind, while you as an author think the childhood flashback is necessary — and it may very well be — it has the effect of stopping the story. What we as writers need to strive for is forward movement. Also, you keep the reader in suspense by telling them more rather than less. Putting the story on ice is never a good suspense technique.
Another thing to remember (and here I’m speaking to myself also) is that without tension, caring, and that feeling of inexorability at the beginning, few readers will get very far into the story. Just as a hypothetical: what if you were to start with the plane, take it a little further, maybe even have some conversation about their childhood — a sort of bonding thing — then go to Gwen and Hope.
One other little thing I learned: try not to have character’s names beginning with the same initial. During my first quick perusal, I confused Genevieve (who might have been called Gen when she was a child) with Gwen. A silly thing, but it helps keep things straight.
November 2, 2007 at 1:49 am
nomananisland
I take “thinking about them all day” as high praise. But it also makes me think hard about whether or not I need the Companions chapter where I’ve put it.
As to Genevieve and Gwendolyn — I make it a rule to always call the younger sister Gwen, while the older sister is either the full name or Evie, which is pretty far from a G name. I’ve known a lot of families who use the same letter for all their kids (thankfully not mine) and there’s actually a reason that they both have G names, but I don’t want to give away all my secrets.
November 2, 2007 at 3:59 am
Bertram
Actually, the advice about the names beginning with the same initial is rehashed advice from a book I read.
I panic when I think that you might change your book because of anything I said. (Except for the original comment about the adverbs and speaker attributes. That holds true.) All I know is that you had me, then lost me.
November 2, 2007 at 10:30 am
nomananisland
See, I don’t take this possible change that seriously — I have had at least three separate beginnings to the book, and it still has each of those chapters, just in different places. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the Companions section, I’m just considering moving it.
Because I don’t want to lose the reader just as things are about to get interesting. And it sounds like the mountain chapters and the Gwen chapters are okay — but that the childhood is getting in the way. If I had more readers commenting, I’d have a better sense of whether or not I’m accomplishing what I want to.
November 2, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Bertram
The thing I find so great about computers is that you can have your cake and eat it too. You can keep your book the way you had it originally, and you can move the chapters around in another copy to see how it works without ruining the original.
December 24, 2007 at 5:28 am
sonjanitschke
Bertram gives good advice. I hardly think I’m the one to advice about switching characters and view…but I think it would be nice if the sections within the cave were more “together”, not split between dreams/childhood. Also, are those italic paragraphs dreams? If so, personally, I’d prefer that to be more clear. If they’re not then, again personally, I’d prefer to know what they are, or at least a nudge to send me in the right direction.
The timeline was necessary. When I met Gwen and the subsequent first person sections the constant question in the back of my mind was –~~ wait, what?
Possibly more constructive(ish) thoughts at the end.
December 24, 2007 at 12:54 pm
nomananisland
In one draft of the novel, I had chapters alternating (ie. The Cave/a dream/the cave/childhood/cave/Gwen/cave/Gwen etc etc you get the idea)
I thought perhaps that was too much switching, so I made each section stand on its own. But now it sounds like the Companions and Gwen chapters make everyone miss what’s going on with the main characters, so perhaps returning to that format would work better? Any thoughts?
January 16, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Katie
At this point, specific dates haven’t been mentioned, but you can figure it out if you think about it. (Neal was born in 1979, he was 8 in the childhood flashbacks, it’s been 14 years since then, so now he’s 22 and it’s 2001.) You made it clear that it’s spring in this chapter, and Gwen said she hadn’t seen her brother since Christmas, so now it’s 2002.
Except you said it’s still 2001…oh right, the plane crash was in Feb. Got it.
I somewhat agree with Bertram on all the switching back and forth, and I think there might be a couple ways around it..
One way is having all the characters in the cave talking about how they met, and reiterating what they did that summer in 1987, but unless that’s done very very well it can be very confusing. (Remember when we met? “Yeah, Ethan invited us all to his house and had this great game idea…” “Oh yeah! And I was Lancelot!”) That version would keep them all in the cave, but Ethan would still be in a coma and Genevieve would still be out of it.
Another way is to have the childhood sequence at the beginning of the book, and then fast forward 14 years. Then the question of ‘why was Dan invited?’ (or rather, why wouldn’t he be?) would be answered before it could be asked.
I’m guessing the dream sequences you’ve fixed already, since the chapter titles all say ‘dream’. Still wonder where that’s going, but I’ll keep reading to find out. 🙂
February 24, 2008 at 5:12 am
dave weller
it helped to read all these comments. i agree there is a heck of a lot of switching which is ok with me as long as it comes together.
i just hope it doesn’t take me 6 seasons or 6 years like the show ‘LOST’ to bring it all together. i am starting to lose interest in that show because the story keeps broadening with no end in sight.
i know the secret of the G’s at least i think i do but i won’t give it away
February 24, 2008 at 12:36 pm
nomananisland
Hey Dave – Just to reassure you, I’m going to break down the Table of Contents a little. Right now we’re in Gwen, and after this there is New Dawn. From New Dawn on the story gets a lot of forward momentum in one direction, instead of being too broad (in my opinion). There’s one major flashback chapter called The Opening, but otherwise it’s all forward from the mountain into the future instead of the past.
There might be small flashbacks within individual chapters, like someone remembering something, but so far as storyline goes, everything goes forward from here except the Opening and a section that hasn’t been posted yet, called the Rewind. But even though it’s about a part of the past, the Rewind still pulls the story forward with relevant new information. It also ties together a great deal dangling plotlines.
June 4, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Kael
I’ll admit that I’m reading this while at work, so maybe that’ll excuse my mistake; I totally missed the Gen/Gwen thing. These are two seperate characters? I’ll have to go back and reread.
Otherwise, I like the time switching; though I find that it makes me want to read through a section in the hope that the next chapter will bring me back to where I was left hanging. (perhaps this is why I missed the Gen/Gwen).
June 4, 2008 at 4:44 pm
nomananisland
I intentionally never call Genevieve “Gen” to avoid some confusion. Her nickname is usually “Eve” or “Evie.” I hope that helps as the novel progresses.
Re-reading chapters might be a really good idea, because this whole book quite often refers to itself, and has little hints and tricks hidden throughout. Having re-emphasized a chapter in your mind might give you an edge.