Prompting readers to take the stage 🎤and craft scenes. Let's see how the lesson is settling on you now. In this post, I will write one using as many ingredients as I can from the Recipe Card and invite you to write one, too, and share. These will all be called Winter Tales and your last (or first) name goes before. The only limit is word count: 500 total.
On the Mojave winter is bad-ass cold. It seldom rains, never snows, but the wind howls like a wounded coyote and hits your skin like sandpaper gone rogue.
My room in Margie and Granville’s foster care in Trona, is small and square like a cell. Granville wakes me at dawn as usual. Once a guard at Alcatraz, he disciplines me like I’m a low-life prisoner.
“Get up you lazy bum.” His voice chills me to the bone.
I stick out a toe, reluctant to touch frigid linoleum the color of raw liver. I smell kerosine vapors from the heater down the hall and hear it ticking awake. The warmth will never reach my room, and it’s better to get up.
“Come on get up. Now.” Quieter than usual, but still demanding.
“Mffmft,” my answer muffled by my pillow. I open one eye and see his squat body framed in the doorway.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.” A cigarette dangles from his lips.
No surprise could top him telling me he had a surprise for me. Our screaming matches are legendary. Mr. Leonard next door had the nerve to come over only once to see if I was all right. Granville threatened to get his rifle if he didn’t get out of the yard.
He calls me an amazon, a slut, stupid, a pile of shit. I’m 17, so skinny my classmates call me Boney Maroney. I absorb his words like sucker punches to my gut and scream my hate. But today he has a surprise.
Maybe my mother isn’t really dead. What could be a better surprise than that?
I dance my bare feet across the floor, throw on clothes, and meet Granville in the kitchen, taking my place at the table.
“Look outside,” his gruffness replaced with wonder, “Isn’t it purdy?”
Covered in snow, the flat landscape really did surprise me. I’ve lived my whole life on the desert and never touched snow.
The closest I get is seeing Telescope Peak miles away in Death Valley out the kitchen window. I imagine the mountain snow as delicious as vanilla ice cream, the only food I ate for months, trying to starve myself. I ended up infuriating and disgracing Granville when a doctor accused him of negligence.
We go outside.
“We had lots of snow in Kansas when I was your age.” He laughs. His cheeks are pinched red by the cold. He shows me how to roll a snow ball. He tosses it and misses me.
We both laugh and toss snow around.
“Let’s get breakfast, kid.”
Ever since I tried to starve myself, he forces me eat a hearty breakfast before leaving for work. I use his insistence on eating as a way to irritate him, pushing the food around until he yells at me.
Today I’m invited to join him.
Today is the day I decide to eat breakfast every day, determined to gain weight before going out on my own. Today the snow, white as vanilla ice cream brings us together.
I love your first paragraph! Your dialogue is great too! I struggled myself, bringing dialogue in while building scene and I think you did such a great job at it!
Thank you. I've been struggling forever to figure out what makes a scene. Having a recipe and mixing in the rest of the ingredients makes it a bit easier.
Very good submit, Lori...I'm toying with a thread so we can all talk about these scenes and I can offer suggestions here and there. So hold steady with me. Overall, the suffering here with Granville is palpable. Well done.
I couldn't get it down to 500 words and I tried. I'm admiring of Laura and Lori. I have much to learn.
Somers-Winter Tale
It was Dec 23rd. Almost 6 inches of snow lay on the ground. It was getting dark. With Christmas lights everywhere we could see, New Jersey seemed transformed into a beautiful version of herself. We all noticed it at the same time and were quiet, almost reverential. What was it about those Christmas fairy lights that made everything look magical? Cars were flying by on the NJ Turnpike, probably driving too fast for that much snow. Feathery white fanlike shapes were spewing from tires. The turnpike lights lit up the road in front of us like a winter wonderland. We passed shopping centers on our right. Stores were wrapped in red, green, blue, and white lights. One had a huge star on its roof. For a couple of moments, I felt profoundly happy.
My father had picked Jeff and me up at Newark Airport. Crowded, yes, but people seemed to be in a forgiving mood. Getting our luggage and out to Arrivals had gone smoothly. We were weary after the five and half hour flight from California. Travel always excited me. Like a small child, I clung to the belief that when I flew somewhere, the unhappy part of me would stay behind.
“I’m glad it worked out that I could pick you up,” Dad said. The subtext of which was, ‘you know your mom, I had to talk her into this.’ Though he hadn’t mentioned her, just being reminded that she was waiting in Princeton for our arrival, inundated me with emotions that I had trouble navigating. He was driving a brand-new Audi with leather seats, very unusual purchase for my father. He had a satisfied look. I suspected that having a car like this was something he had longed for a long time but was held back when reminded of the expense. I was in the passenger seat and Jeff was sprawled in the middle of the back seat; his legs so long that I had to pull myself up practically into the glove compartment.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Jeff. We’ve heard so much about you. You are also an east coast transplant, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir, well, I’m in the Navy, on Mare Island. I don’t know if I would have picked California to live but that’s how it’s worked out and I love it.”
How I wanted my parents to love Jeff. I wanted to be less of a disappointment to my mother. I thought, I hoped that when they met this wonderful man and realized he loved me, that maybe she would love me too.
We left the Turnpike and drove on Route 1. Soon we were on Nassau Street. The streetlights had diminished. Everything was quiet. My heart was beating loudly. I looked at my father to see if he could hear it. His half-smile was gone. He was chewing his bottom lip. I looked around at Jeff who had his eyes closed but wasn’t asleep. I felt myself go from a 25 year-old woman to a 10 year-old child in the time it took to pull up to our house on Scott Lane.
There, standing behind the front door screen, was the person I was most terrified of in the whole world. My mother.
Hi Sara: Thank you for this. Well done. And this is heartbreaking at the emotional level. Of course. It's so hard to see love withheld in the family, where we are first taught how to love, and yet love seems to find a way. There is grace and sadness here, at the same time. THANK YOU!
Now...here is a little lesson to share about hitting the word count. This, revision, is 497 words and I brought it there mostly by rearranging and removing the word "that" and passive verb construction which can be found with "ing" on a very and "was" or "were" before it. Another way to reduce words is to bring the pick up at the airport to the beginning and remain in "real time" vs. going back and adding "had" for the past-perfect.
50 word reduced version of Somers-Winter Tale:
Somers-Winter Tale
It was the 23rd of December and getting dark. Six inches of snow on the ground. With Christmas lights everywhere we could see, New Jersey seemed transformed into a beautiful version of herself. We all noticed and were quiet, almost reverential wondering how Christmas fairy lights made everything look magical Cars flew by on the NJ Turnpike, probably driving too fast for that much snow. Feathery white fanlike shapes spewed from tires. Turnpike lights lit up the road in front of us like a winter wonderland. We passed shopping centers on our right, stores wrapped in red, green, blue, and white lights. One had a huge star on its roof. For those moments, I felt profoundly happy.
My had father picked Jeff and me up at Newark Airport. Crowded, yes, but people seemed in a forgiving mood. Getting our luggage and out to Arrivals had gone smoothly. We were weary after the five and half hour flight from California, yet ravel always excited me. Like a small child, I clung to the belief that when I flew somewhere, the unhappy part of me would stay behind.
“I’m glad it worked out that I could get here,” Dad said. The subtext of which was, ‘you know your mom, I had to talk her into this.’ Though he hadn’t mentioned her, being reminded she waited in Princeton inundated me with difficult emotions.
Dad drove a brand-new Audi with leather seats, an unusual purchase for my father. He had a satisfied look. I suspected having a car like this was something he longed for a long time but held back by the expense. I sat in the passenger seat. Jeff sprawled in the middle of the back seat; legs so long I had to pull very near the glove compartment.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Jeff,” Dad said. “We’ve heard so much about you. You are also an east coast transplant, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Jeff said. “I’m in the Navy, on Mare Island. I don’t know if I would have picked California to live but that’s how it’s worked out. I love it.”
How I wanted my parents to love Jeff and most of all that my mother would love hi and to be less of a disappointment to my mother. I thought, I hoped that when they met this wonderful man and realized he loved me, that maybe she would love me, too.
Dad steered off the Turnpike and drove on Route 1 and onto Nassau Street. The streetlights diminished. Everything was quiet. My heart beating loudly. I looked over at my father to see if he could hear it. His half-smile was gone. He chewed his bottom lip. I looked around at Jeff who had his eyes closed but wasn’t asleep. When Dad pulled up to our house on Scott Lane, I felt myself go from a 25 year-old woman to a 10 year-old child.
There, behind the front door screen, stood my mother.
You nailed the descriptions. It's a big ask to stay in 500 words when we have so much to say. It's kind of like bulking up at the gym in reverse, not easy. I still got involved with your story and want more.
Blustery weather arrived days before the 1977 Winter Solstice. Although ice, snow, and seventeen degrees wasn’t too unusual for Collinsville, Illinois.
In my bedroom, my Christmas tree sat backdropped by jungle wallpaper. I stepped back, admiring the tree. Red, green, blue vines of light dangled loosely on the branches.
My stepmom brought me the tree, carrying in yesterday, tucked under the arm of her long rabbit coat. She placed it on my toy chest, slipping off her high heels and squatting down to adjust it in the stand.
“This is your very own tree, isn’t it special? She asked. She stared at me to respond.
I nodded, “Thank you”. Trying to look delighted.
The Grinch played on my black and white television. A small table and chair sat next to it. On top of it, my dinner. I saw my dungeon, dressed up in a room that looked like the bedroom of a much-loved child, with its very own Christmas tree.
I turned the television dial, unable to find anything different to watch. I didn’t like the grinch, maybe because I felt a little like him. I didn’t get Christmas. What was the big deal about it, anyway? So, I turned the tv off and grabbed my record player case.
My dad came into my room and placed a wrapped gift from my Aunt Jane on my bed. Gold filigreed paper, a big white satin ribbon tied around it. Beautiful, like she was.
“Put it under your tree. Santa will put his under the tree in the Living room,” he said. I stood, pressing my head into his soft, warm flannel shirt, his strong arms wrapping around me. I relaxed in his embrace, and I let him think I believed in Santa. Even though I just turned ten- and ten-year-olds didn’t believe in such malarky.
I tucked the present under my tree. I felt happier, lighter as I imagined Aunt Jane, snuggling with her new baby by her tree. Cookies baking. Wrapped presents. Lucky Jessica.
My fingers lightly dropped the needle into the third groove of the record. Jiminy Cricket sang “When you wish upon a star.” I sang quietly along until my stepmom burst through my door. I jumped up. My heart raced.
“Turn that off. It’s too loud,” and she slammed my door again, turning off my light as she left.
My Christmas tree sparkled through the quiet. Frosty reflections of its colorful lights bounced off my window and I couldn’t see outside anymore. I walked over, kneeled, and scratched away at the frost so I could see.
Winter nights were clearer than summer ones. Stars sprinkled like glitter candy across the black-blue sky. One star blinked, and I wished upon it. My nose pressed on the cold glass, my warm breath melting the frost. I wished for my stepmom to love me. I wished my mom were alive. I wished, feeling hopeful, one would come true as my nose numbed against the frozen glass.
You pack a lot of emotion in this scene, showing the sadness underneath the hoopla of Christmas. Makes my heart ache for the child hidden away in a room by herself, yearning for love.
Hi Laura: Excellent use of the verb in this line, "my Christmas tree sat backdropped by jungle wallpaper". And thank you, overall for this piece. Like the others posted here, there is great sadness and even shock in this story...gestures of kindness and yet there is also an undercurrent of something almost unnameable. Unhappiness. Cruelty. I am sorry and yet, by experience I know we all carry a load of some sort. Right? We work with what we've been given and in our case, as writers, we work that material on the page. So...you are. And that's a gift to everyone. As I wrote in other posts, I will likely start a thread to teach from these pieces...so hold steady. The questions I have for you is...how many scenes are there in this, do you think? And what of descriptions of stepmom and then dad? Is there a reason not to put them in? Was it word count?
I just realized that I didn't reply to you. (apologies). To answer your questions, my intent is that it is one scene. I am in my room. However, I wrote this quickly, not a lot of editing and since then I have rewritten, tightened, reshaped so that I think the "one room" is better represented. And yes, the word limit stumped me on descrips of stepmom and dad. I feel like though I wasted a lot of words on the "room" , and that the word count could have been better represented by descrip of character. Tightening my sentences up is my January goal. Shorter and more concise.
Thank you for the analysis of Lori's, Bernard's and Andrew's tales. It was most helpful. This is my attempt.
Sherri-Winter Tale
The rain slants down, gray bullets. The bus driver pulls the lever. The door groans open. I step down first, followed by my little brother. The chill seeps into our skin immediately, humid and icy at the same time, proclaiming to New Orleans that Laissez les bons temps rouler has been suspended until Mardi Gras.
I raise the hood on my light winter jacket, Greg curls his shoulders toward his ears. We walk in silence down deserted suburban streets toward our house three blocks away, gray sky above us, gray streets, gray sidewalks, even the grass is a gray corpse. All the kids but us are seemingly warm and dry behind those doors and glowing windows we pass. Did their mothers come to get them in cars, I wonder. Did they drive home in cushioned heat?
As we approach our two-story coffee-colored house, I expect our mom will be busy with our little sisters and housework, sending us straight to the kitchen table to do our homework. When we get close to the door, though, she opens it. “Come in, hurry up, it’s cold,” she says, smiling. We come into the living room and stand dripping on the brown mat at the door. Our sisters play with blocks on the wood floor in front of the television, brown couch on the wall at their backs. A framed picture of a red-haired boy playing the guitar and singing hangs above the sofa.
Mom helps us off with our coats and takes them to the bathroom to drip dry. “Go change and get some socks on,” she tells us as she heads to the bathroom. “You must be freezing. Dry your hair!”
After we have dried our hair and put on jeans and sweaters, we come into the kitchen, warm from the stove and brightly by the hanging fake Tiffany lamp with its plastic multicolored panes. Mom stands at the stove, putting fried bread on two plates for us. It is her childhood favorite, generously buttered and fried in a pan. We sit at the round wooden table, and she sets the plates before us, steam rising from the golden bread, two pieces each. She brings us two mugs of hot chocolate, two marshmallows bobbing in each.
My brother and I look at each other for a second across the table. Normally, we get our own snacks, some Oreos and milk maybe. Mom only says, “Do your homework while you eat, please, then you can watch tv.”
“Thank you, Mom!” we both say, dragging books out of our satchels.
Margie and I had just pulled into our friends' driveway when my phone rang. It was my two sisters calling me on the phone. My world shrunk in on me. I could see my right arm resting on the console of my pickup, my hand now gripping the shift knob, the other still on the wheel.
When I had seen Dad for Christmas in Idaho three days earlier, he was frail and weak, his eyes lacked the sharp gleam I was looking for. His world had progressively shrunk since mom’s passing, “the day the phones quit ringing,” he said. His declining eyesight had robbed him of his crossword puzzles, and his independence, his being able to drive himself. Dad was smart, he carried a conversation, and he liked to dance. But, when Mom’s cancer took her, it took Dad’s will to live - to get out and try to enjoy life.
Dad was fortunate to have been able to afford the live-in care, so we were never forced to move him out of his home into an assisted living situation, like the one his brother spent his last days in.
This was the call. I knew it as soon as I saw the caller ID. I saw no further than the rock chip in the windshield, the musty smell a car picks up after miles of uninterrupted driving heavy in my nostrils, tears threatening to break the dams in my eyes. We had traveled to our friends’ house in Bonney Lake to watch the Huskies play Alabama in the Peach Bowl and had just pulled into their driveway. I motioned Margie to go out in the frigid clear air and meet them, to let me take the call alone.
“He can hear you,” she said, “but he won’t answer.”
I made my voice upbeat. I was not going to let my dad hear my last goodbye to him as sad. I said, “Goodbye, Dad. I love you. You did a good job, it’s OK, I will see you again. Say Hi to Mom for me and give her a hug. Goodbye.”
My sister’s voice came back on. “He’s peaceful,” she said.
I barely managed, “Thank you, sis.” And then I disconnected.
Margie told Jerry and Cindy, of course, they wanted to be comforting, but I didn’t want to show anyone what I was feeling for fear I would be unable… I didn’t want anyone to see me ‘emotional’. I told them, “it’s OK, I’m OK, ‘this’ is OK, my dad has “run out of gas”. “It’s his time,” I said.
We climbed the flight of stairs to their TV room and watched a football game I no longer cared about. Just before halftime, my phone rang again, the harsh tone startling me. I saw the same number.
A chill.
I didn’t want to answer, but I did, not trusting my voice to work. “Yeah?”
The car’s thermometer read forty-seven degrees as you parked: pleasant for winter, in Cortez, Colorado. Standing in the parking lot of the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, you look down and realize the lot isn’t paved; the lot is hard, not dusty, and it feels like sandpaper. There are two cars in the lot, the white Chevy Malibu that you rented in Durango, and a black Ford Explorer with a cracked windshield and a dent in the driver’s door. The wheat grass in the field across the road is dry, the color of sun-bleached straw, and the cottonwoods are mostly bare. A stocky man wearing a tan colored plaid shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots, is standing on a narrow dirt driveway, near where the driveway crosses a small bridge over a creek. Huge, dark, swirling, clouds shroud Ute Mountain, a half a mile to the south, and a dusting of snow shows on the mountain wherever the clouds part. There is a cool, steady, breeze chilling your face and the faint smell of cedar smoke. You leave the knife that you brought from the motel in the car — for now.
A thin woman is walking down the driveway from a small adobe-colored house, she is wearing blue jeans and a dark-blue puffy jacket, carrying a plastic grocery bag with something in it, and she is getting closer to the man. Two big ravens, jet black, perch in one of the cottonwoods, almost above you – making soft croaking sounds – and they seem to be watching the orange sun that is almost ready to set behind the hills in the west. A fluffy white dog, at least one hundred pounds, maybe a Great Pyrenees, is just outside the barbed wire fence that parallels the driveway. She's moving quickly with her big white snout pointing down ’and her black nose skimming the ground, sniffling and sniffing and barking and barking.
“Daisy! Come here. Daisy! Don't go in there. Come here, girl.” The man is pleading, but the dog acts like she doesn't hear him at all.
“Daisy! Daisy! Come here! Come back here!” The woman shouts, cupping her hands to direct the sound. Behind the barbed wire fence, further west, is a willow thicket that follows the creek as it runs past a brown alfalfa field. The willows have died and regrown over the years, leaving dry willow wood stalks that fill the slightest gap between the ten-foot-high living willows, like twisted wire, creating a solid mass of willow, living and dead.
The dog lowers herself down into a crouch and crawls under the bottom wire of the fence.
“Daisy, please don't go in there.” It’s the man again and the dog still pays no attention. She's barking constantly and staring into the thicket.
Bang! The sound echoes against the hills as you feel the shock wave. The ravens leap into the air, catching themselves on their wings, and fly east. A gunshot, you wonder.
The dog has frozen in place and looks around, then directly at you, startled.
Warm holiday greetings to everyone.
Lori—Winter Tale 1963
On the Mojave winter is bad-ass cold. It seldom rains, never snows, but the wind howls like a wounded coyote and hits your skin like sandpaper gone rogue.
My room in Margie and Granville’s foster care in Trona, is small and square like a cell. Granville wakes me at dawn as usual. Once a guard at Alcatraz, he disciplines me like I’m a low-life prisoner.
“Get up you lazy bum.” His voice chills me to the bone.
I stick out a toe, reluctant to touch frigid linoleum the color of raw liver. I smell kerosine vapors from the heater down the hall and hear it ticking awake. The warmth will never reach my room, and it’s better to get up.
“Come on get up. Now.” Quieter than usual, but still demanding.
“Mffmft,” my answer muffled by my pillow. I open one eye and see his squat body framed in the doorway.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.” A cigarette dangles from his lips.
No surprise could top him telling me he had a surprise for me. Our screaming matches are legendary. Mr. Leonard next door had the nerve to come over only once to see if I was all right. Granville threatened to get his rifle if he didn’t get out of the yard.
He calls me an amazon, a slut, stupid, a pile of shit. I’m 17, so skinny my classmates call me Boney Maroney. I absorb his words like sucker punches to my gut and scream my hate. But today he has a surprise.
Maybe my mother isn’t really dead. What could be a better surprise than that?
I dance my bare feet across the floor, throw on clothes, and meet Granville in the kitchen, taking my place at the table.
“Look outside,” his gruffness replaced with wonder, “Isn’t it purdy?”
Covered in snow, the flat landscape really did surprise me. I’ve lived my whole life on the desert and never touched snow.
The closest I get is seeing Telescope Peak miles away in Death Valley out the kitchen window. I imagine the mountain snow as delicious as vanilla ice cream, the only food I ate for months, trying to starve myself. I ended up infuriating and disgracing Granville when a doctor accused him of negligence.
We go outside.
“We had lots of snow in Kansas when I was your age.” He laughs. His cheeks are pinched red by the cold. He shows me how to roll a snow ball. He tosses it and misses me.
We both laugh and toss snow around.
“Let’s get breakfast, kid.”
Ever since I tried to starve myself, he forces me eat a hearty breakfast before leaving for work. I use his insistence on eating as a way to irritate him, pushing the food around until he yells at me.
Today I’m invited to join him.
Today is the day I decide to eat breakfast every day, determined to gain weight before going out on my own. Today the snow, white as vanilla ice cream brings us together.
I love your first paragraph! Your dialogue is great too! I struggled myself, bringing dialogue in while building scene and I think you did such a great job at it!
Thank you. I've been struggling forever to figure out what makes a scene. Having a recipe and mixing in the rest of the ingredients makes it a bit easier.
True.
Very good submit, Lori...I'm toying with a thread so we can all talk about these scenes and I can offer suggestions here and there. So hold steady with me. Overall, the suffering here with Granville is palpable. Well done.
I couldn't get it down to 500 words and I tried. I'm admiring of Laura and Lori. I have much to learn.
Somers-Winter Tale
It was Dec 23rd. Almost 6 inches of snow lay on the ground. It was getting dark. With Christmas lights everywhere we could see, New Jersey seemed transformed into a beautiful version of herself. We all noticed it at the same time and were quiet, almost reverential. What was it about those Christmas fairy lights that made everything look magical? Cars were flying by on the NJ Turnpike, probably driving too fast for that much snow. Feathery white fanlike shapes were spewing from tires. The turnpike lights lit up the road in front of us like a winter wonderland. We passed shopping centers on our right. Stores were wrapped in red, green, blue, and white lights. One had a huge star on its roof. For a couple of moments, I felt profoundly happy.
My father had picked Jeff and me up at Newark Airport. Crowded, yes, but people seemed to be in a forgiving mood. Getting our luggage and out to Arrivals had gone smoothly. We were weary after the five and half hour flight from California. Travel always excited me. Like a small child, I clung to the belief that when I flew somewhere, the unhappy part of me would stay behind.
“I’m glad it worked out that I could pick you up,” Dad said. The subtext of which was, ‘you know your mom, I had to talk her into this.’ Though he hadn’t mentioned her, just being reminded that she was waiting in Princeton for our arrival, inundated me with emotions that I had trouble navigating. He was driving a brand-new Audi with leather seats, very unusual purchase for my father. He had a satisfied look. I suspected that having a car like this was something he had longed for a long time but was held back when reminded of the expense. I was in the passenger seat and Jeff was sprawled in the middle of the back seat; his legs so long that I had to pull myself up practically into the glove compartment.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Jeff. We’ve heard so much about you. You are also an east coast transplant, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir, well, I’m in the Navy, on Mare Island. I don’t know if I would have picked California to live but that’s how it’s worked out and I love it.”
How I wanted my parents to love Jeff. I wanted to be less of a disappointment to my mother. I thought, I hoped that when they met this wonderful man and realized he loved me, that maybe she would love me too.
We left the Turnpike and drove on Route 1. Soon we were on Nassau Street. The streetlights had diminished. Everything was quiet. My heart was beating loudly. I looked at my father to see if he could hear it. His half-smile was gone. He was chewing his bottom lip. I looked around at Jeff who had his eyes closed but wasn’t asleep. I felt myself go from a 25 year-old woman to a 10 year-old child in the time it took to pull up to our house on Scott Lane.
There, standing behind the front door screen, was the person I was most terrified of in the whole world. My mother.
Hi Sara: Thank you for this. Well done. And this is heartbreaking at the emotional level. Of course. It's so hard to see love withheld in the family, where we are first taught how to love, and yet love seems to find a way. There is grace and sadness here, at the same time. THANK YOU!
Now...here is a little lesson to share about hitting the word count. This, revision, is 497 words and I brought it there mostly by rearranging and removing the word "that" and passive verb construction which can be found with "ing" on a very and "was" or "were" before it. Another way to reduce words is to bring the pick up at the airport to the beginning and remain in "real time" vs. going back and adding "had" for the past-perfect.
50 word reduced version of Somers-Winter Tale:
Somers-Winter Tale
It was the 23rd of December and getting dark. Six inches of snow on the ground. With Christmas lights everywhere we could see, New Jersey seemed transformed into a beautiful version of herself. We all noticed and were quiet, almost reverential wondering how Christmas fairy lights made everything look magical Cars flew by on the NJ Turnpike, probably driving too fast for that much snow. Feathery white fanlike shapes spewed from tires. Turnpike lights lit up the road in front of us like a winter wonderland. We passed shopping centers on our right, stores wrapped in red, green, blue, and white lights. One had a huge star on its roof. For those moments, I felt profoundly happy.
My had father picked Jeff and me up at Newark Airport. Crowded, yes, but people seemed in a forgiving mood. Getting our luggage and out to Arrivals had gone smoothly. We were weary after the five and half hour flight from California, yet ravel always excited me. Like a small child, I clung to the belief that when I flew somewhere, the unhappy part of me would stay behind.
“I’m glad it worked out that I could get here,” Dad said. The subtext of which was, ‘you know your mom, I had to talk her into this.’ Though he hadn’t mentioned her, being reminded she waited in Princeton inundated me with difficult emotions.
Dad drove a brand-new Audi with leather seats, an unusual purchase for my father. He had a satisfied look. I suspected having a car like this was something he longed for a long time but held back by the expense. I sat in the passenger seat. Jeff sprawled in the middle of the back seat; legs so long I had to pull very near the glove compartment.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Jeff,” Dad said. “We’ve heard so much about you. You are also an east coast transplant, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Jeff said. “I’m in the Navy, on Mare Island. I don’t know if I would have picked California to live but that’s how it’s worked out. I love it.”
How I wanted my parents to love Jeff and most of all that my mother would love hi and to be less of a disappointment to my mother. I thought, I hoped that when they met this wonderful man and realized he loved me, that maybe she would love me, too.
Dad steered off the Turnpike and drove on Route 1 and onto Nassau Street. The streetlights diminished. Everything was quiet. My heart beating loudly. I looked over at my father to see if he could hear it. His half-smile was gone. He chewed his bottom lip. I looked around at Jeff who had his eyes closed but wasn’t asleep. When Dad pulled up to our house on Scott Lane, I felt myself go from a 25 year-old woman to a 10 year-old child.
There, behind the front door screen, stood my mother.
Thank you, Jennifer. This is so helpful!
A Happy Christmas to all of you. I'm excited for the new year and writing with you all
You nailed the descriptions. It's a big ask to stay in 500 words when we have so much to say. It's kind of like bulking up at the gym in reverse, not easy. I still got involved with your story and want more.
I think you did an excellent job at describing the scene. I felt like I was in the car with you, observing!
Laura-Winter Tale:
Blustery weather arrived days before the 1977 Winter Solstice. Although ice, snow, and seventeen degrees wasn’t too unusual for Collinsville, Illinois.
In my bedroom, my Christmas tree sat backdropped by jungle wallpaper. I stepped back, admiring the tree. Red, green, blue vines of light dangled loosely on the branches.
My stepmom brought me the tree, carrying in yesterday, tucked under the arm of her long rabbit coat. She placed it on my toy chest, slipping off her high heels and squatting down to adjust it in the stand.
“This is your very own tree, isn’t it special? She asked. She stared at me to respond.
I nodded, “Thank you”. Trying to look delighted.
The Grinch played on my black and white television. A small table and chair sat next to it. On top of it, my dinner. I saw my dungeon, dressed up in a room that looked like the bedroom of a much-loved child, with its very own Christmas tree.
I turned the television dial, unable to find anything different to watch. I didn’t like the grinch, maybe because I felt a little like him. I didn’t get Christmas. What was the big deal about it, anyway? So, I turned the tv off and grabbed my record player case.
My dad came into my room and placed a wrapped gift from my Aunt Jane on my bed. Gold filigreed paper, a big white satin ribbon tied around it. Beautiful, like she was.
“Put it under your tree. Santa will put his under the tree in the Living room,” he said. I stood, pressing my head into his soft, warm flannel shirt, his strong arms wrapping around me. I relaxed in his embrace, and I let him think I believed in Santa. Even though I just turned ten- and ten-year-olds didn’t believe in such malarky.
I tucked the present under my tree. I felt happier, lighter as I imagined Aunt Jane, snuggling with her new baby by her tree. Cookies baking. Wrapped presents. Lucky Jessica.
My fingers lightly dropped the needle into the third groove of the record. Jiminy Cricket sang “When you wish upon a star.” I sang quietly along until my stepmom burst through my door. I jumped up. My heart raced.
“Turn that off. It’s too loud,” and she slammed my door again, turning off my light as she left.
My Christmas tree sparkled through the quiet. Frosty reflections of its colorful lights bounced off my window and I couldn’t see outside anymore. I walked over, kneeled, and scratched away at the frost so I could see.
Winter nights were clearer than summer ones. Stars sprinkled like glitter candy across the black-blue sky. One star blinked, and I wished upon it. My nose pressed on the cold glass, my warm breath melting the frost. I wished for my stepmom to love me. I wished my mom were alive. I wished, feeling hopeful, one would come true as my nose numbed against the frozen glass.
You pack a lot of emotion in this scene, showing the sadness underneath the hoopla of Christmas. Makes my heart ache for the child hidden away in a room by herself, yearning for love.
Laura--I absolutely love your last paragraph. Evocative, sad, hopeful, lovely -- all in one short paragraph.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment!
Hi Laura: Excellent use of the verb in this line, "my Christmas tree sat backdropped by jungle wallpaper". And thank you, overall for this piece. Like the others posted here, there is great sadness and even shock in this story...gestures of kindness and yet there is also an undercurrent of something almost unnameable. Unhappiness. Cruelty. I am sorry and yet, by experience I know we all carry a load of some sort. Right? We work with what we've been given and in our case, as writers, we work that material on the page. So...you are. And that's a gift to everyone. As I wrote in other posts, I will likely start a thread to teach from these pieces...so hold steady. The questions I have for you is...how many scenes are there in this, do you think? And what of descriptions of stepmom and then dad? Is there a reason not to put them in? Was it word count?
I just realized that I didn't reply to you. (apologies). To answer your questions, my intent is that it is one scene. I am in my room. However, I wrote this quickly, not a lot of editing and since then I have rewritten, tightened, reshaped so that I think the "one room" is better represented. And yes, the word limit stumped me on descrips of stepmom and dad. I feel like though I wasted a lot of words on the "room" , and that the word count could have been better represented by descrip of character. Tightening my sentences up is my January goal. Shorter and more concise.
I'm up to writing a scene but I wanted to jump in and say--that photo of the snowflake is stunning!
Thank you for the analysis of Lori's, Bernard's and Andrew's tales. It was most helpful. This is my attempt.
Sherri-Winter Tale
The rain slants down, gray bullets. The bus driver pulls the lever. The door groans open. I step down first, followed by my little brother. The chill seeps into our skin immediately, humid and icy at the same time, proclaiming to New Orleans that Laissez les bons temps rouler has been suspended until Mardi Gras.
I raise the hood on my light winter jacket, Greg curls his shoulders toward his ears. We walk in silence down deserted suburban streets toward our house three blocks away, gray sky above us, gray streets, gray sidewalks, even the grass is a gray corpse. All the kids but us are seemingly warm and dry behind those doors and glowing windows we pass. Did their mothers come to get them in cars, I wonder. Did they drive home in cushioned heat?
As we approach our two-story coffee-colored house, I expect our mom will be busy with our little sisters and housework, sending us straight to the kitchen table to do our homework. When we get close to the door, though, she opens it. “Come in, hurry up, it’s cold,” she says, smiling. We come into the living room and stand dripping on the brown mat at the door. Our sisters play with blocks on the wood floor in front of the television, brown couch on the wall at their backs. A framed picture of a red-haired boy playing the guitar and singing hangs above the sofa.
Mom helps us off with our coats and takes them to the bathroom to drip dry. “Go change and get some socks on,” she tells us as she heads to the bathroom. “You must be freezing. Dry your hair!”
After we have dried our hair and put on jeans and sweaters, we come into the kitchen, warm from the stove and brightly by the hanging fake Tiffany lamp with its plastic multicolored panes. Mom stands at the stove, putting fried bread on two plates for us. It is her childhood favorite, generously buttered and fried in a pan. We sit at the round wooden table, and she sets the plates before us, steam rising from the golden bread, two pieces each. She brings us two mugs of hot chocolate, two marshmallows bobbing in each.
My brother and I look at each other for a second across the table. Normally, we get our own snacks, some Oreos and milk maybe. Mom only says, “Do your homework while you eat, please, then you can watch tv.”
“Thank you, Mom!” we both say, dragging books out of our satchels.
Andrew - Winter 2016
Margie and I had just pulled into our friends' driveway when my phone rang. It was my two sisters calling me on the phone. My world shrunk in on me. I could see my right arm resting on the console of my pickup, my hand now gripping the shift knob, the other still on the wheel.
When I had seen Dad for Christmas in Idaho three days earlier, he was frail and weak, his eyes lacked the sharp gleam I was looking for. His world had progressively shrunk since mom’s passing, “the day the phones quit ringing,” he said. His declining eyesight had robbed him of his crossword puzzles, and his independence, his being able to drive himself. Dad was smart, he carried a conversation, and he liked to dance. But, when Mom’s cancer took her, it took Dad’s will to live - to get out and try to enjoy life.
Dad was fortunate to have been able to afford the live-in care, so we were never forced to move him out of his home into an assisted living situation, like the one his brother spent his last days in.
This was the call. I knew it as soon as I saw the caller ID. I saw no further than the rock chip in the windshield, the musty smell a car picks up after miles of uninterrupted driving heavy in my nostrils, tears threatening to break the dams in my eyes. We had traveled to our friends’ house in Bonney Lake to watch the Huskies play Alabama in the Peach Bowl and had just pulled into their driveway. I motioned Margie to go out in the frigid clear air and meet them, to let me take the call alone.
“He can hear you,” she said, “but he won’t answer.”
I made my voice upbeat. I was not going to let my dad hear my last goodbye to him as sad. I said, “Goodbye, Dad. I love you. You did a good job, it’s OK, I will see you again. Say Hi to Mom for me and give her a hug. Goodbye.”
My sister’s voice came back on. “He’s peaceful,” she said.
I barely managed, “Thank you, sis.” And then I disconnected.
Margie told Jerry and Cindy, of course, they wanted to be comforting, but I didn’t want to show anyone what I was feeling for fear I would be unable… I didn’t want anyone to see me ‘emotional’. I told them, “it’s OK, I’m OK, ‘this’ is OK, my dad has “run out of gas”. “It’s his time,” I said.
We climbed the flight of stairs to their TV room and watched a football game I no longer cared about. Just before halftime, my phone rang again, the harsh tone startling me. I saw the same number.
A chill.
I didn’t want to answer, but I did, not trusting my voice to work. “Yeah?”
“He’s gone.”
“Love you, Sis.”
Karwick Winter Tail
The car’s thermometer read forty-seven degrees as you parked: pleasant for winter, in Cortez, Colorado. Standing in the parking lot of the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, you look down and realize the lot isn’t paved; the lot is hard, not dusty, and it feels like sandpaper. There are two cars in the lot, the white Chevy Malibu that you rented in Durango, and a black Ford Explorer with a cracked windshield and a dent in the driver’s door. The wheat grass in the field across the road is dry, the color of sun-bleached straw, and the cottonwoods are mostly bare. A stocky man wearing a tan colored plaid shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots, is standing on a narrow dirt driveway, near where the driveway crosses a small bridge over a creek. Huge, dark, swirling, clouds shroud Ute Mountain, a half a mile to the south, and a dusting of snow shows on the mountain wherever the clouds part. There is a cool, steady, breeze chilling your face and the faint smell of cedar smoke. You leave the knife that you brought from the motel in the car — for now.
A thin woman is walking down the driveway from a small adobe-colored house, she is wearing blue jeans and a dark-blue puffy jacket, carrying a plastic grocery bag with something in it, and she is getting closer to the man. Two big ravens, jet black, perch in one of the cottonwoods, almost above you – making soft croaking sounds – and they seem to be watching the orange sun that is almost ready to set behind the hills in the west. A fluffy white dog, at least one hundred pounds, maybe a Great Pyrenees, is just outside the barbed wire fence that parallels the driveway. She's moving quickly with her big white snout pointing down ’and her black nose skimming the ground, sniffling and sniffing and barking and barking.
“Daisy! Come here. Daisy! Don't go in there. Come here, girl.” The man is pleading, but the dog acts like she doesn't hear him at all.
“Daisy! Daisy! Come here! Come back here!” The woman shouts, cupping her hands to direct the sound. Behind the barbed wire fence, further west, is a willow thicket that follows the creek as it runs past a brown alfalfa field. The willows have died and regrown over the years, leaving dry willow wood stalks that fill the slightest gap between the ten-foot-high living willows, like twisted wire, creating a solid mass of willow, living and dead.
The dog lowers herself down into a crouch and crawls under the bottom wire of the fence.
“Daisy, please don't go in there.” It’s the man again and the dog still pays no attention. She's barking constantly and staring into the thicket.
Bang! The sound echoes against the hills as you feel the shock wave. The ravens leap into the air, catching themselves on their wings, and fly east. A gunshot, you wonder.
The dog has frozen in place and looks around, then directly at you, startled.
I'm getting in there soon, Bernard! With my daughter for her winter visit.
Your Turn:
Get the Scene Recipe Card.
Title it Winter Tales with your last (or first) name before.
Stay at 500 words.
Include the word “winter”.
Describe the location.
Describe the people so the reader can see them.
Use a few lines of dialogue
Make sure there is a progression that takes the story from one way of being at the beginning to another at the end.