I was laying on my bed wishing I had taken more donuts when I heard Nancy’s footsteps coming up the stairs. I knew everyone’s footsteps. Then I heard her thank Libby for watching Mr. Snuffy and she unlocked her door and went in her room. Then she came over and asked if I would eat dinner with her. We would never be more than friends, but she was real nice and I liked her a lot.1
She was happy with the work I had done on her door. I told her that nobody could ever break in, that it was stronger than ever. That wasn’t true, but it made her feel better. She cooked and the three of us ate. She washed the dishes, and I sat at her table watching her, and I tried to think if she looked better from the back or from the front; back, I think. She was a small girl, almost tiny, and I don’t know how even God could have fit so much woman in such a small body. Mr. Snuffy lived with her and he was a lucky cat.2
Then she sat at the table and we talked for a while. Only when I asked about Roy she got all upset.3
“It’s not what you think,” she said. “I can’t explain.” Then she said, “Willy, I’m going away. I’m moving. I wanted to tell you, because you’re my best friend. Promise me you won’t tell anybody.”4
I promised. I felt sick to my stomach. I had never thought she would move away, and she wouldn’t even say why. We all looked up to her, which sounds funny because she was small; but we did. Her wanting to leave didn’t make sense to me. It was like a slap in the face.5
“When are you leaving?”6
“Not for a few days at least.” 7
That made me feel better; there was still time to change her mind. She wouldn’t tell me where she was going. I asked if Mr. Snuffy was going with her and she said that yes, he was, and that she would find a quiet place in the country with fields, a forest, a barn and farm animals where Mr. Snuffy would be happy. 8
When I was at the door to leave she stood up on her tiptoes, put her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek. She didn’t let go right away. She smiled. She had brown eyes, brown hair, and freckles. I think her front side maybe was even better than the back. I kissed her, and then we both kissed at the same time. Then she got away from me and she patted the front of my t-shirt and breathed out heavy-like.9
“Well,” she said. It was a deep well, too.10
“So,” she said.11
Things could have gone either way. I almost asked her if I could stay with her for the night, but then I didn’t.12
She said, “I won’t leave without saying good-bye.” I went.13
14
In the middle of the night I heard screaming, or more like groaning. It woke me up. I must have been still half asleep. It kept going on and then I heard knocking, and the groaning stopped just like that. It sounded like it was coming from Nancy’s room. I ran out. The Colonel came out too. Nancy’s door was closed and everything was quiet. “It’s alright,” I said. We went back to bed. The Colonel sometimes had nightmares, and I was thinking that was it. 15
16
Around nine o’clock the next morning I woke up to meowing outside my door. I answered the door and it was Mr. Snuffy. He made for me to follow him to Nancy’s room, pawed at her door and meowed. I picked him up and put my hand over his mouth so that Eva wouldn’t hear. I knocked and called Nancy’s name but there was no answer. Her door was locked. It was Saturday, so she probably wasn’t at work. She never let Mr. Snuffy run loose in the hall because of Eva. I felt bad thinking she had gone away and left Mr. Snuffy and didn’t even bother to say goodbye. That happened a lot at the Orpheum. You'd be friends with someone, then they'd leave in the middle of the night without saying goodbye and you'd never see them again. The Colonel stuck his head out from his door. His room was right next to mine.17
“Willy,” he whispered, like he had some important secret. I thought maybe he knew where Nancy was. “Come here. I have something to show you.”18
We went in and Mr. Snuffy jumped up on the Colonel’s bed and fell asleep. It turned out the Colonel just wanted to play chess. I didn’t feel like playing. I told him everything Nancy had told me the night before. 19
“Is it possible,” he asked, “that she left this morning and she couldn’t take the cat so she left without it?” 20
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” 21
“She almost certainly went for a walk, to run an errand perhaps. She’ll be back soon, with a perfectly logical explanation as to how Mr. Snuffy came to be roaming loose in the hallway. And I doubt that she really plans to go away.”22
“You do?”23
“If she was leaving she would have felt no need to have her door repaired. You see, she’s not going anywhere. She only wants you to think that. You still have a lot to learn about the female mind, my boy. Sit down and let me explain.”24
So I sat. Mr. Snuffy woke up and jumped off the bed.25
“Her apprehensions, which prompted her to engage your services in repairing her door, they are all in here.” He pointed to his head. “Don’t you see? It’s not the outside intruder she’s afraid of, but her innermost desires which she cannot acknowledge. 26
“Desires? Like for what?” 27
“Oh, I don’t know. For the companionship of a man, perhaps; but only a man worthy of her. Look.” He pointed to Mr. Snuffy, who wanted to leave and was scratching at the door. “There is an entity within each of us, whom we see as the Devil, who wants only to be let out. He means no harm. Not really. He only wants what all of us want; to be free, to be where he can’t hurt us anymore. And what do we do? Instead of allowing him out, we build fortifications to keep him from getting in! 28
“I’m going to see if I can find Nancy.”29
“I’ll go with you.”30
It didn’t take long to find her.31
I knocked again, hard, on Nancy’s door. Still no answer. We tried Libby’s door, but she wasn’t in. I put Mr. Snuffy in my room and the Colonel and I went down and asked Eva and she hadn’t seen her. We went outside and up and down the street. 32
“Her window,” the Colonel said. We went out back and I climbed on the dumpster and pulled myself up on the fire escape. I went up and looked in Nancy’s window. She was laying on the bed with a rubber cord tied around her arm hanging over the side of the bed and a needle on the floor. I could see she was dead. 33
In a list
Comments
1 - 9 of 9
-
Okay, I'm hooked.
For your first book, you have the tricks of the trade pretty much mastered; believable dialogue, good characterizations, and chapter endings that compell the reader to keep reading. Normally agents and editors ask for three chapters and a synopsis so I'm guessing they would want this chapter to be the first chapter in order to hook the reader. The drama needs to start in the first chapter since 90 % of books bought in stores are by women and they usually read only the first 10 pages, then go on to another. If Nancy is found in the first few paragraphs the reader will ask who and why? I'm confusing Nancy and Libby. They are two different characters, right?Great chapter. I'll continue on the next one Thursday after dinner with the wife and kids.
See, I'm compelled to read and it don't cost a dime.
JJ
beginning: 4, language: 4, plot: 4, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
-
-
Thanks for reading and commenting. I'm glad you're hooked and it's my aim that the story will keep you hooked through all eleven chapters.
Yes, Nancy and Libby are two different people. Nancy is young, about Willy's age, and Libby is middle aged.
I did not realize that 90% of books are bought by women, and that most of them only read the first 10 pages. That is certainly something to think about.
I wrote a novelette many years ago, when I was a college student, and I wrote quite a bit when I was a teenager and into my mid twenties, and studied and practiced writing in college under the tutelage of some really fine writers, so I have some background, though there was a period of about 30 years when I didn't write.
Have a happy Thanksgiving.
WillyLee
-
-
Okay I guess I have a dirty mind but I could not get past his eating the beefstick. I eventually had to go back to the first chapter to see where the beefstick came from. No good reading out of order. It is a fine mystery and very slow. Good for a long summer. No good when in a hurry.
-
-
That's what you get for reading out of order! No, you don't have a dirty mind (well, maybe you do, how would I know?), because I see what you mean. Anyone who stumbled upon this piece without having read the previous chapter would definitely get the wrong idea. At least I know I would, but then again I'm a dirty old man anyway. It's pretty funny, actually, but seriously, I'll have to cut out Mr. Snuffy's beefstick, and your pointing it out is very useful to me.
You say the story is very slow, and I have to agree. There's so many things that I have to tell in preparation for what comes later, that it's difficult for me to do that and keep the story moving along at the same time. The pace picks up as the story progresses. -
-
Thanks for being understanding. My stories tend to be slow as well. So it really depends on the amount of time one wants to expend in enjoying the story.
-
-
-
P2 - why was he doing work on her door? Why does he lie? Why does making her feel better matter?
p2 - Strange that she asks "if I would eat dinner with her" but then there are three people, seemingly, eating dinner.
P9 - This is very contradictory. In Paragraph one you say "we would never be more than friends" and yet, he's wondering which way she looks best and kissing her. Very strange.
p17 - who is Eva??
p19 - Mr Snuffy no longer seems concerned. Did he only want to get into the room to sleep? I felt like it was going to be more of a deep seeded "something has happend to my owner and i'm a worried cat" thing, but it's apparently not.
p26 - Nice intellectual break down of what she's really running away from. Very ironic that Willy had repaired the door.
p33 - how can he "see" that she's dead? Why that conclusion? Why not unconcious?
Very Salinger-esque style writing. I don't think it was lacking and I would consider it quite a captivating read. My comments are prehaps becuase I've not read something of this style in a long time. I felt like I wanted to know more, and, providing there was going to be more exploring of the characters, details of what's going on, etc, then I would have kept reading.
Actually, on refelection, although I would have kept reading, I would have found myself detatched from the story as I read... if that makes sense. I don't feel like I related to the characters at all. -
-
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment in detail. The last sentence of your comment gets to the heart of it, because if the characters are not engaging to the readers than everything else in the story is going to be either unbelievable or disjointed or boring or something that makes them decide that it just isn't their cup of tea. The characters are my friends, in a sense, and I wonder if I presented them in the wrong way, such that they made a poor impression, or if maybe they are simply the kind of people that you would never want to associate with under any circumstances. If the former is the case, then I as a writer have failed. If it's the latter, then I stand by my friends.
Still, your comment is helpful. I can see that there are sections of the story that are awkward and not as interesting as they need to be. I plan to rewrite at least the section in Part I where Nancy and Willy are having dinner together, because I find the description of their relationship to be somewhat awkward.
-
-
Great Twist
Nice twist at the end, I didn't expect it. I saw no grammatical or language errors in this piece, edited to perfection. The Salinger-esque style is still here, thankful to say.
One note: the plot wasn't very engaging here. I understand you were trying to develop the character of Nancy before she died, but the story seemed to plod on for the first three-quarters.
That's all.
Good job.
Best of luck,
gocubsgo25
beginning: 4, language: 5, plot: 3, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
-
-
Although I have not read any Salinger for a while, I do relate to his writing, and am probably influenced by it.
This section is only 1000 words, so if you found it plodding then there is probably something wrong. Reading the section with that in mind, it seems to me that the scene where Nancy and Willy are having dinner is awkward, and Nancy is not described very well. I'll try and rewrite it.
-
Adding your comment:
1 - 9 of 9
