Wringing practice: write your own version of the first page of The Count of Monte Cristo
[i’ve been looking for authors to emulate in my practice, as an exercise – authors whose writing i like as a model for my own, in some way. these include ayn rand (atlas shrugged), charles dickens (tale of two cities, david copperfield), alexandre dumas (count of monte cristo), and maybe umberto eco (name of the rose) and robert louis stevenson (kidnapped, treasure island, etc.).
it’s interesting, reading as a writer instead of reading as a reader – you start to look at how descriptions are made, how much and how little detail/information is provided to give the reader a necessary impression without saturating him with detail, etc. so, i think practicing writing my own versions of their writings could help to understand them better, to develop my own technique, and provides a basis so i don’t have to think of a plot each day.]
[even when i have a basis, it’s still hard. just start writing. it’s ok if it’s terrible nonsense]
On Sunday, June 14, 1885 [not sure this was a sunday, pretty sure there was a june 14 though], the steamboat Tribune pulled into Chicago harbor after making its way south along the shore of Lake Michigan. [good, establish some picture of action. now don’t provide every single detail of the steamboat or the harbor. this is good enough to let the reader imagine the image and the setting, think impression like impressionism painting – just a quick image and move on, otherwise you’ll be one of those writers who beats the poor reader over the head with detail because he doesn’t know what comes next and is trying to make up for lack of plot with overabundance of detail].
Of the crowd on the pier enjoying the amusements of a spring morning [they’d probably be at church, but whatever], the arrival did generate a small crowd of spectators – mostly young children and their parents. [my first sentence really was pretty good, far better than the second]
[try for another impressionistic sentence] What made this arrival noteworthy was that the crew didn’t appear to be moving. They were on the deck in various positions of activity, but looked to be in suspended animation, as though they were frozen in a moment of intense activity that began some time prior to arrival but was yet to be completed.
[i really do like the first sentence – it’s short, concise, and sets the scene without excess words and without sounding as though you’re trying to create a great first sentence. it’s like you just sat down and started telling a story, and aren’t trying to write the greatest novel ever written with the most memorable first line ever told]
[the last sentence is good – it very quickly establishes a twist. what happened to them? how is the steamboat operating?]
As the boat passed the pier, it slowed considerably, almost as to let the spectators, whose numbers had grown, to get a better look at the scene on display. [not good, but whatever]
[oh, i looked it up – june 14 1885 was a sunday. crazy]
It began to emit a low-frequency vibration which caused the water to start rippling in ever-growing amplitude. The people on the pier, most of whom hadn’t been watching the boat, noticed this vibration through their feet. It was the frequency that caused one’s internals to resonate, about 5-10 Hz. One baby started crying. An old man vomited a too-large lunch he’d just eaten. [i think i need to add more information before getting to this point, but no problem]
As general uneasiness grew to pockets of contagious fear, the crowd started to leave the pier. A few people at first, then in ever-quickening strides more and more started to leave. After a few minutes, when the vibrations grew to a deafening and sickening amplitude, the remaining people started to run. Except for one man. He stood at the railing of the pier, and with fixed stare he seemed not to notice the vibrations or not to care. Tall, thin, and well-dressed, he had jet-black hair and a pale expressionless face. His eyes were hypnotic – fiercely intelligent and unabashedly sinister. Nobody else was on the pier to notice two things about this man – he had the slightest hint of a smile, and he was controlling the boat.
[this isn’t bad. definitely sets the scene without excessive wordage]
The steamboat stopped just as it floated alongside the man, and for several minutes he stood staring at it, examining each part of it, periodically shutting his eyes as though he were taking mental snapshots.
“Sir, do you know what this is about?” came a voice from behind the man. He turned slowly – deliberately slowly – taking his eyes off the steamboat only once his body turned around so much that his head had to rotate with it. He stood facing a police officer, whose expression belied startle when he saw the man’s eyes.
Had the officer’s attention and gaze not been completely fixed on the man, he would have noticed that the vibrations died away as quickly as they had started, and the crew of the boat thawed from their suspended animation and began moving about the deck, picking up their activity as though there had been no interruption.
“What do you mean, officer?” asked the man, with a saccharine expression of face and voice.
After the officer could look away from the man’s gaze, an interval of seconds that felt to him like minutes, he saw that the pier had been repopulated, the boat was travelling inward toward the docking station at the inward side of the pier, and the vibrations had ceased. The only things that remained is it had been was the man, his expression, and his eyes.
“Oh, I…I must have…I must have been mistaken,” stammered the officer, who turned to leave. As he was walking away, he turned back to see if the man had been real. He saw the man staring back with a slightly growing grin which, as he turned back to walk away, looked for a brief instant as a sneer.
[wow, this is draining. i guess it’s like working out when you’re overweight and out of shape – it’s really hard at first to do even easy exercises for a brief period, but over months it get easier and easier to do more and more. we’ll see]
The man walked toward the ship, unnoticed by the rest. He didn’t hurry – in fact he almost strolled, but with purpose. As he got to the gangplank where the men had already started to disembark with the boat’s cargo, he stood there inspecting each crate as it passed, as if examining the contents inside.
[i really do like that first sentence. probably one of the best first sentences i’ve ever written]
When one of the sailors approached, carrying with some difficulty a crate of about 2 feet cubed, the man obstructed the exit from the ramp, made direct eye contact with the sailor, and said, “Yes, that one is mine, thank you.”
The sailor, whose initial look of annoyance turned to a blank stare when he locked eyes with the man who was obstructing his way, said, “Yes, of course. It’s been expecting you. Just sign this manifest and you can take it.” The sailor held up not the boat’s manifest with an itemize list of the ship’s cargo but his empty, flat palm. The man, signing not with a pen but with his pointed fingernail in the pantomimed movement of a signature, scrawled not his name but his insignia in the man’s palm, drawing blood. He then took his package and left the man, still standing at the end of the plank, as though in a hypnotized state.
As he walked away, the man reanimated and, noticing blood in his hand, wiped his hand on his pant leg. Examining his palm, he saw a symbol beginning to scar over – it looked to be script in a language he’d never seen before, and looked like the letter C. It was, unknown to him, the image of a scythe.
[good job today. i’ll keep doing this type of exercise, much better than trying to think of a new plot progression every day]