Writing practice: write a dialogue modeled on chapter 1 of The Count of Monte Cristo
[i’m still really happy with my first sentence from yesterday. really very good for me right now]
James was preparing to tee off on the seventh hole when he got a call from his assistant. Holding his club in one hand and his cell phone in the other, both were in the balance as he tried to think of any defensible reason not to answer. Golfing mid-day with a prospective client is one thing, the CEO thought to himself, but feigning sickness to escape the monotony of a business that bored him was another. He wasn’t a schoolboy anymore; he needed to answer.
“Hey Bill, what is it?” he said, with a touch of hoarseness.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but there’s been a plane crash. It’s the 357 out of Dallas.” James admonished himself for not knowing any details of the 357, and for resenting this call when he couldn’t be expected to do anything about it from the golf course, he meant his sickbed, in Cleveland. The delay was enough that Bill thought he was expected to keep talking. “It’s the cargo flight carrying our first batch of antennas, as well as the prototype for the new transponder. The two pilots are pretty shaken up but suffered no physical injuries, but the plane is a total loss as is the cargo. Between the crash and the fire, nothing is salvageable.”
“That’s great news about the pilots.” James was thankful Bill mentioned the pilots, or he would have forgotten to think of asking about their safety. Now he could focus on the personally-relevant questions. “Whose fault was it? I mean, like, how did it happen?” James’s voice lacked the feigned hoarseness of just a few moments ago, and he drove his cart off the green to allow the next group to play through.
“Well, they’re still trying to figure that out,” Bill said. “Apparently the plane barely got airborne before it’s flight became erratic. It banked hard, probably to try returning to the runway, but it ran out of room. The wing clipped some trees and went into a spin before landing on its belly and sliding about 400 yards before stopping. They say the spin saved it from hitting the fuel tower. Anyway, fortunately it was on a short-haul flight so it wasn’t full of fuel, and the fire that started happened after the pilots escaped and wasn’t too bad. The airport fire trucks foamed the whole plane and prevented the ignition of all but a small amount of leaking fuel. But the belly flop managed to destroy the instruments, and what fire there was melted the most delicate electronics.”
“Did they check the maintenance schedule of the airplane?” James asked, wishing this could have happened when he’d been at the office instead of a sunny spring day that should have been spent in the sun. “I mean, was there any reason to suspect the mechanicals and not pilot error?” The cargo was insured, James thought, and our pilots hopefully will be cleared to be airborne again soon. As long as we can pin this on the plane, then it shouldn’t cost us more than some aggravation dealing with investigators and paperwork.
“Well, it’ll be a few days before they get to that,” Bill said, patiently. “I mean, they’re still clearing the wreckage. Fortunately, the plane landed in a field adjacent to the airport. It could have been far worse had it landed in the commercial district.”
“Ok, when can we talk to the pilots? When will they be back in town?” James asked, hoping it would be sooner than later. He didn’t want to bother flying to Dallas to speak with them, and knew an in-person conversation was required for a situation like this.
[ok, this is kind of going nowhere but that’s ok. it’s not 100% terrible. i like how dumas just keeps things moving along – i tend to get bogged down in detail because i don’t know what’s coming next]
[this was about an hour. perhaps this time next year i’ll be able to produce much better writer much faster.]