Writers' Workshop #2 - Conflict from a set opening line

Before adding my story I want to tell each of you how much I enjoyed reading yours. Thank you!

Now, here's my story:

"That's it! I've had it! I'm not living with you anymore!"

These words, said aloud, halfway across town, in a home not my own, are how I came to have a baby.

This is not a story about how a man and a woman can fight and decide to give their baby to someone else to raise, six months ago yesterday. This is not a story about breaking up.

This is a story about conflict. About the lightening storm inside your head when you find your tidy world upended. This is a story about resolution. A love story.

The tidy world was an easy place; an Eden really. The common issues didn't exist there. Food, sex, money, leisure, these were things that we took for granted. They were the givens that passed through our days without notice.

In the tidy world it was only me and him. That was enough. By design, our Eden had no moon. We liked the dark. And there were plenty of stars.

Those words, said aloud, on a star, rippled across heaven and spun our tidy world off of it's axis and we found ourselves with a moon. It is not a moon of our own making but we cherish it and the light it gives.

Still, the easy things,the unnoticed things were gone. We weren't sure if we felt absence, or fullness. The storm raged.

Six months ago yesterday we warily stepped out into a new Eden. Things look different here. The brightness of the moon casts shadows on the easy things.

Yet the moon gives reason to our tides.

Soz, such an amazing encapsulation of conflicting thoughts....it's pointed and clear.

boomerang, your story reads like poetry, or a stage monologue. Try it everyone, read it aloud, I love the way it trips over the tongue....powerful stuff.

OOOOHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

<enthusiastic applause>

Great one, Boomer. And one that resonates with me, as well. ("Food, sex, money, leisure, these were things that we took for granted." Exactly.)

Thank you both so much for your supportive comments.

I write a lot of stuff but I'm usually way too chicken to put it out for anyone to see.

I feel a bit braver now. Thank you.

Great piece? Hopefully a sure cure for your chickeneese!!
Give us more!

Thank you too, morganwood.

I've been chicken for a long time. Only more time will tell if molting is an option.

Ain't nobody here but us chickens. :-D

Okay, submission numbah two:

"That's it! I've had it! I'm not living with you anymore!" Shelley repeated the words again and again like a mantra. That's it, that's it, she'd say, sometimes out loud, sometimes to herself, until the other people on the bus moved away from her and everyone looked at her funny.

She missed her stop and rang the bell. Dammit. Two stops past hers, she got off the bus, still muttering to herself. She didn't stop to say hello to the guy who stacked the flour sacks in the bakery. She used to stop for him and say hello.

"Hey, hey, hey!" he called when he saw her. "Where you goin'?"

"Sorry Danny, gotta go, big plans tonight, lots to do, lots to do!" she answered, glancing back for a second at his brawn. He was cute, kind of, if you liked that sort of thing, but usually after a pleasantry or two she and Danny just nodded and smiled and talked about the weather and then it was time to go because he was busy or she had schoolwork or something like that.

That's it, that's it, she said to herself, passing the Butlers' house on the corner and then the O'Learys' and then the nasty people who had late, loud parties with obnoxious music and then the people with the big orange cat and then there was Shelley's house and she thought about going in. And she stood in the front walkway and chewed on her lower lip and thought some more. It would be easy to go in, just go in and just go straight to her room and nowhere else and that would avoid the situation. Or it would be easy to turn around and go someplace else or maybe just keep standing in the walkway until darkness fell and the moon rose and a chilly dampness hit the air. That would also be easy, and safe.

Or maybe it would just be easy to go in, just go in, and do it, just do it. And as she mulled this over, her mother came to the front door and opened it and was there in her housecoat and smoking a cigarette. "C'mon, Michelle! Don't just be standing out there gawking! You're late enough as it is!"

And the jig was up and Shelley had to do something, anything. She walked slowly to the door and Mother smelled of gin and cigarettes and a little of Chanel Number 5. That's it, that's it, that's it, her brain repeated.

"What did you say?" her mother asked. "Did you say something?"

"No, no, look, do you want a snack or something? I could make you, um," Shelley rummaged through the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator. There were opened bottles of mixers, plus some limes and lemons and a bottle of cocktail onions and a bottle of spring water and then the cabinets held a few cans of beans and not much else, "something. I could make you something. Like, I guess beans and there's lemon juice I could make and some ketchup and make it like a sauce or something."

"That's okay, I'm not one for breakfast." her mother said. "Michelle, you father came by and gave you this." It was an envelope.

Shelley took the envelope and turned it over in her hands. "What do you suppose it is?"

"Like I would know. Something from him and that tramp Carole." spat her mother, opening up the fridge and taking out a half-empty bottle of tonic water. She poured it into a glass. "Damn tonic water's flat. Didn't you buy some when I asked you to?" her voice rose in anger.

"I, I, Mom, you didn't give me enough this week, remember? I could only buy a few cans and stuff." Shelley started to open the envelope.

"Get me some goddamned tonic water!" yelled her mother suddenly.

"There isn't any money!" Shelley countered. "You drank it all! I can't take care of you if you don't give me any money!"

"How dare you, you little, little, Michelle!" her mother sank into one of the kitchen chairs. "How'd you get to be so hard? You were such a sweet child."

"I am a child." Shelley said.

"Yes, you are. Hell, you're just, what, fifteen, and you're taking care of me, and that's not right." said her mother in a moment of clarity. "It's just not right."

"Mom, I'm fourteen. Brian's fifteen."

"And he's living with your father and that witch! I can't believe he went there! You're, you're all I have left. Don't leave me." sobbed her mother.

Shelley held her mother for a while until the storm passed. Her mother finally seemed to have lost interest in crying, rather than felt better, and went back to the refrigerator. "Ah, gin and Dr. Pepper. Not a drink for the faint of heart." she said, smiling at Shelley while mixing the drink.

Shelley just nodded mutely and went back to opening the envelope as soon as her mother left the kitchen. It was a letter.

Dear Shelley,

Carole and Brian and I have been talking, and we'd love for you to come live with us. I know you want to stay with your mother, and I can understand your feelings of wanting to stay in your school, but it can't be easy for you. We can make up a bed for you in the den to start with and you can get your things over time. We'll have to go in front of a judge again and I know you don't like that, but once that's done we can be a family.

Let me know what you want to do.

Love, Dad

"Michelle!"

Shelley glanced up from the letter.

"Get me some olives or something, okay?" Shelley ran to the living room where her mother was lying on the sofa. Her mother handed her a one-dollar bill.

"This isn't going to cover olives. I can make you some beans and I think there's some canned corn."

"A feast! Thank you." her mother smiled. "You're so good to me. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Shelley walked back into the kitchen and took the can opener out of the drawer. That's it, that's it, that's it her brain screamed and she put the can opener on the counter. That's it, that's it, that's it. Shelley swallowed hard and prepared to walk back into the living room, ready to finally say the words.

That's it.

Big chicken, reporting for humiliation.

(I am far too rusty to give any critiques. I have immensely enjoyed reading many of the submissions!!! This is GREAT!)

-----------------------
Michelle and The Mountain

"That's it! I've had it! I'm not living with you anymore!," I exhale heavily, and then wince. My sigh-to-breath ratio must be 1 to 10. I always give myself away. I'm Textbook Depression.

The shelved wall behind Mrs. King bulges with spines of varying thicknesses in blues, grays; effectively a brood of old men with pointy goatees and round wireframed glasses, poised to pick my bones. All judgemental psychiatric publications and compendia, mobbed against me.

"Michelle, did you notice that you personalized your depression? You said I'm not living with 'you' anymore. I had suggested 'it'. "I'm not living with it anymore." Was that a conscious choice?," Mrs. King enunciates precisely, arranges her hands on her lap and leans back into her chair.

Maddeningly controlled automaton! Each movement, planned and measured. Her white collar is perfectly ironed. I glance over her head at the mountain of Freuds, wondering what they made of my odd slip.

I stiffen my back, my resolve, and lock eyes with her, fighting away the comparison of our wardrobes, our manner, and moreso our indicative positions on opposite sides of the desk. I'm Bad Eye Contact, as well. It takes effort for me to stare at someone's eyes. I know she writes about it. I saw a form on her desk months ago; a checklist. She'd excused herself from the room, and I got the nerve to look at the paper she'd taken out of her desk when I sat down. Eye contact was number three on the list. No marks on the paper, but she was going to mark it. Since then, I make an effort to stare at her eyes. I catch myself during visual inventories; wandering around the room, like a department store browser, looking at her jewelry and clothes, sometimes. God, I'd hate to read what she writes. My throat is closing up. Concentrate on breathing.

I speak firmly, not so much louder, this time, "That's IT! I've HAD it! I am NOT going to live like this ANYMORE!" Hold eye contact, add determination. Good God, where will I get that?

Mrs. King is trying to read my face. After a minute, she allows, "Well, that sounds more convincing." Silent. She's waiting for something. Note to self: Does she use the silences to force me to speak, or is she trying to drive me insane? Is one as bad as the other?

"Mrs. King, I don't want to live like this anymore. I do want to claim independance from my depression." I stop here, because if I say the rest, she'll see I'm a lost cause. Which I am.

I am.

She's talking about a new combination of drugs I've already tried. A small breath of sacastic laughter blows out. I cough quickly for camouflage. Take a trip down the road already miserably travelled? I don't think so. Her head is bent over her prescription pad, and I feel sympathetic toward her. She's done everything she can. Took me in on an emergency, scanned her brain for new med ideas, listened. She's done all she can. So have I. Oddly, I feel a sense of completion, a new, confiming peace.

A few more smiles and head-nods, and I'll be on my way.

Already, thoughts of luxurious sleep, nothing but sleep, unwind my tensed muscles. I feel systematic, physical relief.

She's said something. I wasn't listening. I smile and nod.
*************************

Made suggested changes.

Sofia, I really love these statements -

textbook depression
bad eye contact
white collar
blues and greys

What I'm getting at is that you do a wonderful job with visuals. It's easy to see the office, to feel the narrator/protagonist darting her/his? eyes around the room, sense the struggle.

I think we'll probably do something on descriptions but I really think you have that down pat.

I've found as I get older that first person means something different from what it did when I was in my twenties. Then, first person was always a young woman. Now, I find myself somewhat comfortable doing first person even for someone who isn't familiar to me, like a man, a mother, a foreigner, etc. Third person is definitely more detached or at least appears that way.

As for tenses, the present tense you used adds a sense of immediacy to the piece. That "I'll be on my way" bit where the reader knows that the protagonist is doing whatever it takes to get the meeting to end. Past tense seems, to me, to be more introspective - "I was about to go when..." versus "I'll be going..." - the past tense gives the reader a sense that the writer has kind of worked things out. At least that's the way I see it.

Heck, I'm just a chicken, makin' this stuff up as I go along. :-D

I like to use first person when I explicitly want the reader to identify with the protagonist. Maybe because he/she is a little bit unlikable and I want to build up sympathy. Maybe when being pulled into the protagonist's mindset is part of the point of the story, as opposed to something more plot-driven or with several characters who are important.

It can also be really interesting when it is an unreliable narrator -- when first person is being used but it becomes clear that first person is lying.

I like to use third person when I am taking pains NOT to stack the deck in favor of any one character, when I want the reader to have to work a little harder to figure out who the "good guys" are. Or even when I want to subvert that natural tendency -- who's good, who's bad -- and stock the whole story with baddies. For example.

I think first person was the right tense for this story.

I really liked your visual observations, and think that's also a great way to start with writing -- keep things concrete. Let the objects described hint at state of mind, emotions, etc.

The dialogue was really good, the interior monologue was wonderful. I really got a sense of this character, and liked her and the way she thought. (Assumed she was a she... hmmm.) I was totally following along and ready to follow her a while more when it got kind of abrupt. She'd never thought she was a lost cause before? I doubt it. That thought would really bring peace? Hmm.

Or is it that she finally believes that she has conquered depression? That seems even less likely.

Is "it is over for me" the important part? Decision to commit suicide? If so, it again seems much too abrupt. That's it? If it is a reference to another decision, that hadn't been interrupted -- she came in planning to commit suicide, and wasn't dissuaded -- that could work. But needs to be shown or alluded to, IMO.

If you added maybe a paragraph between "it's over for me" and "a radiant birth", making this more clear, I think that would help.

Anyway, really promising start! I only blather this much when I've been pulled into the story, and that means you told the story well.

Reading these stories is a wonderful passtime!

I'm afraid I'm not a good critic as the technical aspects of writing escape me. I wish I could provide more feedback bacause I know how scary it is to put something out thee.

I just want each of you to know how much I'm enjoying reading your word. Thanks!

Jes and sozobe--
Highly appreciative of your comments.

sozobe-- You zeroed in on the exact location where I made a last minute deletion.

After "Which I am." I had a couple of sentences about the efforts she's made. It had a bunch of "I"'s in it, and I had already reworked a few sentences, trying to cut "I"'s out. ...something like "I've tried all her meds, I've forced myself out into the world. I've tried."

I didn't like it, and for some reason, I wanted her decision to be stark and uncluttered with reasons that could be judged by the reader. I sorta felt like if Michelle's reasoning was there in black and white, it may seem more trivial to the reader, sort of diluting Michelle's suffering...

The protagonist has been a lifelong sufferer, who has been on the brink of suicide most of her life. (I should have made an allusion to that. I wanted to show that with her self-references of Textbook Depression and Bad Eye Contact--but it doesn't take a lifetime to get comfortable with psych terminology, so there's a place for improvement.) Sometimes, the final decision to commit suicide is a lightbulb moment. Something simple hits that switch. But, I guess I did need to bring the reader along. If it doesn't work for the reader, then I've made a boo-boo. I may have assumed too much.

The final decision to commit suicide is known to give the person a wonderful sense of peace. They know the struggle is over.
--------------------
Jes and sozobe-- Very helpful comments. This is a priceless donation of your time and talents. Boomerang is right. I am reading for pleasure, too. And, I used to write, but lost the ability (concentration--CFIDS) due to illness a few years ago. This is the first time I've been brave enough to see if I could string a few words together. So, this has been a heartening experiment for me.

Billy Goat Grump
I wrote this today after I read a news article. Edited based on suggested changes.

---BBB

BILLY GOAT GRUMP
By BumbleBeeBoogie

"That's it! I've had it! I'm not living with you anymore!" The gunshot echoed across the field, interrupting the goats' search for scarce green grass on the drought-ravaged patch of land, sending them into a dusty circular stampede.

Pearl's ma and pa farmed this land for thirty years before it was sucked into the expanding Oklahoma City. By the time Pearl inherited the 10 acres, farming on that scale was a losing proposition. Her family-owned patch of land couldn't compete with the big government-supported corporate farmers, who got special treatment from the banks, tax breaks from the government, and beneficial water rights from corrupt county commissioners.

Then Pearl met Tom, who's family were goat herders on rented land. It was a match made in heaven. Pearl had land that was no longer viable for farming and Tom had goats with no land on which to graze them.

Tom and Pearl both had been losers in the love game. The heat and hard work of her hard-scrabble life had taken it's toll on Pearl's appearance. She just wasn't pretty. Tom wasn't bad looking, but his obvious lack of ambition and perpetual smell of goats kept the women away. They both saw this merger as their last chance. Each, for their own reasons, decided to forget about love and get married.

Trouble started right away. Pearl had absorbed her parent's work ethic. She worked from dawn to dusk inside the house and outside caring for the goats. She wasn't getting the help she needed from Tom. That made her reject his disgusting groping under her nightgown in their bed at night when all she wanted was to sleep.

Tom watched the young people in town hugging and kissing. It made him ache for someone who would love him that way. He knew for damn sure he wasn't getting much sex from Pearl. He did try to woo her by helping her build a coop for a small flock of chickens to produce eggs and meat for added income. Other than that, Tom mostly watched Pearl work and complained about her lack of interest in sex at the end of a long day.

Tom's constant whining about sex and his refusal to help with the work got on Pearl's nerves. After two years of nagging him about his laziness, Pearl's frayed nerves changed into outright hostility.

Tom enjoyed ignoring Pearl's complaints. After one of her tirades, he would mutter under his breath, "Bitch, shut yer mouth and get off my back," and return to ignoring her pleas for help.

One hot afternoon, when the tempurature reached 105 degrees, Pearl yelled at Tom. "Get off your skinny ass and feed them god-damned goats before they croak!"

"Piss-off, Bitch!" Tom snarled.

"What did ya call me?"

"Bitch!"

"You lazy bum. I tole you to feed them goats---right now! NOW! hear me?"

The suffocating heat may have been 105 degrees outside, but inside Pearl's head it rapidly rose to 120, and she erupted.

"If you don't feed them goats I'm gonna blow your head off, you rotten son-of-a-bitch!"

Tom got up from his recliner chair, puffed up his chest, and gave Pearl the Finger.

"Up yours!" Then he sat down with a smirk on his face.

Pearl stared real hard at Tom, then went to the hall closet and pulled her pa's pistol from the shelf. She marched back to where Tom sat and aimed the gun at his head.

"You got one minute to get yer butt in gear."

"Get out of my face, you dried up old hag! You ain't got the guts to shoot me!"

"Guts? Guts? I got more guts than you got balls, you useless piece of ****!"

"Oh, yeah," Tom shouted, grabbing his crotch; "show me---I dare ya!"

"That's it! I've had it! I'm not living with you anymore!"

The gunshot echoed across the field, scattering the goats in a dusty circular stampede.

The next day, the Oklahoma City newspapers had the following story:

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) 6/14/03 - An Eldon, Oklahoma, woman has been charged with shooting her husband dead after an argument over who should feed the couple's goats, police said on Thursday.

Authorities charged Pearl Lynne Smith, 47, with first-degree murder for the death of her husband, Thomas Smith, 51. Sheriff's deputies responded to a domestic disturbance call at the couple's rural eastern Oklahoma home on Tuesday and found the husband dead, shot once through the chest.

"We were told that what prompted this disagreement was his failure to feed the goats," Cherokee County Undersheriff Dan Garber said.

Garber said the wife pointed a 9 mm pistol at her husband and demanded that he go feed the goats. Thomas Smith then dared his wife to shoot him, Garber said. When he took a step toward Pearl, she killed him with a single shot, Garber added.

The two had a history of domestic trouble, Garber said, and the argument over feeding the goats was the breaking point.

"Something like that is the trigger that unlocks something deeper," Garber said.

Pearl Smith is in jail on $100,000 bail, pending her arraignment on Friday, court officials said. She could face the death penalty if convicted.

fbaezer-- I liked your treatment.
For the length, I felt the boy's frustration, and the mother evoked a great deal of sympathy from me. Sometimes, less is better.

You got a lot of feeling and empathy from me with very few words.

The only change I would make is how you described the boy. Instead of telling of his impairment (mentally challenged), I think it would be even more powerful to show it. Like have him do something age inappropriate to demonstrate his disability to the reader. Compare his age to an immature or inappropriate action. This would also let the reader know the age of the main character (I think someone else said this) and an idea of how limited he is.

Like having him pack after shave and BoBo, his childhood security blanket--that sounds dumb, but you see what I mean. His wallet, and his mother takes in the mental picture of her six foot son, carrying his bag and Barney sticking out from under his arm.

This could be added with just one or two sentences.

I felt your story.

Waiting for Asherman and begging an appearance from Letty!!!
ANTICIPATION! IT'S MAKING ME WAIT!!!
Argh!

I feel I should get you some ketchup, Sofia. Want fries with that? :-D

BBB - y'know, we often spend our time writing about things that make sense and have logical progressions. E. g., the killing is done because of the unbearable act, the couple falls in love because of intense romance or whatever. But what often happens is (and we've seen this with other stories in this topic) that it's an accumulation of little things. Pearl takes out the pistol and shoots her husband, ostensibly because he won't feed the goats, but it's also because of everything else. It's the weight of it all, the accumulated straws on the proverbial camel's back. So what you've done is provide Pearl with a back story, which is great.

One thing I noticed was more exposition again. Rather than narrate with "It was a financial merger, not a love match", why not have Pearl yell something like "You never loved me! You were only in it for my land! I'm nothing more than a joint checking account to you!" and Tom retorts with something to the tune of "That's right, and you were a fool to think anyone would ever love you, you dried-up old hag!" That way the same sentiment is gotten across but it adds to how awful he really is.

But are people really this black and white? What if he has a point somewhere in there? What if it's him saying something like "You know this was never for love. It was for money and security and my goats met your land and it was a match made in heaven - for them. You and me, we were just along for the ride." That way, we as readers have a little sympathy for him. Is she still justified in killing him? Maybe, maybe not. I think it gives more oomph to stories when we add dimensions to the characters (and I realize we're dealing with a small canvas here so there isn't always adequate space in which to do this). It's easy to make the evil only evil. What's harder is to make them a little good - but I feel it's more believable.

PS I am still loving this topic! :-D :-D :-D Yay everyone!!!

Jespah
Jespah, I edited the Billy Goat Grump story based on your excellent suggestions - thanks.

BumbleBeeBoogie

"That's it! I've had it! I'm not living with you anymore!"

The words resonated as she prepared to put on her makeup. She had always eschewed electric lights around her makeup mirror. Candles always seemed more appropriate somehow, being able to see her reflection and her shadow at the same time.

Some days, there were small votives, sometimes simple tea lights, sometimes colourful tapers. The flame was visceral, and she was drawn to it like a moth.

The light. Light was a consuming concept. She often wondered if it meant brightness or clarity, or clarity with the dull feeling that something would always be missing, like a 40 watt bulb just about to blow.

She examined her small collection of cosmetics.

Lipstick: Red for days of passionate resonance with I know who, black for days of despair, and none, for I don't know at all.

Blush: Those days of wanting, longing to recapture innocence? It seems like forever since I blushed.

Eyeliner: Those days I must pretend....eyes being the window to the soul and all...should I put some on tonight?

She caught her shadow in the flicker of the candles....it was two weeks ago she decided to start taking her meds again. This was not her shadow's night.

"That's it! I've had it! I'm not living with you anymore!"

She looked at her reflection, took a deep breath and said: "Hello."

cav, that last one was a bit cryptic. I realize the protagonist has what I'm guessing is bipolar disorder. There's a neat dichotomy between blakc and red, blush and no blush, that sort of thing. She puts on different masks (we all do, I suppose) depending upon her mood. However, with her mood, everything's a lot starker. The highs are higher and the lows are lower.

One thing I thought was missing was, is she wearing makeup right now, or not - or has she worn makeup since she stopped taking her meds? Maybe just a quick line, like she stared at her reflection, like an unmade bed these past few weeks. The finishing touches had been missing, and too much of her naked self had shone through.

I also wondered about the candles. You set them up but I'm not sure that there's a payoff there. Maybe I'm just morbid; I was half-expecting a fire.

Hmm, the candles were there to set up a visual between the reflection and the shadow, candles cast stranger shadows than electric light, I guess, but it could use some more exposition....I was going for the bipolar thing, so it's good that was clear. I mentioned at the beginning that she was preparing to put on her makeup, so I figured she didn't have any on at the start. I will think about expanding the thought....will come back to edit a bit later. Thanks!