On Saturday, I purchased Charles Dickens' classic novel David Copperfield and couldn't put it down all weekend. Dickens was a childhood favorite of mine, and Great Expectations was one of the most impactful books to my young consciousness. After college, though, I felt childish for picking him up again. Reading him again now I understand why.
Charles Dickens
Dickens feels magical, like a fantasy novel, like Robert Louis Stevenson. Good and evil saturate both the characters and his descriptions of the settings in his stories. Take his description of the home of the overwhelmingly good, Mr. Pegotty:
There was a black barge, or some other kind of superannuated boat, not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking out of it for a chimney and smoking very cosily; but nothing else in the way of a habitation that was visible to me.
“That's not it?” said I. “That ship-looking thing?”
“That's it, Mas'r Davy,” returned Ham.
If it had been Aladdin's palace, roc's egg and all, I suppose I could not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it.
Sounds like an adventure, doesn't it? And Dickens continues to gush about living in the boat, despite the extremely cramped quarters and the fishy smell that permeates everything, saturating even the pores of their skin.
Now, check out this passage describing the boarding school run by the cruel crook, Mr. Creakle:
I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most forlorn and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. … Scraps of old copy-books and exercises litter the dirty floor. Some silkworms' houses, made of the same materials, are scattered over the desks. Two miserable little white mice, left behind by their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and wire, looking in all the corners with their red eyes for anything to eat. A bird, in a cage very little bigger than himself, makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on his perch, two inches high, or dropping from it; but neither sings nor chirps. There is a strange unwholesome smell upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples wanting air, and rotten books.
It's almost as if the classroom is possessed by evil. Decay is everywhere. Scavengers fill the place. The caged bird serves as an evil omen of how Copperfield will become trapped there.
However, it seems as if the settings are in fact manifestations of the morality of the characters who rule them. Mr. Pegotty, the owner of the boat house, is a kind, compassionate man who takes in orphans and widows even though he's unmarried. If Mr. Pegotty was an evil man, the fishy smell would be overpowering, the quarters not just small but vice-like, and the boat house not an adventure but a a place of entrapment, like living on a prison ship.
The decaying school is run by Mr. Creakle, who beats the children with a ruler for imagined offenses, and seems to be in cahoots with Copperfield's arch-nemesis, Mr. Murdstone. However, if Mr. Creakle were a good man, the messiness of the place would be overlooked as quickly as the smell of Pegotty's fish. It would be a poor but comforting place, full of the warmth of compassion.
The settings are manifestations of the characters, and for your writing, this technique of shading your settings with the good or evil of those associated with them is something worth trying. Consider giving it a shot!
PRACTICE
First, choose either a hero or villain from your work in progress. If you don't have a work in progress, choose one of your favorite heroes or villains from literature.
Next, describe a setting connected to them. Shade your description based on the morality of the character you have chosen. If he or she is good, talk about how clean, bright, and charming his or her realm is. If he or she is evil, write about the decay, the horrid smell, and the feeling of entrapment in the place.
Write for fifteen minutes. When you're finished, post your practice in the comments.
And if you post, make sure to comment on a few other pieces.
An airplane was a cocoon, sealed, self-contained, dangerous on the outside but safe as a cocoon on the inside. Vic Borders spent as much time inside these aluminum canisters as possible. Buckled up, it was hard to get into trouble unless one’s charms were such that attendants had a habit of pouring you one too many. Even then, these missiles were equipped to annihilate the average personality—movies, music, magazines, and above all a dull roar that anaesthetised the memory of failure. Vic would have happily spent the rest of his messed up life flying around the world for the Foreign Office. In fact, it would seem that that’s exactly what he was doing.
I like the way you illustrate the safety within the plane, but the first line throws me a little bit. If the airplane “is” a cocoon, how is it dangerous on the outside? Are cocoons dangerous on the outside? Or do you mean that Vic is safe inside while the world surrounding him is dangerous? Or maybe just skip that opening metaphor and leave the rest of the first sentence since you address the cocoon again, this time contrasting the danger and safety on either side of the plane’s walls?
At any rate, this reads like a thriller – sounds exciting. And I like that Vic appears to have a very important job that requires a lot of bravery but that he also seems imperfect. That makes for an interesting character.
Thanks for that feedback, Steph… yes, that quick first draft will get an overhaul. I don’t think I ever write anything that’s comprehendable on my first go-round. So comments from a third party are critical. Thanks again.
OK, Joe, really, who likes Dickens? And, more so, who admits to liking Dickens?
Admits? I loved Dickens. What’s wrong with Dickens?
I love Dickens, but I think the modern literary sensibility has strayed away from him, even rejected him outright. He’s too fantastical for modern realism, and he’s too realistic for modern surrealism. What do you have against him, Katie?
I guess it’s just me but I can’t stand Dickens. I didn’t mind Oliver Twist but A Tale of Two Cities was MISERABLE. I haven’t been brave enough to ready anything since then.
Interesting dialogue about Dickens. I think he was absolutely brilliant. But I think he can only be appreciated in context. He was an advocate and his writing was a vehicle of change in his society. As someone who values social justice I’m amazed by his insightful and bold writing. I don’t know if Dickens can be read for enjoyment but rather to gain wisdom. A Christmas Carol has impacted generations for good, reminding us of the value of humanity and our obligation to society. He may not be appealing to modern tastes, but he has an important place in history.
I did struggle through parts of Tale of Two Cities, but overall I enjoyed it. You should try Great Expectations. It’s still one of my favorite stories.
It’s probably just a matter of taste, and from all the answers here it looks like having him assigned in school made people not like him. I read his stuff when I was recovering from either mumps or measles (my mother liked us to stay in bed for a long time after we were sick) and Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities were on the bookshelf along with some Pearl S. Buck (which I did like better) so I read them.
I mean…as a kid, I just thought he was boring. Maybe because I had Great Expectations forced upon me in 8th grade, before I was old/mature enough to understand and enjoy it.
I can see that, Laura.
Laura, I had exactly the same novel forced upon me at school at about the same age. Being the good pupil, I read the book from cover to cover, but only to get it over with as quickly as possible. At that age, his writing offered me no literary pleasure whatsoever. It was only later on at university during my economic history course that Dickens’s name came up at which point the teacher remarked that his work was of great importance as a historical record of what life was truly like in Victorian England. So from a sociological perspective, his books can be fascinating as they really give you an insight into all aspects of life in that era.
I have one Dickens novel on my Kindle. I have three on my shelves. I haven’t read any of them. I was supposed to read Great Expectations in high school (one of the novels that I still have), and I just couldn’t read it. I’ve started all the novels that I have, but I can never get very far into them. And I still have them because I feel that I probably should like them, or at least try to appreciate them. One day I may actually finish ONE.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t have to like him just because my English teacher said I should. And if I can’t get interested, then I can’t. His writing style and my reading taste are at odds, and that’s okay. I love other novels that suit my palate just fine. I won’t beat myself up over Dickens. I admit, I generally read fiction solely for pleasure and Dickens does not give me pleasure.
So that’s how I stand with him. 🙂
Fair enough! 🙂
Everyone has their own tastes and you sound like the kind of person that doesn’t have to have their taste validated by general consensus, bravo!
Just so long as you and Joe don’t think any less of me. 🙂
I think SO much less of you, Casey 😉
Ha! You’re okay with me.
Philip approached the imposing wooden door of the headmaster’s quarters and grabbed the doorknob with a sweaty palm. He had been assured that the room would be empty, but the uncertainty of what lie on the other side still worried him.
He turned the large brass knob and slowly pushed the door open, the labored creaking of the hinges announcing the breach of this tyrant’s personal quarters.
He stepped in and closed the door behind him. The room was neat and ordered. All around him, everything seemed to reside in its place. The large, tidy desk under the window, with the chair neatly tucked into the alcove. On the right side of the desk, a neat stack of hand-written pages, perhaps a hundred in total. He approached the desk and saw that the sheets were the lines that the headmaster had given out to his pupils two days ago. “I will not answer questions out of turn,” was written ad infinitum on both sides of each sheet. The hours his friends had spent writing these useless words, he thought, whilst they could have been playing with him in the forest yesterday evening.
He looked up at the dark mahogany walls, and peered at the half dozen antique photographs of the headmaster’s predecessors all hanging there. The stern, angry looks all looking down their noses at him, menacing the confident bravado with which he had entered the room. He noticed the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, the swinging of its languid pendulum reminding him of the slow, meticulous nature of the rooms occupant.
The boy continued his search of what he was looking for. He walked around the perimeter of the study, seeking out evidence of its whereabouts. And then he saw it. The cricket bat. The headmaster’s notoriously favourite form of corporal punishment. It stood there, leaning innocuously against the side of the bookcase. The very sight of it jolted him with fear-induced adrenaline, his mind fresh with the memory of the humiliating agony with which he had had to bear this monster’s demented beating earlier in the week. He grabbed the bat with both hands and swung it a few times, sizing up its potential for destruction within the confines of these walls.
Gah! Scary cricket bat! Good detail there – got my attention.
That is a very well written scene.
I have had the experience of turning the brass door knob with a sweaty palm, but I was entering the Dean’s office, having been sent there by a teacher who just didn’t understand me.
Thanks Angelo. I’m new to this writing blog but already very happy to be taking part in these exercises. It’s really motivating to just sit down and continue writing, something I should be doing a lot more of. BTW, I loved the mood that you built up with your piece on Crane today. So easy to get into his mind through your words.
Very dramatic! I can see this in a movie.
That’s a nice compliment! Thanks Marianne.
It was meant to be a compliment : )
I was not an English major (which is probably obvious!), but I do have fond memories of reading Great Expectations as well in college. Much fonder than those I have of Moby Dick :-).
Here’s my practice. I ran closer to 1/2 hour, and it is still pretty rough, but I gotta make dinner now! Thanks for the incentive, Joe.:
Along the shore, the banker’s mansion, painted a blue that rivaled lake and sky, vied for pretention with the mayor’s broad Cape Cod that was not so much a home but an announcement that the mayor had bought his new life on the lake with cold, hard cash from back East. From there, the houses shrunk as Rex walked into the heart of town. There, the railroad workers had built rows of clapboard bungalows which their wives planted hollyhocks in between. Their collective children rolled through the neighborhood like a pile of puppies, occasionally stopping at the hollyhocks where they skewered buds atop overturned blossoms to make doll families of their own to play with on the lawns.
Rex passed all this by.
Finally, he saw the roof he had raised with his own hands poking through the tangle of bam that had shot up since he had been gone. He had pitched his roof good and steep because every winter some poor soul fell while shoveling snow off a roof, and that was not the way he believed his personal picture-show should end. No, not when he had a son to bring up.
He also had a wife to provide for, and he had planned his home with her in mind as well. He and Myrt and RJ had lived in the apartment upstairs: a tidy sitting room and kitchen facing front and two small bedrooms sandwiching a bathroom – complete with a flush toilet – facing rear.
The ground level of the home was a boarding house. If there was one thing Rex knew besides fishing, it was how to make a buck off the tourists who flooded in each summer. World’s best walleye fishing, it was said, and city folk headed north in droves to find out if the claim was true. It was, of course, which is why they kept coming back for more. Even with the Depression, fishing wasn’t viewed as a luxury but as a means for a good man to put food on the table. At least they justified their trips as such.
The boarding house had been Rex’s idea, his insurance-policy for Myrt. It was a great set-up: she cooked and cleaned for the boarders while he guided their fishing trips out on the big water. But now a splintered plank with the word “closed” painted on it was nailed over the sign in their yard. And the peeling paint on the siding and the loose gutter over the porch drove the point home; yes, he and Myrt were certainly closed for business.
I like how at the beginning the home is cozy and clean and will be good in old age, but then it’s closed and the paint is peeling as an analogy for the relationship between Myrt and Rex
This is an excerpt from one of my wips. The protag has just entered an antique shop where she hopes to find a job. Little does she know that the owner of the shop is a wizard. Enjoy!
The pleasant tinkle of a bell greeted her as she stepped over the threshold, her cheeks red from the wind. The room was thankfully warm, almost stuffy. Morgan unzipped her jacket and looked around with interest. Like most stores in the city, it was long rather than wide and seemed three times bigger on the inside than you’d expect from the street. To her right, bookshelves soared almost to the ceiling. She raised her eyebrows, impressed. To her left, tables, glass cases, and shelves housed “relics” that included a wire sculpture, a violin, the complete skeleton of a small animal, several models of clocks in various states of working order, vases and china, furniture, a collection of rare coins, and innumerable interesting objects that Morgan would have loved to sift through if she’d had time. A worn carpet under her feet protected a hardwood floor, but she could see several carpets in much better shape—and probably of much higher value—rolled up and stacked along one wall. There were even two tapestries, hung alongside oil paintings and the autographed poster of a band she didn’t recognize. The whole place had a smell of slightly musty secrets.
Morgan looked around at the collection of stuff with a rising estimation of Nuada Relics. Some of the “relics” were probably just junk, but people would pay a lot for some of the items in here…
I can see a place that is kind of musty and dark but with lots of interesting things to look through. It gives one a feeling of curiosity.
Am I right in guessing that the name “Morgan” did not happen by chance? It makes me wonder if she also has some magical potential. The description of the room made me think of a store at a souq – maybe the rolled up rugs are conjuring magic carpet images in my mind. I definitely have the feeling that the store and its owner are unusual.
Hi Joe,
I thought this was an inspired idea!
I’ve really got to get in to my villian, Chief Wako, now that I’m into the second book which is where he reigns. Before reading this blog I’d never really thought of imbuing his surroundings with the depth of his evil before. This writing exercise gave me a whole new way of bringing out the baddie in him. Woohoo. Here’s what I wrote;
‘The red-skinned, hulking figure bent forward over the desk. From the tail ends of his mane water dripped to the floor, making puddles that smelled of meat left out too long in the sun. Above his head, in fact, streaming downwards from the ceiling everywhere in the cavernous room hung clumps of moss and furred lichen, as if the room were alive but in an ominous form that sought only to greedily engulf other forms of life.’
Also, reading the comment section, Laura W, I thought the phrase ‘worn carpet underfoot protected a hard wood floor’ was lovely. I would never have thought of using the word ‘protected’ but it gives one the sense immediately that this is a safe place.
And PJ Reece, that opening line is a doozy, ‘An airplane was a cocoon, sealed, self-contained, dangerous…’ I felt claustrophobic!!
Yvette Carol
That is a great description of a room that would make my skin crawl. Good job.
Thanks for the encouragement Angelo! I was thoroughly spooked by your 15 minute piece. The ‘crunching’ of the flecks of the paint and the decay speckling his teeth really created a picture in my mind.
Puddles that smelled like meat left out in the sun is very very gross. Well done!!!
Here’s my 15 minutes.
I was also forced to read Dickens in school and barely got through it. Maybe now I’ll revisit some of his writing. Thanks for the idea Joe.
Crane stepped into his ground-floor rented room and knew instantly that something was wrong. The door lock clicked shut behind him and he took a step. Flecks of paint that had long ago fallen from the ceiling, like leaves from a dead tree, crunched under his shoe.
His eyes roamed around a room that was slatted with shade and grey daylight spilling through the bars that kept intruders out. Or was it to keep his guest in upon realizing that they no longer wanted to remain there with him.
The blanket that he kept hanging from his stained mattress down to the scratched wood-plank floor had been pulled up and left in a pile on his bare pillow. His sneer revealed yellow, crooked teeth speckled with decay. Dropping to his knees, he looked under the bed and saw the marks in the dust. Someone had dragged his toolbox out from under the bed. His spine tightened as he stood, and his grey-clouded eyes narrowed in thought, when he remembered what he had secreted in that metal box.
He rummaged through the unlit closet and pulled musky smelling clothes from their hooks and dropped them to the dirty floor. He ran his hands over the splintered wood wall and found the seam of the secret door he had cut there; the one no one else knew about. It was secure, as was its iron lock. The box was nowhere to be found.
He sat on the edge of his bed and ran his thick fingers through his greasy, thinning hair and wondered how long it would be before they came for him.
You have lots of good mood setting details. The only thing that I wondered about was the word “secreted” – I read it the first time as the past of to secrete. I think you meant it as a form of the word secret, though? Not that secrete doesn’t carry its own implications, and if you meant it as such, forgive my comment :-).
Secrete: 1. The act of concealing something in a hiding place.
2. To conceal in a hiding place.
3. To generate and separate (a substance) from cells or bodily fluids.
Dictionary.com shows your definition #3 in position #1, fwiw. But if you like it, you should use it! I am only saying that I stumbled over reading that one little part of your submission, which otherwise flowed very smoothly to me. Happy secreting! 🙂
I meant it as such. But thank you for pointing out a word that I may reconsider in the future. I always thought that to “secrete” was to “secret something away.” I understand it also means to separate, such as sweating, or something of that nature.
But the important thing is that a reader stumbled on the word, something that is not good, and I appreciate that you let me know.
That really is creepy Angelo. It makes me feel like he is going to “get” someone. I like very dense detailed description like this. “his grey-clouded eyes narrowed in thought, when he remembered what he had secreted in that metal box” and “flecks of paint … under his shoe” are amazing! The sentence that says “Or was it to keep his guest in…” thew me a bit because I am close to him as I read this and he would know why he had the bars on the windows. I might not see it that way in a larger work though, for instance if I knew the narrator was watching him. I really like this a lot.
Ooooh, that made me shiver! I don’t even want to know what he’s locked away, I have a feeling it’s just too horrible. Your description of the room and Crane were excellent, I could feel the malevolence.
Here’s something relating to a project I’ve been working on. (Pretty unsuccessfully lately, I might add.)
“Phillip glanced around as he stepped inside the tiny hut. He squinted, trying to get his eyes to adjust. It was dark, and the single window let in a scarce amount of light. The place saddened him; it was obvious that this stranger didn’t have many visitors. There was a small unmade bed in the corner, a table laden with papers, dishes, and a single stool next to it. Next to the fire, the only cozy part of the house, was an old and worn, yet comfortable-looking armchair, with stacks and stacks of books piled next to it. The titles confused Phillip, he had never seen so many different kinds of books in one person’s possession, save Edgar’s study—scientific books, fiction novels, history, philosophy, all with a thick layer of dust covering them, a dust which hung in the air all about him. The smell reminded him of Edgar’s study at home, that musty old book smell, but there was something sour about it he couldn’t quite detect. This stranger’s house was mysterious and unnerving; every instinct told him to run, but he had no other choice.”
I like this because you can see that the stranger is probably comfortable here with his books and his dust but Phillip is not. That makes me wonder about an encounter between Phillip and the stranger.
Thanks for the compliments! And I’m not sure I want the stranger to feel comfortable. Complacent, maybe, but not comfortable. I want to convey an impression that the stranger isn’t quite comfortable in his own skin. Definitely something to work on.
I’d sure say you’re on the road to success. Keep at it!
The part about this that jumped out at me was the diversity of the books. This could mean so many things about a character and could also play into the plot. I hope you continue to give us glimpses of this project!
The kitchen was drafty, with the only heat being a stinking kerosene heater that Mrs. Scott kept in the bedroom, The windows were pitted from the strong wind from the ocean blowing sand against them for decades. One was cracked and a piece of plastic had been taped overt it. Anne was startled when she opened a kitchen cupboard and a million roaches ran for shelter from the light. She found the tea where Mrs. Scott had said it would be on the second shelf between a small jar of Maxwell House Instant Coffee with the familiar blue label and a box of generic powdered milk. The handle of the small aluminum tea kettle was cold to the touch. Mrs. Scott coughed from the bedroom. She could find no sugar to add to the tea. She heard the coughing again.
Love the line: She could find no sugar to add to the tea. I take it there is no sweetening up this Mrs. Scott? I was also very interested in the setting, and setting descriptions usually scream *skim!* to me (even my own). Without using the words, you caught my interest with the harshness of the environment and the possible isolation of this house.
Thank you Steph. I have been trying to keep it simple, but my inclination is really more toward purple prose. I’m on a word diet now.
Brilliant, Marianne. It’s as if the house is wilting away just as Mrs. Scott is.
Thanks Joe.
I really liked the stinking kerosene heater, and the roaches. I got the chills when I read that line.
My wonderful mother-in-law had a kerosene heater and I hated the way it smelled. They can be awful.
Meilin felt extremely hesitant to enter the room of the Empress Dowager. Just being outside the doors made Meilin shudder and crinkle her nose from the smell of strong incense burning. There was also a faint smell of iron – maybe from blood – lingering in the air.
“Come in,” the Empress Dowager called from inside.
When Meilin opened the doors, she saw strange ornaments hanging on the wall and paintings of the war god the Empress Dowager worshiped so much were dominant in the room. Her room was painted red – as it was the royal family color as well as the color of the war god’s aura.
Meilin felt a strange hostility coming from the Empress Dowager but suppressed her fear. An assassin should not be afraid. But Meilin was an amateur still and she had never killed anyone before.
A smell of iron from blood. I never thought of that but it makes sense. That is interesting. I get a lot of red here and not the red of love, the red of power and danger, war.
I’m not really sure if you can smell the iron from blood but I know you can taste it.
I agree blood definitely tastes metallic, so it probably smells like iron.
This is quite rough, and I’m still working to get to know my characters. I also realize (after reading the many wonderful posts before mine) that I didn’t quite stay on task as much as I should have, but I enjoyed the exercise a lot. 🙂
“My little room was my escape. Mother and Father had finally allowed me my own room when I turned 12. It was the smallest room in the house, which I allowed was only fair since I was the one person in the house who didn’t have to share a room. It had one big window, and I had a wonderful view of the street. I loved to watch all the comings and goings of the neighbors. You could call me a nosy Nellie if you liked, but I found a lot of new imaginings that way and let my mind roam with all the possible happenings of our quiet neighborhood. I kept my little room as tidy as possible, putting clothes away and dusting my crowded furniture regularly. I filled all the empty spaces on my walls with things I thought were beautiful: Japanese wood block prints, a picture of my family, a pressed flower collage Mary had given me for my 11th birthday. I’m not sure how my parents managed to fit so much furniture into such a tiny space, but, besides my bed and shelf, I had a tiny desk that stood against the side of my bed. As soon as I’d get home from school, I’d sit on the edge of my bed at my desk and get all my homework done, and then give myself half an hour to write about whatever I wanted before going downstairs to do my chores. I wrote about the pictures on my wall, my day at school, the neighbors and their imaginary lives. Having my own space allowed me to focus, to create my own world as I sought to better understand the world that I had been born into.
The rest of the house held the same orderliness and cleanliness I subjected my own room to. Graham, Evangeline, and I were each assigned different rooms in the house to keep in order. After they were cleaned, they were subjected to inspection by our mother. Not a speck of dust or a misplaced book escaped her attention and if a task was not completed to perfection, we had to do it over. In this way, we all became meticulously spotless people until the day we left the house.”
I don’t know that it’s off task. You seem to be describing an efficient use of space and a situation where people are working together to keep things in order. I get a felling of compactness, order and efficiency here, and maybe a little bit of confinement, which work on a number of levels depending on the personality of the people that live there. I enjoyed reading it.
This was a great exercise! I love description, actually I have to be careful not to be too heavy on description and sparse on dialogue. I love setting a mood and conveying information through a setting. Here’s my 15 minutes.
***
The heavy, iron gate, hanging askew, creaked an ominous warning as my hand forced it open. Inside the garden had long ago turned wild. Overgrown trees and tangled bushes were silent, not a breath of wind stirred them. Also silent was the grand, old fountain in front of the house, once bubbling with life now as dry as a bone. Red vines climbing up the weathered sides of the house looked as if they were trying to pull it down. As I tested the weight of my foot on the bottom step of the porch it groaned in protest. I had serious doubts about it’s ability to support me.
Raising my head I looked up at the gray frame of the decaying Victorian house; I couldn’t shake the feeling that it’s grimy windows were watching me, unblinking and solemn. Did someone live here? The light I’d seen in the upstairs window two nights ago nagged me. Until recently I had dismissed the old rumors of an unseen tenant.
The house had been owned by the Grantham family for years. From an old respectable, southern family, Pastor Grantham had inherited the home years ago from his mother. I wondered why the house had been allowed to fall into such disrepair, and even if it shouldn’t be demolished.
A chill blew across my heart as I looked at the sad old home, once a grand lady, now just a shell. Even in the daylight the dark windows looked foreboding. I stood in the shadow of the porch and debated whether or not I should go further in my search for answers. If someone did indeed live here they must be so terribly lonely or perhaps in need.
In my exercise below, I made use of Kun’Letero–a character I made for a blog hop contest I participated in about two weeks ago.
I hope I did well in this exercise! 🙂
Kun’Letero walked into a clearing. The ground was covered with green moss except for the part closes to the huge tree standing in front of Kun’Letero. The tree was gnarled and its branches were bare and leafless. It was black in color and the ground a few feet around it was black as well. The trunk of the tree was thicker than five men standing abreast and it was the tallest tree in the Forgotten Woods—a tree fit for the king of the wood imps. . A door was built on it. Kun’Letero twisted open the golden colored door knob and he pushed open the door. Immediately, the smell of death and decay poured out of the inside. Kun’Letero breathed in deep. He smiled a toothy smile as he entered his castle.
The inside was as worse as the smell. The ground was carpeted with the bones of the creatures the wood imps had eaten. Some were from the small woodland critters who lived inside the woods, some though belonged to the unfortunate humans who got lost and never found their way again. The humans were Kun’Letero’s favorite. He gave a cry of command and from above him, from the small holes built inside the tree, other wood imps started to wake. Some rushed down holding a cloak made from autumn leaves. This they tied around Kun’Letero’s neck. Others were holding a staff made from the oldest tree in the woods. Kun’Letero held the staff and he felt the power of the green entering his rotund body.
Kun’Letero shoved the wood imps with his staff and he made his way to the center of the room where his wooden throne was waiting. He sat on it with both of his feet propped up on one of the arm rests. The other wood imps stared at him wide eyed, waiting for his next command. Kun’Letero eyed his kingdom. Druidic runes were etched on the walls of the tree. These made the tree invisible to the eyes of the other creatures. Vines were dangling from the ceiling; these were used by the wood imps to get to their holes. Kun’Letero drummed his long fingers on the arm rest of his throne. He then pointed at one wood imp with his staff. He barked another command. The tiny wood imp gave a yelp and immediately rushed to pick up a femur lying on the ground. The femur still had pieces of meat stuck to it. Kun’Letero nibbled on the bone.
I enjoyed every line. Very imaginative and well done!
Thanks Steph! 🙂
Thank you very much for giving this opportunity to practice writing. This was very helpful.
This is my exercise for the day:
Magda sat down in the meadow. The ground was still wet, moving mud and grass to make room for her intrusion. The air smelled so fresh –just like a drop of rain. She couldn’t help but breathe in gulps and gulps of air and admire the beauty below. Everything looked so small to her. The people running below the hill, rushing to who knows where. However, she was at peace.
The wind whispered softly all around her. It wrapped her in a tight embrace. It wasn’t too harsh to blow her away, but it wasn’t so soft that it could be easily ignored. The sun was at just the right height in the sky. The sky was shining with every colour as the sun rose. The trees protected her as she stood still. She felt so powerful and so free. Nothing could take this moment from her; nothing at all. Magda kicked off her shoes and sunk her toes into the moist earth. Her toes and the mud made squishing sounds. She sighed peacefully.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” She turned her head to the sudden sound. It was Peter, her guide through the hills. She had forgotten to call him in all of her excitement. He approached slowly, with hands on his hips. “I saw you come up this way. I was wondering why you didn’t call me.” He laughed quietly and shook his head. “I can see why. It’s breathtaking out here.” He continued his climb up the hill. Soon he was right next to Magda. “Your dress is going to be filthy,” he said quietly.
Magda spun, twisting her torso, to see the damage. She sighed. “I know,” she answered, “For a sight like this though? I think it’s all worth it.” She shrugged her shoulders and extended a hand upwards. “Care to join me?” She smiled at him.
He smiled back. “I would love to.” He kicked off his shoes and sat beside her. They continued to watch the sunrise.
Outdoors on a beautiful day and up high would give a feeling of freedom.
I like that you capture a little moment.
Their mother did not speak to them during their journey home. The sun was far in the west, and in another hour the it would begin to set. The sky was blistered crimson over the rocky desert sands that were in the western horizon. The sun became an infected orange, swollen and pregnant with expectation. A hot wind puffed at their dresses and veils, and the sand at their feet swirled into small dust devils. Elizabeth took one last look at the city behind her. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. A shiver crawled over her skin. The city gates and its buildings were wells of black against the bloody sky. Turning away, she patted the flanks of the donkey to urge it forward. The beast lifted its ears and quickened its step. Their mother uttered a complaint about the increased pace that the animal assumed, but Ruth looked at Elizabeth with a grave nod of understanding.
Gosh, golly, gee, Joe! Would you believe I’ve been considering picking up Dickens again? At the ripe old age of 66 who would be picking up Dickens again? I would for I have loved reading Dickens since I was made to in school, and I won’t miss a single PBS production of a Dickens’ work if I can help it. Thanks for a lovely and wonderful post on the artfulness of Mr. Dickens.
You should, Sherrey. I wrote him off for years, but he really is a master.