Sunday, September 30, 2012

The First Look Challenge

OH HAI PEOPLE!!!

I know. I haven't posted anything in forever. THINGS HAVE BEEN HAPPENING. Not good, writing-related-on-sub things. More like teachers-don't-understand-that-they-can't-expect-us-to-do-five-hours-of-homework-a-night things. So.

This week, I was tagged by the lovely Patrice Cadwell for the First Look Challenge. Basically, you have to find the word look in your manuscript and share the surrounding scene. The one below is from the manuscript I'm currently revising, tentatively titled BENEATH THE DISQUIET STAR. Y'know, the hot chocolate one?

This is a scene from the beginning-ish, from the POV of the male MC, who disappeared seven years ago and has just returned to the town of his childhood. He's watching an execution in a place that was meant for sacrifice, and is about to fall in love. And as I mentioned, it's being revised. So I apologize in advance for general suckiness.

***

The sun rains dusty light over us, and the haze bends time until I am seated between Million and Holloway again, younger and afraid of smaller things. Before my eyes, only my eyes, it is the Day of Disquiet, and the stadium is only noise and fire. I remember a burning star, a blue-gray fenrisulfr, a terrified dead man, an entire town watching. Million is on his feet with the rest of the crowd, but I have stayed seated, and Holloway’s hand is on my shoulder.

I ask him, why?

And he says that when the star fell and the monster wolf was born, someone had to fight it. Or the wolf would turn on the town and eat everyone. This is the only way.

I ask, but why do they cheer?

Then his face is grim, and he answers, “Because they want to live, lad. They are cheering for mortality, because it means they will not die this year.”

The stadium was built to be a place of sacrifice, but it contains more than the fire of the Disquiet Star now. It’s become a place of blood, because this town takes Finigal and makes it ugly. Men were meant to die here. But not like this.

I look around at the blur of faces, a sea of open mouths and words. I wonder what they cheer for now, when no one has to die.

Million has waited for this event for months and I had no wish to stay in Holloway’s store alone. But here I can feel a thousand pairs of eyes on me, and it makes my heart quiet and uneven. There are so many sounds echoing within this circle of stone, breaths and coughs, whispered words and shouted ones, and I am unused it. I left Finigal’s monsters for Finigal’s men by returning, but in this stadium of sacrifice, my eyes have yet to adjust to the difference between them.

***

Oh, and:

Mark O'Brien Writes

Olivia's Opinions

The Incessant Droning of A Bored Author

A Fuzzy Mango With Wings

Crazy Red Pen

Y'all have been tagged!

3 comments:

  1. Great snippet - sounds like an exciting story! Can't wait to read it in its entirety one day.

    The First Look Challenge is an awesome idea - hope I get tagged sometime! ;)

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  2. For some reason, every time I read something of yours, I have tears in my eyes. I'm sure this isn't normal, you know?

    It must be because of the awesome-ness.

    Over and out.

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  3. Oooh, creepy. Execution... sacrfice. Never ceases to make me shiver. :) I love creepy stories. They're so much... more gripping. :) Sounds like a really exciting book!

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