A prose sample for those interested parties

[shalanna]

I've posted a backdated entry that contains the text of the opening chapters of _Unbroken_. Behind a cut; that way, it won't just jump on everyone's screens. If anyone would like to take a look and make a few comments, here's a convenient link to
http://www.livejournal.com/users/shalanna/72903.html. You'll still have to click to go behind the LJ cut.

Comments

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

Hey Shalanna,

Some of my impressions are probably similar to sartorias’s, but I thought I’d offer my perspective on the sentence-level stuff. I’ve read this and the version of Ariadne’s Web that you entered in the St Martin’s contest a couple of years back, and I think the sentence-level problem you have is the same one I struggle with: you let your first-person narrators say too much. Not just telling when you’ll probably be showing a little later, but just letting them rattle on a little too much. As I say, I struggle with exactly the same thing (and if you read the opening of my mystery that I posted on my LJ a few months back, you know that even after heavy editing I am still too wordy.) So I went over this with an eye to where words aren’t pulling their weight.

Remember that Tragically Hip song I quoted here a while back? The story is hiding in ivory, you're just trying to free its shape. (Hey, the Hip write some cool lyrics!) Sometimes you have to carve a little closer, is all. The story is already there in your head in some form. Writing it down is how you let it out for others to see.

I’ve done strikethroughs of the stuff I think you could lose without losing the character’s voice (just my suggestions, of course) and will bold my comments and italicize any actual line rewrites I offer.

Here’s the thing about overly wordy prose: it acts as a speed bump on the reader, breaking their concentration on the flow of the story and distracting them from your narrative. It’s harder to write cleanly—one of the marks of the novice is the overwritten and overexplained quality of the prose, but even after tons of practice it’s not always easy to avoid. I often let the lazy extra words in, but then I have to go to the trouble of cutting them back out again. So if I seem overly enthusiastic about your edits, rest assured: you should’ve seen mine!

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

UNBROKEN by Shalanna Collins

1

The blade was sharp. I actually kind of like this line. It’s obvious, but it’s still sinister, and it doesn’t have the look-at-me showoffyness of many deliberately grabby opening lines.

I slid my finger down the knife. On the obverse side near the edge, but without enough pressure to draw blood. Fine steel it was, not stainless but tempered carbon, the kind sharpened on a stone. A hair laid across its edge would instantly be laid open.

An exaggeration, perhaps, but a small one. A spot of blood appeared; I popped my fingertip into my mouth before it started to sting. I'd misjudged again. I hadn’t been the best judge of anything lately. Again—nice.

The life so short, the art so long to learn. Wasn't that a famous quotation? Goethe. Aristotle. One of the ancients. Minor point, but if we’re cutting deadwood, this line isn’t necessary. It sags a little.

In the blade, its light alive as in a mirror, I could see the image again; I could almost make it out this time--there--

"Hey, June. What the hell are you doing?" My sister Kevaline banged the kitchen door open against the stop as she strode in the scarred heels of her cowboy boots pounding the floor. Chunks of mud flaked off onto the hardwood planks I had so lovingly restored last year as Kevvie Frisbee-tossed her authentic tourist-grade Stetson. It bullseyed on our uncle's antique oak hat rack.

I would tighten these lines thusly: "Hey, June. What the hell are you doing?" My sister Kevaline banged the kitchen door open against the stop as she strode in. Chunks of mud flaked off the scarred heels of her cowboy boots onto the hardwood planks I had so lovingly restored last year as Kevvie Frisbee-d her Stetson onto the oak hat rack.

By shedding a few words here and there it’s amazing how much of a difference you can make to a manuscript. One thing I noticed about my own story was that the narrator talked so much that people got tired of her. Sometimes I had to give up what I felt was a nifty turn of phrase in the service of the story. I also learned that it’s much harder to write cleanly than it was to indulge myself with all those extra pretty words! Just losing a few words here and there can really add up, and keeps your reader from drifting. It isn't that the reader is lazy--it's that the writer needs to be disciplined (I say as if I have any--readers OR discipline!)

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

The light was gone from the blade. The image I couldn’t quite catch was lost again, thanks to Kevvie. I agree this sounds petulant. I’d lose it in the interest of keeping reader sympathy. If only she Kevvie hadn't startled me out of my reverie. Or had it been a vision?

I recovered nicely. "Just polishing up some of the serving pieces. That cheap dishwashing powder leaves spots, like the ads say." Watch that tendency to over-explain—it adds words and loses the tension. Lies came more and more easily lately. I, too, am now interested in why lies are coming easily. Keep up the tension. I tossed the knife in the back of a drawer. By the time Kevvie turned around, I could even smile. "Ferlin let you off early again?"

"Naw." Kevvie shed her flannel shirt on the back of her brown Lazy-Girl Is this a real brand name? I have to admit I found the made-up names sprinkled throughout the Ariadne book distracting. They were a little too clever sometimes, and not in a way that drew me into the story lounger and reached for a tube top. Her clothes lived in the middle drawer of the rosemaled-pine highboy in the den, which served as guest room, TV area, dining room, and second bedroom in the cabin. "Frickin' scary problem. Since Kevvie never at any time demonstrates any fear or even concern about Lentil’s lameness—or even describes her exact symptoms—I find it hard to believe it really scared her. Lentil's gone lame--pulled up lame right after the farrier got through nailing on her new shoes. I can't get nobody to tell me whether that's temporary, normal, how long it lasts, or nothing.”

“Lame?” My voice cracked.

Her shrug betrayed no alarm, merely irritation. “Pete on the UTI’s got a palomino been dead lame for weeks, ever since he cast a shoe and had to get re-shod.” Personal note: Jesus God, where is the vet????? She sniffled, rubbing her fist across her reddened nose. “Anyhow, she can't work this afternoon, so I can't, neither."

Lame. The very word applied to a quarter horse--one of the mares, the livelihood of Persimmon Ridge Ranch--made my jaw clench. Okay, here I get confused. Up to this moment I assumed Lentil was a cowhorse, the one Kevvie rides, and she can’t work cows because her horse is lame. (I did wonder why she could only ride that one horse.) But the business about mares being the livelihood of the ranch makes me think Lentil must be a broodmare and this is a horse breeding facility, not a cattle ranch with guest sideline. In that case, what has the mare's lameness got to do with whether Kevvie can work? I think you need to clarify what kind of ranch this is and what Lentil does, because I’m horsey and I’m confused. I know you want to avoid the info-dump, but being too cryptic right off the top is distracting too.) I sucked in a breath, slowly. Our ranch, like our larger neighbor the Rancho El Gato, earned most of its dwindling income from the horses, although we also had a guest ranch sideline up at the main house, with “Texas ridin' weekends” to attract the tourists from nearby Fredericksburg. But Kevvie didn't always give me the exact truth, or all of it. I shaded my eyes from the suddenly bright sun streaming through the skylight in the large rustic kitchen and tried to read Kevvie's her expression. Again, I find the extra words dilute tension.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

"Clouds've blown away, pretty much." Kevvie grabbed the bottle opener out of the junk drawer. "You think it's bright in here, you oughta spend a few hours out there working in the dirt. We're working toward the next show, plus we've got that weekend coming up. Let's you and me swap jobs." This one isn’t seamless since I cut the reference to the sun, but I think it could easily be rewritten. Again, too, I’m suggesting a few words less.

I handed her a cold longneck beer out of the fridge. "You figure it's easier being the manager, accountant, camp counselor, psychiatrist, and chief-cook-and-bottle-washer?"

"Not only is it cooler work"--Kevvie flopped down on the worn denim love seat--"but you get all the credit, while your little baby sister’s working her compound fanny off out there leading the ponies around with the tourists' runny-nosed offspring on their backs."

“Feel free to head back to the big city anytime.” It was an empty threat. I was stuck with keeping Kevvie on at the ranch by any means necessary, as a favor to Daddy--who, after all, owned the spread--to try to keep her out of trouble. Not that I have any influence on her.

What I did have going for me was simple: Kevaline loved the horses. She was snarky and cranky to people, but not with them. If she’s cranky with people, we’ll see it. In fact, we already have. Given her irritation instead of worry when one of her horses PULLS UP LAME I’m not all that sold on her love of the horses, either. Kevvie'd worked on the ranch three months to my eight, yet she had an intuitive connection to the animals. This was the longest Kevvie’d ever stayed on one job or even in one place since she got grown-up enough to move out of Daddy’s big house on Beverly Drive in Dallas. I must be doing something right. Again, I don’t believe Kevvie’s intuitive connection to the animals until I see it—she’s not acting like it right now. Incidentally, at this point in my reading I wanted to personally grab Kevvie by her tanned neck, shake her furiously, and yell, “Lame? How lame is lame? Off, a little ouchy, three-legged lame, or what?? Is it one foot, both front, all four?” I’m with June—this sudden lameness worries me. Do they use the same farrier as UTI? Does he DRINK??

Ahem. Also, if the story doesn’t take place in Dallas I think we can lose Beverley Drive, since it won’t mean anything to people who aren’t from there and adds nothing to this particular story. (I lived in Dallas for several years and I don’t know where it is, although I am imagining Highland Park or someplace like that. I don’t think it’s relevant here, though.)

“You wish.” Kevvie lifted her short thick braid and fanned the back of her neck with the frayed television guide. Her cottony-blonde hair (not bleached, but naturally pale, like her invisible brows and lashes and, for all I knew, the rest of her body hair) was limp with sweat. She didn’t burn in the sun, but baked to what Grammy would’ve called “a turn”; her complexion was piecrust-brown, as dark as I'd ever seen her. Grudgingly I admitted that my worthless sister, even in jeans and glistening with perspiration (Grammy called it "glow," not "sweat"), was beautiful in a way, although all I could think of was how the upholstered furniture would absorb Kevvie's sweat-sock odor. I love “as my grandmother would say” references but two in one paragraph is too much. Be a little stingier with them and keep me looking forward to them. I suggest losing the second reference because it’s such a cliché, but you might drop one in every three or four chapters, especially if they’re colourful. Also—the sweat-sock odour? Ew! And yet, hee!

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

Kevaline took a long swig. Her lips made a popping sound as she pulled the bottle off of them. “Damn if we weren't heatstroke fodder out there. Can’t hardly get your breath this time of day.” Nothing much wrong here, just over-describing.

“Be thankful I got the air conditioner, then.” I rotated the window unit’s dial one notch lower to compensate for having a second person in the room.

The oppressive heat was the unfair price of living in Texas’ gorgeous Hill Country in the summer. Oh come on—you Texans think no price is too high! The temperature and humidity rose in tandem, each making the other seem worse, and prompting meteorologists to invent additional measurements like “heat index” to describe how warm it actually felt. Nothing really wrong here, but those words could go in the interest of tightness.

Sometimes Kevvie said things just to bait people. I could never resist the bait. "You said Lentil came up lame. Does that mean--" I don’t see where the baiting comes in here. You might just say something like “I got back to the point” or something like that.

"I don't really know what the hell it means." Kevvie swigged beer and flicked the television into life with the deluxe remote control. Obediently, its LivingSound speakers blasted the "Supermarket Sweep" theme. One thing we did not suffer for lack of was high-end electronics, thanks to our younger brother Benny, who was in the business. Another business controlled by Daddy--or, rather, now controlled by Uncle Thomas since Daddy had his stroke. My city friends, visiting, always laughed to see the twig furniture and cracked windowpanes flanking a fifteen-hundred-dollar Home Theater. Even if Benny the electronics baron is really relevant to the story, you’re distracting me from the point here with those digressions. Let parsimony be our cry!

“You don’t think it's something to worry about, do you?”

Kevvie arched her back, rubbing the small of it with the tip of her thumb, and let out a sigh. "Ferlin might know. He's the one who called the farrier. The horse-shoer. I think that's what you call them. I won’t repeat what Ferlin called him. Cussed until the air was blue with sparks." ”I won’t repeat” implies the cussing. I’d cut this line.

"Turn down the TV. What do _you_ think?" I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. "Really, Kevvie. This could be important."

Kevvie studied her from under half-closed eyelids. "I've done told you all I know about it. Don't get your panties in a knot.”

"Sorry." I took a deep breath. "I know it's not your fault."

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

Kevvie ran her hands over her hair, plastering back the damp flyaways at her hairline. “Why not ask Ferlin when he comes in? He knows all that stuff. I'm just a ranch hand. Ain’t I, buddy?"

Her last remark she addressed to Ginger, her stupid-as-she-was-huge hound dog. Ginger was the accidental product of the neighbor’s a golden retriever and a fence-jumping Irish setter. She bounded into the den accompanied by a crescendo of toenail clicks and jumped into Kevvie's lap. The big happy dunce had heard Kevvie's voice, which finally lured her off June's my antique brass bed, where she lolled during the heat of the day under the slow-paddling ceiling fan. She preferred the tall bed to Kevvie's loft, which was airless by ten in the morning. Ginger suffered during the Texas summer, but Kevvie wouldn’t let the ranch hands shave her down the way they did their own mutts, for fear of sunburn. She said dogs should look natural, that the crew-cut ones always seemed embarrassed, as though they sensed that they looked ridiculous. Small point about “hound dog”—it’s common usage to colloquially refer to any dog as a hound, but a "hound dog” is a dog who is actually a hound—and a cross between two kinds of bird dogs, by definition, isn’t one. I’d lose the whole shaving-the-dog bit because it isn’t really adding anything to the story and is distracting me by the digression. Although I agree that dogs look embarrassed when they’re shaved. Except poodles, the showoffs!

My ears hummed; the news about Lentil had probably boosted my blood pressure. But it was several hours until time for my next pill. I almost reached for the wall phone to beep Ferlin on his pocket pager, but thought better of it. Before he took off for the day, he always came by the main house to punch the clock. Sometimes there were advantages to Uncle Thomas’ time-card system, even though everyone knew it meant he didn’t trust anyone, especially not me.

I made a conscious effort to relax my hands, which had flown up to the sides of my head to grasp hanks of my hair, loose and wild with its grown-out perm. Digging a hair elastic out of my pocket, I pulled all my hair into a high ponytail, as though that's what I'd intended to do in the first place.

I did not need to overreact to bad news this time. Five months ago, on hearing news like this--actually, something not half this threatening What? If you open this door you’ve got to walk us through it, especially since you’ve established June as a character who spills everything. This is another unexpected benefit of curbing the narrator’s desire to talk and talk: you don’t have to explain why she’s reticent for no good reason. Or you could just say she freaked over a horse who got scuffed playing halter-grab with a pasture buddy--I had rushed out to the horse barn, called the vet out, and started raising Cain. That had been a serious mistake; the ranch workers had lost respect for my authority over the false alarm. They'd scoffed that I was nothing but an ignorant, crazed city woman who’d traded her power suit for overalls. It had been a struggle gaining back their esteem. For some reason the “crazed” is enough to break the rhythm of that sentence for me, and it changes the ranch hands’ perspective from mild contempt, which you seem to be implying, to something unnecessarily strong.

This might be nothing, after all. And Kevaline had been known to make up stories just to see me panic. If that were the case, it wouldn't work this time.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

In the cabin's tiny bathroom, I splashed my face at the sink and whipped off the apron. I don’t believe you’ve mentioned an apron before, have you? I changed into fresh jeans and a white short-sleeved blouse and twisted my lank summer hair into a dark knot. I decided against tying a bandana over it; after all, I wanted to look like a manager, not like somebody’s slave girl. Again—nothing really wrong, just a bit too wordy.

"Where are you off to?" Kevvie kicked at me as I headed for the door, but instead scuffed the edge of the coffee table with the toe of her boot. I’m not totally clear on this. Did Kevvie miss and scuff the table? If so you might clarify that.

"I'm--" I bit back a sharp retort. What did Kevvie care, as long as I left her alone to lounge with the dog and the afternoon quiz shows? "Headed up to the main house for a bit to do some paperwork. If Sherman calls, tell him I'll be back later, to leave a number."

"K." Kevvie'd no more stir her skinny butt to answer the phone than the man in the moon. But the answering machine held no grudges.

I slipped on the plastic "shades" the eye doctor's office had instructed me to wear in the sun my sunglasses and slammed out the door. The inane television music and then the voice of the Quizmaster testing his vapid contestants followed me all the way down the front walk. The whole plastic shades bit sags—I think sunglasses would be less likely to serve as a speed bump for the reader.

If there's anything I hate worse than sin, it's television. I like this line, but it comes out of the blue. June hasn’t seemed all that concerned with sin up to this point.

The Roving Ranger sat gleaming in the semicircular drive, but this was an easy walk, less than a quarter-mile. Besides, I felt fat. As the pine needles crunched under my feet, I wished for the zillionth time that my sister had turned out to be a different kind of person. Someone who’d want to help me, take at least some interest in the business of the ranch, take some of the pressure off. Of course that was nothing but a dream.

For now, it was enough that Kevvie stayed clean, sober, and away from the bad crowd. She did seem to be less angry, and even Sherman had commented on the change in the girl since she'd arrived. If she had anything up her sleeve, she was keeping it well hidden.

I had to be satisfied with that. At least for the moment.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

2

The Texas Hill Country is to me some of the most gorgeous beautiful country in the world, the equal of the California coast or the south of France. I love these gently rolling Texas hills, carpeted with bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush in the early spring, and waving with winter wheat through the autumn months. Although in this area, Sherman always joked, autumn only lasted a few days, long enough for those trees planning to drop their leaves to do it, and then Texas skipped directly to the cold-and-rainy season. Minor points here: repetition of “gorgeous” from early in Ch 1, repetition of “Texas hills.”

Still, I never want to go back to Dallas. Just a few breaths of the country air, carrying the sweet scent of new-mown grass, lifts my spirits. I felt my burdens lighten a bit as I crunched along the wildflower-lined stone path. But by the time I arrived at the main house, I was covered with a thin film of sweat. Kevaline hadn’t been kidding about the heat. June has already explained heat indexes to us, so she doesn’t need Kevvie’s word on the heat. Also, I too would rather be eaten by ducks than return to Dallas. Ahem. But I like snow.

The central air conditioning was a sweet relief. I headed for the library, just off the gathering room in the main lodge. Over the years, Daddy had built up an extensive reference bookshelf, including veterinary texts. The vet books are mentioned later so I’d suggest just leaving them for now. One wall of the library was all French doors looking out on the “back forty,” where inn guests could gaze out on the real ranch hands doing their chores or at other guests out on a recreational trail ride. The east exit led to the gathering room, a rustic sitting area where guests could have snacks and chat; the western wall held curtained French doors leading to the manager's private office. My office, I thought with pride. The back wall was solid books, the polished shelves going all the way up the two-story height of the room. A mahogany library ladder made possible access to the upper reaches, mostly their father's old law books. A track complete with handholds ran along the ceiling, allowing a browser on the ladder to slide along the rows of books without climbing down. Another old third-person reference slipped in there, but I’d take that bit out because, again, we find out they’re old law books a little later. Besides, describing the law texts distracts me from imagining the room.

There were lots of books about horse care, several of them covering various diseases. I pulled out a couple and flipped back and forth, trying to find a general discussion of lameness. They were full of write-ups on awful diseases like strangles and colic, and reading them tied my stomach in knots. Besides, I couldn't understand much in the articles because they were too technical chapters. I tossed them the books on the library table and climbed the mahogany ladder to the taller shelves, hoping to find a layman's guide.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

I stood still for a moment. I should have known better than to get halfway up in this two-story room; heights have always made me dizzy. When I recovered, I pulled myself cautiously along, riding the shelves and skimming the titles. One section of old ledgers and tomes looked less dusty than the rest--which seemed odd, since guests usually confined their browsing to the popular novels kept on the bottom third of the tiers. Without thinking, I ran my fingers over the uneven spines, enjoying the feeling of slick dust covers next to nubbly worn leather bindings.

Suddenly, a book that somehow didn’t seem right fell under my hand. Père Goriot? What was Daddy's favorite Balzac doing way up here next to his ancient legal casebooks?

I slid the classic partway out. The leather binding was tight, too tight to be as old as it appeared. Nice deduction! That was peculiar. It was also too lightweight, and sounded hollow as my nails scraped across it.

My hands went cold, the way they used to in the city when I had to navigate a dark parking lot and felt a presence behind me, imagined a pair of eyes from the back seat reflected in the rear view mirror, or became panicked because the shadows in the back seat might hide a stowaway. It was a vibration, a special feeling I sometimes got. I call it my sixth sense. Kevvie calls it paranoia.

But often as not, there's something to watch out for when that feeling prickles the fine hairs on the backs of my arms. I suspect you’re leaning on June’s psychic abilities here, but since most women—and a lot of men—get spooked in dark parking lots there’s nothing unusual about the reaction she describes, even if June actually has been mugged, which so far hasn't seemed to be the case. Also, the hollow book where it shouldn’t be is clearly weird, so there’s nothing special or odd about June realizing that.

The strange book is very cool, though!

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

I glanced over my shoulder. Even though I got a little dizzy looking down, I had to be sure I was alone. There were no guests or staff in sight in this bright, sunny room. If she carries on, I’ll assume she didn’t see anyone.

I pulled the book all the way out and flipped it open. The pages were hollowed out, forming one of those book safes made out of an aged classic. No lock on the inner compartment, only a thumb latch keeping it shut. But the latch was tricky, hidden as in a Chinese puzzle box. I've always been good with metal-ring puzzles and magic tricks. It wasn't tough to work the false door open. June might be good with magic tricks, but I’m clever with my long fingernails and can pop latches easily, too. Don’t distract me with her conjuring expertise unless she’s later planning to saw Kevvie in half. ;)

Inside, a memory stick lay on top of two CDs.

What kind of data would someone here want to hide . . . "in plain sight"? Furthermore, who would want to put the book safe in here, rather than on a more private shelf?

The lack of dust as compared with the condition of nearby volumes told me this safe had been accessed within the last couple of weeks. Guests stayed around a week on average, at most two, but it didn't make sense for a guest to use this as a storage area, as there was a safe behind the registration desk for guests' use. Not Kevvie, for once; she hated computers, had eye problems and dyslexia that interfered with her mastery of the screen. Not Kevvie, either: she had eye problems and dyslexia and hated computers. Even if there wasn’t a safe for the use of guests, it would still make no sense for one to make a books safe and hide it on a shelf, so the guest angle need not be over-explained: the readers guesses that a guest would only be doing this for nefarious reasons.

Who else? Lily Chen, my second-in-command, was computer-savvy to a fault. She might've thought this area would be a good place to keep backups of our Secret Recipes and so forth, but she was smart enough to realize that in a fire or other natural disaster the library would be one of the most dangerous places to store things. Unless it was something she didn't want to be caught with, which was out of the question. I trusted her implicitly. That flat “out of the question” implies implicit trust. And good for June: Lily is the first person or animal she’s expressed any good feeling toward so far.

Whoever put this here must've had good reasons.

But that didn't make any sense. There would be no reason to put a cache here in a public area, unless . . . unless it needed to be put somewhere that pretty much anyone could access without arousing suspicions. Like students who would cache the money for pot in a certain non-working phone booth on campus, and then the amateur student-dealer could pick up the funds and leave behind the baggie. It was less risky, if the dealer could be trusted. And spies . . . spies had drops where they left stuff for their contacts. While I am impressed at the resourcefulness of adolescent potheads, this explanation—you guessed it—defuses the tension of this moment. It’s so nifty that I’d suggest keeping it for later, when June can actually tell someone—maybe Sherman—that the book safe “was just like the way students hide money for dope in a certain…” It’s just that here and now it’s a speedbump.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

My knuckles went white as I gripped the ladder. I was borrowing trouble, getting ahead of myself. After all, I didn't even know what this was, let alone whose it was. It was probably something of Daddy's. He always liked to do clever and secret things like this, even when the contents weren't valuable. Incidentally, even with the suggested cuts Daddy’s sounding like an interesting old bird. I hope he becomes an onstage character at a crucial moment.

Slowly and carefully I backed down the ladder, the book safe cradled in the crook of my elbow. A sudden intuition told me to go back up, to replace the book and close the ranks. I couldn't let a casual inspection reveal a gap as obvious as a missing tooth. That was my paranoia talking, but if If it wasn't Daddy's and the owner discovered it missing. . . . I'd have to copy the stuff and put the originals back immediately so I wouldn't tip my hand. I was being ridiculous, but it was kind of exciting to play Nancy Drew.

I slipped the CDs under my arm and the memory stick into my jeans pocket. Careful not to miss a rung, I eased myself down the steps and pushed the ladder back into the corner. I was just paranoid enough to slide the CDs between the front cover and first page of the veterinary book on the top of the stack.

A cheery voice boomed out behind me, its tone holding a slight edge of sarcasm. “Well, look what turned up. She who must be obeyed.”

I whirled. Ferlin stood in the doorway, a humid breeze blowing in through the open French doors behind him. The air carried his scent of sweat, chewing tobacco, and horses. He couldn’t have seen for sure what I was doing, I didn't think, not from where he stood. Could he? It appears she should have smelled him coming, so I’d lose that line.

I lifted my chin, acknowledging his upper hand in the situation, but determined not to let him keep it. “I was hoping I'd run into you. Kevvie told me about Lentil.”

“She did, did she.” Ferlin let the armful of ropes he’d been carrying slide onto the table, then shed his dusty denim jacket on one of the chairs, raising a small cloud of dust. He was doing that to irritate me, I figured; there was no reason to bring ranch supplies up here into the inn. He glanced at the stack of books.

“Yes, she did. After all, she thought I had a reason to know something that might be important." I thought I'd kept my voice fairly well controlled. That last line overdescribes a little.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

He smirked. The man loved to yank my chain. But I kept him on because he knew his stuff. He'd worked out very well so far in that respect. As far as I knew.

Ferlin’s references had been impeccable. Then again, that was according to Uncle Thomas, and our mistrust was mutual. Ferlin thought of me as a temporary nuisance, here only until the lure of high heels and city traffic called me back to my Proper Station.

I forced my features into the classic expression of the Student Admiring the Knowledgeable Teacher. "Can you tell me about it in plain language, layman's terms?” I'd found I got the best results by playing the part of a frustrated Yuppie who didn’t want to learn the language of another profession. I've always been a fairly decent actress. The sentences modifying the speech make the opening sentence redundant.

Ferlin puffed up a bit, as though enjoying this appeal to his superior knowledge. Men were so susceptible to flattery. Cliché, and slows down the action now that we’re finally going to find out about Lentil’s condition! “Couple of possibilities.” He ticked them off on his thick fingers. “Could be the start of a White Line infection, if the farrier accidentally got a nail into a still-growing part of her hoof. Treat that with antibiotics, no problem. Might be just the new shoes, a reaction to suddenly having her weight evened out again after being out of kilter for a couple of days. Happens a lot.” He pulled a large red bandanna out of the front pocket of his overalls and dabbed at his sweaty face. He and the other ranch hands didn’t like to wear shorts or short sleeves in the sun; they said a real farm boy always preferred to cover up, that it was cooler. “The man said if she’s still lame Friday, call him. She could’ll probably be fine by morning. In fact, probably will be. That little gal oughtn’t to have bothered you with it.”

Obessive horsey note: white line disease is a serious thing, and an infection caused by a nail puncture to the quick, deep inside the hoof, is no light matter. My understanding from a recent discussion on a horsey list—prompted by a woman whose horse’s white line disease caused his feet to come apart so she had to have him put down—is that white line disease is no small thing and isn’t easily curable by antibiotics. Also, if Lentil has a nail wound to the quick of her foot she’s going to be obviously lame on one foot, not generally and mildly “off” on all four as if she’s adjusting to new shoes. Again, and this is me as a reader, I want to know if this poor mare is just a little off, or a bit ouchy, or dog-lame. I assume June finally does take a look at the mare in chapter 3, although I also realize the mare’s soreness is the precipitating incident that leads to the discovery of the book safe.

I smiled with relief. “No, she did the right thing. I need to know about anything that might become be a problem.”

“But it worried you, when it weren’t nothing to be concerned about.” He picked his gimme cap off his balding red head and crushed the visor between his huge rough hands. “I wouldn’t fret over that little filly. Let’s just wait and see if it don’t pass.” Again—filly in training? Surely Kevvie isn’t breaking youngsters at this early stage? Who is Lentil and what is her role on the ranch? Oh—and that’s neat name!

“I’ll defer to your judgment.”

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

My flattery continued to work. He grinned, showing some whiter skin that must have stayed clean by hiding deep inside his facial creases while he was out getting trail dust all over the rest of his skin. The pattern of smile lines looked like a pink spiderweb a child might scratch into a layer of dirt on a windshield. “Not to put too fine a point on it, I'm still on the clock, and the five o’clock whistle’s done blown. I’m ready to punch out on that clock back there”--he indicated the general direction of the back entrance, behind the utility room--”and head for home. Anything else you need to know?”

The spiderweb line is nice, but self-indulgent. It’s the sort of thing you write and admire later—which means that for purposes of communicating with your reader it probably should come out. The other cut is just to tighten things.

Underneath that redneck patois, Ferlin wasn’t a stupid man. I often suspected he exaggerated the talk in front of me. Or perhaps, like many before him, he had adopted it to hide a clever mind behind the façade. Many a cunning politician had gained power by playing the part of the simple country lawyer. The first line implies the second—we all know about Prime Ministers of immense low political cunning who masquerade as The Little Guy From Shawinigan/Le Petit Gars De Shawinigan. Ahem.

I continued to smile. “No, I feel confident that you have it under control. See you tomorrow.”

He didn’t even wait for me to finish the sentence before he was gone, taking his jacket and rope in one swift grab.