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littlefeltfangsI've had this story wandering round my head for a while. But being fairly new to writing,I'm still having trouble finding a style that works for me. So here are two versions of the beginning of a story. I kinda want to know what people think, so I can work out which way to go.
Just so you know, I don't own diddly, not the computer I'm typing on, and certainly not the characters.
Version 1:
A man sits in a room. The man has the look of ageless wisdom about him; a casual observer would probably place his age between thirty and fifty years of age, a wide range to be sure. But the man does not promote casual observation, to look at him is to be drawn in to the desperation, loss, and grief etched into his face as he stares down at the object in front of him. The object seems to fill his world. As he slowly turns it in his hands you can almost see the images it evokes blazed across his face. If someone where with him now, they would undoubtedly say that no man had ever been so distraught by such an item.
A man sits in a room. The room does not reflect his grief. Where he seems to have sunk to an unknowable darkness, the room screams with colour and light. The room is clearly not his. The bed upon which he sits is covered by a deep red duvet; the pillows at its head are bright, pink, and fluffy. The walls, while a plain cream, are covered with posters of boy bands, photo’s of young girls hanging together, and a few of a twenty something man with chocolate brown eyes and a shining smile holding his two year old daughter in his arms. It would not be unreasonable to think that this man had lost his daughter today.
A man sits in a room. Beside him is carved wooded box. Inside is an engraving, it proudly proclaims a friendship that could never be broken. The man looks at it now, for a moment his face seems to waver, as if he were almost able to cry, but the moment passes as his gaze returns to the object in his hands, and he remembers the girl that he gave the box to all those years ago. He had carved the box himself, every intricate knot, every word inside the lid. For a while he had believed that they would never be separated again. And then she had died. He remembers the days following clearly, the paperwork that needed completing, her blonde hair against the dark grain of the coffin, and the night following the funeral. It was nine months later to the day that Jessica was born.
A man sits in a room. He remembers. He remembers the day that his daughter received the box that sits beside him. He had thought it gone, buried with the friend it was made for. He remembers the words that accompanied the gift, “Your auntie Buffy would have wanted you to have it. She loved your daddies work. She wouldn’t want it to go to waste.” He remembers the nausea he felt at seeing his Jessica proudly show him her present, he didn’t want any part of that world creeping into her life. He remembers weeping as he listened to the stories of vampires and chosen knights that Auntie Willow would tell his Jessica when she put her to bed. He didn’t want any part of that world creeping into his daughter’s life. That’s why he left it behind. That’s why there is a door in his house without a key. That’s why there’s a girl he has never met, whom he prays for every night. That’s why he hasn’t patrolled in 15 years.
A man sits in a room. In his hand he hold’s a piece of wood. It is several inches long and sharp at one end. It has almost no use except one.
A man sits in a room. His name is Xander Harris, and he finally cries because his daughter is a slayer.
And now onto version 2:
My name is Alexander Harris, and my heart is breaking. Again.
The first time my heart started to break was in high school. It was as I looked into my friends eyes as he disintegrated into dust. After I stabbed him with a stake.
I survived though, because I had friends to live for. I now knew of the dangers that surround us and I had to fight to protect my friends. Over time my heart grew whole again.
My heart nearly broke the day my best friend, Willow Rosenburg, was left in a coma because of the dangers we fight. As she lay there I professed my love for her, a love that I feel to this day. My heart broke that much more when she woke with her boyfriends name on her lips. But again I had so much to fight for, my two friends still fought the darkness and I fought for them, by them, and with them.
My best friends, the Witch and the Slayer. I loved them both, more so than any family I had, more than any romantic attachment I’ve ever had, more so than myself and my life. On her 27th birthday Buffy died. She is still the longest living slayer in history; though, thanks to her slayers now have a much longer life expectancy than they’ve ever had. I still believe that her body just gave up, after the years of fighting it was beaten by a simple virus. While it hurt, there was little enough left of my heart to break again. That night a new women entered my life, my daughter Jessica was conceived in the midst of the pain surrounding Buffy’s death. I’ve often wished that Buffy could have survived to see her, but I avoid thinking about that for long.
Jessica’s mother wanted an abortion. I fought with her for hours, she eventually relented, she would carry our daughter to term, but nothing more. I think she relented because of the guilt. The debt she felt she owed me for what she had done to me years before. On the day Jessica was born she signed the papers giving me full custody of our daughter, and then left without ever hearing her name.
For a few years I would call her, tell her how Jessica was doing. I soon stopped, there was too little left of my heart for her to keep crushing, and I needed all my heart for my daughter. Jessica believes her to be dead, I tell her how much her mother loved her, how she would have wanted to be with her. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like for that to be true. Those are the nights I cry myself to sleep.
I stopped patrolling the day Jessica was born. That day I gave up my part of the fight. That was the day I promised that my Jessica would have the life that me and my friends never did.
Thanks to my construction business I am the largest single source of funding for the reformed watchers council, between that and my history with their head, Rupert Giles; I have a lot of pull there. I used that pull for the first time that day. A slayer was assigned to my town so that my daughter would grow up protected. I never met her or her watcher, as I couldn’t let myself get dragged back into that world; I had to be there for my daughter.
And now I sit here, and my heart is breaking again. Jessica is 16, and she has been pulling away from me. I tried to think it was normal for a teenager, but I couldn’t help but worry. We’ve got into a lot of arguments lately, tonight being one of them. I decided it was time to reconnect with my daughter, so I went to her room with a tub of ice cream in each hand, hoping to make it up to her. She isn’t here. She’s snuck out somewhere. So I do something that I always promised myself I would never do, I invade her privacy. I search her room. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Signs of a boyfriend? A girlfriend? These are the possibilities I hope for. Drugs? Alcohol? I hope not, but I can help her. But I sit here holding the one thing I hoped she would never need. A stake. I also find a sword, holy water, crosses, garlic, and a crossbow. So I sit on her bed knowing that she will never know the life I hoped for her. Never know the life that Buffy had wished for herself. I know that in all likelihood I will soon be burying the girl that I love more than any other in the world. So my heart is breaking. Because my daughter is a slayer.
Puhleeeeeeeze comment.
Just so you know, I don't own diddly, not the computer I'm typing on, and certainly not the characters.
Version 1:
A man sits in a room. The man has the look of ageless wisdom about him; a casual observer would probably place his age between thirty and fifty years of age, a wide range to be sure. But the man does not promote casual observation, to look at him is to be drawn in to the desperation, loss, and grief etched into his face as he stares down at the object in front of him. The object seems to fill his world. As he slowly turns it in his hands you can almost see the images it evokes blazed across his face. If someone where with him now, they would undoubtedly say that no man had ever been so distraught by such an item.
A man sits in a room. The room does not reflect his grief. Where he seems to have sunk to an unknowable darkness, the room screams with colour and light. The room is clearly not his. The bed upon which he sits is covered by a deep red duvet; the pillows at its head are bright, pink, and fluffy. The walls, while a plain cream, are covered with posters of boy bands, photo’s of young girls hanging together, and a few of a twenty something man with chocolate brown eyes and a shining smile holding his two year old daughter in his arms. It would not be unreasonable to think that this man had lost his daughter today.
A man sits in a room. Beside him is carved wooded box. Inside is an engraving, it proudly proclaims a friendship that could never be broken. The man looks at it now, for a moment his face seems to waver, as if he were almost able to cry, but the moment passes as his gaze returns to the object in his hands, and he remembers the girl that he gave the box to all those years ago. He had carved the box himself, every intricate knot, every word inside the lid. For a while he had believed that they would never be separated again. And then she had died. He remembers the days following clearly, the paperwork that needed completing, her blonde hair against the dark grain of the coffin, and the night following the funeral. It was nine months later to the day that Jessica was born.
A man sits in a room. He remembers. He remembers the day that his daughter received the box that sits beside him. He had thought it gone, buried with the friend it was made for. He remembers the words that accompanied the gift, “Your auntie Buffy would have wanted you to have it. She loved your daddies work. She wouldn’t want it to go to waste.” He remembers the nausea he felt at seeing his Jessica proudly show him her present, he didn’t want any part of that world creeping into her life. He remembers weeping as he listened to the stories of vampires and chosen knights that Auntie Willow would tell his Jessica when she put her to bed. He didn’t want any part of that world creeping into his daughter’s life. That’s why he left it behind. That’s why there is a door in his house without a key. That’s why there’s a girl he has never met, whom he prays for every night. That’s why he hasn’t patrolled in 15 years.
A man sits in a room. In his hand he hold’s a piece of wood. It is several inches long and sharp at one end. It has almost no use except one.
A man sits in a room. His name is Xander Harris, and he finally cries because his daughter is a slayer.
And now onto version 2:
My name is Alexander Harris, and my heart is breaking. Again.
The first time my heart started to break was in high school. It was as I looked into my friends eyes as he disintegrated into dust. After I stabbed him with a stake.
I survived though, because I had friends to live for. I now knew of the dangers that surround us and I had to fight to protect my friends. Over time my heart grew whole again.
My heart nearly broke the day my best friend, Willow Rosenburg, was left in a coma because of the dangers we fight. As she lay there I professed my love for her, a love that I feel to this day. My heart broke that much more when she woke with her boyfriends name on her lips. But again I had so much to fight for, my two friends still fought the darkness and I fought for them, by them, and with them.
My best friends, the Witch and the Slayer. I loved them both, more so than any family I had, more than any romantic attachment I’ve ever had, more so than myself and my life. On her 27th birthday Buffy died. She is still the longest living slayer in history; though, thanks to her slayers now have a much longer life expectancy than they’ve ever had. I still believe that her body just gave up, after the years of fighting it was beaten by a simple virus. While it hurt, there was little enough left of my heart to break again. That night a new women entered my life, my daughter Jessica was conceived in the midst of the pain surrounding Buffy’s death. I’ve often wished that Buffy could have survived to see her, but I avoid thinking about that for long.
Jessica’s mother wanted an abortion. I fought with her for hours, she eventually relented, she would carry our daughter to term, but nothing more. I think she relented because of the guilt. The debt she felt she owed me for what she had done to me years before. On the day Jessica was born she signed the papers giving me full custody of our daughter, and then left without ever hearing her name.
For a few years I would call her, tell her how Jessica was doing. I soon stopped, there was too little left of my heart for her to keep crushing, and I needed all my heart for my daughter. Jessica believes her to be dead, I tell her how much her mother loved her, how she would have wanted to be with her. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like for that to be true. Those are the nights I cry myself to sleep.
I stopped patrolling the day Jessica was born. That day I gave up my part of the fight. That was the day I promised that my Jessica would have the life that me and my friends never did.
Thanks to my construction business I am the largest single source of funding for the reformed watchers council, between that and my history with their head, Rupert Giles; I have a lot of pull there. I used that pull for the first time that day. A slayer was assigned to my town so that my daughter would grow up protected. I never met her or her watcher, as I couldn’t let myself get dragged back into that world; I had to be there for my daughter.
And now I sit here, and my heart is breaking again. Jessica is 16, and she has been pulling away from me. I tried to think it was normal for a teenager, but I couldn’t help but worry. We’ve got into a lot of arguments lately, tonight being one of them. I decided it was time to reconnect with my daughter, so I went to her room with a tub of ice cream in each hand, hoping to make it up to her. She isn’t here. She’s snuck out somewhere. So I do something that I always promised myself I would never do, I invade her privacy. I search her room. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Signs of a boyfriend? A girlfriend? These are the possibilities I hope for. Drugs? Alcohol? I hope not, but I can help her. But I sit here holding the one thing I hoped she would never need. A stake. I also find a sword, holy water, crosses, garlic, and a crossbow. So I sit on her bed knowing that she will never know the life I hoped for her. Never know the life that Buffy had wished for herself. I know that in all likelihood I will soon be burying the girl that I love more than any other in the world. So my heart is breaking. Because my daughter is a slayer.
Puhleeeeeeeze comment.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-03 07:19 am (UTC)I hear you, man. I do the same thing, too. That's why I always outline stories before I start writing them. Makes it easier to fill in details at the beginning when you've already got the ending all sussed out.
I think if you combined the narrative tone and POV of the first version with the way the second is set up, you'll be sitting on a great beginning. Revealing Faith as the mother early on isn't playing your trump card, because what she's doing fifteen years later and how she reacts to the news of a Slayer daughter (I'm assuming something will happen to pull her in) is a big plot point, as well as how Jessica will react when she discovers that her calling is not only completely familiar to her father, but also a legacy of hers that she was lied to about by that same father.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-03 02:21 pm (UTC)I've incorporated a bit of the second version into the first now, trying to do a switch between Father Xander to post-buffy Scooby Xander. Think it's got a way to go yet, but it's definately more on track than when I tried this the first time round (back in april I think).