6 September 2004
Surprise
Imagine a story that begins like this:
The small wet nose of the dog poked out of the basement, past the fallen door. Although the little boy could only see the nose, he thought he recognised it. It was Chum, the small white Jack Russell he had looked after ever since the giants came.
What do you ask yourself - or, rather, what does the story make you wonder with this opening paragraph?
Well, you see a 'fallen door' and you log the fact, expecting to find out why later. If you pause, you'll perhaps think of an abandoned house or the aftermath of a fire or earthquake.
Your memory will also log the two characters - a small boy and Chum the Jack Russell. Of course, the small dog and the small boy will resonate tenderly with many readers, especially the touching detail that the child can recognise his pet just from a glimpse of its nose.
And then you will do a slight mental double take as you try to assimilate 'since the giants came' ...
Until the author tells us otherwise, our first mental port of call is usually reality. We look for the everyday explanation if the publisher and author don't tell us to do otherwise. So most people will be looking for a rational explanation of the giants.
But let's read on ...
They came from the sea, but the people came first, staggering ashore battered and bruised, speaking a language no one could understand, frightening the children and the animals. They fixed the locals with appalled gazes and the villagers picked up their tools and their pots and pans and started banging them on the piles of the stilted houses.
They beat and they beat, driving out the madness that had invaded their quiet lives. Not bad people, but uncomprehending. They didn't want to harm the newcomers, just to drive them away as you might shoo a fly off the food at dinner time.
What do you think then? As first it seems as though the story will explain the giants but, instead, it goes back further, to a time before the giants. And it introduces the society that the small boy and his dog Chum must live in. There is incidental detail in the proximity to the sea - which may become important later - and in the houses built on piles to raise them - presumably - above the water.
Unfortunately the sea people were attuned to hardship, a life of attack and self-defence. They bent and picked up stones from the beach and made gestures as if to throw them. At first hesitantly and then with more and more force. A kind of comic interlude took place in which several of the villagers batted away the stones with their cooking pans, like sportsmen playing on the beach. Then, of course, things turned.
A slightly larger stone happened by ill-luck to strike a rather small child who had crept out from behind the wooden piles to see the source of the clanging. An insignificant cut was opened on its eyebrow but it bled freely. The child's parents were away in the fields and the adults round about felt they had let their friends down by allowing the child to be harmed. They exchanged a glance - half-guilty, half-angry - and launched themselves pell-mell down the beach, raining blows on the terrified incomers.
The eyes of the village people were inflamed with hatred and revenge. The others' eyes were full of fear, but the haters did not recognise it ...
Still the story holds off from the giants. Instead it involves us in a human story of conflict and misunderstanding. Further characters are sketched into the background. Events are explained but not pre-empted. We stay up with the action but we do not get ahead of it.
This fresh piece of writing comes from a workshop run by my husband, Greg. It was written as a collaborative piece - it actually goes on for several more pages. The idea was to work on suspense - establishing expectations and delaying their fulfilment.
I suppose many writers never give this sort of issue a thought. I suppose many writers like to preserve the mystery of their technique. Some, perhaps, are afraid they will lose the knack in explaining it. But all writers use techniques such as this …
And it is interesting, from time to time, to turn the tapestry round and have a look at the weaving on the reverse.
How do you make a Labyrinth?
