Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
How is it already Wednesday?
Well, it is. That makes tomorrow Thursday and we all know what that means. It means that its time for this week’s Six Sentence Story.
Each and every week, our host, Denise, provides us with a ‘prompt word’. Our job is to write a story, six sentences in length, that involves this word. Then we post it on her site. (In the little blue rectangle that is labelled ‘Click to view and add your Links’.) Then make the rounds of the other Sixes. Pretty simple, isn’t it?
(This week’s Six is from the first of the stories in the upcoming ‘Hobbomock Chronicles’ YA series.)
This week the word is:
Explain
Walking through the old part of downtown Hobbomock, past the small shops stuck side-by-side like books on a shelf, their identities gilt-painted on plate-glass windows, Jacob William Hazard thought he might be in a good mood. He’d finished all his homework, raked the leaves and managed to get out of the house before his father could think of anything else for him to do on this, October-going-on-August, Saturday afternoon.
“Permit me to explain your weekend assignment,” Ted Berman said, one minute before the end of last period Civics class the day before, “you can write a ten page paper on the Electoral College, or you can…” he waited for the susurrus of unhappy adolescents to subside, “…or tomorrow you can attend our fair town’s Annual Huck Finn Day, watch the politicians hustle votes for the up-coming election and report back to the class next Tuesday.”
Standing on the sidewalk in front of his favorite store, ‘Tomes Tomb’ Used and Old Books, Jacob smiled as he watched the parents and small children in the park; ‘people aren’t that bad’, he thought, ‘they’re telling me their whole life story while maintaining a polite distance’.
Idling along Old Main Street, an antique convertible with banners that proclaimed,”Elect Bill McKinley, he won’t do anything bad,” and just behind it, a not-very-old man walked, smiling and shaking as many hands as he could harvest from the people on the sidewalk.
The man-who-would-be-Mayor, William R McKinley, resumed his very public stroll after kissing a baby held out by a somewhat nervous young woman, when Jacob heard someone say, “what the hell?”; from the corner of his eye he saw the candidate fall to the pavement, head hitting the road harder than anyone would let happen, at least without being unconscious or dead.
About clarkscottroger
You have now become one of my favorite writers. Very engaging 6 and a good beginning to the first in your YA series, the Hobbomock Chronicles.
thankee, it looks like it might be some fun
I got so caught up in the story I had to go back and look for “explain.” Hobbomock Chronicles is sure to be a hit!
thanks, Pat not so sure about the hit part but it surely will be good practice. (Let me know if you think you’d enjoy that ‘two points of view on one scene’ thing that I did with val a couple of times… once I get Hobbomock established you could have a choice of genre! hard-boiled detective… Sister Margaret Ryan and her battle against corporate wrong-doers or now, YA mystery in small town New England. )
he waited for the susurrus of unhappy adolescents to subside…some of us still are…good6
thanks, man
It sounds like they are going to have plenty to discuss — like who will run now. Great story!
Ayyiee! I hadn’t thought about that, at least not yet… (At least it’s early October, time for a surprise candidate to show up, right?)
His untimely end was an unexpected ending. And another unexpected Six. I think I like this town.
Yeah, me too. (Don’t know about you, but I like to have real world locales forming the basis of my towns… a hybrid, granted, but there is an Old Main St like the one Jacob is walking through… brownstone buildings with shoppes and transom windows over the entry doors.
Everyone amazes me with their six sentences. You definitely do. I must try harder and put more thought into what I am doing.
I know how you feel! (no, serially! Sometimes, after I read a Six by, say, Pat or Paul Brad or Mimi, I’m all, like ‘clark! they engaged the readers and left some (metaphorical trees standing)… you best stop reading Fydor and Jimmy Joyce and save the readers some eye strain!)
I liked your Six