Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.
Our host is Denise.
You want to know what I like the most about the Six Sentence Story ‘hop? It’s the other writers. Or, more precisely, how their writing skills and adventuresome creativity engenders a sense of challenge to try the difficult, attempt the unlikely, aka push-the-envelope, not merely in content, but in presentation. Barely a week goes by that someone doesn’t post a Six that have us, all, ‘Damn! That was cool. How’d they pull that off?’ (The key, imo, is the sense of camaraderie among participants that Denise has nurtured here at the Six Sentence Story. Totally turns a challenge into encouragement.)
Little secret about my penchant for using music to enhance a story. This week I had two songs that seemed to resonate as I finished the beginning of the story. Thing of it was, as I searched for the ending, each song shaped the story differently. Go figure! So, naturally, I start thinking, ‘If two songs result in two endings of the same story, best we present both. Let the Reader choose’. Below: the first three sentences of the latest installment in the Whitechapel Interlude, below that, the links to the two respective endings. With the music that inspired them.
The prompt word:
JUNK
“Count St…”
“Cyrus...”
Sarah’s eyelids lowered, a silent conspiracy to obscure the sudden dilation of pupils; the wind rose at that moment, as the two stood in the night air of the easterly turret of Castle Noctis Ostium, successfully veiling her expression; Nature’s bias to the feminine side of the world once again in all too brief a display.
“I fear I have given you the wrong impression of my intentions…” the cloak of her Order, no less a hauberk for the softness of it’s fabric, hid shoulders both straightening and softening, her body began to assert itself; ignoring what he took as petition for a truce in the oldest of battles, Cyrus turned to face the corrugated-dark of the surrounding forest, which under the anemic light of the predawn moon appeared as momentarily exotic as a Chinese junk entering the Port of London under full sail.
…
Sarah’s Triumph *** Cyrus St. Loreto’s Lament
About clarkscottroger
exxellent…I didn’t think of a Chinese boat, of course it wouldn’t have fit my story, but BRAVO you!
thanks… the prompt word was a killer for me for a similar but different reason. Even though the word junk originated (according to Great and Mighty Wikipedia) since the 1400s (in some form)… it was killing me to get it to fit in Romania in the late 1800s.
(Kind of a contrived fit, but what’s a Sixarian to do?)
I loved the Sarah’s Triumph with its Bible verse
“I saw that wisdom is better than folly,
just as light is better than darkness.”
Thank you
I like your unexpected description of the forest from the height of the turret as “corrugated-dark” in the “anemic light of the predawn moon”. There is just enough light to see some of the texture the trees make.
Thanks, Frank, surely the fun of this ‘writing thing’ is stumbling across phrases and descriptions and, once committing it to ‘paper’, seeing the reactions of Readers and peers.
Enjoyed the editorial notes! Too true, it’s always a pleasure to read the work of others in our little coffee shop headquarters which is the 6SS! Over a coffee and a cigarette, I just marvel at how we arrive at the stories we write!
“corrugated-dark of the surrounding forest” is excellent, can picture that so well.
Cool you used ‘junk’ in the sense of a boat… I wanted to do so too, but got distracted by AI artists and, erm, chickens, lol :)
Yeah… that process thing… here in the Six Café & Bistro its clear that having others engaged in creativity is nothing but good. Not so much inspiring as encouraging and supportive…
Well, that was fun. I think I preferred “Sarah’s Triumph”. And now I am headed back to finish reading the entire chapter of Ecclesiastes, I want to see how that ends.
I like (usually) your music choices but rarely find as a reader or writer that I especially like to pair music and story. Hm. I also don’t do well with picture prompts.
So much more than just a Six, Clark. You’re so right, the camaraderie and the encouragement cocooned within the confines of the Six Café & Bistro is awesome. Now, to the bifurcated story, heralded by the entrance of that exotic sailing ship. It’s the latter which gets my vote for that final sentence.
That sense of non-competitive competition that a group of people can engender is something I very much enjoy. I dare say my own writing has benefitted more from participation in this bloghop than any other activity that involves writing.
Tough word this week… maybe for a similar reason, ‘junk’ seems (to me) to have a contemporary feel to it and, of course, like your serial, the period/setting is very much a part of the story… but they don’t call it fiction for nothing lol.
a silent conspiracy to obscure the sudden dilation of pupils; ….. you start it so beautifully.
Thank you, Reena (the fun of writing, for me, is to visualize the scene and try to describe the less obvious elements)
You never cease to surprise with your ability to move stories in many unexpected paths.
thanks, M.
You want me to choose between Sarah and Cyrus? lol
Enjoyed the alternative perspective offered. Are they each so different from the other?
Cool Six this week and I concur with the sentiment surrounding the Six Café & Bistro :) Everyone’s participation is and has been invaluable to me.