Young Writers Society

A/N:

Fog

I – The Morning

It had been one of those dry summers. When the pines along the base of the mountain quickly became barren timber and the evergreens looked dusty and beaten. The holiday homes brimmed with out-of-towners and the lake buzzed with speedboats.

It was almost too hot to sleep that night and when I woke, it was still dark. The Clock was blank and Janey’s night-light, up the hallway, no longer illuminated the crease between the door and the frame.

I had the same dream. We were out on the lake fishing in the dinghy. Janey started to cry and I didn’t know why. I moved to hold her but when I squeezed, but she was not there.

I woke and shuffled a little under the sheets. Tara beside me stirred and in a sleepy stupor said, “You really ought to see a shrink, these nightmares ain’t healthy,” then she went back to sleep.

It mustn’t have been any later than five, or the morning sun would be creeping its way along the carpet. It didn’t matter anyway - I was awake and wasn’t going back to sleep in a hurry.

My fingers rifled through the bedside table in the dark until I was clutching my Harley Davidson lighter. I opened it up and the still flame cast enough light to see Tara’s eyes, closed and looped in shadow. I eased myself out from under the sheet and started out of the room, then up the hall. I closed the kitchen door behind me, to keep the light from escaping and waking anyone else. I found the switch and flicked it. Nothing. I jogged it up and down a few times, still nothing. The god-damned power was out again, third out this month.

Power or not, I was having my coffee and cigarette. I had a percolator for the gas burner but we had used the last of the gas at the barbecue with the Harrison’s a few nights back.

I pulled on my coat and found some jeans in the washing. Tara didn’t like me losing sleep, but I was off work until I received last week’s CAT-scan results. I was told it's a brreach of insurance policy. You can't fly with migraines, they said. It was probably for the best anyway; I needed a bit of time with Janey and Tara.

Joe’s was a twenty-four hour cafeteria on route 11. It was owned and run by Joe Tricarico, a man who got his fair share and then some. It wasn’t a far drive from home to Joe’s, the coffee was no good but any coffee is good that early in the morning and Joe had a generator to combat the frequent black outs.

As I stepped out of the door, I heard her small voice.
“Dad, where are you going?”
“Go back to bed baby, I’m just going to the shop I will be home soon,”
“I can’t sleep, can I come?”

I still think about this moment now, as I tell you this. About her glassy wanting eyes, the way her red fringe tumbled over her brow. Any other day I might have told her no, I might have sent her back to bed with a glass of milk.

I took her hand and gently pressed the door closed. She pulled on her pink boots and wore pyjamas stamped all over with pink stars. Part of me wished I had gone back and kissed Tara, the fly screened window let the summer breeze in and she was at peace. That was the last time I saw my wife.

Black Fog. It was a strange thing outside. I couldn’t tell if it was the darkness or the fog. I still held the Lighter out as a lamp, and despite its still flame, it couldn’t keep the darkness more than a few feet away. A mist was drifting from the pines. It spread quickly in uniform. I hadn’t seen anything like it in thirty summers out there. You could set a ruler’s edge across the front, yet it was black. You would never had known it was there had it not been for my lighter. I pulled the door open and hurled Janey in, before it reached the truck. Must be a low cloud.

The old Ford started with a roar, under my untied boot. We went along and I still couldn’t find the moon, just more of the fog. It seemed to spread faster than we drove, consuming us. Beyond a few yards, the road disappeared, reclaimed by the fog.

“Look Daddy,” Janey said, pointing to a pair of cars parked on the side of the road. I could barely make them out; the headlights flashed the scene as we passed. One man had a finger jabbed into the other’s chest, but that’s all we saw. Must have been an accident in this weather.

We saw a road works truck hum by with lights flashing and horn blaring.

I didn’t realise how slow I was travelling until I glanced down at the speedo set around 15 miles. I found my heavy boot hovering between the accelerator and the brake, undecided as to where it should rest. On a normal day, it’s a five-minute drive to the highway than another five to Joe’s but at this rate, we might not get there for an hour or so. The headlamps hurled stakes of light against the darkness, but the fog seemed to reject them. The light hit the fog like a projector screen, penetrating no more than a few yards. And after twenty minutes at a crawl I saw Joe’s sign. Well, a faint illuminated outline of Joe’s sign.

Sleep came for Janey. Her head had fallen against her shoulder. The seat belt was the only thing keeping her from collapsing onto the middle seat. It was busy for a Sunday morning but I still found a close parking spot. The fog was so dense and dark, that even from a few yards the light inside the diner reached the car dim. I left Janey to sit, still sleeping; I would only be a moment, I thought.

Hi. Now this is my first review so I doubt its going to be amazing.

Anyway, I really like the start of this, its really intriguing, I really want to read more. That is a good start.
I love your description and think you have done really well in explaining your main characters feelings towards his family. The only thing I think you could do is keep writing and start to build more description about your characters. Excellent!

Yours,

Hey, JP.

So I saw all these consecutive parts to a novel you recenty posted. Seemed like a lot all at once, but the way you've broken this down seems to be easily digestible enough. I'll try and review each of them to the best of my ability so you can at least have one persons full and honest opinion here soon.

First off, I just wanted to point out the things that I liked about this. The structure quality seems pretty sound in itself. The obvious things such as tone and pace have been generally put to a good start. I also don't doubt that your writing will cease to come off so smooth as it did in this first chapter. I could easily enjoy the scene of what was going on as I inched through this chapter. It's a vitally important detail, and I think you've pretty much got it on lock. I can tell already this is set to be an interesting story.

I'm a fan of little details. I think it livens up the writing a lot and tends to paint a more intricate picture for the reader without being too in your face. For example, the bit about the Harley Davidson lighter. I was like, 'This dude is already awesome.' It injected some personality into your character, and I started to build him up a certain way in my head. I wondered if he was the semi-rugged type of guy that rides a Harley, but soft enough to be the type of protective/nurturing caregiver to his wife and daughter.

I noticed the littler things that might be of some importance later on in the story. (At least that's what my guess is.) Like the fact that your MC has nightmares often. The headaches and the CAT scan results. Generally speaking I guess, I feel like you've included enough info in a subtle way. There were no tendencies of being too wordy either.

I had a few smaller nitpicks, which I'll go ahead and point out here for you real quick:

It mustn’t have been any later than five(,) or the morning sun would be creeping its way along the carpet.

I had the same dream. We were out on the lake fishing in the dinghy. Janey starts to cry and I don’t know why. I get mad at first because I don’t know why she’s screaming.

When I read this part, I guess it just stuck out to me funny. I get that he's dreaming and all, but the part about him being mad because he didn't know why Janey was crying. Why would he be mad? Would he not just be irritated of the sound of his daughter in distress, or something to the effect? Perhaps you could replace the word mad with something better fitting, but that's just my opinion of it.

And after twenty minutes at a crawl, I saw Joe’s sign(.) Well(,) a faint illuminated outline of Joe’s sign.

I guess that's about it. I hate the habit I have of not having too much bad to say about a first chapter. I don't always feel the most helpful when it's this smooth to read and the story has only just begun. I like to try and think in a way that's centered around the idea 'If it's not broken don't fix it'. Of course readers will always have things they'd like to see altered and whatnot. I still judge and question certain areas of famous books, but it doesn't mean it's still not a good piece of writing the way that it is. ;]

I'll try and get to the rest of these chapters in a semi-timely manner. Seems like an interesting read, JP sir.

-Smylin'

Hello,

This is really good. Although you said it was a short story and you've placed it in the novels section. Also I've learnt that when posting a whole novel up in chapters you should really wait a day or two before you post the next chapter up.
Okay, little rant over On to your work:

You haven't put much into this first chapter. We know that this man is most likely the main character, that he has a wife and a small daughter, that wherever he lives needs to sort out the electricity problem and that something is most likely going to happen to his daughter while he goes to the shops. This is all good but you have not given the reader any description on scene and characters, which is key in a first chapter.

SmylinG has given you the big review so this is just my input. Hope it helps. Midnight x

Thanks for the reviews.

Just a quick note. This isn't segmented as a story. That is to say if I encountered this anywhere else I personally would read it all in one hit. It isn't really so long. The reason I cut it up into bite size chunks is for the benefit of reviewers and readers alike. It's hard to grind through 12K words, I know, and YWSer's aren't typically the type to mill a longer short story in one sitting.

I'm not gonna lie, I read your spoiler and I'm hoping that this isn't too Stephen King-like. I find his characters to be rather dry and boring.

The clock was blank and Janey’s night-light,

More pointless capitals? Har har.

We were out on the lake fishing in the dinghy.

You write the dream from a present-tense. I would change 'we were' into 'we are'. I'm not sure if writing the dream in present-tense is grammatically wrong, it seemed fine to me, but either way, I would suggest making it all the same tense.

“You really ought to see a shrink, these nightmares ain’t healthy,(period)” Then she went back to sleep.

opened it up and the still flame cast enough light to see Tara’s eyes, closed and looped in shadow.

Bloody love this, you have a great way of describing fire and the shadows it casts.

I closed the kitchen door behind me,(remove the comma) to keep the light from escaping and waking anyone else.

The god-damned power was out again, third out time this month.

I still held the lighter out as a lamp,

Your fingers must love that shift button.

I hadn’t seen anything like it in my thirty summers out there.

The old Ford started with a roar,(no comma) under my untied boot.

it’s a five-minute drive to the highway then another five to Joe’s

This was written wonderfully. You really have a knack for descriptions, in my opinion. You don't under do it, but you don't over do it. Something I noticed about this work, compared to others was the use of commas. There were many places that I found (I didn't point them all out, sorry) you should add commas or remove them. Just grammatical errors, nothing faulty in the plot. I'll definitely get to reading the other parts tomorrow and such, when I'm not so tired! Bloody good work.

*editedit: I'm going to try to review the entire story, but I don't want any points, ciao

Hai! Okay so time to start I'll probably only do the one section today but shall hit the next one shortly ^^

I had the same dream. We were out on the lake fishing in the dinghy. Janey starts to cry and I don’t know why. I move to hold her but when I squeeze, she's not there.

Okay so you have this tense change here. And I'd say if you were going to make the dream sequence longer, then make the change smoother and keep it. Because it's nicely atmospheric and adds that feeling of immediate danger. But as it is, you can not change tense for two sentences. No, sorry. You're going to have to make do with past.

I pulled on my coat and found some jeans in the washing. Tara didn’t like me losing sleep, but I was off work until I received last week’s CAT-scan results. I was told it’s a breach of insurance policy, flying with regular migraines that is.

Mmm, a little untidy at the end there. It doesn't flow very well. I'd suggest re-phrasing it, something like: 'I was told it's a brreach of insurance policy. You can't fly with migraines, they said. But to tell you the truth, there just aint enough work coming in and we all bloody know it.' Of course you know the character better than me so that's not perfect. But you get the idea. Give us a flavour of his personality and justify why he's saying it.

I took her hand and gently pressed the door closed. She pulled on her pink boots and wore pyjamas stamped all over with pink stars. Part of me wished I had gone back and kissed Tara, but perhaps it was better to let her sleep, the fly screened window let the summer breeze in and she was at peace. That was the last time I saw my wife.

A little rocky; it's hard to tell what he thought then at the time and what he's thinking now, looking back. Also, you might want to be a bit more subtle about the fore-boding. The reader would rather you built the atmosphere with a good use of description than a 'oh just you wait, stuff is gonna happen' type of thing. Describe sounds. Describ textures; the rough darkness of the sky ouside and the house diminishing behind, sucked into the fog like it was hungry.

Uh wait. It's very foggy and he's just carriedd on without even a thought about not bothering? Coffee may be important but fog makes roads dangerous. I know my dad always stops and sucks his bottom lip when we step out and there's fog about. And if it's just a small errand, he shakes his head and we traipse back inside. He has his little girl with him. He's just had a nightmare of getting her killed. I'm sorry but in his shoes I'd be running back inside so fast.

“Look Daddy,” Janey said, pointing to a pair of cars parked on the side of the road. I could barely make them out; the headlights flashed the scene as we passed. One man had his finger in the other’s chest, but that’s all we saw. Must have been an accident in this weather.

He doesn't pull up? To check that they're okay? Sure he wouldn't want his daughter seeing and would tell her to stay in the car, but a man with his finger in another's chest? That's like woah serious. He should at least wind the window open and call over, see if they need an ambulnce calling.

Good last few paragraphs and excellent last line, though I realise of course that this is actually part way through. You've got some good descriptions and a slow, rolling pace that works well most of the time, though it is a little jerky/ tiresome in others. Not enough that I felt the need to point out specific places but watch that you don't let it get too slow. This is a thriller afterall and they're made for action. I can see the King influence here, though I felt you've not taken the best of his style. The best part about King is his use of short senttences and then the rolling, descriptive ones and those beautiful injections of humour and irony. It's hard to take his style and not end up a little flat. In fact, sometimes King himself ends up going flat and there are parts where you just want to roll your eyes and wonder why his agent didn't tell him to cut a couple of extra paragraphs out.

But anyway! I'll have a more thorough review on characters and such when I'm a little further on. Until then,

Heather xxx

Alright! I'm totally going to do this. I'll try for one review a day, so hopefully this won't be too long. Still - ten's a daunting number. >.>

This is actually my favorite piece that I've read of yours. Of course, my eye for writing is much more description-based - more purple, I guess you could say - and less dialogue/action based than many's; with your description of the fog, you developed a splendid atmospheric tension. This tension can be wielded as a very mighty weapon, but it is left to the author to channel its energy into as striking or eerie or climactic a solvent as possible. Many, many times, an author will do beautifully in the first two chapters, but lose their grip quite tragically as the story nears its climax. But let's save all that for later! I'm sure that this story will be pleasing.

This is small, so I really don't have much else to say in the way of "macros," but I do have some nitpicks, as always, for you to consider. I'm going to be doing less grammatical stuff, partly because the previous reviewers took care of most of them and partly because there weren't as many this time.

I woke with a jolt. Tara beside me stirred and in a sleepy stupor said, 'You really ought to see a shrink, these nightmares ain't healthy,' then she went back to sleep.

Firstly, "I woke with a jolt?" Why? You said that he had had that dream before, so is he really that shocked as to wake with a "jolt?" Besides, it didn't exactly seem like the dream was that scary in the first place.

And you know what I find odd? Everyone always assumes that it's possible to have the same dream two or three times in a row, but this has never happened to me and I personally don't know of anyone to whom it has.

It was a strange thing outside. I couldn't tell if it was the darkness or the fog. I still held the Lighter out as a lamp, and despite its still flame, it couldn't keep the darkness more than a few feet away. A mist was drifting from the pines. It spread quickly in uniform. I hadn't seen anything like it in thirty summers out there. You could set a ruler's edge across the front, yet it was black. You would never had known it was there had it not been for my lighter. I pulled the door open and hurled Janey in, before it reached the truck. Must be a low cloud.

This was the only place where I felt that your description had an obvious place in which to improve. Honestly, I had very little idea about what you were going on about until about mid-paragraph. Before you start illuminating us about what you think it looks like, or what effects it has on the environment, tell the reader what it is. Black fog.

The penultimate sentence came across as odd as well. I didn't know that Mr. Narrator and Janey weren't in the fog. Actually, you make it sound like they are earlier, the way he holds out his lamp and can't see anything. Also, "hurl" is waaay too abrupt a word for such an mysterious scene; not only does it make no sense at the time, but it is a huge pothole for the aforementioned reason.

Janey’s head had fallen against her shoulder. The seat belt was the only thing keeping her from collapsing onto the middle seat.

Eh. See, again, first say that she's asleep, then go into the details. Because sleep has the surface appearance of a few other things; namely, death, and while that may be a bit presumptuous, I wouldn't have discounted it in a setting like the one you've illustrated.

And that'll be it. Again, expect a review on chapter two by tomorrow.

Keep writing.

-Kafka

Hey Joshua!

This is definitely the best thing of yours I read so far--it flows a lot easier than Thirty-One Days. ^_^

It did have a few wrinkles, but you've had a fair few reviews on this already and they've done a good job of pointing them out. I did feel that this lacked something, though, and I think it's detail. I love the detail about the Harley Davidson lighter, but apart from that... it felt a bit empty. I don't know. You do describe things, but it all feels rather cursory. You rarely describe the colours of things, and something titled "The Fog" leads me to expect pots of atmosphere, and detailed descriptions that help create that atmosphere. Tension.

-twit