The Campfire Has Gone Out: Two Different Sides Of Things

Second part of The Campfire Has Gone Out The adventures of Logan Slade.

It was the day of All Saints. Moonshine's thrown around like it was nothin' that day. People happy and laughin'. Them old country songs made everyone get up on their feet and dance to the merry tunes. Children runnin' around and the old folks sat at tables just clappin' their hands and noddin' their heads. And then BANG! Everyone turned their heads towards the loud noise. A kid is layin' and bleedin' on the ground. Some fellers with bandanas standin' proud next to the dead boy with smoke still coming out of the rifle's barrel.

Let's go back a little bit. My name is Logan. Logan Slade. I'm a part of a gang lead by Blaze. A mean son of b***h. We had a long time runnin' feud with the O'Connors. It's a blood feud between Blaze and their leader Abel O'Connor going back to the days of the war where they served together. They had a fallin' out. O'Connor killder Blaze's wife. Blaze killed O'Connor's son and since then river banks were filled with blood.

Last night by the campfire someone asked me for a story. So here I am, tellin' you a story about how two men who were like brothers ended up on different sides of things.

Now back to All Saints night. The O'Connors came to the town of Valentine to cause trouble just because we were there. Their reason for killin' the poor boy was simply demandin' ten dollars and Blaze's head in exchange for leavin' this peaceful town.

John, a feller of few words, with a nasty scar on his face, immediately took his Colt out and shot down one of the O'Connors in cold blood without a blink of an eye.

"I should kill y'all just for breathin' the same air as us" - muttered John with the cigarette still in his mouth.

Blaze with his charmin' smile and way of words stood up and confronted the O'Connors in a calm manner.

"Hold on there fellers. There's no need for anyone else to get hurt here, ya hear me?" - said Blaze.

"Y'all give me the head of this son of a b***h and we'll ride out of this town causin' no more trouble. Think what's good for ya folks. No need for me or any of my men to kill any more of your boys, folks. Let's be civil and do what's right here." - said Abel while still chewin' on a toothpick.

I can hear John grunting from behind me as I stare down O'Connors as Blaze approaches him slowly, almost mockingly.

"Abel, my friend, no one needs to get hurt here. We can all go our separate ways tonight without any more killin'." - said Blaze. But I can tell from the look from his eyes that he's up to no good. They're fifteen men and we're only nine. I can hear Bill yellin' from the back, so drunk out of his mind that no one understands a word he says.

"You, yo...(hickup) You and your men get the hell outta here before I hang every single one of you sons of b*****s." - yells Bill, not helping to calm the heated situation.

"Sit your a*s down Bill. I don't want to hear any more of you, you hear me?" - yelled Blaze angrily.

"What? You're afraid you might get killed so you calm your dog down? Haha, I didn't know you've gone so soft now Blaze. What the hell happened to ya? Where's that old wife of yours now, huh, Blaze? She always used to stand up for you and get you outta trouble. Oh that's right. I killed that b***h in front of you, didn't I?" - laughed O'Connors, provoking Blaze into a wrong move.

Listenin' to the bold statements coming from that sleaze of a man, I knew that our little gang, together, can do beautiful things. Beautiful things such as slaughtering these pitiful sons of b*****s and not give a damn. But apart, we're a sickly bison, waiting to be a meal for the vultures. And in this moment we were apart. Standin' amongst civilians, innocent men, women and children, we stood apart. Any sudden move, any flying bullet would trigger a chain reaction of blood and death and we'd be left nothin' but ghosts.

Duke, the man of mischief, a man who just loves playin' with dynamite, secretly planted dynamites behind the O'Connors and gave us a wave. Blaze knew that there wasn't any time for dilly dally, and gave me the eye. In a split of a second, he and I pulled our Lancaster Repeaters and just started shootin'. The dynimate went off behind the O'Connors and everyone from our gang started shootin', trapping them between a rock and a hard place. Much to our surprise, the innocent civilians weren't so innocent after all. They pulled their guns out and started shootin'. The O'Connors were done. The only survivor left was Abel who begged Blaze for mercy, but he wasn't sellin' any. He put a bullet in Abel's head without havin' a secong thought.

"I'll kill you in hell again, my friend." - said Blaze.

You see my friend, I thought we were becoming ghost of a world long forgotten. The wild, wild west. I thought that this world don't want us no more. But the people from Valentine stood with us. We can't change what's done, we can only move on. Hell, I ain’t got much to lose, but this life ain't for everyone. Livin' in the shadow of a ghost who once was a man, a rancher, ain't something anyone can survive. Because when the time comes for the sun to shorten the shadow of the ghost, you gotta run and don’t look back. That my friend, is the life of an outlaw. Settlement to settlement, town to town, robbery to robbery, killin' and survivin', enjoying the company of a good woman and sometimes the company of a questionable woman, everythin' on the run. That's how these two brothers who went from robbing banks together in the middle of the day and stopping the most powerful machines, the railroad engines, to ending up on different sides of things.

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask for feedback…

Here’s the deal: When you read this transcription of you telling the story to an audience, it works, perfectly. For you, the author’s voice—your voice— is rich with emotion, and folksy twang. You'll pause meaningfully, to take a breathas accent. You change tone and cadence. Your expression illustrates, and your hand gestures visually punctuate, while your body language amplifies the visual performance.

But…how much of that makes it to the page? Not the smallest trace. The reader has only the emotion punctuation suggests. Have your computer read it to you, for a better idea of what the reader gets. It's a great editing technique, in any case. For the reader there are no gestures, changes in expression, tone, or body-language, and the words mean only what’s suggested by the context you provide, plus that reader's own life experience, NOT what your intent for them is. Intent, too, doesn’t make it to the page.

In short, you’re trying to use the tools of one medium in a medium that doesn’t support them.

But look further, and see it as a reader, who starts out not knowing where we are, what’s going on, or whose skin we wear:

• It was the day of All Saints.

In what century? In what country? Sure it’s true, but for the reader, it helps not at all, so far as placing them on the scene.

• Moonshine's thrown around like it was nothin' that day.

Sure, you know what you mean. But while you let the reader know that we’re out of the big city, you literally just told people that for unknown reasons, people are throwing booze. Not what you meant, of course, but it is what you said.

Sure, the reader will figure out that you mean partying with lots of alcohol, but they shouldn’t have to stop and analyze. And, this is generic scene setting. Won't we learn all this by the actions of the people in the scene? So why delay the start of the scene?

• People happy and laughin'.

Isn’t that true of every party? Isn’t that what the reader will assume takes place at a party? Why tell them what they already know.

Here’s the problem: Writing for the page requires an approach, and writing techniques, that are very unlike the skills we’re given in school. The techniques and specialized knowledge of any profession are learned IN ADDITION to the generic skill-set we’re given in school, to prepare us for employment.

There, we learn only the nonfiction skills most employers need, which is why over 90% of your assignments were for reports and essays, which have providing an informational experience as their goal. The methodology we learned is fact-based and author-centric. Great for reports but useless for fiction.

Fiction’s goal is emotional. As E. L. Doctorow put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” And you cannot do that without the emotion-based and character-centric techniques of fiction.

You’re far from alone in falling into this particular trap, because almost all of us do. We forget that they offer degree programs in Commercial Fiction-Writing. And, the pros make it look so easy that we never look into the necessary skills. And I say that as someone who wrote six unsold novels before I learned that I was thinking in cinematic terms, and talking TO the reader, when I should have been placing them into the protagonist’s viewpoint, in real-time, and in the moment that character calls, “now.”

The fix? Add the skills the pros take for granted and readers expect to see in use, to your own tool-box. Then practice them till they’re as intuitive to use as those skills you know own.

You’ll find that the learning is a lot like going backstage at the theater. And, those same skills will bring your poetry to life.

The library’s fiction-writing section is a great resource. Personally? I’d suggest starting with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found, to date, at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

And for what it might be worth as overview of the differences between the fiction and nonfiction approach, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are based on what you’ll find in such a book.

So…this was far from what you hoped to see, I know. But since we’ll not address the problem we don’t see as being one, I thought you’d want to know. But, whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Dejan_Nashoku]

Hi Jay,

Thank you so much for the feedback! I really appreciated! I'm an amateur writer and anything that I can help me to learn and grow as a writer is always welcome.

I'll check out the link that you sent and thank you for the encouraging words!

Thanks!

[Coyote Poetry]

A great story so far. I wanted to read and know more. I liked the feel of the old west and the interesting characters. You create good location, good thoughts and you kept the reader's interest. Thank you for sharing the entertaining tale.
Coyote