CHAPTER ONE – OLD MAN TIGER

Setting the scene .. Umbaga and his family, and the lands in which he lived.

It was dark under the canopy of ancient trees as Umbaga carefully made his way from the pathways that were known to him and his people and moving ever closer to those that were forbidden.

Umbaga was a brave hunter, everyone said so, but even he wasn’t brave enough to put as much as a nervous foot on the forbidden territory, though he had no idea why it was forbidden and who it was who forbade it. It was one of those unexplained facts that seem so important. Go a step further and all hell might be let loose.

He’d been this way many times before and had marked the furthermost stump of his people’s territory by pissing on it. And not only he �" every hunter in the tribe did that. The aroma of stale urine was a sign that all recognised, and obeyed. Go no further or you and your kin will be destroyed, it said in waves of stench on the breeze, though no man dared question what foe might be so powerful as to achieve such a thing. It was just accepted. Somewhere there was a power that could do just such a thing. Somewhere, maybe this side of the purple mountains, or on the mighty heights of them or even beyond them (if any place actually existed beyond them �" nobody knew for sure) there was a power capable of such a thing.

And Umbaga had Juju at home.

Home was a natural cave that had been on the hillside since the gods had wrought the world they lived on, or so it was said and who was Umbaga not to believe such a history?

It had been the home to the lame bear before Umbaga had wrested it from him, and reduced him to meat and winter furs and proceeded to settle into the warmth of that sanctum, away from the cold of winter and, as now, the overbearing heat of the summer sun.

Juju was his woman. Or rather (and herein lay the truth) he was her man. It was a matter of perspective, and everyone knew she was in charge. Women were. After all, they had the brains. They knew stuff.

And it was Juju who knew stuff. She was well aware of the passing of the seasons whereas Umbaga was too busy out hunting and pissing on old wooden stumps to have much time to remember such things. But Juju knew when the green time was coming. She could predict the arrival of fresh shoots on the trees and shrubs with an uncanny accuracy. And she knew when there was rain in the air. She could tell it. And later in the year, when the trees started casting off their leaves, she knew it was time to make sure there were plenty of furs in the cave.

“Umbaga, no hunting today,” she would say from time to time when he was reaching for his spear or fixing his outdoor loincloth into place, “rains coming...”

And that would be that. Instead of braving the big wide world beyond his cave entrance to go off hunting once again he would take a sliver of flint or a stub of charcoal and attend to his art. He was proud of his art because everyone said that his rendering of the wilds was better than that of any man anywhere. And in all truth it was pretty good. He could make a bison look like a bison, a deer look like a deer, even one with complicated antlers and a smile on its face. He could render those features on the cave wall with uncanny accuracy, and Juju rewarded him for doing it with a huge smoochy kiss before inviting their disparate neighbours in to take a look. So he was the artist in the family, the dreamer, the one who could create a representation of the world about him with two crude etching tools, and on the other hand she knew stuff and decided stuff.

He didn’t mind. It made sense because she had to be back in the warmth (or cool, according to the season) of their cave whilst he was out hunting. She had Idju to care for.

Idju was the daughter, and she was still short of seven summers old and so needed a great deal of support and encouragement. In fact, she needed a warm (or cool) loving home. Idju was like her mother, even had the same slant to her eyes and snub to her nose, and she was a thinker, too. So far as Umbaga could tell she was as bright as the sun at noon, which meant she was a very bright young person indeed. Why, despite her small size she could already count the trees in the forest and distinguish one from another with ease, and solemnly tell them which plants, when eaten, gave them stomach cramps and which didn’t even when consumed in copious quantities.

And they had to eat plants when the hunting was poor, like it often was in summer, because it was in summer that the herds of small deer that Umbaga found easiest to hunt, migrated to distant plains, well beyond his range even if he was away from home for more than a day. So he would collect armfuls of green stuff and they would eat it instead of meat. Some of it was even delicious, though other somewhat tough fronds were bitter and might even give them stomach cramps and turn their poo to foul brown water.

Umbaga smiled as he thought of his little family, and determined to do his best in the hunt.

But here he was at the furthermost end of his territory (though who or what had determined such a thing was beyond his knowledge). Juju might know, but she hadn’t said. She left matters to do with his hunting to him; if she didn’t she thought he might see her as an interfering b***h, and punch her.

The stump that told him to go no further was in front of him, so he pissed on it. It already gave off that rancid aroma created by more hunters than just him, for the stump marked a boundary for the entire tribe. This time his urine was both aromatic and plentiful, for he’d been of a mind to release the pressure of it into the undergrowth for some time but only too aware that it might provide false signals for other hunters, and that wouldn’t be fair.

He was perfectly happy as he shook his teaser to ensure the last drop was gone before tucking it back into his loincloth There was nothing he detested more than most things that stank, and that was the sour stench given off by some huntsmen if they were too lazy to properly shake their teasers. It was such an easy thing to do and it prevented the sourness of unclean men from wafting through the forest attracting anything that stirred with hunger. And there was Old Man Tiger. Everyone knew that Old Man Tiger was quite capable of detecting even a clean man from a great distance, and an unclean one would surely make life indecently easy for him. Common sense said that much.

As yet Umbaga had seen neither hair nor hind of any prey and he knew that Juju back home was hungry, for he was himself. Pains were beginning to gnaw at his stomach and a bitter apple would both start to fill it and yet make it worse, and all around him the only edible things were scabby crab apples. Crab apples might stave off true hunger, but they were no substitute for meat.

He turned to go back the way he had come because before him was the forbidden territory and no man dared place so much as a foot into it, not even at great need. And as he spun round his heart faltered inside his chest.

Because in front of him, close as close could be, was the grisly face of Old Man Tiger, and he was dribbling foam from his open mouth and yellowed teeth.

© Peter Rogerson 16.10.16

Reviews

[JayG]

In reading this, I was struck with one major problem: nothing happens. Instead, this is an essay, by an outside observer, on the past and present of someone named Umbaga—a history lesson. Ask yourself how many history books you personally own for entertaining reading. Ask yourself why a reader would want to study yours as a means of entertainment.

Here's the thing: story isn't a collection of events. That's plot—history, in other words. Your reader is with you to be entertained, not informed. Were this a horror story, the goal isn't to make the reader know the protagonist feels terror, it's to terrorize the reader, and make THEM afraid to turn out the lights. And we cannot, cannot, cannot do that with the report and essay writing skills we learned in our school days. All those reports were to perfect our nonfiction writing skills and make us useful to future employers. They are NOT training to write fiction. The writing skills we learned are fact-based and author-centric, which is exactly what you're presenting in the chapters you have posted here. They are designed to inform, clearly and concisely. But fiction's goal is to entertain by giving the reader an emotional experience. And doing that requires a very different approach than does nonfiction.

Fiction's story takes place in real-time, and makes the reader feel as if time is passing in their life at the same rate as in the story.

Look at any film. They don't talk to you and explain that the character is married and has a family. If that's important to the emotional content of the story and the protagonist's character development they have the character go home and greet the spouse as appropriate to their relationship. But if the story is about John Smith's combat adventure, who cares what his home life was like in the past? A simple, "Damn, but I miss my wife," at the proper time sets the mood and gives backstory. What matters in the moment is what matters to the protagonist. And fair is fair. It is his story, after all, so stick with what matters to him, not you.

My point is that story is what's happening TO THE PROTAGONIST IN THE MOMENT S/HE CALLS "NOW."

Present your story that way and the future is uncertain to him AND the reader, and therefore, interesting. Present it as a history lesson and the future is immutable, and as entertaining as any other history.

Never forget that you are NOT in the story or on the scene. Nor are you with the reader. So they can't hear the emotion in your voice as they read. As they read this chapter, they don't know, for example, where they are in time and space. And you never place them. They can't see or hear the character or the ambiance of the setting. You can, so this lives as you read. Pity the poor reader, and place them on the scene, in real-time, knowing only what the protagonist knows of the situation.

You've worked hard on this, and the other chapters, obviously. And that's great. I applaud your dedication. But what you're missing is the learned part of the profession. To produce professional level prose you must know what a pro knows. You must understand the strengths and limitations of the medium, and write within them. You need to know what a scene is on the page and how to manage the elements of one. If you don't know the role of the scene goal, and why it's necessary, will you provide one?

Like any profession, writing fiction has a body of craft—the tricks of the trade—that must be learned and perfected. Reading teaches us damn little about writing because we see the product, polished and perfected. To create our own product we need the process.

Although we're not aware of it, we all graduate our schooldays exactly as well prepared to write fiction as to pilot a commercial airliner—except that we know we're ignorant of how to pilot that plane.

And that's what you need to correct. For all I know you're positively dripping with talent. But untrained talent is potential, only, and unusable. Nor can you use the tool you're not aware exists.

So keep writing, of course. But at the same time, put time aside to dig into the tricks and techniques the pros use, and make them yours. Knowledge is a great substitute for genius. The local library's fiction writing department is a great resource, one that will have you slapping your forehead and saying, Damn, why didn't I think of that?"

My personal suggestion for your own writers library is to begin with Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which is the best book I've found on the subject thus far. The writing articles in my blog are pretty much based on his work, so you might want to dig around there to better see what I mean.

This is not what you were hoping to hear, I'm certain. But it is something we all need to know. And you've worked so hard I thought you would want to know.

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

[Peter Rogerson]

I'm afraid that you mistake my motives in writing this. I'm not offering it for sale or as evidence of any talent. No, I'm a somewhat elderly person with a little time during which I rarely slap my forehead and mutter nonsense to myself. If you think my little effort is so worthless I'm shocked that you spent so much time writing a review that would appear to be aimed at a completely different piece of fiction. Oh - I see you're plugging a piece of your own on wordpress. You'd better not look on that site too closely or you might find this there as well and you can have a huge amount of fun demolishing it yet again.
Don't get so serious about an old man's drivel or you might find yourself weeping.
And by the way, you're quite wrong about this being akin to an essay because it's what it says it is - a first episode of a yarn. But carry on - I get the feeling that you're rather fond of yourself.

[JayG]

• If you think my little effort is so worthless I'm shocked that you spent so much time writing a review that would appear to be aimed at a completely different piece of fiction.

Sorry, but since you posted it in a writer's site I made the mistake of thinking you wanted to write readable work. And since you cannot do that without learning HOW to write. I spent an hour trying to help, and gave you, free, what I charged my clients for.

• Oh - I see you're plugging a piece of your own on wordpress.

I linked you to articles that might have helped you understand some of the basics of the profession you're trying to practice. I don't spend an hour on a critique in hopes of selling a book. Those articles were written for one of my publishers newsletters.

Other then that, I'm a writer. Why are you surprised to find links to my work on my blog.

• Don't get so serious about an old man's drivel or you might find yourself weeping.

Yesterday was my seventy-ninth birthday, so don't lecture me on old. And I'm knowledgeable about writing because there's a contract between reader and writer. They give us of their time, and even their money. In return we give them something of equal value. Not taking the time to learn even the most basic of fiction writing skills, and then complaining when someone you don't know took time they didn't have to give you, to help you become a more skilled writer, is both bad manners and laziness. And in this case, the critique came from someone who owned a manuscript critiquing service. I tell you what you need to know, not what you want to hear.

To get better response, and eliminate critiques like mine, either include the disclaimer, "Praise only, please," or take the time to acquire your writer's education.

[Peter Rogerson]

It's sad that a gentleman on the eve of his eighth decade can't understand that he may have a mistaken opinion on what constitutes writing fiction in the English language. I dared say you would have made similar comments to Charles Dickens on his first chapter of most of his books, completely dissed JRR Tolkein and found little to admire about JK Rowling's style and methods. Just because you have a certain attitude to the contract between reader and writer that you mention doesn't mean we all want to sign the same dossier. I'm sorry you took time over my work because it clearly falls outside the parameters of what you look upon as fiction, but for me it is quite satisfactory because, you see, I write for myself and anyone else who may share my delights in what I do. I have no intention of including any disclaimer because I don't disclaim it and your views are welcome as long as you realise I may refute them. By the way, I am not aiming at a publisher because of what I mentioned above - the pleasure I find in composing my little pieces and the way it's solely for myself. Selfish, aren't I?

[JayG]

• I write for myself and anyone else who may share my delights in what I do.

Those who write only to pleasure themself have the easiest of critics. But you do post your work in public, and you know what they call those who pleasure themseves in public. ;)

• It's sad that a gentleman on the eve of his eighth decade can't understand that he may have a mistaken opinion on what constitutes writing fiction in the English language.

Obviously, you're seeking validation, not greater competency as a writer. So I'll just wish you luck in finding those "who may share my delights in what I do," and move on.

[Peter Rogerson]

Well said, my friend.
But posting in public? Just about everything's done in public these days.

[SweetNutmeg]

Oooh, goodness, cliff hanger! Well, i will just have to red more.

[Peter Rogerson]

I wanted to write something very different from my last saga and setting it in the past (the remote past) seemed a good idea.