All posts for the month September, 2012

Namé Hara and the Sea

I tried writing another scene with Namé Hara. This is the result.

I hope you’ll enjoy 🙂

————————————————————————————–

The waves crashed against the shore as Namé Hara dangled her feet off the pier. There was some unpleasant static and she took out her earphones. She let her MPMAN keep playing as she reached for her phone. One new message. Catherine. Namé sighed. After about half a minute she pressed view.

“Want to go down to the shopping centre? 🙂 My class finishes at 2”

“Sorry already got plans…” she texted back. A cold wind blew and she shivered.

“You had plans yesterday too…”

“Yeah, sorry :/” Namé pulled up one leg and hugged her knee. It was almost five minutes before the answer came.

“Is it a boyfriend?”

Namé stared at her phone. A boyfriend? She looked at the pier and her blue nails. As if…

“No.” she wrote back. This time the answer was quick.

“What’s his name?”

“Look I gotta go, write later. CU”

“Alright, don’t tell me. I’ll find out when we meet ;)”

Namé clutched her phone and made a motion as if to throw it into the waves, but stopped halfway. She put the phone back in her pocket and the earphones back in her ears.

“… Loneliness is just a state of mind… ” continued the lyrics and Name Hara looked out across the sea.

Namé Hara and her Grandmother

By popular request I here bring a conversation between Namé Hara and her grandmother.

I hope you will enjoy 🙂

————————————————————

’I have to go now, grandmother,’ Namé Hara picked up her coat, ‘thanks for the cake.’

‘Are you going dancing again?’ her grandmother took a sip of earl grey tea.

‘Grandma,’ Namé sighed, ‘I haven’t danced since I was… what? thirteen?’

‘Pity,’ her grandmother put another lump of sugar in her tea and stirred it, ‘you were really good at it.’

‘I suppose…’

‘You reminded me of me when I was younger. Do you know I used to dance salsa?’

‘Yes, you’ve told me that.’

‘I can’t now of course because of my hip… and my knees… and my ankles of course, but if it hadn’t been for that I would still be flying across the dance floor in high heels.’ Her grandmother took a small sip. ‘Oh, those were the days.’

Namé buttoned her coat.

‘Why was it that you stopped dancing?’ asked her grandmother.

‘I already told you that,’ said Namé.

‘Tell me again,’ said her grandmother, ‘my memory is not what it used to be.’

‘I just didn’t feel like it anymore,’ Namé picked at a loose thread in her sleeve.

‘Can’t imagine why,’ her grandmother picked up a piece of cake and dipped it in the tea, ‘you seemed like you were having such a good time.’

‘Catherine is waiting for me,’ said Namé, ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Take care dear,’ her grandmother waved with the soggy piece of cake as Namé closed the door behind her.

2 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on September 26, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged character creation, Character sketch, Dance, Grandma, Grandparent, Name Hara, writing

Posted by Beatrix MGN on September 26, 2012

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/name-hara-and-her-grandmother/

The Creation of Namé Hara

I saw this post, and since I know that sometimes stories begin with a character, I thought I would like to make a character sketch just for fun.

This is how it turned out:

Namé Hara

Physical: Black hair long enough to touch her lower back. Brown eyes. Golden brown skin. About five foot tall.

Personality: Quick to laugh. Brooding. Shy. Self-critical. Protective.

Family: 1 older sister, 3 older brothers. Mother, father and grandparents on both sides still alive.

Friends: A few good friends, many “acquaintances”.

Relationships: None.

Personal History: She began dancing when she was five years old, she stopped when she was 13. She said it was because she did not like dancing anymore. Really it was because she liked one of the boys in her dancing class, and she did not want any physical contact with anyone else, but she was too shy to dance with him. She is now 17 and no longer in love with the boy, but she still thinks it would be embarrassing to begin dancing again.

I do not think this one will end up as a story, but it was a nice exercise 🙂

When I rewrote my novel, I made character sketches for all the important characters to try to get a better picture of them all, and I found it very helpful.

However, when I write short stories or flash fiction I practically never make sketches of the characters. But maybe I should once in a while, it might give some of the characters more depth?

What do you think? Do you use character sketches?

10 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on September 21, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in On writing

Tagged Character sketch, fiction, Online Writing, writing, writing exercises

Posted by Beatrix MGN on September 21, 2012

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/the-creation-of-name-hara/

26 Tears

The tears shine in her eyes, form as they leave the corners and when they strike the pile below her with a small click, they are pearls. They lie in waves around her, and she sits at her fountain which she cannot leave and adds to their number.

A man who has been hiding in the bushes watching her crawls out from his cover. He straightens himself and takes a step into the pearls assuming he will be the one to save the maiden from her misery. Some pearls roll away some crunch under his foot, and the girl looks at him, a flicker of hope in her heart.

He freezes, crumbles, scatters into a thousand shiny white pearls and becomes part of the sea around her.

And the pearls continue to fall.

3 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on September 19, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged 100 challenge, fairytale, fountain, hero, pearls, tears, writing

Posted by Beatrix MGN on September 19, 2012

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/26-tears/

A Trip to the Beach

The wind blows in from the sea right though my jacket and I shiver. My toes are frozen and I am sure they might break. The sand is grey and hard as stone. The mostly yellow snow is smudged all over it.

Stupid dogs peeing everywhere.

Stupid everyone.

Especially Bacon.

No, especially mother. Who else would go to the beach in January?

2 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on September 14, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged Bacon, beach, dogs, January, mother, writing, young boy

Posted by Beatrix MGN on September 14, 2012

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/a-trip-to-the-beach/

25 Trouble Lurking

He creeps down the corridor. Creep… creep… creep. The floorboards will not be silent. They tell on his every step. The shadows are impenetrable.

‘It’s lurking in the shadows,’ he says, creep, ‘it thinks I don’t know.’ creep ‘But I know.’ Creep… creep ‘I know it’s there.’

Who is he talking to?

You?

3 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on September 12, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged 100 challenge, creeping, shadows, trouble, trouble lurking, writing

Posted by Beatrix MGN on September 12, 2012

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/25-trouble-lurking/

Pokémon (or High Expectations)

Houndour looks something like this.

‘Go, Houndour! I choose you!’

Bacon looks up at me and wags his black tail. He snorts through his upturned nose.

‘I said go!’ I point to the root of the tree where the neighbour’s cat was a few moments ago.

Bacon looks the way my finger points then sits down tongue lolling.

‘What’s the matter with you? I thought cats were supposed to be dogs’ mortal enemies or something.’

Bacon scratches himself vigorously behind the ear tongue still hanging out.

‘Perhaps I should have said Lickitung. You look more like Lickitung than Houndour.’

Lickitung looks something like this.

Bacon wags his tail.

‘That’s nothing to be proud of!’

But Bacon wags and wags and wags.

Bacon looks very much like this.

2 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on September 7, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Sketches, Stories

Tagged Bacon, child, expectations, high expectations, houndour, Lickitung, pokemon, writing

Posted by Beatrix MGN on September 7, 2012

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/pokemon-or-high-expectations/

Survival

Breathing: Short, quick pants.

Eyes: Wild.

Location: Under a bush.

Position: Sitting. Completely still.

Hopes for the future: Survival.

Something large is close. He can hear it sniffing. Hopefully, it has not seen him. Hopefully, it has not scented him. But the rustling of leaves under its paws is coming closer. He tenses his back legs, ready to spring as soon as it sticks its head under the bush. He hears it stop. Snif snif snuffling. Not yet, not yet. The jaws would get him in a flash.

Then a black snout appears between the leaves and he pounces, digging the claws of his front paws into the damp black thing. A loud

“Yiip!”

From the thing and he is off in the opposite direction. But the big red being of teeth and claws quickly recovers and it is after him already. He zigzags between the molehills and his pursuer skids in the loose dirt granting him a few extra moments.

He is so close to home now, but the predator is snapping at his heels again, and then he sees it: Home, safety, a hole in the ground. He leaps, the killer snaps, he loses a tuft of hair from his tail and tumbling into the tunnel, he keeps running with the sound of the killer scratching at the earth behind him.

Deep in his burrow, he trembles, still experiencing the aftershock, but, and with the thought his heartbeat slows a little, he lives to run another day.