Short story: Under construction

Cila Warncke
Sep 9, 2018 · 3 min read

Unless I’ve set myself a one-story-a-day challenge short stories tend to slosh around in the primordial stew of my brain for quite a while before any actual words are committed to the page.

Every story has a trigger, a singular starting point. I can usually tell you exactly the image, phrase or idea that prompts a story. The stew-time is to allow me to work out enough to get started. How much, and what, this is varies by story. Sometimes I need a lot of character details, sometimes I need the setting, sometimes I need plot points or dialogue (though I rarely think of them in such explicit terms).

The latest story fizzling in my head started with this image: a young woman holding a kitten while smoke rises from the direction of her house. Some of the things I know: her husband, an army veteran, is not well; she is far from home; she is someone who wants to do the right thing.

That was all I had to go on when I sat down yesterday and opened a new document. I wrote about 1,000 words, in total, learning at a furious pace.

Now, I know her name and how she wears her hair. I know her husband has a dog he can’t take care of. I know my protagonist comes across as strange.

Below, are a few hundred words of this roughest draft. Writing them helped me find out more things about my story, so today, I opened a new document. Tomorrow, I’ll see if there is enough to go on, or if it’s on to version three.

Photo by Courtney Roberson on Unsplash

She came through the automatic sliding door bouncing like a wake-board when Uncle Billy was driving. Only instead of a MasterCraft, she was being dragged by a fawn and white pit bull. The dog swung its broad, flat head, left ear cocking to the mechanical buzz of the groomer’s clippers, right to the helium-pitched cheeping of the caged finches. The girl lurched to a stop, swaying.

“D’you do nails?”

The pit was Shilo.

“That’s a smushy name for such a bruiser.”

“My husband’s baby. I’m Laramie.”

Tara led them to the treatment room. Shilo flopped on the floor and started mouthing a metal chair-leg. Laramie watched as Tara doused the nail clippers in rubbing alcohol and dried them.

“Is she used to clippers?”

“Sure. Dan always cut her nails.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

Laramie whipped her high, thin ponytail back and forth. “You need to show me.”

“Ma’am,” Tara always reverted to Southern with unreasonable customers. “I assume you brought her to have her nails clipped, which I will do. But I’m a vet tech, not a teacher.”

“But I need to know how.”

“Why?”

“So I can do it.”

The women eyed each other, mutually confused.

“Why do you need to do it?”

“It’s what Dan would have wanted.”

“Honey, I’m sorry. Is your husband…” Tara shifted the clippers to her other hand and touched Laramie lightly on the arm. “Did he pass on?”

The ponytail swished. “He’s alive.” She was a woman but only just. Her eyes were pale blue-grey, with a dark ring around the iris; her fair skin was taut across her cheekbones, springy. “These days, he doesn’t so much know what he wants.”

***

Ricky flicked his bottle cap across the porch and rattled into the top of the gallon jar full of its companions. The first time he made her dinner, they barbecued out here and he landed every single bottle cap — there were lots — in that same jar. Tara squeezed his bicep and grinned. Sweet. Burly. Like that pit bull.

“Strange gal came in today. Tiny little thing, probably the cheerleader who got thrown, towed by this sawed-off hippo, in a pink diamante collar.”

“The girl?”

“You wish. She didn’t want me to cut the dog’s nails. She wanted to learn how.”

Ricky crunched a handful of nacho cheese Doritos.

“Said it was what her husband would have wanted.”

“Uhhnnn.”

“I’m going for a beer with her.”

“Can I come?”

Writer. Teacher. https://cwarnckewriter.com #writer #teacher #feminist #immigrant

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