Monday, July 07, 2014

An Excerpt from the Sequel to My Unfinished Novel

Just One of Many Exciting Scenes I Intend to Put in the Sequel
It was noon, and the dragonflies darted among the cattails.
 
Wait a minute, first I need to tell you about the setting.  This is Georgia in the 1950's, during the famous "Three Governors" controversy.  We're in the swamp, with Clitus and his best friend Bo.  Clitus is a one-gallus farmer, and Bo is a black sharecropper, and the two share an unlikely friendship in the Deep South.  Right now, they're hunting alligators.

It was noon, and the dragonflies darted among the cattails.  A hush had fallen over the swamp and not even a whippoorwill could be heard among the black cypress roots -

Okay, I know that last part doesn't quite make sense.  The dragonflies are okay, but there's no reason to expect a whippoorwill to hang out in the cypress roots.  Branches, maybe.  But I wanted to get in the sound of the whippoorwill and the color of the cypress roots into one sentence.  Also, technically, the Three Governors crisis was during the forties, which is the wrong date.  I still haven't worked that part out.

Clitus stood on the bow of the skiff and stared out across the water, every nerve vibrating, alert.

Sorry, I didn't see any point starting over at the very beginning, so I just picked up where I left off.

Clitus stood on the bow of the skiff and stared out across the water, every nerve vibrating, alert.  In his remaining hand he held a make-shift spear.

Oh, yeah.  I forgot to mention.  In the previous book, Clitus loses his hand trying to save a blue-tick hound from a threshing machine.  I haven't written that scene yet, but I've got it all mapped out.  It's really going to make the reader cry, because I'm going to build up all this empathy for the hound, so you'll understand how Clitus would feel he has to save it, even though he doesn't, and when he loses his hand also - well, you can appreciate the emotional impact.

"Hand me that line, Morris."

Oh, wait, you really do need a running start for this one.

Clitus stood on the bow of the skiff and stared out across the water, every nerve vibrating.  Alert.  In his remaining hand he held a make-shift spear.  "Hand me that line, Morris."

Oh, and Morris, he wasn't in the first book.  He's just a punk kid who thinks he knows it all, but will learn life's lessons through the hard and simple ways of Bo and Clitus.  He doesn't do much in this book, but in the next book, his fate will intertwine with the Three Governors controversy, and...

Hey, wait a minute!  I haven't finished yet, come back!