Re: Part 2 (word count 1245) >>>> -- Ladies of Lallybroch Literary Forum

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Date Posted: 00:56:14 05/19/10 Wed
Author: Promise
Subject: Re: Part 2 (word count 1245) >>>>
In reply to: Fi 's message, "Part 2 (word count 1245) >>>>" on 14:42:46 05/12/10 Wed

Comments in boldface. Anything I suggest to be omitted will be surrounded by brackets [ ]. Any suggested replacement will follow.

Galway, Ireland. 1663.

The housekeeper was only a little taller than Richard, but she took up nearly the width of the doorway. She led him and his mother through the kitchen, a great space with a huge fireplace and a smell of gravy that made the water pool in his mouth. A maid not much older than Richard, hair in kerchief and sleeves rolled to the elbows, scoured the inside of a brass skillet. Kate cast a desperate look at the pots, hoping perhaps that she would be allowed to stay among the servants, but the rotund housekeeper led them through to the parlour.

A great crackling fire warmed Mr. Joyce's face, compensating for the dimming of daylight from the window. A woman in a stripped ---misspelling: striped---cream-and-pink dress directed another maid to set a jug on the table, and turned around to greet the visitors. ---Who turned, the maid or the woman?---Her pretty cheeks were ruddied by the fire, and her eyebrows moved independently: first the left, then the right.

�Please come in.� She motioned towards the table.

Kate twiddled with her shawl and took a stool. Richard was intrigued by the spread of food: hand-sized pies, slabs of cheese, slices of ox-tongue, and some candied fruit. Slivers of salmon fanned on a plate, but no potatoes. His stomach made a cat's growl.

�I hope you don't mind if I leave,� said the woman, placing a hand on her swollen belly. �I'm feeling rather tired.�

�Of course not, darling.� Her husband ---Is this the same person as Mr. Joyce? Or is there someone else here? kissed her forehead and she left the room, her back-skirts sweeping the floor.

�You've been keeping well, Kate?� asked Mr. Joyce, sitting opposite her.

�I have, thanks be to God.� She worried her hands in her lap and glanced up at the high ceiling. �This is a fine place you have.�

�It's the old family home. When the king returned to England, he allowed Catholics to return to the town, those that had been loyal to him. Those that survived. He still hasn't given us back our other land, but I'm writing him letters every other week so please God we should get it back, ---add a comma--- too.� ---I know this is here for the reader�s benefit, but it seems strange for Mr. Joyce to be telling Kate that�shouldn�t see know this?---

�I've seen a lot more ships on the quays this past year or so.�

�Trade is picking up again, thank God.�

�I saw a big French ship the other day,� said Richard. �You could hear them blabbering away in the town.�

Mr. Joyce's smile was the first genuine one that evening.

�That's where this wine came from. We sold them a fine lot of butter and salted fish.�Butter? Why would the French purchase butter from Ireland? In the 17th century, timber and iron were the chief Irish exports. Also, unless the fish are salted, they wouldn�t be fit to eat by the time they got to France (no ice at this time), which has its own rather long history of a fishing industry. Now, during the 18th century, salt- beef and pork, butter, and hard cheeses were exported through Cork to supply the British navy, but your story is set a century before that.---

�Fish from the Claddagh, sir? Do they eat Claddagh fish in France?�

�They surely do. Isn't it great that there are still Catholics in the world, to keep buying our fish?�

Kate's mouth twitched, ---add comma--- but she hid the half-smile in her hand.

�We must all be hungry,� he said.

Richard's hand reached across the table, but his mother swiped it back as she bowed her head for grace. After she finished, Mr. Joyce took one of the pies and motioned to Richard to do likewise. It still steamed as his knife cut through the pastry, and as he lifted a slice to his mouth he forgot about his confusion; all the world seemed to shrink to the gorgeous sensation of gravy melting on his tongue.

�What are those, Mr. Joyce?� he pointed at the candied fruit.

�They're oranges,� said Mr. Joyce[.], �[F]from Spain.�

Richard's head swam even as his stomach filled. Wine from France, oranges from Spain. This table seemed to connect to the harbour, which connected to a wide world beyond.

�Have you ever been to these places, Mr. Joyce? France or Spain or England, even?�

�I've been to Spain. My family has connections there. I had to leave, during the time of Cromwell.�

Richard would have spit, ---add comma--- but his mouth was full of pastry and he didn't think crumbs on the tablecloth would make a good impression.

�You know about those times? The Catholic Confederacy had fought long against Cromwell's troops[, and]; Galway was the last town to stand against them?�

Richard nodded. Adults often talked about the war in whispers, but it had happened before he was born, ---add comma so it never seemed relevant.

�It seemed like the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse ---Apocalypse--- had run across the land. War that wouldn't end. We were under siege within the city walls, not just the townsfolk, ---add comma--- but people from the surrounding countryside too. Then Hunger came as the food ran out. Then Pestilence: the bloody flux, the plague. I lost my wife � my first wife � and our three children.�

�God rest their souls,� said Kate.

�God rest their souls.� Mr. Joyce nodded. �I apologise ---apologize---. This is not really a topic for supper.� ---He�s right. He�s relating this for the reader�s benefit, but as written, it feels like a history lecture, not dinner conversation.---

�And that's when you met my Ma!� Richard realised.---realized--- �The people from outside the city were within the walls during the seige!---siege--- From [the] Claddagh too?�

�From [the] Claddagh too.� Mr. Joyce daubed a little gravy from his chin.

�And after the siege---siege--- was broken, you went to Spain?�

�Not directly after. Some of us escaped into the hills and continued to fight for several months. The countryside was a ruin; towns razed, people scattered and pushed westwards, starving and desperate. My mother's family had connections in La Coru�a, so I took the first boat I could get there.�

�And Ma, she fought as well? Ma, didn't uncle---Uncle--- Jack tell me you fought as well?�

Kate wet her lips and fidgeted with her knife. �I fought as well, in the hills of Connemara.� ---Repetitious use of the phrase �fought as well.�---

�Learned to fire a musket as well as any man.� Mr. Joyce smiled.

�And my Da? You must have known my Da, Mr. Joyce.�

�I wish I had known him. He must have been a good man, God rest him.�

Mr. Joyce cut a slice of ox tongue and put it in his mouth. Richard frowned. He had been born ten months after the siege ended, so his mother must have been married when she'd fought in Connemara. She must have been....

Richard thumped the table with both fists. The pies jumped and wine spilled from the top of the jug.
�You must have know my Da!� ---New paragraph not needed.---

�Richard!� Kate's raised voice sounded strange in this room. �I brought you up with manners!�

�I will be forever grateful to Joe Mahon,� said Mr. Joyce quietly.

The boy's lower lip trembled. �What do you want, sir? Why did you ask us here?�

Blue eyes and a high forehead, eerily familiar, looked straight at Richard.

�I asked you here because you are my son.�

Richard's stomach lurched. A rich man with a brocade gown and long curled hair, a man who traded with French and Spanish captains, a man who made strange marks on paper with an ink-dipped feather.... No, it wasn't true!

�Liar! Ma, tell him he's a liar!�

His Ma with her proud eyes, her voice that sang sweetly and scolded sharply, the faint aroma of turf and salmon lingering in the fibers of her shawl... No, it couldn't be true!

Kate nodded. �It's the truth, a stor�n.�

�You're both liars!�

He stood and stormed out through the kitchen. The young maid almost dropped the pots as he swung the back door open and slammed it behind him.

Final thoughts:

Kind of an abrupt way to tell a kid, isn�t it?

There�s a lot of exposition of back-story in the conversation and it just doesn�t feel natural.

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[> [> [> Re: Part 2 (word count 1245) >>>> -- Fi, 11:24:37 05/21/10 Fri

>Kind of an abrupt way to tell a kid, isn�t it?
>
>There�s a lot of exposition of back-story in the
>conversation and it just doesn�t feel natural.

Hi Promise,

Thanks for your useful comments. Looks like I have a lot of editing work to do. Backstory is such a pain!

Fi

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[> [> [> [> Re: Part 2 (word count 1245) >>>> -- Promise, 12:56:53 05/21/10 Fri

Fi,

Yeah, backstory is hard to deal with. As you could see from my own work, I'm struggling with it as well.

It's so hard because *we*, the authors, know the backstory and we want it to be in our readers' minds from the beginning, so that they understand the characters and their actions in the same way we do.

But, thinking of how DG reveals backstory in bits and blobs throughout the books, maybe characters are *more* interesting when you don't understand everything they do because you don't know the backstory? What do you think?

Promise

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[> [> [> [> [> I agree. It's tempting to think the readers need to know this NOW rather than build up their interests first. But if writing was easy, where would the challenge be? -- Fi, 12:51:49 05/25/10 Tue

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