I’ve written quite a lot about the importance of having a good beginning to a story, about grabbing your reader by the peepers and dragging them into the plot, throwing them head-first into the setting, and giving them a good hug (or a thump) from the characters… and yet when I come to start my own novels I become almost overwhelmed with insecurity… I’ve published five novels now, all written a while ago and edited like fury and all of them, except one, I have rewritten the beginning completely even though when I wrote it I was thrilled with what I’d done.
Now I’m getting ready to edit my next novel which I hope to have out around Christmas time, although if I’m honest it’s more likely to be in the New Year, and I’ve had a rush of lack of confidence – or maybe I mean an ebb of confidence. I don’t want to mislead the reader, this may start as some sort of tale of thwarted love, but that is only the surface of it; it is much darker and more brutal and about emotions much more damaging than love.
What do you think:
She gazed unbelieving at the naked man lying on her kitchen floor. The flush on his tanned skin was beginning to die but his body gleamed with sweat. She stared at him aghast, his eyes were hidden beneath his arm still in the shirtsleeve, the only clothed part of him.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
Because he seemed to want an answer, she tried to find one.
“We made love,” and her voice emerged as a whisper.
“No,” he said. “We committed adultery.”
“I never have before,” she spoke defensively.
He moved his arm and looked at her now, his eyes so dark they looked black.
“What, never made love?” he sat up, frowning and began to pull on his shirt.
“Committed adultery, I mean,” and her face burned, as she became self-conscious and discomfited by her own nakedness before this stranger.
“Nor have I,” he spoke softly but he looked so angry she felt as if he blamed her.
She pulled her t-shirt from under her and dragged it over her head. Where she had been sitting on it there was a large embarrassing wet patch over her left breast. She looked round for the rest of her clothes. They were beneath him. He stood and stepped past her to retrieve his shorts and trousers and she scuttled for her shirt and jeans. Her underwear had disappeared so she dressed without it, buttoning her shirt to her neck.
He murmured something. He was looking down at the front of his shirt; it took a moment for her to realise there were hardly any buttons left. She crawled around the floor trying to find them.
“I’ll sew them on,” she said. They were grey and small and difficult to see but she did find her bra and pants under the table and stuffed them into her pocket. “My sewing things are in the sitting room,” she said as he silently handed her his shirt.
She had not intended the remark as an invitation but he followed her to the small room at the front of the hotel. As she sat and swiftly sewed on the five buttons he wandered around looking at things, pulling books from the shelf, CDs from the rack, picking up photos and examining them. She concentrated on what she was doing, trying to finish as quickly as possible, but she was aware of everything he did.
Then he was still and she glanced up. He was staring at the enlarged photo above the fireplace, a picture she didn’t care for of her and Lance on their wedding day.
“Oh no,” she said. He turned to her. “Your back…” She glowed with shame. “I – well, I’m sorry, but I scratched you,” she looked down at the shirt in her hands.
There was suddenly a darker patch on the grey fabric where a tear had fallen.
“Never mind,” he said. But he couldn’t see the great raking marks, beaded with blood, down his shoulder. What on earth would his wife say? “Never mind.”
She gave him the shirt and fled back to the cloakroom. She washed her face and hands then crept out to the kitchen. She began to weigh out flour to make the bread rolls for tonight. The door closed softly as he came in and without looking she knew he was putting on his charcoal grey jacket and tying his green and yellow tie. He stood by the table, watching her, as if waiting for her to say something. But what could she say?
He turned away towards the back door. Again he paused. He glanced over his shoulder.
“What happened?” she asked now because she really didn’t know. She couldn’t believe it. Had she imagined it?
“We made love,” he said. The door opened and he was gone.
Lois Elsden 