Here is a sample scene from the novel-in-progress that David Beckman refers to in last week’s interview about being mentored in his writing.  You will notice that he has made stylistic decisions in using sentence fragments to evoke the little boy Addison’s point of view.  He also uses terminology of the time period he is writing about.  Moreover, dialog moves the scene along — as readers we keep track of where the characters are and the chronology of the events in the scene through images in the reported speech.  As you read the excerpt, note the details that place you with Beckman’s characters.  From the articles of clothing noted and the view of slaves being transported to snippets of the natural world, the writing is economical.  In other words, the author is not using exposition, which distances readers from characters and events.  Instead, for the most part, the author shows what the characters see and hear.

Another successful aspect of the writing is the way the emotional crux of the scene, that of a boy seeing his father in a new light and in danger, is foreshadowed by the opening image of hawks in the sky:  “Hawks,” his father said.  “Be glad you’re not a rabbit.”

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ON QUAKER ROAD – Prologue

Liberty, North Carolina, 1828

Addison Coffin rode his father’s shoulders, arms around his neck, peering over his high black hat.  His father’s thick, sandpaper hands held the boy’s knees firm.

“Daddy,” he said, “see, see!”

“What do you see, Addison?”

 Ladies’ hats with ribbons and flowers, men’s hats wide-brimmed.  The tall white church steeple across the road, cutting up through the blue-green hills like a whalebone needle through green cloth.  The sky, robins egg blue, loaded

with clouds shaped like funny fat fish swimming.

“Birds!”  Three wide-winged birds floated, riding currents slowly, lazily, around and around the church steeple.

“Hawks,” his father said.  “Be glad you’re not a rabbit.”

Addison waved to the hawks, called to them, wondering why he was glad not to be a rabbit.

Then there was dust rising, graying out the green hills.  With it a strange dragging sound, with tinkling, tinkling, tinkling.  People looked toward the road, pointing.  His father reached up, lifted him, swung him down.

“Nooooo!”  Addison didn’t want to be earthbound, small again amid big people.  But instead of putting him down his father tucked him under his arm and carried him back to their wagon and put him in it.  Then his long face was up close, whiskers framing his lips, blue often-dancing eyes not dancing now.

“I want you to wait here, Addison,” his father said in his don’t-answer-me voice.  “Do you understand?”

His father went back to the crowd, disappeared into it.  Addison sat awhile, then got out of the wagon.  He didn’t know what made him do that.  It was the first time he’d ever not done as told.  He ran toward the crowd, got onto his hands and knees, scuttled through the forest of men’s legs and ladies’ dresses.  Where he came out was on a rise, above the road a little.

Many Negroes, men and boys, walked in a line.  Ragged shoes raising the dust.  Metal cuffs at the ankles glinting.  Chains attached to these, connecting them all, ankle to ankle.  They looked stiffly ahead because they were connected at their shoulders too, by wooden poles with forks at the end for their necks to fit into.  If you can be dead and still walk you’d look like that.

Behind them came a white man on a spotted horse.  He sat high, waving to us.  He looked proud, in-charge.  Big mustache, white teeth, tan chaps, fancy boots, coiled whip in his belt, thick as a wagon axle.

Suddenly his father was on the road.  He stepped between the coffle and the horseman, who stopped. Addison’s father turned to face the crowd. A gust of wind blew dust up from the road in front of him.

“Neighbors — ” he yelled.

Everyone looked.

” — think about what you see here.”

The walking Negroes stopped now, no one moving anywhere.  Even the dust seemed halted in the air, waiting.  Addison felt himself not breathing, fearing what might come.

“This is wrong!” his father shouted, pointing toward the coffle. “This is not the Christian way.”

A man behind Addison moved. “Oh,” he said angrily, “it’s Vestal Coffin.”

“Slavery,” his father shouted, “that’s what I’m talking about.”

There was laughter, movement. “Go back to your farm, you Quaker fool,” someone telled.

“If these kindred souls are not free to go, how can I be?”  his father replied.

A moment of silence, then more shouts of disapproval.  Addison now wanted his father to come get him so they could go back to the wagon and go home.

“You, you, you” his father was saying now, pointing to the crowd. “you can’t hold human soul slave because then you hold God slave.  And who here would put chains on God?”

The mustached man on the horse drew a pistol from his belt.  He brought it up to aim, a long barrel extending from his hand.  Addison knew he was seeing what ruled the world then.  He wanted to yell, but had no voice.  His father

turned toward the man to give him a good target, spread his arms wide, as if inviting him to shoot.

The rider laughed, pointed his gun toward the sky, fired.  “Crazy Quaker,” someone said, snorting out a laugh. “Gonna get himself killed yet.”

People shouted, moved forward.  Addison couldn’t see the road anymore.

“Daddy!”  He yelled so loud his lungs hurt.

The crowd pressed up close, then ran past him, and he was nearly trampled.

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At the opening of the scene, Addison is not sure why he should be glad that he is not a rabbit.  This uncertainty creates a question in the reader’s mind about why Vestal thinks the way he does.  What might have been mere conversation sticks in our minds more because of Addison’s wondering.  By the end of the scene, we know why Vestal thinks about prey.  He is anti-slavery and aware of the victimization of men by other men.  He is also in danger of being preyed upon for his way of standing up for his beliefs.  David Beckman has enriched the scene with this kind of attention to character.

When you write, be aware of the words you choose for dialog.  At some point, ask these questions about the reported speech you are using:  How is it notable? How does it drive your essay, poem, or story forward?  How is it indicative of the person speaking?

In the same way, be aware of the observations your character or speaker is making.  How are these observations indicative of the person?  Why are they just right for deepening the character development?  For instance, Addison sees, “The sky, robins egg blue, loaded with clouds shaped like funny fat fish swimming,” and we know he is a boy who pays attention to nature.  When he describes the man on the horse as, “Big mustache, white teeth, tan chaps, fancy boots, coiled whip in his belt, thick as a wagon axle,” the metaphor rings true.  A wagon axle is something a child of the early 1800’s would have seen up close and frequently.  Viewed in this way, the whip is more menacing–it’s strong and thick and mechanical.

Now that you have read David Beckman’s sample, you might want to experiment with building characters by revealing their vision of the world.  Based on the ingredients in the scene you’ve just read, try this:

1. Choose a scene from childhood where you spied on grown-ups and were surprised by what you saw.
2. Report the scene through the eyes of yourself as a child being sure to select details the child self would have noticed.  Use terms from the period the child is speaking about.  For instance, people rarely say “color TV” anymore but if a character from the early sixties is listening to his parents speak, he may well hear them use that term.
3. Once or twice, use simile to describe objects in the scene, being sure that these similes utilize comparisons the child self would be capable of making.
4. Select overheard dialog that seems significant and put it into the description of what you saw.
5. Ask yourself what this remembered dialog tells you about the world of the adults you were spying on.  Write a statement about that.  From there return to describing the scene from the child point of view or jump to a years later adult point of view.  Either way, you should have interesting results.