The Woods in Spring

[108 fountains]

I remember that it was a glorious Saturday morning in springtime. My father - I called him Pops in those days - woke me, as was his habit, by pulling on my toes through the blanket.
“Wake up, wake up,” he said. “We’re going for a walk in the woods this morning.”

“Mushroom hunting?” I asked yawning and brushing the hair from my eyes.

He didn’t answer, but took a step over towards my brother’s bed - we were quite poor in those days; I shared a bedroom with my eight-year-old brother - and pulled on his toes.

Even inside the house, the air was crisp and cool as we shared a breakfast of oatmeal with milk and brown sugar. Pops had his cup of coffee. It was steaming. He had already been up for some time. He was always the first to rise. Mother worked during the week and slept late on Saturdays, so it was just Pops, my little brother Marc, and myself at the table. Pops was more quiet than usual. Marc held up his spoon and watched the thick oatmeal slide slowly from it. He never ate much - he was pernickety. That annoyed my mother, but Pops paid no attention.

We got on our shoes. I put a light jacket on Marc and pulled a blue, woolen sweater over my head. I took out of a drawer three small, white plastic bags that we had saved from the grocery - we would place the morels in them. Pops took out a rifle from his gun cabinet - he would almost always shoot a rabbit or a couple of squirrels on these outings. He used to let me shoot sometimes, and I pestered him all the time about having a gun of my own. He had promised me that he’d buy me a rifle of my own once I turned sixteen, but now that I had turned fifteen, I was beginning to lose some of my tom-boyishness, and shooting had started to lose its appeal to me. But I never grew tired of our walks in the woods. The three of us piled into the old green pick-up truck and headed outside of town.

It was not a long drive. We turned down Sixth Street, crossed over the bridge, and passed several farms until we reached the woods. Marc sat between Pops and me. The small cab of the truck seemed so much roomier when it was just the three of us. When mother was along, it was awfully cramped. I opened the window during the drive to counter the smell of stale cigarettes that always assaulted me there. The wind coming through the window was downright cold, and I shivered. But it woke and refreshed me. Pops was more quiet than usual, but Marc was his usual, fidgety self - he squirmed in his seat, pulled at some loose threads on my sweater, and pointed to small clusters of cows grazing on the new pea-green grass in the fields we passed.

Pops turned off onto a gravel road that degenerated quickly into a rutted dirt road. It had rained a couple of days earlier, and since the weather had remained cool, the ruts were still filled with water. Twice I felt the truck slide sideways in the mud as we penetrated farther into the woods. After a few minutes, he pulled off the road into a grassy clearing. The remains of three buildings stood vacantly on the other side of the clearing. With empty windows and doorways framed by dark brown, rotting wood, they were the last evidence that the area had once served as a Boy Scout camp. We got down from the truck and began our walk down the familiar footpath that led into the thicker vegetation.

“Here, Marc, take one of these,” I said handing him one of the plastic bags.

“I’ll fill it up!” he boasted. “I bet I get more than you! I bet I get fifty of ’em! How much you wanna bet? A dollar?”

“I don’t have a dollar,” I laughed. “But I’ll bet you a chocolate bar.” Marc loved chocolate. “And if you lose, you have to wash the dishes tonight.”

“Yuck! I’ll never do that!” he exclaimed. Marc wasn’t spoiled. He was just young. He wasn’t old enough to do chores around the house. Still, I helped mother with the dishes since as long as I can remember. Maybe it was because I was a girl - I was expected to help around the house, even at an early age.

“Do you want one, Pops?” I asked, holding out a bag for him.

“Sure, sure, Pumpkin. Thanks.” He called me Pumpkin in those days. He took the bag, crumpled it up, and pushed it into the pocket of his jacket.

We walked on. Marc ran on ahead of us. Pops took a slow, steady pace. I followed in the rear. It was something less than an hour after sunup. The sky was as deep a blue as I think I had ever seen. The day was perfectly clear. An airplane, way up high in the sky, glided noiselessly overhead. In the trees and on the ground, robins chirped, starlings chattered, and wrens made that sound they make, which is neither song nor voice, but a kind of twittering, kissing sound. Sunbeams danced on the heavy dew that dripped from plants and glistened on spider webs. May-apples sprouted everywhere. The dogwood trees were in full bloom. The air was filled with fresh scents and delicious stirrings. Toadstools peeked out from under fallen logs, and green, velvety moss grew luxuriantly on the north side of the hickory trees. We walked for a while alongside a small stream, sparkling in the sunlight that filtered through the trees and gurgling and splashing as if enjoying its freedom after the long, frozen winter months.

Pops was more quiet than usual. I knew there was something on his mind. I had heard him and mother talking in low tones for the past several days. I had heard him say something about “having problems at work.” He walked slowly with his rifle pointed toward the ground. This walk will do him good, I thought to myself. It’s such a perfect spring day. On a day like this, in an enchanted place such as this, problems disappear.

“Hey! I found one!” Marc called out. He ran over toward the border of a patch of May-apples. I saw him pluck a big morel - maybe four inches tall - from the moist ground. “I got the first one! I got the first one!” he sang, trying to taunt me.

“I’ll get the next one! I’ll get the next one!” I called out merrily in the same sing-song style of voice.

We walked a few more paces and then Marc called again, “Hey, here’s another… and another!”

He was just off the footpath, about two dozen steps ahead of us. I ran toward him. He had found a nice patch of mushrooms, and I was not about to let him get all of them. In the space of a couple of minutes, he had found three more, and I found two.

Then I heard a shot ring out. At the same moment, Marc fell to the ground. The echo from the rifle seemed to bounce off the trees in a kind of slow motion of sound.

I looked up. Pops’ face was pale - ashen - but he appeared calm. The morning sun glinted off the rifle barrel as he slowly pointed it in my direction. I heard him say, but in a voice that did not sound like his, “I’m so sorry, Pumpkin.”

I turned and ran. I ran like I never ran before. I heard another rifle crack, and a bullet whistled past my ear. I ran. Oh, I ran. I ran through the May apples. I ran through brambles that tried their best to trip me up, catching and scratching me, drawing blood. I ran through the sparkling stream, hearing the splash of my feet as I went. I ran down the hill. I ran past the trees. I ran. I ran, and I’ve been running ever since. Never slow down. Never hesitate. Never pause for breath. Never stop to look back.

[Mohammad Ahmad]

Good luck
As I read this topic it is one of the obligations to write down my notice...
firstly I mixed in the phrase Mushroom hunting, I asked myself how to hunt mushroom, because hunt always its meaning is chase especially for wild animal, but lastly I understand its other meaning which it is: search or seek.
You have a good style in writing

[Calidore]

Two important cliches to avoid when starting a story: Having the somebody wake up and describing the weather. You check off both in the first two sentences.

What follows is well-written enough, but two-thirds of the story is spent simply getting everyone from point A to point B; nothing actually happens. When things finally do happen, there's no apparent motivation. I assume "having problems at work" was intended as foreshadowing, but from that to attempting to murder his two children out of the blue is a bit thin. Then the story seems to end as soon as it starts. Why has she been "running ever since?" Has he been hunting her all this (vague) time? Again, where's the motivation? And what about repercussions for him or even follow-up from the narrator (never named)? During the "ever since", has she never checked on exactly what happened--through the news or talking to the police? And how does she go from being a child in a family to being alone and on the run and survive?

My point with all these questions is that if the narrator is telling the story, these answers would be important to her, especially the fate of the rest of her family. She can summarize them quickly if you don't want to make them part of the story, but if she's telling the story of these events in her life, she wouldn't stop at the beginning.

[travjob]

The ending completely caught me by surprise, which I'm assuming is what you were going for, so nicely done with that. Kind of a jaw-dropper. I think the abrupt ending serves a purpose, but I guess I'm also seeing Calidore's point as far as wanting some of those questions answered. It's kind of like the story (as you present it) might a snapshot of a longer text, and somebody put the magnifying glass down on the wrong part... maybe bring us in somewhere around Pops being more quiet than usual. You might be able to condense everything before it to still set the stage to the "end", and then expand from there?

[Calidore]

It's kind of like the story (as you present it) might a snapshot of a longer text, and somebody put the magnifying glass down on the wrong part...

I like this simile a lot.

[travjob]

And, I just now realized I left out the word "be" haha! I suppose we can all be forgiven for errors from time to time. For 108 fountains, I intend on reading more of your stories.

[108 fountains]

Calidore, Thank you very much for taking the time to respond with constructive criticism. Being relatively new to the forum, I’ve been trying to offer constructive comments to other people’s writings as well as posting my own, so I realize the effort it takes. Having laid this aside for some time now, I’ll look at it again for a further rewrite and will keep your points in mind.

I do think I’ll defend myself on some of your points, though. My purpose was not to tell the girl’s life story, but to relate this incident from her point of view, and of course, to see if I could shock readers with the ending. So the things that I left vague, I did leave vague on purpose – she didn’t/wouldn’t know her father’s motivation for what he did, for example. And from her point of view (at least in my imagination), the repercussions for the family were not important compared to the event itself (and the devastating effect it had on her). What I hoped to show with the last few sentences was that, whether the incident occurred days or weeks or years ago, describing it still left her breathless. In a way, putting "the magnifying glass down on the wrong part," in fact, was part of my design.

But I’ll admit that if I need to explain these things, then there are surely some structural deficiencies here, and I’ll need to take a hard look at them during my next edit.

Mostly, I wanted to see if I could do a story with a shocker of an ending, and in that regard I found it extremely difficult, while writing, to know how much foreshadowing I should do. If I did none at all, I felt it would be dishonest to the reader. If I did too much, then I would lose the shock value. In that regard, I appreciate Travjob’s comments.

[Calidore]

My purpose was not to tell the girl’s life story, but to relate this incident from her point of view, and of course, to see if I could shock readers with the ending. So the things that I left vague, I did leave vague on purpose – she didn’t/wouldn’t know her father’s motivation for what he did, for example. And from her point of view (at least in my imagination), the repercussions for the family were not important compared to the event itself (and the devastating effect it had on her). What I hoped to show with the last few sentences was that, whether the incident occurred days or weeks or years ago, describing it still left her breathless. In a way, putting "the magnifying glass down on the wrong part," in fact, was part of my design.

Good points. If the structure was a deliberate choice on your part and the story reads like you want it to, then that's good to know. Her father's heel turn is indeed a surprise; it's just that without any before or after, it didn't move me much. You mention "the devastating effect it had on her", but that's one of the things we don't see and that I was arguing for. Even though she's the one telling the story, it ends with her running, and there's not one word about the emotional impact this would have had on her. The effect is of the story ending right at the beginning, with no opportunity for the reader to get involved.


Mostly, I wanted to see if I could do a story with a shocker of an ending, and in that regard I found it extremely difficult, while writing, to know how much foreshadowing I should do. If I did none at all, I felt it would be dishonest to the reader. If I did too much, then I would lose the shock value. In that regard, I appreciate Travjob’s comments.

I'll submit that since she's telling the story later, she would be telling it with the benefit of hindsight, which would allow her to drop in foreshadowing. As far as spoiling the shock value, I'll leave you with a quote from an interview with Alfred Hitchcock:

************

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware that the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions this same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There's a bomb beneath you and it's about to explode!" In the first scene we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.

Qtd. in Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock, rev. ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 73.

[AuntShecky]

I'm no big fan of Hitchcock, but his example of shock v. suspense, as quoted by Calidore above, is particularly apt in this
case.

It seems to me that suspense is just what this story lacks. There doesn't seem to be enough foreshadowing -- though the references can and should be brief and subtle. Another thing is pacing; there has to be some kind of progression or built-up leading to the climax of this story.

The plot is a little top-heavy with too many details overloading story's opening, including the wake-up-in-the-morning cliché. We don't have to know the color of the brother's sweater or anything about the breakfast menu. Weather imagery is okay, but only when it adds something to the plot, setting, or mood. Otherwise it's just padding.

Same with unnecessary repetition. "Pops. . .I called him Pops in those days." Likewise
"Pumpkin. . .he called me Pumpkin then."

Vary your sentence structure so that you don't have a string of simple declarative sentences in a row. In the "show, don't tell" vein, try to break out of the familiar patterns of literal plot points in chronolgical order. This happened, then this happened, and then, oh my God, this happened.

Hope you'll write and post again. Meanwhile, keep reading.

Auntie

[glennr25]

I enjoyed the story as a reader, but as a writer I could see where Cal and Auntie make some good points. The suspense at the end was definitely the highlight, although there didn't seem to be enough buildup to prepare me for the "HOLY CRAP!" I think if you give it a few days and come back to it then you'll know what needs to be done. I think if you start the story a bit more in the past, it will do wonders for the rest of the story. Hope this helps, fountains.