Written at Write Night, 15 Queen Street, Colchester on Monday 8 September 2012. A writing exercise in three parts. Unedited and copied as
written on the night. Well maybe the teeniest bit of editing so it is
readable!
Where: The lake
Who: Two people
When: Summer time,
early evening
Fifteen minutes on each task.....
Task 1. First person narrator
In that summer - that long hot summer of 1976- at the tail
end of my childhood and the beginning of my young adulthood I had taken to
walking down to the lake on my way home from school as home was a place I
didn't want to go - both of my parents having taken to working longer hours so
that the lack of communication between them seemed to have the basis of a
legitimate excuse - although why they could never do the thing they always
insisted I should do-that is actually tell the truth and admit they were not
talking-was always a source of irritation and upset to me - anyways to get on
with the story and not prolong the agony of my parents difficulties-it was a
Friday I remember that much as it was the end of the school week and I was
feeling even more depressed than usual at the thought of a whole weekend at
home with non - talking parents and an ever thickening atmosphere.
I had been at the lake lost in my own thoughts for what felt
like a few hours when I first caught sight of the couple - how long they had
been there I can't say - seated on the wooden bench further down the lake - the
bench I would never sit on as it was close to the edge of the woods and - in my
young imagination - I always feared 'something' coming up to me from behind out
of the woods - so I preferred to sit on the side of the lake close to the park
where children often played and whose parents would sit and watch them as I
always felt safer with others around...
Task 2: Third person limited narrator
(NB: Will told me that
I got this and next task mixed up but this is how I wrote them from my understanding of the
tasks at the time)
The couple had been sitting for a while - not really talking
but not not-talking either - they seemed comfortable in each other's presence -
at ease - not needing the verbal noise that so many felt they had to resort to
in the company of others - before the boy looked up from his own thoughts and
became aware of them ..
He seemed troubled - not at all at ease - unrelaxed as if he
was there escaping from something rather than enjoying the scenery - and on
noticing the couple across the lake he seemed relieved - as if they could be a
focus of his attention for a while - something to occupy his mind - a
distraction from the disturbed state he was in - so as young people can do he
seemed to stare right at them rather than be discreet almost as if he was
becoming hypnotized - the expression on his face one of intense concentration -
and maybe it was the intensity of his stare or the length of time but soon the
couple - with not a word or a look passing between them - lifted their heads as
if they were one and returned his stare - almost as if an invisible current of
electricity was passing between them...
Task 3: Third person omniscient narrator
(it had seemed to him mere seconds - the briefest of glances
- and yet in that moment he knew everything about them)
From where she was crouched behind the trees she could see
the boy across the lake - the boy she had been watching all summer - the quiet,
withdrawn, sad boy - the boy she had taken to following and observing - always
from a distance - to his home and to his school - the boy soon to be a man.
She could see him staring intently at the couple on the
bench that she used to follow and she wanted to warn him - don't look at them,
don't attract their attention - they were harmless until you attracted their
attention - she knew this - she had seen what they did when they felt they were
discovered and she liked this boy - the quiet sad boy - he reminded her of
herself all those years - ago when she inhabited clay as he did - when her body
had solid form on this earth - and she wanted him to keep his - to live - to
have a life - to......
