First Paragraph

Confession: I thought of something really good for my confession this morning, and now I've forgotten it.

Reading:

• "Pa's Darling" by Louis Auchincloss

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - Next chapter, "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold," followed by "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• July 26th 24-hour Short Story
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status

• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted

Holy crap! What a first paragraph! I'm going to quote the first paragraph from "Pa's Darling" for the purposes of discussion:

Pa's death, in the cold winter of 1960, at the age of eighty-seven, was a crucial event in the lives of his two daughters, but particularly for myself, the supposedly most loved, the adored Kate, the eldest. As I sit in my multichambered apartment, the last of my many wasted efforts to impress him, looking out on the strangely white and oddly dreary expanse of Central Park, with the newspaper clippings of his laudatory obituaries in my lap, it seems a timely if unsettling opportunity to review my own life, no longer, I can only hope, in the shadow of his, unless it will be even more so. For people, I know, always think of me not as the widow of the brilliant young attorney Sumner Shepard, gallantly dead in the 1940 fall of France, nor even as the present wiife of Dicky Phelps, senior partner of his distinguished Wall Street law firm, but as the daughter of Lionel Hemenway, the great judge of the New York Court of Appeals, reknowned safe and philosopher, author of provocative books on law and literature, and the witty deity of the Patroons Club. God rest his soul if it be capable of resting.

I'll say it again--holy crap! There's so much in there. First of all, there are only four sentences in that entire passage, three long-ass ones and the kicker at the end. That very structure is what helps draw you into the story. There is a rhythm to those long sentences too, each phrase fairly short in itself, but separated by commas, which keeps the meaning clear, while still maintaining the flow, in a way that gives the sentence power, without making it feel overblown. (See what I did there?)

Those first three sentences set up a pattern, and the last sentence breaks that pattern. It's already in a position of importance, being the last sentence in the first paragraph, but that power is amplified by making it so short. Moreover, it's witty, so it lives up to the importance the structure gives it.

So much for the structure; what about the content? We learn a lot about "Pa" in this first paragraph, and the narrator, Kate. First, the father--he's not a very lovable man, although there were clearly many reasons to praise him upon his death. A well-respected man, then, but that is not the same thing as lovable. He was wealthy, or at least comfortably well off, and probably used his connections to secure at least one, if not two, good, secure marriages for his daughter. But he appears to have viewed his daughter not as an individual in her own right, but as an extension of his own prestige.

Now, onto Kate. She may dislike who her father is, but she does not realize the extent to which she has become like him. This is her own narration, you see. She might hate the way that she is regarded not as her own person, but in terms of her father, but in the very first line, she characterized herself as his favorite. That is an inextricable part of how she sees herself! Not to mention, what alternatives did she give to being thought of as her father's daughter? As her first husband's widow, or as her current husband's wife. Not once did she mention anything about defining herself in terms of herself, and not in terms of a man in her life.

My favorite line of the entire piece: "... it seems a timely if unsettling opportunity to review my own life, no longer... in the shadow of his, unless it will be even more so." How awesome is that?

By the way... I'm sometimes asked why I was never an English major, never really studied creative writing in college (except for that one class) if I like it so much. I certainly enjoy reading and analyzing literature. But they wouldn't let me get away with saying "awesome," "long-ass," or "holy crap" in my papers, now would they?

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 0