Descriptions.

 

Ways to Begin A Story

By Diane L. Styma

 

Generalization

·         Everything and of course everyone is connected.

·                    Seldom do altruistic people act kindly just to be nice.

 

Description of a Person

1--She took the weight off her feet, sitting down, squeezing into a seat on the crowded Nassau County bus, her black bomber jacket open to show a sharp white button down shirt, the chain connected to her wallet dangling off the edge of the seat.

 

2--His silver hair, buzz cut short, mirrored only a year and half of military occupation service in Japan. His slouch, one wanted to correct. Rarely smiling, looking a little intellectually impaired. Grey unflattering workpants with obvious home sewn hemming were topped by a green flannel man’s work shirt he would not purchase himself.

 

With Narrative Summary

Bicycling from Long Beach to Encinitas, California was a dream that became a two day grueling trek over the seven hills of Rome, that is to say, Laguna Beach and closed Route One detours far from the cool breeze of the Pacific Ocean.

 

If you told me when I was in high school that when I was 30, would be riding three buses, transferring over to two subways, and walking uphill just to work teaching English two hours at a Jewish Yeshiva I would think you are crazy. This trip had the reward of a free healthy lunch and allowing me to drop my daughter off at a lady’s house on my way for day care. The pay per hour was high enough my spouse did not nag me about being unemployed.

 

With Dialogue

·         “Where’s the nipple? Where’s the nipple?”  <<my mother in law was looking for the bottle top after we warmed up milk in a bathroom sink at Disneyland.

·         “I’m calling from the Office of the Medical Examiner. We have someone here who died who named you as their next of kin. Do you know Jasmin?”

·         “If you asked her to explain you would probably get a different story than the one I gave you”.

 

With Several Characters but no Dialogue

She would not get out of the car. Headphones in, sad look on face, the first day of middle school was meltdown season. Her mom, watching happy well-dressed social teens wished her kid was like them. Remembering high school football games, assemblies, at least 12 photos printed in her 1981 yearbook, life back then seemed so simple. Then a bright red-haired girl ran over to the car wearing hand made outfit that did not match, smiled, waved and nicely pulled the slouched teen out of the running engine car. PHEW! Thank goodness for friends.

 

As she came up the stairs from the E train, a small panic set in. Once up the sidewalk, the buildings were all tall so using the Empire State Building was no longer useful as a guide mark. If she took the north end of this middle or mezzanine, she would end up at 35^th street. The street stairs would be going the wrong way. If she took a shorter passageway, she would end up getting in line for another train. That was crazy. At the top of the stairs she would search the crowd for a NYPD officer. Asking the padded, bullet proof, belt jangling with all kinds of utilities, she would ask for directions. Women in high heels brushed by, men with blue Greek gods coffee cups would avoid spilling due to the obstacles of the clueless woman.

 

Setting but Only One Character

It was sunset at Seal Beach. The waves were mounting up into high tide. The smoke from yearly summer fires made the sun like a tropical fruit but also muffled in smog. Her old green nylon crossed metal beach chair sank itself crookedly and she wished she had a big dog to keep her company. But she was retired, dogless and alone now. Even the surfers were running away.

 

The State Fair is dead until it becomes alive. At 6 am in the morning, Securitas former unemployed fraught for a job 5’ 9” employee stands at her post, just in case. The air is cold, but only experienced workers get the loan of a work jacket. The ground is gritty, a mix of sand and ten year old asphalt.

 

With a Reminiscent Narrator

I was looking for my old writer’s notebooks but I found the pink folder with my uncle’s death certificate. I was trying to forget that this was September, the month he died 16 years ago.

 

I couldn’t go to my 40 year high school reunion in Southern California. Cindy up in Oregon couldn’t go either. She said I was her “pebble” and she was the refugee little girl like in a child’s book.

 

With a Child Narrator

My mom took me to the park but did not notice me climb up the down side of the slide, or made friends with three strange kids my age because she was laughing at the jokes of some old lady she works with at the call center.

 

My mother took me to a place almost every day that smelled of Listerine, cedar or Pine Saul, band aids and death, where she was a world-renowned surgeon. I was raised by the doctors and nurses around her, not by my mom.

 

By Establishing Point of View

I laid in the big cage, the door open on blankets lumpy that smelled like me. I stretched out, my ears still alert to noises of the one who yells too much banging around pieces of white cabinets, building something she’d put in that room I never was allowed in. Sure, Weasel got a good walk today. I smelled cactus, weeds, and the odor of coyotes that passed last full moon on his fur. Didn’t they hear me whine? I just wanted to go somewhere besides the same boring backyard.

 

She’d walk home everyday in heat and in rain. When she saw the yellow Toyota Celica drive by, she knew it was the teacher from high school who looked like Anne Murray. “She’s tall, I wonder if she will play basketball on our team this year?” Coach Beverly Christ had asked Coach Karen Chaney. When they both quit their jobs and moved to the Sacramento area, it still was not clear until the bench warmer Coaches’ Award spirited basketball girl realized those two coaches were partners.  ((Third person ))