The Evolution of a Drabble
I've always wanted to do a post about the evolution of a drabble, so here are the stages I went through for my third Don/Leah drabble Naked.
Okay, so that's the general process I go through when I write. I've blabbed more than enough. What do you do?
- Before I can write something I need to have a seed idea. In this caseemmademarais birthday was coming up and she likes rare Don/Leah pairing. I also knew I wanted to play with the concept of Falling from Grace to continue with the Garden of Eden theme I've been weaving. Normally this is where I'd choose the POV and tense I'm going to write in. All my Numb3rs drabbles are told using first person present tense and I'm going to use that form again to keep everything parallel.
Next, I gather keywords via wikipedia.org (Fall from Grace) and dictionary.com (Relinquish).
- Fall from Grace
- Guilt
- Disobedience and innocent obedience to God
- Ashamed of being naked
- Original sin
- Corruption
- The tree of knowledge of good and evil-roots, branches, vines, fig leaves
- Enlightenment
- Relinquish
- Renounce, surrender, withdraw, forsake, let go, give up, release (physically and metaphorically at end of drabble).
- Fall from Grace
- Step two includes much stalling ("Hello FreeCell!" and "Why hasn't anyone emailed me in the past five minutes?"), cursing ("Fuck!" and "Grrrrrr…."), and protestations ("I suck at writing!" and "No one would ever want to read anything I write."). This step can last anywhere from a half a minute to half a month, but eventually I buckle down to string words and concepts together into coherent sentences. No lie, this is my first draft.
-oOo-
I kill the shower's spray and everything is silent. I grab her arm.
"Leah, I'm sorry."
"Are you?" she grabs a towel and hides herself away. I'm suddenly aware I'm dripping naked.
"Stephen will be home from school soon," she continues.
I let her arm go; I let her slip away.
We fall apart.
-oOo-
Award winning, isn't it? Yeah, I'm trying not to claw my eyes out at this point.
- In step three I fight the urge use the delete key and cast a critical eye over what I've written.
- They are still standing in the shower where the previous drabble ended.
- Don's just messed up both personally and professionally and knows it. Despite what his body may want he aint gonna be gettin' any. How can I show his transition from hard to *ahem* not without being too awkward, ridiculous, or graphic?
- Leah's hurt, angry, and knows she must testify when all she wants to do is hide.
- Without the Don/Leah tag no one would know Don is the other character as I've only mentioned Leah.
- How can "everything be silent" while Don is "dripping naked"?
- I don't like the word kill, and I'd rather have Leah turn off the shower because she is the one who stopped the shower play.
- I'm missing about fifty words and I'd like to incorporate a few more of the keywords I brainstormed earlier. And I'd like to use "relinquish" as it is my prompt word.
- I brought Leah's son Stephen in at the end and after a puzzling moment where I question my sanity, I'm reminded of the pain of childbirth punishment God inflicted upon Eve and I remember my much earlier drabble called Branch where Don contemplates if he'll ever have children of his own. Um, what if Leah's pregnant? Stop! That's a whole 'nother drabble, but I can start to set that up.
- They are still standing in the shower where the previous drabble ended.
- This is the point where I take a break. In this case I ate lunch. Now it's time to go back and edit, add stuff, edit, win FreeCell, edit, switch things around, and edit. This is fun part for me because I know what I'm trying to say, I have a bare skeleton to work with, and I know what I want to change.
Here are four original sentences, examples of how they morphed, and their near final forms.
- I kill the shower's spray and everything is silent.
- I swallow, still hard, while Leah turns off the water spray
- I swallow, hard, when Leah shuts off the spray.
- I kill the shower's spray and everything is silent.
- I'm suddenly aware I'm dripping naked.
- I'm overly aware I'm dripping naked.
- Ashamed, I'm overly aware I'm dripping naked.
- I'm wearing dripping water and shame.
- Caught in her gaze, I'm hyperaware I'm dripping naked.
- Caught in her guilt-gaze, I'm hyperaware of dripping naked and alone.
- Caught in her guilt-gaze, I'm hyperaware of shame, corruption, and disobedience; I'm stripped naked.
- Caught in her guilt-gaze, I'm hyperaware of shame, corruption, and disobedience: I'm naked.
I spent a lot of time with this sentence because it is a key one. I even hauled out two different style guides and reread rules on semicolons and colons. In the end I went with the colon between two independent clauses in order to explain and amplify the first clause.
- I'm suddenly aware I'm dripping naked.
- I let her arm go; I let her slip away.
- I relinquish her.
- Relinquishing all I foolishly reached for-Leah, life, love-I let go.
- Relinquishing all I foolishly reached for-kisses 'n lies-I let her go.
- I relinquish the best of her and the worst of me-kisses and lies.
- Letting go, I relinquish the best of her and the worst of me-trust and lies.
- I let her arm go; I let her slip away.
- We fall apart.
- And feel myself fall.
- We fall without grace.
- I fall without grace.
- We fall apart.
- As I rewrite stuff there is usually a moment where the drabble crystallizes and I figure out what I'm really writing about. Sometimes it comes from rewatching the episode I'm writing about, going back to the dictionary for a definition, a popular quote, or a song. Here it was a lyric from Let Me Go by 3 Doors Down: "One more kiss could be the best thing, one more lie could be the worst." This usually coincides with the realization that I can beat FreeCell in less than five minutes and the realization that I'm brilliant writer. Well, the former is true. =)
Here's the near final version of the drabble.
-oOo-
Fall from Grace
I swallow, hard, when Leah shuts off the spray. "I'm…." I can't finish.
"Sorry, Don?" She steps from the shower's steam, towels dry, and holds the terry cloth to her breast. "Are you?"
Caught in her guilt-gaze, I'm hyperaware of shame, corruption, and disobedience: I'm naked. With pity she hands me her towel to cover myself, but instead of accepting I grab her wrist. The roots of the Tree of Knowledge grow to branches.
"We're in this together," I say.
The towel drops and sops the puddle at our feet. Letting go, I relinquish the best of her and the worst of me-trust and lies.
I fall without grace.
-oOo-
- I put the drabble away and sleep on it. When I open the document again I just need to tinker a little to finish it up. So, it's time to take stock of the drabble again.
- What's my title? Is it Fall from Grace, Without Grace, or Naked?
- I want to make more of an association of the towel with a fig leaf.
- I don't think the Tree of Knowledge sentence fits.
- I'm ten words long and I eye the Tree of Knowledge sentence and the puddle phrase for the chopping block.
- The sequence of Don grabbing Leah and the drop of the towel is confusing. I'm not wild about the cliché of the man grabbing the woman.
- Is the best of Leah trust and is the worst of Don lies? Is that what this drabble is about?
Here is the final drabble!
-oOo-
Naked
I swallow, hard, when Leah shuts off the spray. "I'm…." I can't finish.
"Sorry, Don?" She steps from the shower's steam, towels dry, and holds the green terry cloth to her breast. "Are you?"
Caught in her guilt-gaze, I'm hyperaware of shame, corruption, and disobedience: I'm naked. With pity she hands me a matching towel to cover myself, but it makes a poor fig leaf.
"We're in this together," I say.
Letting my towel drop to sop the puddle at our feet, I relinquish the best of her and the worst of me-innocence and knowledge.
I fall without grace.
-oOo-
This took about six hours. Yes, I'm slow, which might help to explain why it's taken me so long to write the next chapter of Zen and the Art of War. =( - What's my title? Is it Fall from Grace, Without Grace, or Naked?
Okay, so that's the general process I go through when I write. I've blabbed more than enough. What do you do?