I'm taking a creative writing course this summer
And the first assignment was to write about an absent character with two people talking about him, revealing the absent characters' personality as well as the personality of the conversants.
I tried this once, and got so excited I tried it a second time. If you're interested, tell me what you think.
Susan Ottomon and Jim Skerring
The tyro climbed into the unmarked sedan on the passenger side, handing the woman in the drivers seat a cardboard carton with two fresh coffees. He watched her watch the building across the street while she took her first sip of scaldingly hot Joe.
“Yes, Deputy Agent Skerring?” her arch tone didn't deflect her gaze from the auto repair shop.
He flashed a smile at her, all teeth and bright eyes, “How's your coffee Agent Ottomon? And please, call me Jim.”
“Newjack, as your senior in the team, and as lead agent on this assignment, I'll call you anything I like. You've been on Special Agent West's team for two weeks, out of the academy for three weeks and out of diapers less than a month. Now pass a bagel.” He did and she chewed on it, returning her gaze to the assignment.
“Actualy, Agent Ottoman, I passed my no-diaper qualification exams my first year in the academy, so I've been out of diapers for a while now.”
“Well, you must be very proud of yourself.” She quirked a smile despite herself at his smooth reply.
“Top of my class for dancing as well.” Dancing was academy slang for hand to hand combat. “So tell me about Special Agent West. I heard that you knew him while he was still an agent. Before Seattle.”
Ottoman frowned a little, the faint wrinkles around her eyes were uncovered by makeup, and the tension in them showed slightly at the mention of Seattle. “Yes. I was a com expert in Seattle. Michael...Agent West got us out of our building before it collapsed.”
Skerring sipped his coffee and watched the assignment silently for a while, curious whether she would continue.
“He was a field agent then. Specializing in Collections. In the aftermath, the old man helped clear his name and brought him to Chicago.”
“Is that why you transferred here from communications? Because of Seattle?” Because of Agent West hung unspoken in the question. Sarah Ottoman's slightly weathered face reddened. She shot Skerring a warning glance and he took it.
“Agent West takes his job seriously. He looks out for his people, but he expects us to be the best. Any slip-up in the field gets people killed, possibly our people. So we have to stay focused, alert at all times.” Someone in a red convertible entered the shop and began talking to one of the mechanics. Ottoman snapped a shot of the car and started to run its' plates in the cruiser's laptop.
“So does he ever relax, though? I mean he's in before six, doesn't leave until after eight, he's running at least a dozen different operations at a time. I did my residency tour in Bangladesh and things were more...fun. I thought that a posting to Chicago, we'd have more nightlife, glamor.”
Ottomon snorted in contempt. “Relaxing gets people killed. We had a newjack two years ago, about your age. He decided that since he was off duty he didn't need to take his com with him while he was out on a date. Next morning, we found him in three trash cans in three different allies. His date was one of them. West didn't sleep for a week. He worked every sewer, every seedy bar, every contact until he finally got a tip on the girl. Then he personally led the Collections team. I'm pretty sure they still have her alive and penned up somewhere out in New Mexico. Some of the team wanted to crisp her then and there, and be done with it. You think West is scary in briefings, you should have seen him that night. He went through dozens of guards to get to her, and when Agent...when one of the men went to finish her he picked him up and just stuffed him in a dumpster to cool off. If you wanted the easy life you should have stayed in the FBI.”
Skerring's smooth brow furrowed, “You read my file?”
Ottoman didn't deign to reply.
Skerring watched the target building for a time in silence. A hint of irony, and frustration crept into his voice, “So he's a paragon, huh? Nothing gets to him?”
Silence in reply. Ottoman took a long sip. Skerring finished his drink and tossed it into a paper bag at his feet.
“He doesn't like politics.” Ottoman smiled at Skerring in an unfriendly way, enjoying his surprise. “On his team he wants us to be our best, focus on the job, and do what's best for the whole team.”
“We all want that.”
“No.” The word was definitive. Punching through the implication that she was reverting to platitudes. “Most of the teams in Chicago are working some kind of personal angle. Either angling for some new privilege or reward, trying to discredit someone they don't like, trading favors with people outside the organizations for money or power, all grudges and greed. Mostly the council likes it that way. Keeps the ambitious in line, complacent. Agent West sees a bigger picture. For his it's about stopping them.” She pointed at the auto shop. “And he hates it when politics keeps us from doing the job.”
Skerring tried to decipher whether she was warning him about something he'd done, or just something she expected him to do. He parried her gaze with a vapid smile. She gave him a wink. “Keep an eye on things for a minute newjack, I'm going to take a leak.” She handed him the camera and got out of the car.
Sally and Bill
The young woman lounged in the hotel bed, in a pressed blue men's dress shirt, now slightly rumpled. Her hair, after a long day imprisioned in a tight braid now cascaded in chocolate curls down her pale, exposed shoulder blades. She rolled onto her back, taking in the featureless ceiling while her thin fingers toyed with the small diamond ring that only found it's home on her finger in moments of solitude or escape.
The owner of the shirt, looking like Cary Grant playing a hack writer, in boxers and a tight sleeveless white tee, perched forward at the nearby desk, dominating the small laptop from which he checked his email. His wide jaw and masculine, fit body ludicriously oversized for the small, standard sized furniture of the suite.
“So what's the story with Agent West?” Her alto voice melodically accented the hum of the suite refrigerator and the gentle tick-tack of his keystrokes.
“Already planning your next conquest, Sally? I thought when you took my ring, I'd made an honest woman out of you.” His wry tone was playful, relaxed. She gave him a mock pout, and he replied by sticking out his chin in a cheesy, Christopher Reeve grin that would always send her into giggles. He barely ducked her retort in the form of a hurled pillow which landed in the corner beside the fully stocked mini-fridge.
When she subsided, she added, “I'm pretty sure he noticed. I don't know how, but that look her gave you. I think he guesses about us.” Her tone made it a question.
He rubbed his chin, face thoughtful, “He probably did. Not much gets by him. If he'd been concerned I'm pretty sure he'd have said something to me. It's been a while, but he doesn't tend to pull punches with his friends.”
“Are you friends?” Bill lowered the laptop screen, his grey eyes taking on a faraway look. He shook his head and shrugged. “Do you think he'll make trouble for us? I haven't been able to unlock any of his records in the last four years, but before that, he comes off as squeaky clean, by the book.”
“Already looking through the boss's files and he's less than a day on the job. Incorrigible.”
Even Bill seemed to notice that his jesting was a little hollow. Sally pressed him.
“It's your career too. I heard that Philben in San Francisco got relocated to Alaska after he was caught with one of the secretaries.” Her voice edged close to the shrill tone of her mother.
“Philben was handing out pay raises in exchange for 'favors', and from what I heard that was just the pretext. Wilson in Vermont told me that Philben may have been selling secrets.” Susan considered this revelation, reflexively weighing the value of the rumor, and it's worth in trade economy of the office.
“Still. Jessup in Montreal was demoted as well.” She was off the bed, relaxation gone. Her skinny body, feet wide and arms akimbo, a pixie in a fighter's pose, daring him with her angry brown eyes to laugh. Bill threw up his hands in surrender.
“Alright. Alright. Here's the story, we knew each other in the academy. We had a few classes togther. He's...he's not inflexible. But he has an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong. He takes the job seriously, and he doesn't like it when other people don't.”
Sally pulled up a second chair and sat facing Bill. Calmer now that he was talking.
“He had some trouble in Seattle. Yes, that incident in Seattle. I heard he took a fall because he wouldn't pin the blame on his Section Chief who was dead when the dust settled. So they shipped him off to sit behind a desk in the middle of nowhere. Somehow, Old Man Burnham took an interest in him, and brought him back here. He needs friends. And I think he trusts me.”
She stood and prowled across the room, pulling the curtain aside to stare out at the sprawling jeweled lights of the city at night. The stars were invisible above, but below her, the heart of the metropolis spread in yellow and white rectangles. She could see Bill watching her in the reflection from the desk lamp.
“Sally.”
She shook her head. The ripple of brown across his shirt a mute denial. In the long silence that followed, he tried to return to his email, but found himself unable to focus on it. Words spilled together into a meaningless tumble. He rubbed his eyes, tired now.
“So.” He looked up to meet the ghost of her gaze reflected over the city in nocturnal grace. “So, West was in Seattle. And he was loyal to his boss. And the Powers that Be spent the last three years trying to break him?”
Bill nodded.
“And he's a boyscout.”
“Sally.” Some intimation of the whirlpool of her thoughts touched off a vague sense of dread.
“And he's good at his job.”
“Yes. Very good. Maybe better than me. Certainly better than anyone else here.”
“And if someone powerful hadn't decided to protect him, he'd still be rotting in limbo?”
“I guess so.”
“What about us?”
Bill silently tried to wade through her reasoning. She turned toward him, her eyes wet. “Bill, think for once, instead of reacting. What will we do, if they ever come for us.” He started to stand. Denial forming on his lips as he tried to move towards her, to hold her, to squeeze her fears away. She retreated to the bathroom, locked the door. He heard the water run in the bath, and returned to his company laptop. Unseen, he dried his eyes before returning to work.
Interestingly, the first scene originally ended with Ottoman manhandling the rookie physically and the original second scene ended with Susan wistfully worried about West on his own behalf. The stories keep shifting, and I guess until I know what's going to happen to West and why it matters, I don't know how these scenes would fit in.
I tried this once, and got so excited I tried it a second time. If you're interested, tell me what you think.
Susan Ottomon and Jim Skerring
The tyro climbed into the unmarked sedan on the passenger side, handing the woman in the drivers seat a cardboard carton with two fresh coffees. He watched her watch the building across the street while she took her first sip of scaldingly hot Joe.
“Yes, Deputy Agent Skerring?” her arch tone didn't deflect her gaze from the auto repair shop.
He flashed a smile at her, all teeth and bright eyes, “How's your coffee Agent Ottomon? And please, call me Jim.”
“Newjack, as your senior in the team, and as lead agent on this assignment, I'll call you anything I like. You've been on Special Agent West's team for two weeks, out of the academy for three weeks and out of diapers less than a month. Now pass a bagel.” He did and she chewed on it, returning her gaze to the assignment.
“Actualy, Agent Ottoman, I passed my no-diaper qualification exams my first year in the academy, so I've been out of diapers for a while now.”
“Well, you must be very proud of yourself.” She quirked a smile despite herself at his smooth reply.
“Top of my class for dancing as well.” Dancing was academy slang for hand to hand combat. “So tell me about Special Agent West. I heard that you knew him while he was still an agent. Before Seattle.”
Ottoman frowned a little, the faint wrinkles around her eyes were uncovered by makeup, and the tension in them showed slightly at the mention of Seattle. “Yes. I was a com expert in Seattle. Michael...Agent West got us out of our building before it collapsed.”
Skerring sipped his coffee and watched the assignment silently for a while, curious whether she would continue.
“He was a field agent then. Specializing in Collections. In the aftermath, the old man helped clear his name and brought him to Chicago.”
“Is that why you transferred here from communications? Because of Seattle?” Because of Agent West hung unspoken in the question. Sarah Ottoman's slightly weathered face reddened. She shot Skerring a warning glance and he took it.
“Agent West takes his job seriously. He looks out for his people, but he expects us to be the best. Any slip-up in the field gets people killed, possibly our people. So we have to stay focused, alert at all times.” Someone in a red convertible entered the shop and began talking to one of the mechanics. Ottoman snapped a shot of the car and started to run its' plates in the cruiser's laptop.
“So does he ever relax, though? I mean he's in before six, doesn't leave until after eight, he's running at least a dozen different operations at a time. I did my residency tour in Bangladesh and things were more...fun. I thought that a posting to Chicago, we'd have more nightlife, glamor.”
Ottomon snorted in contempt. “Relaxing gets people killed. We had a newjack two years ago, about your age. He decided that since he was off duty he didn't need to take his com with him while he was out on a date. Next morning, we found him in three trash cans in three different allies. His date was one of them. West didn't sleep for a week. He worked every sewer, every seedy bar, every contact until he finally got a tip on the girl. Then he personally led the Collections team. I'm pretty sure they still have her alive and penned up somewhere out in New Mexico. Some of the team wanted to crisp her then and there, and be done with it. You think West is scary in briefings, you should have seen him that night. He went through dozens of guards to get to her, and when Agent...when one of the men went to finish her he picked him up and just stuffed him in a dumpster to cool off. If you wanted the easy life you should have stayed in the FBI.”
Skerring's smooth brow furrowed, “You read my file?”
Ottoman didn't deign to reply.
Skerring watched the target building for a time in silence. A hint of irony, and frustration crept into his voice, “So he's a paragon, huh? Nothing gets to him?”
Silence in reply. Ottoman took a long sip. Skerring finished his drink and tossed it into a paper bag at his feet.
“He doesn't like politics.” Ottoman smiled at Skerring in an unfriendly way, enjoying his surprise. “On his team he wants us to be our best, focus on the job, and do what's best for the whole team.”
“We all want that.”
“No.” The word was definitive. Punching through the implication that she was reverting to platitudes. “Most of the teams in Chicago are working some kind of personal angle. Either angling for some new privilege or reward, trying to discredit someone they don't like, trading favors with people outside the organizations for money or power, all grudges and greed. Mostly the council likes it that way. Keeps the ambitious in line, complacent. Agent West sees a bigger picture. For his it's about stopping them.” She pointed at the auto shop. “And he hates it when politics keeps us from doing the job.”
Skerring tried to decipher whether she was warning him about something he'd done, or just something she expected him to do. He parried her gaze with a vapid smile. She gave him a wink. “Keep an eye on things for a minute newjack, I'm going to take a leak.” She handed him the camera and got out of the car.
Sally and Bill
The young woman lounged in the hotel bed, in a pressed blue men's dress shirt, now slightly rumpled. Her hair, after a long day imprisioned in a tight braid now cascaded in chocolate curls down her pale, exposed shoulder blades. She rolled onto her back, taking in the featureless ceiling while her thin fingers toyed with the small diamond ring that only found it's home on her finger in moments of solitude or escape.
The owner of the shirt, looking like Cary Grant playing a hack writer, in boxers and a tight sleeveless white tee, perched forward at the nearby desk, dominating the small laptop from which he checked his email. His wide jaw and masculine, fit body ludicriously oversized for the small, standard sized furniture of the suite.
“So what's the story with Agent West?” Her alto voice melodically accented the hum of the suite refrigerator and the gentle tick-tack of his keystrokes.
“Already planning your next conquest, Sally? I thought when you took my ring, I'd made an honest woman out of you.” His wry tone was playful, relaxed. She gave him a mock pout, and he replied by sticking out his chin in a cheesy, Christopher Reeve grin that would always send her into giggles. He barely ducked her retort in the form of a hurled pillow which landed in the corner beside the fully stocked mini-fridge.
When she subsided, she added, “I'm pretty sure he noticed. I don't know how, but that look her gave you. I think he guesses about us.” Her tone made it a question.
He rubbed his chin, face thoughtful, “He probably did. Not much gets by him. If he'd been concerned I'm pretty sure he'd have said something to me. It's been a while, but he doesn't tend to pull punches with his friends.”
“Are you friends?” Bill lowered the laptop screen, his grey eyes taking on a faraway look. He shook his head and shrugged. “Do you think he'll make trouble for us? I haven't been able to unlock any of his records in the last four years, but before that, he comes off as squeaky clean, by the book.”
“Already looking through the boss's files and he's less than a day on the job. Incorrigible.”
Even Bill seemed to notice that his jesting was a little hollow. Sally pressed him.
“It's your career too. I heard that Philben in San Francisco got relocated to Alaska after he was caught with one of the secretaries.” Her voice edged close to the shrill tone of her mother.
“Philben was handing out pay raises in exchange for 'favors', and from what I heard that was just the pretext. Wilson in Vermont told me that Philben may have been selling secrets.” Susan considered this revelation, reflexively weighing the value of the rumor, and it's worth in trade economy of the office.
“Still. Jessup in Montreal was demoted as well.” She was off the bed, relaxation gone. Her skinny body, feet wide and arms akimbo, a pixie in a fighter's pose, daring him with her angry brown eyes to laugh. Bill threw up his hands in surrender.
“Alright. Alright. Here's the story, we knew each other in the academy. We had a few classes togther. He's...he's not inflexible. But he has an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong. He takes the job seriously, and he doesn't like it when other people don't.”
Sally pulled up a second chair and sat facing Bill. Calmer now that he was talking.
“He had some trouble in Seattle. Yes, that incident in Seattle. I heard he took a fall because he wouldn't pin the blame on his Section Chief who was dead when the dust settled. So they shipped him off to sit behind a desk in the middle of nowhere. Somehow, Old Man Burnham took an interest in him, and brought him back here. He needs friends. And I think he trusts me.”
She stood and prowled across the room, pulling the curtain aside to stare out at the sprawling jeweled lights of the city at night. The stars were invisible above, but below her, the heart of the metropolis spread in yellow and white rectangles. She could see Bill watching her in the reflection from the desk lamp.
“Sally.”
She shook her head. The ripple of brown across his shirt a mute denial. In the long silence that followed, he tried to return to his email, but found himself unable to focus on it. Words spilled together into a meaningless tumble. He rubbed his eyes, tired now.
“So.” He looked up to meet the ghost of her gaze reflected over the city in nocturnal grace. “So, West was in Seattle. And he was loyal to his boss. And the Powers that Be spent the last three years trying to break him?”
Bill nodded.
“And he's a boyscout.”
“Sally.” Some intimation of the whirlpool of her thoughts touched off a vague sense of dread.
“And he's good at his job.”
“Yes. Very good. Maybe better than me. Certainly better than anyone else here.”
“And if someone powerful hadn't decided to protect him, he'd still be rotting in limbo?”
“I guess so.”
“What about us?”
Bill silently tried to wade through her reasoning. She turned toward him, her eyes wet. “Bill, think for once, instead of reacting. What will we do, if they ever come for us.” He started to stand. Denial forming on his lips as he tried to move towards her, to hold her, to squeeze her fears away. She retreated to the bathroom, locked the door. He heard the water run in the bath, and returned to his company laptop. Unseen, he dried his eyes before returning to work.
Interestingly, the first scene originally ended with Ottoman manhandling the rookie physically and the original second scene ended with Susan wistfully worried about West on his own behalf. The stories keep shifting, and I guess until I know what's going to happen to West and why it matters, I don't know how these scenes would fit in.