I don't even like fishing. Yet here I am, at the end of this dock, tangled.
After I free my line from itself, I dig my fingers in to the soil of the plastic container. The night crawlers dance to the top.
"We're running low so tear them in two."
I nod my head and take the worm between my two hands and rip. I whisper, "sorry pal" and throw half of it back in the soil.
Andy nods approvingly. He loves to fish and he's good at it.
I cast and slowly reel in, watching my bobber glide across the waves. Andy doesn't use a bobber and the only reason he's on the dock and not his boat is to appease me. I know he'd rather be out there but I don't like being stuck somewhere without an easy escape.
At dusk, Andy points to a man in a boat about 50 yards out from the dock. "That's where we need to be", he says. That's where they'll bite.
I remain on the dock as Andy paddles out to the drop off. I watch as he pulls up one, two, three a half dozen small mouthed bass in to his boat.
The last strings of pink and violet danced across the water. I took my last cast. The bobber splashed, I slowly reeled my line in and BAM! The pull was unmistakable. I was stunned and forgot to set my hook. I yanked back on my pole and felt the weight. After a small struggle, I had him face to face with me, dangling and spinning, gills grasping.
I noticed his dark black eyes, I noticed the gold of his scales and I noticed the hook that he had swallowed. I looked in the tackle box for the pliers. They weren't there.
I took my left hand and slid it back over it's fins and held it tight. With my right hand I attempted to maneuver the hook free. I tried this several times, each time yanking it's intestines closer to it's mouth. Eventually, it's gills were seeping blood and it's eyes were bulging out. When it was all but dead I yanked the hook free. In my left hand I held the still fish, it's blood running down my wrist.
I tossed the fish as far in to the water as I could. I lay down on my stomach and reached my hands down over the side of the dock to rinse off the blood.
"Fuck this, fuck fishing". I walked back to the cabin.
Later, Andy too came back to the cabin. He had caught and cleaned 8 bass. He would grill them up that night.
At dinner, my father turned to me and said, "I saw you got one, but threw it back."
I sunk in my chair, "it didn't work out".
Andy looked over at me with a sympathetic smile and said, "after you left the dock a seagull came and ate your fish".
My relief must have been visible, my dad clapped his hands over his plate and said, "circle of life".
I liked it. Needs more precision, though. Present tense up to: Then past tense from Fucks up your narrative. The fish also starts out as "he" but becomes "it" within a paragraph. Pronouns are a choice; make it and make it with a vengeance. Who, what, when, where, why. Make it clear in your head before you write it, so it will be clear to your audience. The what where and why are all clear in what you present, but you diminish the impact of the fish's suffering by not settling on a gender. We're also bouncing between "Yet here I am, at the end of this dock" and "I took my last cast" and "He would grill them up that night." Never cheat your words. They deserve to be perfect.I remain on the dock as Andy paddles out to the drop off. I watch as he pulls up one, two, three a half dozen small mouthed bass in to his boat.
The last strings of pink and violet danced across the water.
Awesome advice, thank you kb. onehunna also pointed out my change in tense. I'm learning as I go and your advice really helps.
Hey buddy, just read through this. Here is my feedback: Your opening line is solid and it got my attention well enough, and that's important. "We're running low so tear them in two." I nod my head and take the worm between my two hands and rip. I whisper, "sorry pal" and throw half of it back in the soil. Andy nods approvingly. He loves to fish and he's good at it. This right here is nice but I think you could have given us more. The story is short, 518 words, so I understand the need for brevity, but I think these two strong images (untangling yourself from fishing line, frustrating) and tearing the night crawler in two (gross) could be milked some more. Halfway through the story here you change tenses--it ends up feeling awkward. You want to pick a tense and stick with it the entire way through. It begins here and continues in the past tense from then on (except in a few spots): Again, go a little deeper here--attempted to maneuver the hook free by doing what? Get nasty. This is another image that will stick out in the reader's head. Milk that shit. --- So this is a nice little story, I quite enjoy these 'vignettes of life'. I would fish with my old man a lot when I was younger and I have fond memories of the experience and some not-so-fond ones (I nearly drowned in the Wissahickon lake when I was nine, haha.) so I always appreciate a good fishing story. The whole time I was reading, (to use a hip-hop term) I didn't feel like you went 'all the way in'. I wanted more. As I mentioned this is a very short and sweet story and it gets right to the point, so I can see if you were intending it to be bite-sized that you kept it sparse on the nitty-gritty descriptions. There are flashes of it (tearing the night crawlers in half), however I still believe some more in the right places (the two spots I mentioned in the beginning, the battle with the fish instead of just saying 'a small struggle') could really draw the reader in more. Think of it this way: when you've got a very short story, you've got to do more with less. Keep writing.After I free my line from itself, I dig my fingers in to the soil of the plastic container. The night crawlers dance to the top.
The last strings of pink and violet danced across the water. I took my last cast. The bobber splashed, I slowly reeled my line in and BAM! The pull was unmistakable. I was stunned and forgot to set my hook. I yanked back on my pole and felt the weight. After a small struggle, I had him face to face with me, dangling and spinning, gills grasping.
With my right hand I attempted to maneuver the hook free.
I appreciate you reading onehunna, Your feedback, is constructive and appropriate. Thank you. I'll likely not revise this, but I will take those suggestions with me in to my next effort. I wanted to record music last night but was too lazy to set up any of the gear. Still needing to scratch my creative itch, I decided to write this. I've begun to enjoy writing these small little "vignettes of life" and I think I'll continue when the urge strikes. I have enjoyed reading your work and look forward to you posting more. I wrote about euthanizing my childhood dog a while back and it lit a fire in me that has been growing ever since. lil has been great in helping with grammar issues (of which I have far too many) and with suggestions. I don't ever expect to make a profession of writing fiction, but it sure is fun. I post some of my random music creations under the #tng tag. I also create the #tngpodcast, where I interview people from the Hubski community and steve puts them to video. Check out the one on running or if it's more your speed, the one of Space. These require me to write, but in a much different way. My point is, that I try and have many avenues to create with and writing fiction is a new one for me. I apprecaite the encouragement.
The Podcasts tngpodcasts are creatively challenging and involve multiple modalities. I know a little about your process having participated in a few of these with you. First there's finding the right idea. Then finding participants and getting them to send you audio. This is fun and social. You love hearing all the voices. Then the real creativity is in your arrangement of the available material, creating a narrative structure that flows from one voice to another. You structure this partly by your questions, but you do not know what you will get until the voices come in. Then the fun fun fun of finding appropriate music. It's a lot of work, but satisfying in getting you to use all these different skills. Creating and Recording Music This is probably your first love -- I don't know what your process is, whether you first have the idea, the music, the words or whether they all come together when you start recording. My guess is that you hear music in your mind and heart and have the technical ability to create the sounds and record them. It's satisfying because you can create amazing pieces of music that express love and wonder and sadness and mystery, like this - and, best of all, you never know who you will meet and how your life will change by simply posting a Higgs-Boson song. Short Memoirish Fiction Then occasionally you share a little of yourself in prose. These pieces try to capture the experience as directly and descriptively as you can. Writing allows you to be more present even if your narrator is fictional. While the music is great, stories help open a person up. They do something else too, that I don't think music does -- writing a story allows you to let it go out to the world. You don't have to carry it around any more. Experiences like putting down your lab is put into a story. It is safe there and you can visit it whenever you want to. In this story you share the uncomfortable discovery that, while eating fish is fine, you do not want to have to kill them yourself. You don't even want to hurt a worm. Your dad's words at the end (and the title) are comforting for both you and the reader. My guess is that you will keep pulling out memories and moments from time to time and write these stories, for you, for your daughter, and the rest of us.I wanted to record music last night but was too lazy to set up any of the gear. Still needing to scratch my creative itch, I decided to write this....My point is, that I try and have many avenues to create with
Here's how I see your various forms of expression. Tell me if I'm right.