Waterlogged - the dreaded prologue (fantasy horror) - 1.2

[Phyrebrat]

Hi all,

I'm working on Waterlogged in tandem with my WIP.

Although it is set in the present day (a school geography trip to the Brecon Beacons that goes horribly wrong), it has a short prologue and epilogue. Edward appears in the main narrative as the protag, but this scene is his great grandmother as a child. As the prologue jumps to the present, I'm having a slight concern about POV; Granny is in POV in this excerpt as a child, but when it jumps to present, it goes a bit omni. Can I get a way with it?


Prologue below:


'Pull!” Hardwick screamed. 'Pull for your wretched lives. Pull for your wives, your sons and daughters. Pull, damn you, crusty dogs!'

Elspeth winced at the sight of all that beastly muscle as two-score men wrestled the stinking fishing net upwards. She’d seen most of these men competing at the Taroe Fayre every June; arranged in six-a-side teams of tug-o-war in a similar position. How could they be struggling so?

'She's on the bottom, captain,' a cracked voice yelled out. ‘We'll never break free!'

'Hard to port!' Hardwick said. 'We'll throw this snag!'

'We have to lose the net, Captain! She'll be pulled right down.'

With each moment her father's ship tipped further over to port - towards the snagged net; three men had already fallen in but managed to clamber back out. Their wet leathery skin glistened as they laughed and hauled themselves aboard. By the time they'd got back to the rest of the crew their hides glistened with salt, not water. Hardwick left his station on the quarterdeck deck and in a few strides he had reached the dissenting crewman.

'Captain—’ the sea dog started, but Hardwick pressed spade-like hands against the man's chest. Elspeth blinked and the man had disappeared over the side.

'Then you get down there and free it, you useless bag of flesh!'

Elspeth jumped with shock and clutched her doll close to her chest as the man tangled in the net. Even in her shock she thought it odd that he didn't scream as he was dragged under. He surfaced as the men played their tug-o-war with Nature. Three times she watched him rise and submerge, struggling to free himself, and on the fourth he was dead.

'Oh, no!' she cried out; by the fifth he was no longer in the net.

'Elspeth, you precocious fly! Get in the cabin!' Hardwick shouted. She opened her mouth to resist but he stirred in her the same fear as his men, and her protest died in the face of a bare look from him.

Below decks the men's cries and chants were muffled by the squealing wood of the hull and Elspeth thought of poor nana's twisted knuckles back in Bristol. She smoothed the natty wool hair of her knitted doll, 'Don't be silly, Dilly, I've told you Mr Hardwick's the best Captain on the ocean. Now hush.'

She struggled to stand, then tottered towards her father's generous living quarters at the back next to those of the captain, giggling and chastising Dilly in equal measure as the great ship leaned deeply to port. Sailing with Papa had never been so exciting before; they'd experienced nasty squalls but today was a blisteringly hot and still day, and the ocean a flashing mirror.

'Maybe the net isn't caught on the rocks, Dilly. Maybe we've caught a whale,' she told her doll, wide eyed.

Another lurch flung Elspeth and Dilly into the bulkhead. She spat and sputtered coarse tea from her lips as the crates holding the precious cargo splintered and spilled their load. She fretted that the black gold cargo on the lowest deck remained intact. Papa had told her of its importance, and that it was very heavy. She imagined crates full of amazing glittering black ingots, lashed under cords of rope as thick as the crew's muscles. Papa would be furious if the expensive cargo was ruined; she often heard the crew shouting at each other down there in their seamen's slang as they moved things around to keep the ship stable, so she knew how precious it was.

'Papa's too busy to check on the cargo, Dilly. I think we should go below and have a look. If there's something wrong, we can go back up and tell Captain Hardwick.' She gave Dilly a squeeze and said, 'You're a crafty one! But the captain can't shout at us for being on deck if we have a reason.'

With her arms outstretched to each side, she wobbled her way towards the stairs. There was a clatter above and her father came tumbling down the stairs. He landed at her feet and rolled off to port side as another tug pulled the vessel over.

'Elspeth! Quick, with me!' he panted.

Before she could ask where, her father had grasped her by the wrist and yanked her towards the stairs.

'Papa! Dilly!' She cried, leaning away and trying to pick up her dropped doll.

He ignored her, and dragged her onwards.

'Dilly!' she cried, in loss and pain.

In a moment they were back on deck and squinting into the bright sun.

'Quick. To the rafts.' Her father was now whispering.

Something in the way he spoke to her stopped her crying and she sniffed herself into composure. The crewmen were leaning over the net chopping and slashing with knives and hatchets so that only a small portion of the net remained attached to the rest. Drying and mackerel and small dogfish lay on the deck; shrivelled dead eyes staring upwards, and whitening. No one made any effort to collect the fish as they curled and desiccated further in the bleaching sun.

'Mr Shawcross! Here!' A familiar voice shouted from below. Elspeth looked down to see Captain Hardwick and three other men in a skiff. Their arms were raised. She screamed as - in a flash - her father lifted her and threw her into the water next to the raft. Strong arms took hold of her and brought her into the relative safety of the small boat and a moment later she saw her father's red coat streak past, landing over Captain Hardwick, stupidly. A plume of water erupted next to her like mother's ostrich feathers, and her father surfaced a short way from the boat, minus his coat.

When he was aboard, her father hugged her and draped the coat over her. The world went dark and Elspeth could only hear the slap and splash of the oars.

'Papa! What are you doing? Why are we leaving the ship?' she said.

'Just rest and do not look, my precious angel. Soon we will be away from this place,’ he replied.

But she did look. The front of Papa's coat opened a little, and through the gap she saw two things that silenced her. Some way off, the gilded figurehead of a beautiful woman slid under the waves; the Katherine was no more; there were no survivors other than those on the little boat with Elspeth.

Elspeth Shawcross was so traumatised by the sight that she spoke only once of the other thing she witnessed - and that was to her great grandson as she herself lay on her deathbed.

'The ocean is home to terrible gods,’ the ninety-year old wheezed.

'Try to rest, Nana Shawcross. You need to save your sprirts, save your energy,’ Edward Shawcross replied.

'There's nothing to save, dear Edward,’ Elspeth said, tapping a feeble knuckle on her chest. 'God has little jurisdiction in the seas, and I shall soon be going where he has no jurisdiction at all.'

'Nana Shawcross, that’s—‘

She held him with twisted hands; arthritic but strong, and fixed him with fading cornflower eyes. 'A spine. It was the spine of a giant. No whale.'

'What?'

'As my mother's namesake sank, something else rose. Something massive. I told myself it was a whale but I always knew I was being dishonest; whale skin is very different.' She dropped her head.

'Nana, what’s this all about?'

'A terrible legacy, that's what; a curse.' She looked up at him again. 'Sins of the fathers,’ she said, and was gone.

 

[The Judge]

I won't nit-pick now as I'm meant to be having an early night, but I can come back and apply my talons another time if you think it would help.

Meanwhile, the change of POV itself didn't worry me too much, but the change in time did. If you're keeping it in this form, I think you're better off using a * and a line gap to show a change of scene, so that it's not so abrupt and such a shock.

However, I'm not actually convinced that the scene with her as the child is necessary, and certainly not at that length. To my mind, it would be far more effective and intriguing and provide a greater hook if you started with her in bed, dying. If you want some of the initial stuff with the boat, have her remembering that day in pieces of narrative between the dialogue with Edward, but I'd suggest in short flashes of action and fear, not at any great length, and not with the dialogue and the to-ing and fro-ing and the childish thoughts. The whole thing was as well written as your stuff normally is, with some lovely touches -- and I was delighted to see part of this story for the first time -- but for me it was just the wrong place for this scene in all this detail.

For me, a prologue should be more amuse-bouche than a solid first course, an aperitif not a big bowl of soup, and that's especially the case with a short story where every word should count anyway. You want to showcase your skill, but you also want your customers to be hungry and ready for what follows. So I'd advise making this short and snappy, no more than a few hundred words in total.

 

[Dan Jones]

Alright dude, what's happening?

Nice to see something new from you, and it's up to your usual high standards.

I have to agree with TJ inasmuch as there seems to be quite a lot that could be stripped away from this to keep the pace high, especially if it's a short piece. For example...

'As my mother's namesake sank, something else rose. Something massive. I told myself it was a whale but I always knew I was being dishonest; whale skin is very different.' She dropped her head.

This could easily read: :I told myself it was just a whale, but..." She dropped her head. I don't think dying Granny would be quite so verbose as she currently is.

I spotted a few infelicities here and there, but as TJ says she's going to come back with claws sharpened I'll defer on training my headlamps on 'em, as she'll do a far better and more thorough job, I'll warrant.

But in terms of theme, style and ideas, I love it. Very Lovecraftian, and one might even describe the thematic feel of the opening as - dare I say it? - Wigmoreish?

It's certainly moreish, in any sense.

 

[tinkerdan]

If you could cut it off at:: the Katherine was no more; there were no survivors other than those on the little boat with Elspeth::

And then start the real story here::

'The ocean is home to terrible gods,’ the ninety-year old wheezed.

It would all work for me.

Very vivid description even for someone so young.

 

[Danny McG]

It was going OK but I lost it somewhat when her father threw his coat and it turned stupid.

Also a bit earlier when it was mentioning black gold in the lower deck, I was awaiting screams from chained slaves as the ship foundered. Clearly I misinterpreted that part.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Thanks for the feedback, all.

I think I might have confused some of you saying I'm writing this alongside my WIP; Waterlogged is not a short, but a novel.

Here's a smited version of 980ish words. There are things in here which are critical to the events happening later; what the 'monster' is, what the cargo is, what happened to the wreck of The Katherine, and Elspeth's doll. And I hated cutting the bit out of the man caught in the net; talk about killing your darlings

Thanks

pH


‘Pull!’ Hardwick screamed. ‘Pull for your wretched lives. Pull for your wives, your sons and daughters. Pull, damn you, crusty dogs!’

Elspeth winced at the sight of all that beastly muscle as two-score men wrestled the stinking fishing net upwards. She’d seen most of these men competing in tug-o-war at the Taroe Fayre every June, how could they be struggling so?

‘She’s snagged, Captain,’ a cracked voice yelled out. ‘We should never have helped the fisher boat!’

With each moment her father’s ship tipped further over to port. Three men had already fallen in but managed to clamber back out. Their wet leathery skin glistened as they laughed and hauled themselves aboard. By the time they’d got back to the rest of the crew their hides glistened with salt, not water. Hardwick left his station on the quarterdeck and in a few strides he’d reached the crewman.

‘Captain—’ the sea dog started, but Hardwick pressed spade-like hands against the man’s chest. Elspeth blinked and the man had disappeared over the side.

‘Then you get down there and free it, you useless bag of flesh!’ He turned on her. ’Elspeth, you precocious fly! Get below decks!’ She opened her mouth to resist but he stirred in her the same fear as in his men, and her protest died in the face of a bare look from him.

She made her way to the cabins, past the tea crates which had broken free from their lashings. The men’s cries and chants were muffled by the squealing wood of the hull and Elspeth thought of poor nana’s twisted knuckles back in Bristol. She smoothed the natty wool hair of her knitted doll. ’Maybe the net isn’t caught on the rocks, Dilly. Perhaps we’ve caught a whale!’ she told it.

Another lurch flung Elspeth and Dilly into the bulkhead. She spat coarse tea from her lips as the crates holding the precious cargo splintered and spilled their load. She fretted that the black gold cargo on the lowest deck remained intact. Papa would be furious if the expensive cargo was ruined; she often heard the crew shouting at each other down there in their seamen’s slang as they moved things around to keep the ship stable, so she knew how precious it was.

Papa would be pleased with her if she checked the black ingots were safe, so she decided to go down and look, even though she was forbidden from doing so. With her arms outstretched to each side, she wobbled her way towards the stairs. There was a clatter above and her father came tumbling down the stairs. He landed at her feet then rolled off to port as another tug pulled the vessel over.

‘Elspeth! Quick, with me!’ Papa grasped her by the wrist and yanked her back towards the stairs.

‘Dilly!’ she cried, reaching away, trying to pick up her dropped doll.

He ignored her, and dragged her onwards. In a moment they were back on deck and squinting into the bright sun.

‘To the rafts,’ Papa said.

Something in the way he spoke to her stopped her crying and she sniffed herself into composure. The crewmen were leaning over the net chopping and slashing so that only a small portion of the net remained attached. Dried mackerel and small dogfish lay on the deck; shrivelled dead eyes staring upwards. No one made any effort to collect the fish as they curled in the bleaching sun.

‘Mr Shawcross! Here!’ A cracked voice called from below. Papa lifted her and threw her into the water next to the raft from which one of the mates had shouted. Strong arms took hold of her and brought her into the relative safety of the small boat and a moment later she saw her father’s red coat streak past. A plume of water - like one of mother’s ostrich feathers - erupted next to her and her father surfaced a short way from the boat. What excitement!

When he was aboard, Papa hugged her and draped his wet coat over her. The world went dark and Elspeth could only hear the slap and splash of the oars.

‘Papa! Why are we leaving the ship?’ she said.

‘Don’t look, my precious angel. Soon we’ll be away from this place,’ he replied.

But she did look; she peeked, and through the gap saw two things that silenced her. Some way off, the gilded figurehead of a beautiful woman slid under the waves; the Katherine was no more. There were no survivors other than those on the little boat with Elspeth.

***

Elspeth Shawcross was so traumatised by the sight that day off the coast of Bristol, she spoke of it only once; to her great grandson from her deathbed.

‘The ocean is home to terrible gods,’ she wheezed.
‘Try to rest, Nana Shawcross, save your spirits,’ Edward Shawcross replied.
‘There is nothing to save, dear Edward,’ Elspeth said, tapping a feeble knuckle on her chest. ‘God has little jurisdiction in the seas, and I shall soon be going where He has none at all.’
‘Nana Shawcross, that’s—’
She held him with twisted hands; arthritic but strong, and fixed him with fading cornflower eyes. ‘A spine. It was the spine of a giant. No whale.’
‘What?’
‘I told myself it was a whale but I always knew it wasn’t.’ She dropped her head
‘Nana, what’s this all about?’
‘Sins of the fathers,’ she said, and was gone.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Wigmoreish

Surely that’s Wigmorian?

 

[Dan Jones]

I stand corrected (said the man in the orthopaedic shoes).

 

[HareBrain]

Wigmorenical or whatever, I do really like this and it’s very evocative. My main issues are that I’m not always sure what’s going on or what people are referring to. Maybe you want to leave some things unexplained, but there’s a bit too much obscure for me, and I think some of that might be unintentional. Detailed comments in the text:


(BTW, I don’t think I’d have any issues with the POV switch.)

‘Pull!’ Hardwick screamed. ‘Pull for your wretched lives. Pull for your wives, your sons and daughters. Pull, damn you, crusty dogs!’


Elspeth winced at the sight of all that beastly muscle as two-score men wrestled the stinking fishing net upwards. She’d seen most of these men competing in tug-o-war at the Taroe Fayre every June, how could they be struggling so?


‘She’s snagged, Captain,’ a cracked voice yelled out. ‘We should never have helped the fisher boat!’ [I'm not sure what's happened here. Where is the fishing boat? has it already sunk? In what way have they tried to help her?]


With each moment her father’s ship tipped further over to port. Three men had already fallen in but managed to clamber back out. [Some indication of how? Ladders? Esp given the size of the ship (several decks)] Their wet leathery skin glistened as they laughed and hauled themselves aboard. By the time they’d got back to the rest of the crew their hides glistened with salt, not water. Hardwick left his station on the quarterdeck and in a few strides he’d reached the crewman. [I'd lost sight of the fact that a crewman had shouted, so wasn't sure without looking back who this was.]


‘Captain—’ the sea dog started, but Hardwick pressed spade-like hands against the man’s chest. Elspeth blinked and the man had disappeared over the side.


‘Then you get down there and free it, you useless bag of flesh!’ He turned on her. ’Elspeth, you precocious fly! Get below decks!’ She opened her mouth to resist but he stirred in her the same fear as in his men, and her protest died in the face of a bare look from him.


She made her way to the cabins, past the tea crates which had broken free from their lashings. The men’s cries and chants were muffled by the squealing wood of the hull and Elspeth thought of poor nana’s twisted knuckles back in Bristol. She smoothed the natty wool hair of her knitted doll. ’Maybe the net isn’t caught on the rocks, Dilly. Perhaps we’ve caught a whale!’ she told it.


Another lurch flung Elspeth and Dilly into the bulkhead. She spat coarse tea from her lips as the crates holding the precious cargo splintered and spilled their load [after sliding, presumably, but it almost reads as if they've spontaneously splintered, or because she crashed into them]. She fretted that the black gold cargo on the lowest deck remained intact. [This seems to say she worried in case it does remain intact, whereas you mean in case it doesn't] Papa would be furious if the expensive cargo was ruined; she often heard the crew shouting at each other down there in their seamen’s slang as they moved things around to keep the ship stable, so she knew how precious it was.


Papa would be pleased with her if she checked the black ingots were safe, so she decided to go down and look, even though she was forbidden from doing so. With her arms outstretched to each side, she wobbled her way towards the stairs. There was a clatter above and her father came tumbling down the stairs. [So she's wobbling towards the stairs up, even though she wants to get to the lowest deck?] He landed at her feet then rolled off to port as another tug pulled the vessel over.


‘Elspeth! Quick, with me!’ Papa grasped her by the wrist and yanked her back towards the stairs.


‘Dilly!’ she cried, reaching away, trying to pick up her dropped doll.


He ignored her, and dragged her onwards. In a moment they were back on deck and squinting into the bright sun.


‘To the rafts,’ Papa said.


Something in the way he spoke to her stopped her crying and she sniffed herself into composure. The crewmen were leaning over the net chopping and slashing so that only a small portion of the net remained attached. Dried mackerel and small dogfish lay on the deck; [where from? If they were in the net, wouldn't they have just fallen back into the sea?] shrivelled dead eyes staring upwards. No one made any effort to collect the fish as they curled in the bleaching sun.


‘Mr Shawcross! Here!’ A cracked voice called from below. Papa lifted her and threw her into the water next to the raft from which one of the mates had shouted. [where did these rafts come from? Why not lifeboats? And what's actually happened to sink the ship?] Strong arms took hold of her and brought her into the relative safety of the small boat and a moment later she saw her father’s red coat streak past. A plume of water - like one of mother’s ostrich feathers - erupted next to her and her father surfaced a short way from the boat. What excitement! [Would she really be excited rather than terrified?]


When he was aboard, Papa hugged her and draped his wet coat over her. The world went dark and Elspeth could only hear the slap and splash of the oars.


‘Papa! Why are we leaving the ship?’ she said.


‘Don’t look, my precious angel. Soon we’ll be away from this place,’ he replied.


But she did look; she peeked, and through the gap saw two things that silenced her. Some way off, the gilded figurehead of a beautiful woman slid under the waves; the Katherine was no more. There were no survivors other than those on the little boat with Elspeth.


***


Elspeth Shawcross was so traumatised by the sight that day off the coast of Bristol, she spoke of it only once; to her great grandson from her deathbed.


‘The ocean is home to terrible gods,’ she wheezed.

‘Try to rest, Nana Shawcross, save your spirits,’ Edward Shawcross replied.

‘There is nothing to save, dear Edward,’ Elspeth said, tapping a feeble knuckle on her chest. ‘God has little jurisdiction in the seas, and I shall soon be going where He has none at all.’

‘Nana Shawcross, that’s—’

She held him with twisted hands; arthritic but strong, and fixed him with fading cornflower eyes. ‘A spine. It was the spine of a giant. No whale.’ [What was? The black gold, or the thing that was dragging down the net?]

‘What?’

‘I told myself it was a whale but I always knew it wasn’t.’ She dropped her head

‘Nana, what’s this all about?’

‘Sins of the fathers,’ she said, and was gone.

 

[Danny McG]

Seems to go a lot better now.

I wanna know what happens next so that's got to be a good sign that you're pulling in your reader

 

[tinkerdan]

I don't have a problem with how this is written or how well beyond the fact that this doesn't really meet my personal narrow definition of a prologue when it has something of another time and another act appended to the bottom.

For some reason I'm stuck on a single act or an event from the past that leads to something else later in the story.

There were no survivors other than those on the little boat with Elspeth.

*** ( the prologue ends here.)

 

[Danny McG]

This has been clicking away in my subconsciousness. Just now I got a ker-ching!...

Ship sinking and a scramble for the lifeboat, survivors watch the vessel go down with lots onboard.
Decades later an old dear is thinking back and relating the story.

It's the Titanic, that's what I thunked of!

 

[The Big Peat]

No comment about the PoV switch or text but, she seems more excited and "ooh!" wonder than anything in the flashback and that doesn't really jibe with her words in the present. I think you could stand to play up the traumatic nature of the experience from her end.