Here we go, continuing with the edit of my short story The Storm. So far, I have made it through the introduction, and now will work on Oscar’s journey to find the missing seaman Harry. This is an important segment, where Oscar extends himself further and further into waters that he is uncomfortable with, alone and wondering why he’s putting his neck out for a man he hates.
The Start of the Journey)
Oscar sighed, then slowly began to turn the wheel. There was that brief moment of delay between cause and effect, then the boat responded to his steering. Now his entire world shifted. The happy view of pier, berth, and road up to Lenny’s Tavern slid away to the left, giving way to the long, low coast, the rising point of the cape, and finally the bleak, open sea yawning wide.
Oscar spun the wheel back, steadying himself towards the storm. Where before he had only given the mounting clouds a cursory glance, he now held them in serious scrutiny. The muddled gray had grown darker since just a few moments ago, making it truly impossible to discern sky from sea, save for when a spike of lightning split the void. Oscar became aware now of the wind whistling around the wheelhouse, a constant, low, forbidding moan. And now that he was moving against the tide it rolled under his feet at doubled strength, raising and lowering him in a constant rhythm. All these particulars had had no weight on him when he was headed back to berth, but now that he intended towards them they were daggers of dread in his mind.
It was nearly enough to turn him back landward right then and there! But he gave himself a little shake and occupied himself with his work so that he didn’t have time to think about it.
“Back a little north,” he said to himself, “keep a steady and brisk pace for the cape.” So saying he turned the wheel until the cape came back to the forefront. Of course this made the oncoming waves buffet more strongly against the starboard side of his trawler, trying to push him homeward, but Oscar stubborned his hands against them. Never mind the discomfort, the fastest course was the best. These waves weren’t yet tall enough to roll him.
And so Oscar quickly advanced on the cape. The Broken Horn it was called, and it rose quickly from the otherwise flat coastline. Too quickly, in fact, for the grass and trees to keep up, thus its promontory point was naught but black, jagged rock, broken in a thousand places by the brunt of the sea. An ominous sigil to be sure.
From time-to-time he worked the radio, trying to raise Harry, but all to no avail. The man must still be around the rock, and something must have gone wrong with his journey.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time things had gone wrong in a storm for Harry.
Oscar had nearly made it to the cape and he quickly spun the wheel to the right. He didn’t dare draw any nearer to the Broken Horn, for there were treacherous shoals at its feet, and if one snagged their boat on those they would be quickly overrun by the endless flow of water. Or if not swamped, the constant surf would push the vessel past the shoals, then pound it into the jagged edges of the cliff beyond, tearing it to shreds in a single instant! If Harry had run into trouble anywhere else Oscar might have left him to run aground and wait out the storm on a rain-soaked beach, but here there was no “aground” to run into.
So Oscar pointed his vessel due east, letting the cape slip by him on the left. Of course due east also meant that he was pointed back at the face of the storm, and here the water ran much deeper than before.
*
When I revised the very beginning of the story I cut the number of words by a very great deal. Here I am actually adding more in. This segment of Oscar turning from the docks, making for the cape, and turning deeper into the storm was originally 507 words, now it is 591. I do like the change these extra words bring. One of the things I knew I wanted to change was to make this journey to feel much more epic and exhausting.
You can view the original version of this piece here if you want, but my main changes were to stress the transition from cozy pier to stark sea, and to paint the way that Oscar’s mind is flooded with all the details that previously had had no bearing on him. I also added the detail of the waves buffeting the side of his ship and him having to hold the wheel steady, to communicate the constant physical exertion that will only increase as the story rolls along.
One thing I dialed back on, though, was the intensity of the storm at this point. I removed references to the cape looking like ink and shrouded in fog and the clouds being whipped by the air. I want to set this up as the beginning of a marathon, and I want the audience to be able to feel the escalation of the storm late on, so better to not have it be at a fever pitch just yet.
The first of those escalations will occur now as Oscar turns himself back into the face of the storm, but there will be many more to follow. Come back in a week as we continue that journey.
Give Me Pen and Paper 