Liftoff – Redux
It’s Six Sentence Story time again and I am late to the party, as always.
This week proved difficult for me. I finally decided to take something I did previously for Six Sentence Stories, and see if I could do a different version.
This week’s post is the result. You can look at the previous post here.
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Jack stabbed angrily at the controls, slammed the flight manual shut, then threw it at the panel.
“Hey, man, take it easy on the machinery, wouldja?” Charlie said from the seat next to him.
Jack grumbled an apology at his co-pilot and returned to the routine pre-flight checks, but he continued to stew about Andi’s apparent lack of interest, furious that she could sit there on the platform reading, refusing to make eye contact with him when he so desperately needed to see her face one more time before launch to know what their future held.
“Engines are fired, Jack, and we’re go for liftoff.”
Maybe she really didn’t care and knew what Jack didn’t want to admit – that they could never get back what they had together years ago – but if she wouldn’t give him even a hint that she’d be here waiting for him, then there was nothing he could do but leave and focus on getting the job done.
It was only as the rockets propelled him away from her that Andi lifted her eyes from the page, but Jack would never see the tears that streamed down her face.
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Written in response to this week’s Six Sentence Stories challenge, hosted by Girlie on the Edge. Each week writers are challenged to spin a tale in just six sentences.
This week’s cue is ROUTINE.
Click on the link right here to join us. Read some great stories and link up to share your own!
Featured image by skeeze from Pixabay
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13 Comments
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Well, what the hell, man 😀 What’s wrong with those two!
Tragic, damn tragic love story.
Well done 🙂
Right? You’ll have to read the book when it’s out!
Exciting. I will!
Yay! <3
Oh, dear…this is sad but compelling. can that be possible? I want more. So glad you’re here with use at the SSS Ranch!
Sure, Paul, why not? And I’m glad for your feedback of “compelling.” This is a snip from the novel I’m working on. There is definitely more out there.
WOW, had me holding my breath!
Thanks, Rhen. That’s a great reaction!
You’re most welcome!!
…’but if she wouldn’t give him even a hint that she’d be here waiting for him, then there was nothing he could do but leave and focus on getting the job done.
Far be it from me to over-analyze fiction (or anything else, for that matter, 1), but having read the both versions of your Six, I’ll offer that: I liked the first version more than the second, and the second (version) had more to make the characters more (or less) engaging.
The first was simple, spare and effective. (It) encouraged us readers to fill in the blanks, provide a backstory to whatever extent we might like; yet it still had a ‘punch’.
In the second ‘version’, we are given much, much more information to know the character/nature/personality of the main character, Jack. Effective, in the sense the character becomes more real, more fully-drawn.
…but, by doing so, the involvement of the Reader is skewed.
So, the question is, is one better than the other? Probably not.
The more interesting question, (for me), is when is it to the advantage of the author to leave a character less defined?
(Understandably, this is simply a Six Sentence Story. That said, its no secret I enjoy attempting to deconstruct the work of others in the hope of learning how they did what they did (and, maybe why) on their way to creating an engaging story.)
Enjoyable Six
1) yeah, right
This is my favorite comment, Clark, because who doesn’t like to think about and talk about their process and work and then have others think about it and talk about it as well??? 😀
I have my thoughts on both versions as well – both have pros, both have cons. Here’s the bigger truth: this is a snippet from a much larger work – part of the ever-in-process and still-unnamed novel. It comes father far along in the plot, so readers will know quite a bit already about these characters. (Maybe not Charlie – he’s a minor player at best.) I have a completely different version of this scene from either presented here and honestly? I like that one the best.
Maybe.
So thanks for this, definitely.
A seemingly tragic love story yet with the hope of some recovery maybe later on. I loved the setting – space rockets and missions. The sense of massive distances between these two characters physically, as well as perhaps emotionally.
Thank you and yes! The setting is from my current WIP. There is definitely distance between the characters, both physical and emotional.