Friday, May 14, 2010

Internal Conflict Blogfest

I'm a little late to the party.  It's been a very busy week, but the semester is DONE!!!  Yippee!!!  I'm just waiting for the last straggler to take their make-up exam and I can turn in final grades.

Meanwhile, here is my entry for the Internal Conflict Blogfest hosted by Alliterative Allomorph.  (I'm still kind of fuzzy on what an Allomorph is, so if anyone can explain it to me I'd be grateful.)

Faldur sat in the corner of Strider’s stall with his head in his hands. The dory butted his horns against Faldur’s shoulder, wanting attention, but Faldur shoved him away. How could this have happened? Marenya, whom he had guarded so diligently, needed guarding from himself.

He would never forget when they brought Firn’s body into the post, wrapped in his Ranger’s cloak, the blood seeping through the fabric. They told him not to look, but Faldur needed to see exactly what the nightstalker had done. It wasn't pleasant, but the older haman looked peaceful and his face was mostly untouched. For that, at least, Faldur was grateful. It meant that Erinor could say good-bye to him.

Marenya hadn’t cried at the funeral. She was just a slender whip of a lass then, more than a child but not yet a hawin. She had stood silently beside her mother, watching the proceedings with solemn eyes. Erinor maintained her composure almost to the end, but broke into sobs as her husband was placed into the ground, pressing her hands against her mouth as if she could somehow hold in her grief. Marenya’s mouth twisted with anguish as she tried to comfort her mother. Firn had died saving someone else’s child, and left his own family fatherless.

It was then, at that moment, that Faldur had determined never to marry. He was a Ranger until he died, but he wouldn’t be a father or a husband. He wouldn’t cause anyone that kind of sorrow for his sake.

Especially not Marenya.

8 comments:

  1. This is a very nice piece. Is it a piece of flash fiction or a part of a novel? I think it works great as flash fiction! Thanks for participating, better late than never! :)

    PS: Allomorph is: any of the phonological representations of a single morpheme. A morpheme is a speech element having a meaning or grammatical function that cannot be subdivided into further such elements. For example, the final (s) and (z) sounds of bets and beds are allomorphs of the English noun-plural morpheme. So I kinda played with the alliterative thing here because allomorphs have the same kind of sounds. Get it? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! It is part of a novel, actually, part of an early chapter. It follows a kiss that he didn't really plan to happen. And it is the internal motivation for everything he does afterwards.

    I had written most of the novel without clearly outlining his internal conflict, and my readers had trouble relating to him. So I went back and inserted some early chapters that are kind of like a prequel, to explain what was going on. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to keep them in the book.

    ReplyDelete
  3. nice. i like seeing him wage war with himself over a kiss. pesky things, those kisses. i'd post one of mine, but it would give away what happens in my book and i'm not ready for that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, c'mon Michelle. We know it's a kissing book. You're nto fooling anyone.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Interesting. So much going on here, but the conflict seems to be about whether or not or ask Mareyna to marry him. Yes?

    I love reading about Faldur. I'm so hooked on him.

    ........dhole

    ReplyDelete
  6. but do you know WHO the kissing is between? and it's not ALL kissing. in fact, there are very few kissing scenes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Christine this is absolutely beautiful. The conflict is all there, especially with Faldur. I love his angst. (I love any kind of angst.) Although I'm late to the game, this is something I'd like to read more of.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks, everyone. I'm trying really hard to finish the novel this summer so you can read it.

    Yeah, Donna, I'm hooked on him, too. *sigh*

    ReplyDelete

I apologize for the word verification. I hate it, but the spammers made me do it.