Took a break from writing fic today to exercise my brain in a different way: writing a crime fiction short story (which, for those of you who know me, will also know is one of my guilty pleasures to read and watch) involving a seasoned detective and the rookie unwillingly thrust into her midst. Will it have age gap sexual tension? Yes. Is one of them a raging bisexual? Also yes. What inciting incident sews them to each other's sides? I'll have to keep writing to find out
But in all seriousness, nothing flexes the writing muscles quite like writing a genre you're not confident in. I have to remember the tropes of this genre. I have to decide which ones I want to apply to my characters without changing said tropes, and which ones I want to bend. I have to really focus on my pacing and creating a tight narrative while exploring these characters. The added challenge is it's set in a decade I have fleeting memories of, so getting the details of the time period right is also very essential for me.
Gotta love spending two weeks on the same project literally taking my time with every single sentence and ensuring the less-than-healthy dynamic I’m portraying is delicious and tense and something people will enjoy, only to receive crickets when the chapter itself is published
This is a tiny excerpt from a much larger work. It's taken over my life for the last two weeks and isn't close to finished, but I wanted to share some of it with you all regardless xx
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There were more treks to the stream. Sometimes taken together, other times alone. Zosia watched the mountain slopes slide by as the gondola rolled into its building. The snow had stopped falling an hour ago, leaving another six inches of fresh powder in its wake.
Classical music played inside the building. A quiet piano piece that was familiar but whose composer and name Zosia couldn’t identify. It was meant to be calming, to add to the quiet beyond the walls. It was only noise, courtesy of Them.
An information desk loitered near the doors Zosia entered through. She strode to it, plucked up the phone, dialled zero.
“Good morning, Zosia. Did you sleep well?”
“I want someone to walk with.”
They didn’t ask why she wasn’t walking with Carol. “Absolutely. Someone will be there in a moment.”
The someone They sent was infuriatingly blonde. A Carol knockoff, repackaged in a plum coloured coat and black snow pants with thick black hiking boots. Drop-dead handsome. She would do.
“We’d better get going, Zosia,” said the Other in English, pulling on a beanie and gloves extracted from her coat pocket, “before more snow falls. It’ll be quite heavy later. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
“No.” Zosia gestured with her hand, urging her walking companion to lead on.
The day Carol had drawn her back inside the chalet, the air had been bitter. Today, it was beyond so, a crispness that threatened to freeze her lungs with every inhale. Every breath, when exhaled, was thick as factory smoke. And the world itself was still, as if lying in wait for some event or other, not knowing whether it was the fortunate or disastrous sort.
“We’re surprised you wanted to walk at all, given the temperature,” said the Other.
“I needed to get out.”
“Are you and Carol not getting on?”
Zosia scoffed. “You’ve been watching us.”
“Would you rather we didn’t?”
“You’d find another way.”
“Not without your consent, of course, Zosia.”
“Did you ask for it when you made me join your… collective? When you sent my body to Carol? When you had me trapped beneath my own fucking skin and made me watch you insert yourselves into Carol’s life?”
Her companion had stopped walking. The woman’s face was paler, jaw working.
Zosia had been close to shouting.
“Kurwa,” she uttered, and waited.
It took seconds for the Other to return. Smiling gently, she said, “We’re all right, Zosia.” The smile faded slightly, expression becoming serious, but the calm tone remained. “We had our reasons for sending you.” She returned to Zosia’s side, and the walk resumed, pace leisurely. “There were many who fit the criteria we’d established for Carol, but we couldn’t see those many making her happy. Once we became aware of you, within us, the match was obvious.”
Zosia could have scoffed. An older version of herself might have made a joke about aliens having possession of Cupid’s bow. She only looked ahead, focusing on the intake of air, the crunch-grind rhythm of her booted steps on snow, forcing herself not to be aware of the acidic uneasiness curdling her belly.
Some of the walk passed in silence, filled only with birdsong. It was more lyrical than that of the seagulls Zosia had come to know, or the cooing of pigeons and doves.
“What kind of bird is that?” asked Zosia. They were passing beneath a canopy of pines. She recognised the melodies of sparrows and finches, but there was a call rising above them that was louder, a singer making itself known.
The reply was almost instantaneous. “A Canada jay. Known for its monogamous mating habits and for adapting to human activity and approaching us for food. They’re often called camp robbers and lumberjacks because of this. Ah, there,” said the Other, stopping suddenly in the path and pointing to a tree some yards away. “It’s perched on the fifth branch up.”
Zosia spotted a pale grey body with darker grey markings among the green and white-draped pine. The bird was helping itself to seeds, or nuts.
“A bird of simple appearance,” her walking companion said, smile returning, “but handsome regardless.”
No, you see, I wish to be an author. Not in marketing. Or an influencer. I wish to tell my stories, be told I did a fantastic job, and then go back to my hovel to scribble some more. I am delicate of constitution and awkward in crowds.
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