Great Courses: Writing Fiction, Exercise 1

Start from an image. 

Description:

The woman is neither very young nor very old; I would guess she is in her 30s. Her clothing places her in the lower middle class. She is wearing a pink knit shirt and a silver necklace. She has dark hair and is wearing a silver stud placed off-center in her right ear. We see her in profile, the right side of her face, in tight close-up. In front of her is a silver microphone. She appears to be mid-sentence, her mouth open and her lips forming a word. Her eyes are blue and heavy-lidded. She is serious, no smile on her mouth or eyes. We see very little of the background or the rest of her surroundings; there what looks like is a stitched leather bench to the left of her shoulder and the suggestion of a railing to her right. These elements make her seem framed in a small box. Her face is well lit, as if she is being filmed. 

Who, What, Where, When, Why?

After the operation, Siobhan began to bleed profusely. She felt it start even as she walked home from Maeve’s place. She’d been warned about this, and had been provided with a thick pad by the grandmotherly woman who had performed the procedure in Maeve’s parlor, but she hadn’t expected the voluminous flood she felt between her legs, a stain that would ruin her best jeans if she didn’t take care of it immediately. Siobhan reached home and ran to the cottage’s only bathroom, ignoring her mother’s call from the kitchen. The gory sight overcame her, and she collapsed in a graceless heap on the linoleum floor. Siobhan’s mother found her there, bloody and senseless, sussed out the situation, slapped Siobhan awake, and then promptly called the police. She didn’t stop to ask Siobhan how she’d arrived at this predicament. That story was as old as the green Irish hills, and Maureen O’Leary didn’t need to hear it to know what must be done.

“Mam, don’t do it,” screamed Siobhan from the floor of the bathroom when she heard her mother speaking into the phone, telling what had happened and giving their address. “It’s none of their damn business, what I done.” 

Maureen slammed down the receiver and came to bathroom doorway. She stood there, hands on hips, blocking the door and frowning down on her daughter.

“Dammit, Siobhan, you know I had to,” she said.

“You didn’t,” said Siobhan. “Nobody had to know. Don’t you care? Don’t you know what’ll happen to me now?"

“P’raps you should have thought of that before you spread your knees. Who was it, missy? Sean Casey? Denny McGrew? Michael O’Callahan? Or do you even know? And who did this to you?” she asked, indicating the bloody mess.

“I’m not answering that, Ma. You don’t need to know. And they won’t care. The law doesn’t apply to  men, they stick their pricks in whoever they want, no thought to consequences, it’s only the women who have to pay the price."

“Oh, that’s fine, you and your vulgar speeches. Have sex all you want, and no consequences for you, that's fair, is it? And I find you here, flushing my grandchild down the toilet instead of doing the right thing and having that baby. You’d no right, missy, and what’s more, you broke the law. I had no choice but to turn you in."

“It’s not a child, it’s only blood,” said Siobhan, though she knew it would further rile her mother .

“’Twas a child, plain and simple, in God’s eyes, daughter. And you’ve gone and killed it. You’ve sinned and you’ll pay for it."

“I’ll go to jail, mother. Is that what you want?"

“What I want is for my daughter to behave like the good Catholic woman I raised her to be. Not the slut I see before me now. You’d better change clothes and get ready to explain yourself to the police. They’ll be here any minute."