The Inkwell Short Story Competition. First Draft . Identity Crossroad
Christine and Linda had always wondered about their Mum and Dad. Having arrived in the UK after WW2, they had made their life here, given their children ‘British’ Names and ‘fitted in’.
“We’re clearly Indian,” said Linda “but where exactly FROM”. As children they had asked but any questions had been met with the reply “We’re here now and you were born here. You’re British. It’s a long way away”.
Childhood expanded into teenagerhood. The Beatles became popular, and the girls’ swarthy complexions made them exotic in a George Harrison Hari Krishna way. Yes, there had been some racist comments in the playground following Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech, but a good education, middle class friends and marrying ‘white’ boys had resulted in pale skinned children and even paler Grandchildren for Christine and Linda.
Christine was now 72 and Linda would be 70 next year. They had enjoyed ‘good’ lives. Both married boys from the building society where they worked together, had a boy and a girl each and enjoyed the comforts of a modern home in Solihull and the two families spend a lot of time together. The families decided that holidaying in the UK was what was needed to give the children fresh air and exercise, so it was camping in Scotland and time on the Norfolk Broads for them.
Over the years times had changed as their children grew up and spent holidays in Majorca, but Christine and Linda stayed closer to home and their last holiday had been in North Wales in a little B & B in Betwys-y-coed. Just the three of them now; Christine’s husband Phillip sadly died two years before, so it was just Christine, Linda, and Linda’s husband Paul. They had had a lovely time and enjoyed time at the Swallow Falls. “Mum mentioned a waterfall once she had seen when she was a child”, said Linda when they were there, but that was where it had stopped.
It was difficult to say who they actually thought their Mum and Dad were. Known as Sherry and Jay King to their friends they spent time playing tennis and having ‘a few friends around for drinks’. The former activity mostly merging into the latter. Their accents were decided British, although Sherry’s slipped at times when she became tired. ‘Speaking nicely’ was the number one requirement in their household. So much so children in school often giggled and called them ‘posh’.
With marriage and Midlands’s life this had tempered, and Christine found herself having to correct her Grandchildren’s grammar at times.
There seemed no reason to upset the applecart by seeking an unknown identity which had obviously been rejected by their parents many years ago as they sought a new world and a new life. Both parents passed several years ago and the secrecy with them.
“Grandma “, said Michael ‘Can I talk to you?’. Christine was close to her ten-year-old grandson, son of her daughter Melanie, who came to see her after school, heading straight to the biscuit barrel.
Christine looked up from her crochet hoping this wouldn’t be about the birds and the bees. Her friend Pauline said these were the most difficult questions and took a bit of ducking and diving.
“What is it darling?”.
“You don’t know where your family is FROM Grandma, do you?”
“Not exactly a long time ago but we are from here. From England.”
“Someone told me we can find out where we are really from by doing a test.”. Michael continued.
“What sort of test, Michael?”
“You test spit. That can tell you all the places your family comes from.”
“Spit?”
Christine had been avoiding those Family Research Adverts for DNA tests. Surely, they can’t really know from SPIT. They must look at your name and guess. “I’ll look into it, Michael” she said. That was that.
A week later the box arrived. She hadn’t told Linda about it, but she had sent off for an Ancestry Family History DNA testing kit. A bit expensive, but rather exciting. She even felt a bit naughty.
She opened the box and read the instructions. After an hour she had raised enough spit for the container and enclosed it in the envelope to return to the laboratory. A bit of a messy job but she cleared it all away and straight away went to the pillar box on the corner. She strangely had guilty feelings, but a frisson went through her body. What would she discover?
A few weeks passed and she had an email. She opened it shaking. She read it with care looking at all the diagrams and pie charts showing the geographical areas of family origins. To be honest it wasn’t much of a surprise. All from the Indian subcontinent. In her heart she knew this.
She closed the email. Perhaps she should have spent that money on some new saucepans.
Then the emails started. The MATCHES. Names and sometimes grainy photos of Indian faces staring out with the claim they were 4th cousins, 3rd cousins. Often from as far away as the USA and Australia. Christine didn’t know what to do.
Christine knew Linda was coming round that afternoon. She would have to tell her what she had done.
“How exciting!”, said Linda. “Let’s go and meet them!”. Linda was always the most adventurous of the two and before she knew it Linda had booked tickets and accommodation to Chennai. She had got them passports, visas and even vaccinations. "Can’t be too careful," she said. They would be met by ‘cousins’ at the airport.
Never having travelled abroad before Linda and Christine enjoyed the flight from Heathrow with all the flights meals and entertainment. Getting off the plan at Chennai two men approached them before they had even gone through customs and passed a note to Christine. It said ‘*There is something you need to know about your parents. Phone me. ‘
Hello @bellou61, Welcome to the Ink Well Short Story Contest!You have done an excellent job of adapting your story to the logline:
You not only set the scene in the first paragraph, but you also establish the essential conflict of the story. Two women in their 70s wonder about the origins of the families. You build the characters carefully. We come to know the women through descriptions of their vacations and their relationships with their children.
While the vacation descriptions add color and interest, the story might move along more if you were able to tighten up this part:
Not all of the details add to our understanding of the characters, nor do they further explain the central conflict.
The introduction of a grandchild and the scene with the spit are wonderful, especially this line:
The end may leave readers wondering, but that's fine. These women, who are nearing the end of their lives, are about to embark on a discovery. It doesn't matter what that discovery is.
There is more to say about the story but it is certain you will receive more detailed suggestions from other commentators.
Please remember: suggestions are just that. This is your story. You make your own decisions about the final edit.
Good luck!
I loved the story
I walked through and pictured the sisters doing their thing, their children and grandchildren "watered down" over time ;p
But I have to know now who are they? What's their lineage... what's the story these two men have .....
I like the way you tell your story, you gave me details about them without overexplainingng:D
Thank you. The prompt made me think. I am thinking where it goes from here !
Greetings, @bellou61
You raise an interesting story from the logline. At times I think I read a tone that indicates a certain position of the narrator towards the social behaviour of the old sisters. You describe it well:
Alongside the need to fit in, evident also in the images elsewhere, there seems to be a secret in the sisters' origins.
You develop your story in such a way that it ends with the starting image provided by the logline:
As a reader I feel I am at the starting point and my expectations are not met. The sisters begin the journey but we don't know what they discover.
My main recommendation is that you develop the chosen logline.
Hi @bellou61. Thank you for joining the contest! You have received some great feedback so far. I will add mine.
You have chosen a great concept to work with. I think you need to play it out and give us the full resolution in the end. What is it they learn about their past?
But to back up a bit, as recommended by others, you could tighten up the opening and the narrative to ensure you have the available word count toward the end. I also recommend that you replace some of the narrative with action and dialog, instead of telling so much of the story in summary form. There's a great article in our catalog of fiction writing tips that can help you with this, called Action, Dialog and Narrative: The Dynamic Trio.
Additionally, there are some typos and other issues throughout to fix in your final draft:
The past tense of “fit” is actually “fit,” not “fitted”. If that sounds awkward, could write it as “and made sure they fit in.”
There are a few places where you used ALL CAPS for emphasis. It's not necessary, but if you do want to emphasize something in dialog, a better method is italics, which you can create with asterisks on each side. In the following, the period should be a question mark inside the quotation marks:
Likewise, the period should be inside the quotes at the end of this:
There are several places where you unnecessarily place words in single quotes. There is no reason to do that, as it suggests some interpretation or point of view on these words that is never explained. For example:
The story is told in past tense, so "spend" in this paragraph must be "spent":
I also recommend breaking up the sentence above into two or three shorter sentences.
The story is primarily told in omniscient perspective, which means we don't see the events of the story through any particular character's point of view. To be consistent in this narrative style, you will need to omit expressions that indicate thoughts or feelings of any of the characters. For example, in the following, "sadly" does not work:
I think in the above sentence you can also omit the leading phrase before the semi-colon as that very idea is stated another way later in the sentence.
Also note that your story would likely be stronger and more impactful if you chose to tell it in third person from the point of view of either Linda or Christine. (I nominate Christine! I'll share why later.) Then we would experience the thoughts and feelings around the story's conflict more fully. It's completely up to you, of course. But I find that omniscient perspective is very difficult to do well, and I personally find stories told from one protagonist's point of view to be much richer. I think we readers feel more.
The following has some awkwardness you might want to edit:
Maybe "she had seen once"? The comma needs to go inside the quotation mark. And I recommend making the last phrase its own sentence.
In the following I don't really understand the second sentence (and it's not a complete sentence):
Here, the word "decided" should be "decidedly."
In the following, I'm not sure what Midland's life is. It's written as a possessive, so it's the life of Midland. I've never heard that term, but maybe it's common in another culture. (Also Grandchildren's would not be capitalized as it is not a proper noun.)
At this point, you move into Christine's point of view, and out of omniscient perspective.
This is not a bad thing. It's just not consistent with the story. I recommend you convert your story to her point of view throughout, as this portion of the story is told really well as her story.
You have some punctuation issues here:
The comma must go inside the quotation mark. There's a period missing after Michael, and there's an extraneous period after the question.
This is the most delightful moment in your whole story:
See how much more powerful your writing is when it's told from one character's viewpoint?
Extra period:
This expression is kind of odd. It's not clear why Christine says "not exactly a long time ago":
Your story suddenly becomes interesting when you get into the DNA test, the action of Christine collecting her spit and waiting for the results, and the fact that this portion of the story is told in her viewpoint. At last, there is a mix of dialog, action and narrative that keeps us interested. The front-end of the story could be tightened up and written in this style to great effect!
Punctuation issues:
There should not be a comma after the quote with the exclamation point, and there should not be a period at the end.
In the following "had got" must be changed to "had gotten."
There are a few issues with the following:
You need a comma after "before," and after "flights." The word "plan" should be "plane." And the sentence starting with "Getting off the plane at Chennai, two men approached them," doesn't work because it indicates that it is the two men getting off the plane. It would have to be changed to "When Linda and Christine got off the plane" or "When the ladies got off the plane."
Oh my, this is SO long. I got started and then decided to go ahead and be thorough. I'm sure you probably wrote it pretty fast, and intended to make improvements in the final draft, but I wanted to be sure to give you as much support in doing so as possible.
I do hope this is helpful. Good luck in the contest!
Hard comments ! I'll take them on board .
Hello @bellou61. I like the logline you chose about the two sisters. It's a story of trying to discover their parentage. You take your reader on the journey through the two women's lives. This can be a good thing if the journey is long and drawn out.
First, I'd like to inquire about the image in your story. Is this an image you own or one you found online? All images you include in your post must be either your property or from a site that allows you to use the image for free for personal and commercial purposes.
After reading your story, the two sisters seem to be likeable characters who I can tell are close to each others. I was wondering whether parts of their background on them growing to senior citizens could be eliminated.
Instead, what do you think about bridging the gap from childhood to adulthood with some humorous short sentence antics the two ladies previously encountered. Then a line or two about each ladies' families. In other words, more action in the story.
Not many people will know that "WW2 means". Why not spell it out.
You have more detailed comments from others, and I agree with all their comments.
Thank you for your comments . Very useful . The image is my own from a hanging from India .
Hello. That's so nice. A suggestion would be to mention this in your footer so there won't be any doubt. Thanks for responding.
Thank you everyone for your comments. Bit too much to take on board for a second draft.