Saturday, August 27, 2011

Six Sentence Sunday: A Voice Behind the Screen


Hello! Thanks for taking the time to stop by and read my weekly snippet.

Six Sentence Sunday is a great idea. Choosing such a small sample really forces me to hit the highlights. On the other hand, so much has to be left out, I feel like I’m cheating you. People who can write short stories (not to mention flash fiction or haiku) inspire my awe and admiration. This writer has to make an effort to keep it under 150 k words per book.

In the interest of brevity, I’ll get right to the set-up for this week’s excerpt:

Shamed by his doctor, Jonathan finally agrees to provide Isabelle with work. He summons her to the parlor with a cryptic note then, thinking to spare her sensibilities, arranges to sit behind a folding screen so she can’t see him. He has no way of knowing that his disembodied voice coming from behind the screen will trigger Isabelle’s memories of the traumatic event responsible for her recurrent nightmare. When she tells Jonathan she is feeling unwell, he suggests she go to the sideboard and pour herself a drink.

At first the glass of sherry helps, but when Jonathan’s voice emerges again from behind the screen, Isabelle has a full-blown panic attack.

A Bed of Thorns and Roses #8

In a desperate attempt to be rid of her unreasoning panic, she threw the glass to the floor. The delicate crystal shattered.

Its bright sound drew an exclamation from behind the screen, followed by a low question asked with forced calm. “What happened?”

Isabelle ignored the question, instead bending forward to retrieve a triangular remnant of glass from the floor. Holding it with her right hand, she aimed the sharp point at the fleshy pad of her left thumb, stabbed through the skin, and gouged a deep crimson line down to her wrist.

*     *     *

You may think this sounds like a disastrous first meet, but actually it gets worse!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. I love getting your opinions. Here’s the Six Sunday link to take you back to the site. Happy reading.

Until next time,
Sondra

16 comments:

  1. WOW! Great engaging full on 6. Well done, and well written!

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  2. Whew... I'm intrigued! Great 6, Sondra!!

    Amy Durham

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  3. One of my favorite scenes from BED OF THORNS AND ROSES, Sondra! You do sexual tension better than anyone! I think by the time they touched, I... Well, I won't be crude. You're more refined than I am. LOL. But the entire book was very powerfully written.

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  4. Wow! Powerful. Curious about her flashbacks and why he needs to hide.

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  5. I could feel my eyes getting wider and wider as I read. Great six, Sondra!

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  6. I'm intrigued. I really want to know why he's hiding and she's equally damaged. Great vivid six!

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  7. Gee, you don't pull any puches, do you? Intriguing, so many questions. BUt ione query, would they have called it a 'panic attack in those days? I may be wrong but that sounds too modern.

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  8. You know, if six sentences isn't enough, I'm happy for you to include a link to a much longer excerpt! *grin*

    ~Xakara
    A Way To A Dragon's Heart 6SS

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  9. Interesting six. Makes the reader want to learn more. Good point about panic attack.

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  10. Thanks everyone for your comments. I appreciate each and every one. I always want to reply to comments as well as read all the 6SS posts, which is why I wish Sundays were at least 48 hours long. Right now I'm running out of time and caving to one of life's necessities called needing to eat. That usually wins out over the other one, needing to sleep. But you guys write, you know what I mean......

    Kally, thanks for the kind words. And you do XXX better than anybody!
    Sherry, I didn't actually use the word "attack" in the book, just "panic." I hope that wasn't a speed bump for you.
    Xakara--and anyone else who's interested--there's a pretty long (the first 20% I think) sample at smashwords.com

    Have a great week fellow Sixers,
    Sondra

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  11. Yikes! Don't, Isabelle! :-(
    Great six!
    Barb

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  12. Damn! What the hell? Incredible six!

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  13. I really liked this scene in the book. Really made me sympathetic toward Isabelle and curious about what exactly had happened to her.

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  14. Rather extreme measures. Interesting to see where it goes.

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  15. Hmm... I wonder where this will go? :-)

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  16. Wow, that's messed up! She cuts herself like that and isn't even wincing from the pain or the blood...

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