Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Two Sentence Tuesday

I dug out an old short story that I had set aside, and I started reworking it this past weekend. I now see the entire story was told in the first four paragraphs, leaving a very uninteresting and anti-climatic ending. The following lines are from halfway through when a man has just killed his best friend because he found out his wife and friend were having an affair:
Finally finished, he dragged the lifeless body to the grave’s edge and pushed it in with the heel of his foot. He was filling it in when he remembered the glass eye was still on the green.
I've started reading The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural, a 1967 anthology featuring heavy hitters like Ray Bradbury and The Twilight Zone writers, Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson. Two lines from Matheson's No Such Thing As A Vampire are:
Moving to the closet, Gheria drew down his bag and carried it to the bed. He tore Alexis's nightdress from her upper body, and within seconds, had drawn another syringe full of her blood: this would be the last withdrawal, fortunately.
Matheson wrote a number of Zone classics, including "Steel" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" episodes. His science fiction novel, I Am Legend (1954), has been filmed several times, most recently with Will Smith in 2007.

For more Two Sentence Tuesday, check out Women of Mystery...

9 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I have that Playboy book. Pretty good reading. I liked a lot of Matheson's Twilight zone work.

Clare2e said...

Glass eye on the green? I'm hooked.

But I do have the urge to start cursing "Noonan... Miss!" under my breath.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Isn't it amazing how we can see it more clearly down the road? If only we didn't send them out half-baked as Sandra Seamans said on her blog yesterday.

David Cranmer said...

Charles, It's a damn good collection. Do you know if there are more in the series? Matheson is my favorite TZ writer.

Clare, Can you believe I totally forgot that Caddy Shack reference and had to google it?! I'm ashamed of myself... that was one of my favorite movies.

Patti, I'm trying to sit on my stories and give them some time so I can look at them with fresh perspective. I did read Sandra's post, and I agree. She has a great blog, one of the go-to sites for great insight and writing.

Travis Erwin said...

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

Barbara Martin said...

Great two lines, and I remember that episode: "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".

I love coming here for dips into nostalgia.

David Cranmer said...

Travis, that's what momma use to say!

Barbara, I'm glad you are enjoying these. We are similar because I zip over to the Barbara Martin blog for the historical posts.

Clare2e said...

David- If you haven't seen Caddyshack in a while (and I'm a BIG Fan, too), you may be surprised how well it holds up and how delightful it can be to revisit dear olde Bushwood.

But on topic, all my stories need cooling time.

David Cranmer said...

Clare, I'll have to catch CS again one of these days. As far as cooling time for my stories, I'm trying to be more patient but I'm an Aries so that can be difficult :)