Short Story Beginning Example

You have all been developing your short stories from the activities on character development and setting.  Here is an example of something that a student of mine put together.  This is for a work that is a bit larger than a short story, but functions as a pretty good beginning to establish characterization and setting.

Let's see if you can't figure out what kind of character Owen is and what the particular setting is.   Hey, if you find any editing mistakes, lrt me know.  Have fun.

 

ELECTRIC MOON

Searching

He could feel that his clothes were soaked through.  It wasn’t just wet.  His socks were drenched.  But Owen was at the point where the wet was becoming less irritating.  It wasn’t cold enough to do any harm.  He could still move his fingers and toes and he was close to the deer he had been following. 

His dark hair was thick and longish now.  For years now, he cut his own hair when it was burden.  He couldn’t remember the last time he had actually sat down and let someone else do it.  That event always seemed like an awkward fifteen minutes of trust.  A complete stranger- stranger-to-stranger, searching for meaningless small talk.  This moment was a substantial part of society in a smaller more concentrated form.  He had made this comparison for at least four years before he finally decided to leave Atlanta. 

It would be dark soon, half an hour. 

Luckily, there hadn’t been any long stretches of open space for it to make progress in evading him.  And he had been so silent.  His stealth was embarrassing; like a secret he had never shared.  Owen could move through the forest more silently than most animals half his size.

Something moved in the brush up the incline from Owen.  It was too close to be his prey; perhaps it was a bear or a bobcat. 

Owen knew that he had to be careful in woods such as these.  This was a territory where loggers were missing frequently.  Perhaps, they were just transients who picked up and left.  Tourists fantasized that bears were the culprits.  A body could disappear a long time in some of the caves around the mountains. 

A bear would have made more noise.  It was too loud to be a bobcat. 

Maybe another hunter?

He made an ascent to the right.  He decided to flank the straight way up. He would find a way up to the cliff above, for a view of whatever it was.  If he could move fast and quietly enough, he would assume the advantage.  This was not a place where ownership and wealth dictated the winners; mostly it was the opposite.  The smaller animals had to be fierce.  But this was not the pit of a ghetto.  If you were hungry, you would go out and get what you needed.  Everything was simplified into survival’s basic form. 

But where had the deer gone?  It was this unassuming creature he was counting on.  There were only so many shrubs and potatoes he could eat.  He was starting to feel lighter.  He thought about the Native American shamans who starved themselves for enlightenment. 

From the cliff, he might be able to see both, his prey and the other.

As he moved up, he could hear whatever it was- definitely not a bear- move up and to the right.  This was going to make it much more difficult.  He would have to make a larger arc around to the cliff, and faster.

He moved, glided from flat rock to flat rock. 

Within a few short minutes, crouching, he perched on the corner of the cliff with sincere interest. 

He wasn’t an excessively large man but dense and compact. Owen had wide shoulders and corded, defined muscle.  He had been an athlete.  Throughout law school, Owen worked as a carpenter.  His build was meant for and created by an evasive aspect of strength, controlled movement.  At just under 200 lbs, he was an agile 6’. 1”.  Even the barroom brawlers didn’t usually choose a physical confrontation with him because of the perceptibly even balance of physicality and demeanor.  His expressions were considerate without being overly sensitive, analytical without awkwardness.  His eyes were gray and alert.

Despite his status as a rapidly advancing trial lawyer, Owen had given up the days of suits and clean-shaven sophistry for the life of a recluse.  He was almost thirty, living off of savings, killing and curing deer for survival.  Living in this manner was more of an act of principle than actual necessity.  It seemed to Owen that most people lived in irresponsibility, rooting from a lack of awareness.  Most of his friends thought he had gone mad and feared for their own sanity.  He had an inward satisfaction; he knew that he had surpassed debt, secured his comfortable liberty and escaped social slavery.  The money he had made at Law was enough to last him a modest lifetime in consideration of the compounding interest.  He made money while he existed in this state of self-sufficiency.  Maybe someday he would return; but not today. 

The deer that he had been tracking stepped out of the foliage, across the grassy landing.  Unwittingly, he had been forced closer to his prey by finding this vantage point.  He was somewhat concealed from the deer and above the path of his second query.  He could hear it getting closer.  Definitely not a bear.  Man size- no shoes; it wasn’t kicking rocks around like your typical hiker either. 

His first priority was food.  He remained very still, even as he slid an arrow from his quiver and brought the compound bow off of his shoulder.  The arrows head was wide (two flat surfaces intersecting each other) with four razor edges.  This arrow could accomplish the predatory necessity he had been pursuing for half a day.  It came down to this, not going through banal motions each and every day.  Weighty consequences were decided in unforgiving instants. 

The deer took two steps into the clearing.  It bent down for grass.  That was the complicated part.  To get a clean shot at the heart, their head had to be up which meant that it could be aware, looking in his direction.  Luckily, he wasn’t off to the side. 

On the path below, he could hear it getting closer.  Now, it was a matter of seconds before the deer would be aware, not of Owen but the traveler on the lower trail.  He started to feel sweat, mixed in with the rainwater.  The shot would have to be timed perfectly; as soon as the deer’s head was up, paying attention to the sound on the lower trail, he would have to release the arrow. 

No, he had to let it go before that. Owen would anticipate the animal’s reaction.

For the first time, he got a full view of the deer.  As he had guessed, from the hoof prints, a bit over 200 pounds.  The muscles in its shoulders and back gleamed electric gray.  Its eyes, he imagined, were a yellowish brown.  Owen knew which leg the deer would lead off on and which back leg it would push itself to the side with.  The shot had to be timed perfectly. 

Owen pulled the bowstring back slowly, an inch each second.  Finally, the feathers of the arrow were almost touching his ear. Stability.  He had to keep every muscle still.  The stillness would make him invisible, but not for long.  He was fully aware that he was a kind of gray reverie, an assassin, a shadow barely breathing.

It got closer on the trail below.  Owen inhaled.  He was a sensory machine, taking in each small piece of sound and smell.

Dusk lingered as the clearing darkened. The moon was up and full in the sky.

An eerie feline hiss issued from the lower trail.  Owen exhaled and let the arrow fly.  Now, he had done everything he possibly could for the shot.  He would not have another.  After the shaft left his fingers, he turned to peer down the cliff face.

What Owen saw was something he would have a difficult time explaining to someone else.  And it was directly underneath him, scaling the rock face by grasping small trees, growing from the crevices and spaces.  It was apelike but with hands that were a cross between a hand and a paw.  The nails were thick claws.  As it peered up, it snarled with a doglike maw.  Its eyes were oddly human-bluish green.  Its nostrils flared as it hissed and got ten feet closer; no time to wonder.  Owen had to act.  He could feel the adrenalin begin to course through his arms and chest.  He would have two to three shots before it reached him, depending on how accurate the first two were.

            Automatic, analytically, he placed the arrow into its left shoulder.  An unnerving half hiss half snarl spat from its snout.  Owen felt like running.  He knew, however, that this thing would make it to the top and he would have to kill it.  It was fast; it would catch him. 

He shot again; this time, at its head.  The arrow pierced through its snout into the lower jaw.  It was still coming.  This shot was only to target its left eye. 

After he released the shaft, he pulled the hatchet from his pack and dropped the bow.  He had to keep it from getting onto the landing. 

A clawed hand clutched the top of the cliff.  Owen brought the hatchet down, almost cutting the paw-ish hand in half.  He didn’t dare to peer over.

Silence.

He waited.  Breathing deeply.

Then, he could hear it growling in what sounded like human anger, like the tone of a curse.  The adrenalin was all throughout his body.

Now, both paws pulled and then pushed the thing’s torso and large head above the surface of the cliff face. 

They were face to face.  Its doggish lips snarled and twitched, showing its large canine teeth.  An arrow protruded from its left eye.  Another arrow stuck out of the left side of its snout.

Owen brought the hatchet down onto the side of its head, hard with most of his body weight; he felt nervously strong as it sunk into its skull.  The hatchet was buried only a couple of inches from where it connected with the handle.  The creature’s right hand went instinctively to the hatchet but clutched the arrow that happened to be in the way.  As the right side of its body began to fall, the only thing that was holding it on the cliff was its attachment to the hatchet, as Owen tried to pull the weapon back out of its skull.  Now, both paw hands were at its eye and left side of its head.

Owen let go of the hatchet.  He thought about trying to pull it out for another strike, but more than anything wanted this thing away from him.  It tumbled down the cliff face and back to the ground, still clutching its head, as it ran off into the woods.

He sat with his back against the tree.  Breathing.  Confused.  After he had stopped shaking and began breathing more evenly, he remembered the deer. He also noticed that it would be dark very soon. 

Picking up his bow, he looked across the clearing to see that his shot had indeed done what was intended.  A bit more than twelve feet into the foliage, the rather large deer lie dead with one razor backed arrow buried in its heart.

The light was almost completely gone.