Weekend Writing Warriors- Snippet 8: Janna
It’s time for Weekend Writing Warriors! Every Sunday, a bunch of writers post 8-sentence snippets from their WIPs on their blogs. There’s a lot of reading, commenting and great writing. Click on the link to see the full list.
A few days ago, I realized that I needed to do some pretty major plot reorganizing. I had overlooked something important, but now that I’ve figured it out, my draggy second act should improve considerably. What this means to y’all, is that I don’t have any chapters numbered right now. So, I’m just going to continue in roughly chronological order and number the snippets accordingly.
When we left Janna several weeks ago, her husband had urged her to get out of the city before the Empress’s conquering army got there. Janna loaded up a little cart and her two step-children and joined the flood of refugees leaving Kaleva. So far, things are all right. The weather is good, she has money and food, and her fellow refugees are decent people. But now she’s run into a more disreputable-looking bunch- a wagon full of unemployed soldiers and their women. One of them-Bessi- is explaining what the women do, and Janna’s 9-year-old stepson Anton is very interested.
“Once the fighting’s done, we go out onto the battle field to see what we can find. “ She scratched herself in a place no decent woman ever would.
“What do you find?” Anton asked, wide-eyed.
“This and that,” she waved her hands around. “Bits and bobs. Once a man’s dead, he don’t need his things no more, so that means the rest of us can make use of them.”
“You steal from the dead?” Janna interrupted, horrified.
“S’not stealing when they’re dead, sweetie,” Bessi cackled.
Previous snippets can be found here.
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She makes an excellent point.. ;D Great dialogue!
Thank you!
A morbid reality of their situation. Poor Janna’s on a rough road.
Sounds like worlds are colliding. Great dialogue.
Thank you!
Great job of combining humor with a grim situation. Bessi is an awesome character.
Thanks- I love Bessi! She’s just passing through, but a little bit of her goes a long way! 😉
Absolutely LOVE your dialogue! This line in particular cracked me up: She scratched herself in a place no decent woman ever would. 😀 I can just imagine where she was scratchin’. lol. Great work, Christina!
Thanks! I had such fun writing it. And Janna is pretty uptight, so it’s fun to shock her just a little bit.
Unless there’s no inheritance rights, it’s still stealing from the dead–or the dead’s widows, children, etc. And pretty gross, though any woman that casual about her hygiene probably doesn’t mind.
Yes, I think Bessi has no problem playing fast and loose with morality. Let’s not think too hard about where her hands have been, both professionally and personally. 🙂
Oh, it is far too late for that. *shudders*
Hah. My work here is done.
Great snippet Christina, Just love your writing 🙂 I had to laugh at the scratching LOL it was great characterization!
Thanks so much! It was fun to write.
So morbid, but also true. Most revealing snippet.
goodness, you give such wonderful depth to the scene 🙂 that’s wonderful you figured out and fixed your draggy second act problem 🙂
Thank you! I’m very relieved. 🙂
Welll….Bessie calls it like it is…lol
Great dialogue! Makes a vivid mental picture of them.
Thank you!