Writing Fiction novels - a progression 3

I have a few more stories to share with you. Unfortunately, they're all in an unfinished state - but I really would like to finish them.

Because the experiment with Ash's story went so well, I'd like to continue it. I know I'm sort of doing that with Daughters of Le Fey, but I don't want to inflict my teachings on you too much (I don't want to sound like I know everything there is to know about editing. The truth is, I don't).

BUT, if I share a snippet of these stories with you, I can get a little feedback on what you guys like best out of them all.

Pictures from Google Free to Use and Pixabay Images

Here's the third. Finlay Moran came to me because I was trying to decipher JK Rowling's success. I have a great deal of respect for someone that can write an epic story with such love and attention to detail. The fore-shadowing is astonishing and when you read the books again, those moments leap out at you because you already know that part of the fore-shadowing.

Trying to write such a book takes a LOT of plotting and planning. You can't just pull it out of your head, fully-formed, it has to be planned.

Saying that, Finlay's story came to me and it almost started to write itself.

Magic and folklore are intertwined with this neglected lad. I'm determined to finish all my stories, but this one has a special place because I genuinely think there's widespread appeal.

---

Finley Moran - Maelstrom Born

Finley Moran was born at three minutes to midnight on the stormiest night in living memory in England.

The storm came from nowhere. The weather front began developing around mid-morning. Storm clouds gathered over the Midlands and roiled outwards.

Up to the Northern borders, down to the South and across to both coasts until the whole of England was covered by a mass of thick, black thunderclouds.

By the lunchtime news and weather, the storm had gained coverage across the country. By the evening, almost every channel across the globe mentioned it at least once. Experts could make their theories but most admitted they had as much idea about the cause as the weather reporters at lunchtime.

From above the cloud cover it looked fearsome and terrifying. Planes were diverted to Scotland and France amid fears for safety as they passed through the cloud. If a massive cauldron, the size of the British Isles could be brought to the boil, it surely would be just as daunting to have to fly into, so the pilots that were diverted breathed a sigh of relief as they changed course.

Beneath the cloud, an oppressive, humid day continued. Light quality dropped as the clouds filtered the sunlight. Streetlights, house and car lights came on and tempers frayed.

Something was coming.

Halla and Duncan Moran had other things on their minds than the adverse weather conditions.

“Are you ok? Can I get you anything?” he asked – for the twelfth time. Before she had chance to answer, he continued. “A drink? A nice cup of tea?”

“I don’t drink tea. Never have,” she said. A smile was cut short, wiped from her lips, replaced by a contorted grimace. She clutched herself low on her stomach, her very pregnant, distended stomach.

“Are you ok?” he repeated. “Shall I call the ambulance?” His voice was a little higher than usual. He was on the verge of panic.

She straightened up and pushed the pain from her mind for the moment. It took a massive effort but she couldn’t have him in a panicked state, it wouldn’t help either of them.

“I’m ok. Why don’t you make yourself a cup of tea?" she said, touching his arm. "Give you something to do. Take your mind off things.”

He nodded and went off to the kitchen in a daze.

At the first clap of thunder, she called out as a different pain ripped through her body.

He came running, dread carved on every frown line.

She looked at his face and tried to smile for him. “I’m ok. This is how it works. I’m not the first to give birth. I won’t be the last.”

“Let me call the ambulance,” he said.

“No! No ambulance. The midwife is coming. We talked about this.” Her sentences were short and sharp, no unnecessary words; to the point.

“I didn’t think you were serious! You can’t have the baby at home!”

“Well I’m not having him in a hospital, that’s for certain,” she snapped.

A knock on the door cut the discussion off. Duncan looked from his wife to the door and back, then went to answer it.

He opened the door, saw a woman standing there and walked away, expecting her to follow him.

“Where is she?” Halla asked when he got back to her.

He looked around, wondering what had happened. “Oh! Come in!” he shouted loud enough to be heard at the front door.

The door slammed and the woman bustled in. She was older than she had appeared when he opened the door. It must be a trick of the storm-light; it cast odd-coloured shadows. He thought it looked as though they were all caught in a sepia photograph. The colours and clarity leeched from everything; black became dark brown, while white turned to a curdled, singed-cotton shade.

“It’s nice to be asked in, you know,” the midwife said in a stern tone. She glared at him for a moment, studying him. She shrugged her shoulders, shook her head, huffed once and started to unpack her bag.

Duncan thought she wouldn’t have been out of place as a matron in a Victorian hospital.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Tea?”

She glared at him but went back to unpacking her large black bag.

“Can I do anything to help?” he said.

The midwife looked at him, then at Halla. Halla looked at her and they laughed.

“No Dunc, there’s nothing to do for the time being but wait. Oh!” Another agonizing contraction wracked her body, coinciding with another clap of thunder.

“No lightning yet, I see,” the midwife muttered under her breath.

Halla heard but didn’t speak. She shook her head and gritted her teeth as the pain coursed through her.

At the first bolt of lightning, another knock came at the door.

Duncan answered it. He stood looking at a woman taller than he was, even though she was a step down. She was thin as a rail with white-blonde hair whirling in the storm winds. She said nothing. He said nothing. Halla yelled again as another contraction took hold and thunder pealed around the house, rattling the windows in their frames.

“Duncan! Ask her in, she’s the doctor, for goodness sake!”

“Oh sorry, please come in,” he said, stepping back. He looked up at her as she passed him, ‘She must be almost seven foot tall,’ he thought.

“There will be more arriving shortly,” the doctor said.

“Oh? And who will they be?”

She stopped and turned back to look him up and down. “Back-up,” she said.

“Back-up?” he said. “Oh, ok, back-up.”

The evening dragged on, the power went out. Duncan went through the house in search of candles. More women arrived. He invited them all in. Each visitor was taller than he was and he felt short for the first time in his adult life.

The visitors crowded the living room and seemed to be doing nothing to help with the birth. Duncan, frantic with worry, found little tasks to keep himself busy and his mind occupied.

He found all the doors unlocked and was about to lock them again when one of the visitors placed her hand on his and said, “Don’t.”

He looked at her and she smiled. The smile did nothing to make Duncan feel better, but he forgot about locking the doors.

Halla had enough on her plate to worry about. The midwife and the doctor were with her constantly, whispering encouragements and assurances.

Duncan caught one snatch of their encouragement and it worried him more than anything else.

“It has to be today, it cannot go beyond midnight,” the doctor said.

Duncan looked at the clock on the mantle, five minutes to go. He usually ignored superstition, but his blood ran cold and he didn’t know why he was more worried by that statement than by his wife’s waning strength.

“Come on Halla, you can do it,” he whispered.

She couldn’t possibly have heard him from where she was but she looked over at him and grinned. It was the grim and steely grin of someone going forward into the unknown, possibly to her death; knowing whatever it was she had to do was essential, vital and far more important even than her own life.

She nodded, gritted her teeth, clasped the hands of the midwife and the doctor and gave a massive effort into pushing her baby into the world.

The baby boy was born to the cacophony of the storm’s peak. Lightning struck a tree in the lane just outside the house and thunder followed immediately. Duncan remembered being told that the sooner the thunder came after the lightning, the closer the storm was. By that rule, the storm was directly overhead.

If he had gone to look up at the sky outside, he would have seen the great whirling maelstrom above the house. Never before had such a storm been recorded in England. The devastation reported the next day was cataclysmic. The damage ran into millions of pounds’ worth but there was no loss of life reported.

“What is this boy-child’s name?” the doctor asked.

“Finley,” Duncan said.

Everyone turned to glare at him. He didn’t notice. He grinned like a love-struck fool.

“Oh Duncan, what have you done?” Halla whispered.

The doctor scowled at Duncan, then checked the baby over and handed him to the midwife. The midwife swathed the boy in an old shirt.

“What’s that? You can’t put my son in that tatty old thing,” he said.

“Duncan, stop, please,” Halla said. “This is my choice. I wanted a traditional home birth and there are certain superstitions surrounding the birth. I want them carried out. They must be carried out.”

Two of the visitors brought in food and drink and they all raised a toast to the baby. Duncan accepted a drink and a piece of cake and took a reluctant mouthful of each. He thought it all unusual, but went along with it because he saw the light shine in Halla’s eyes and thought there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. He thought there was nothing he wouldn’t do for his son, either.

A little more than ten years later, such a lot had changed.