Writing Exercise #14

I technically wrote this last week, but, as is typical for the exercises, it has remained untouched since then (even though there are a couple spots with awkward wording and it's kind of killing me not to fix them). The reader response to this little piece was quite overwhelming, considering I wrote it in about thirty minutes and it has the aforementioned spots of awkward wording, heh.

Prompt: Vertical Horizon's "Consolation"
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Character(s): Emma Swan, Captain Hook

Set after Season 3, Episode 6: "Ariel"

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Let's just sit a while and watch the cars go by,Maybe save the talking for another time.I just want make it to a better day.I wonder where they go to make it all okay.

 

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Alone time, Emma needed some alone time. She needed to sit for five freakin' minutes and just breathe. Just breathe and settle and calm down and just … she didn't even know. Just five minutes, all she needed was five minutes on her own.

After they set up camp, she slipped off under the guise of finding fresh drinking water. She heard … someone calling her name, but she didn't look back. When she felt she was far enough away, she stopped walking and sat down at the base of a tree, her feet flat on the ground and her knees in the air. For the first time, she noticed that her breathing was ragged. Calm down, she needed to calm down. She needed to breathe.

Echo Cave, her ass. That damn thing was torture. One emotional gut-punch after another. So, to recap: a pirate was falling in love with her, because yeah, that was what she needed right now. Her father couldn't leave this godforsaken island, because right, why should her family be complete? She wished the father of her son was dead, because sure, why should Henry have a complete family, either? Her mother wanted another baby …

Her breathing grew even more ragged.

She knew what happened when parents had another baby. She'd had her world ripped out from under her once already when parents had another baby, and she hated that her mother's confession had turned her back into that scared and confused three-year-old who didn't understand why the only parents she'd ever known were giving her back.

It was an utterly childish response, she knew. One kid doesn't replace another. And she knew she wasn't easy to get to know. She was trying, though … trying so hard to let them in, but she didn't know how to make them understand that twenty-eight years of pain and hurt and anger doesn't go away overnight. She needed time, time to learn to trust and learn to love and learn to be a daughter. She wasn't progressing fast enough for them, she guessed, because if she was, maybe her mother wouldn't feel this way.

But damn it all to hell, she was trying. And it wasn't enough and why the hell couldn't she just be someone's one and only for once in her life? Why the hell couldn't ...

A sound in the jungle caught her attention, a rustle of leaves. She shot to her feet and unsheathed her sword in one swift motion to face none other than Captain Hook himself. "Oh, it's you," she said as she dropped the sword, her voice a low monotone.

"Don't sound so happy to see me, love," he replied, giving her a light smirk.

"Not in the mood, if you couldn't tell." Emma sat back down against the tree and swallowed a groan when he sat at the base of the trunk as well, not exactly next to her but still within her line of sight. "Really not in the mood."

He tensed for the briefest of moments before letting out a sigh so soft that she at first thought it was the wind. "If you want me to leave you on your own, by all means tell me, and I shall."

Though she desperately wanted to tell him to go away, she couldn't seem to make the words come. Instead, she didn't say anything, choosing to stare straight ahead while running everything over and over in her head. Her stomach knotted as she fought the tears that were threatening to spill over.

Throughout it all, Hook didn't say a word. She could feel his eyes on her, feel him watching her every ragged breath, but he didn't say anything, for which she was absurdly grateful.

Eventually she managed to calm herself down, physically. Emotionally was another story. Her mother's words reverberated in her head, mingling with memories of love and loss and a little girl holding a small suitcase that contained everything she owned in the world. A little girl being shuffled from group home to foster family to group home to foster family, never once mattering to anyone she met. A teenager stupidly believing her first love, believing his tales of love and home and happiness. A teenager giving up her child because she couldn't even take care of herself, never mind a baby. A grown woman finally finding her place in this world in a little town in Maine, fighting tooth and nail for what was hers.

A grown woman finding her parents. A grown woman now feeling like she was losing her parents, now feeling like that little girl with the suitcase all over again.

Pan had threatened to really make her an orphan. Was this the first step?

"She's right, you know," she said after far more than the five minutes she'd originally wanted. She'd almost expected Hook to have left but he hadn't. Surprisingly, he'd stayed beside her through the silence. "I can't give her what she wants. What she deserves. I'm not eight years old anymore and I don't need a mommy and a daddy. I get it. I just … wish I knew what it was about me that I'm never enough."

"Love–"

"No, really. I wasn't enough for any one of the families I lived with growing up. I wasn't enough for Neal. And now I'm not enough for my own mother. Just once, I'd like be enough for someone."

"You're enough for your lad," Hook pointed out gently. "And you're enough for me."

The words made her heart skip a beat. It wasn't a line; she could see the sincerity in his eyes.

"I'm not going to, as Neal so eloquently put it, 'fight for you,'" he assured her. "I'm simply telling you a truth. You, Emma Swan, are enough for someone." She swallowed hard and blinked back the tears that were pricking her eyes. Before she could say a word, he continued, "I wish she hadn't had to admit that in front of you."

"You and me both," she muttered.

He gave her a small smile. After a moment, he pulled his flask from his coat pocket and handed it over to her. "As you once pointed out, rum is indeed my solution to everything, so drink up, love."

She accepted the flask and took a nice long gulp. She'd never cared for rum previously, but Hook's brand of rum was smooth, sweet, and held hints of a spice that she couldn't quite place. It was also pretty much lethal in terms of proof, which was quite the added bonus tonight.

When she handed the flask back to him, he gave her a teasing pout. "That's all? I was hoping to get you drunk tonight."

"Don't push your luck, pirate," she shot back, hiding the small smile on her lips at his teasing.

After a moment, he said, "You do realize that they're going to be looking for us soon."
She shrugged. Let them come. "Let's just sit a while, all right?"

"As you wish," he replied, leaning his head back against the tree.

That time, she couldn't hide her smile. She wasn't okay, not by a long shot, but she was surprised to find that a little bit of consolation from a pirate was not entirely unwelcome.

Writing Exercise #13

I have really missed doing the exercises, so I'm going to try to get back into them again. I make no promises, however. This one came about mostly because a reviewer on my previous exercise at ff.net told me I should post more of them.

Prompt: Golden State's "All Roads Lead Home"
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Character(s): Emma Swan, Snow White, Prince Charming

Set after Season 2, Episode 22: "And Straight On 'Til Morning"

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Your blood, your fire

Your kiss goodnight,

Your words and touch,

They might be mine.

 

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She'd called them Mom and Dad.

In the bleakest of moments, Emma Swan had called her parents Mom and Dad. In that moment, she hadn't wanted David and Mary Margaret. She hadn't even wanted Prince Charming and Snow White. In that moment, like a scared little girl, she had wanted – aw, hell, if she was being honest with herself, needed – Mom and Dad.

She'd opened a door that could never be closed. She'd let them behind her wall completely, let them hold her and try to comfort her as best they could. And if she was going to die, standing there with her parents' arms wrapped around her was how she wanted to go.

But, of course, they hadn't died. They hadn't died because she and Regina had accomplished the impossible. Emma had tapped into something within her that she didn't even understand and focused, like Gold had taught her, on saving her family.

And she had. With Regina's help, she'd saved her family. She'd saved everyone. For a second goddamned time.

But all the damn power she had wasn't enough to save Henry from the clutches of two people who … hell, Emma didn't even know what their deal was. Honestly, she didn't give a damn. All she wanted was her kid back.

So now here they were, Emma and her parents, their archenemy, a devilish imp, and a pirate captain with a hook for a hand, all headed to Neverland to rescue the one kid who connected them all.

A rescue mission, however, was still a long way off. Hook said it could take days to get to the island. Days! They didn't have days. Henry might not have days. She kept telling herself that it was good that they'd taken him. Good because if they'd wanted him dead, they wouldn't have taken him first. No, they wanted him for something, and whatever that something was, they wanted him alive.

That was good. Much better than the alternative, at any rate.

Not that, in the end, any of that mattered. She wanted her kid back, and she wanted her kid back safely. She just wanted to hold Henry in her arms, the same way her parents had held her back in the mines.

None of that could happen until they got him back, though, and it was hard to feel like she was doing something to help him when all she could do at the moment was sit on the deck of the Jolly Roger and stare out into the night.

She was so lost in thought that she didn't hear the two sets of soft footsteps approaching her. She gasped when a gentle hand slid onto her shoulder. Startled, she looked up to find both her parents crouching beside her. She reached up to pat her mother's hand on her shoulder before returning her attention to the Neverland night.

Without a single word, her parents took seats next to her against the rail, her mother on the left and her father on the right. For a long moment, they just sat there on the deck, Emma watching the sky and her parents watching Emma.

And then David tentatively wrapped his arm around her shoulders and whispered, “We'll find him, Emma. This family always finds each other.”

With that, the dam broke. Tears welled in Emma's eyes, and when she felt her father tighten his grip, her careful resolve crumbled. Just like in the mines, her walls were gone, and all she wanted was Mom and Dad.

Snow and Charming reacted in an instant, Snow gripping her hand and squeezing and Charming holding her tighter. “Let it out, sweetheart,” Snow whispered.

The pet name was ultimately too much, and Emma finally let go, crying tears she'd needed to cry for twenty-nine years. Tears for Henry and Neal. Tears of longing and despair and injustice. Tears for the love lost and time stolen. Snow White was born to be a mother. Prince Charming was born to be a father. These people would have been fantastic parents, and they should have been hers.

Their blood ran through her veins. She had their spirit and their fight. As Gold had once said, she had her mother's chin and her father's tact. At the time, she'd been a little embarrassed, but now … now she was damn proud of it.

Stirring somewhere inside her was the Emma Swan who'd first come to Storybrooke, the Emma who wouldn't have been caught dead crying in anyone's arms, let alone David Nolan's and Mary Margaret Blanchard's. But after everything she'd been through, Emma needed her parents She needed their comfort, needed their help to not give up, to not surrender. She needed their optimism and she needed to hear them say that everything would work out all right in the end.

And that was exactly what Snow was whispering now, that they would find Henry. That everything would be okay.

Eventually the tears began to dry up but it wasn't until Emma shifted in her parents' arms that they let her go. No one said a word, but Snow gave her a little smile, drying Emma's wet cheeks with her thumb the way she had done in the nursery. David pressed another kiss to the side of her head, and once again, Emma closed her eyes against it for a brief moment, allowing her father's comfort to sink in.

“We will find him, Emma,” he said, trying not to sound surprised when Emma snuggled closer and rested her head on his shoulder. He once again wrapped his arm around her and gently ran his hand up and down her upper arm. “We'll find him, and then we'll take him home.”

A now thoroughly exhausted Emma could only nod. The night was still now except for the lapping of the waves against the hull of the Roger. After a few minutes, David shifted position, taking Emma with him so they were leaning more comfortably against the rail of the ship. Emma reached for her mother's hand, gripped it tightly in her own, and allowed her eyes to close as both her parents soothed her.

In that moment, she realized that after a very long, trying, and lonely road, she, too, had finally come home.

Writing Exercise #12

I'm back with a writing exercise! In the intervening months, I have been writing constantly, though nearly all of it is fanfic. As is this exercise, by the way, so let's get to it!

Prompt: Goo Goo Dolls' "Let Love In"
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Character(s): Snow White, Emma Swan

Set after Season 2, Episode 3: "Lady of the Lake"

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The only way to feel again is let love in.

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Snow White should have been able to tell that her daughter was nearing a breaking point, but she hadn't. She'd been so wrapped up in her own emotion, standing in the nursery where she should have spent years with her baby, that her grown-up baby's tension hadn't registered with her. She'd been so lost in the maybes and what ifs and what should have beens that she hadn't seen how hard Emma was fighting against her own barrage of maybes and what ifs and what should have beens.

They should have had so much. They should have had love and time and little-kid cuddles and teenage snits. They should have had everything, and Snow had missed it all. Emma's first words, first steps, first haircut, first Christmas, first everything. Her precious baby girl had grown up in the blink of an eye, and she'd grown up so utterly alone.

Emma was angry, and quite frankly, Snow couldn't blame her. Snow was angry, too. Angry with Regina for casting that horrible curse, angry with the world for what it took from her. But Emma's anger … that hurt the most because Emma's anger was directed at Snow.

Emma could have the subtlety of a Mack truck when she wanted. She hadn't come right out and said that she was angry, but she'd done everything but. She'd argued and disobeyed and outright defied instruction and tried, in every single possible way she could, to let Snow that she did not need her.

The only thing was that she did need her, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Snow knew Emma was a survivor, and she knew she'd get the hang of the Enchanted Forest way of life in her own time, but underneath all her bluster, Emma Swan was a hurt little girl who was lashing out at the only person she could. A hurt little girl who wanted to be comforted but didn't want to want to be comforted and didn't know how to ask for it even if she did.

All she had to do was wait for Emma to get it all out of her system. Once the righteous anger was gone, Emma would be able to feel what she wanted – and desperately needed – to feel. But not until then.

One thing having to survive on her own had taught her was patience, so Snow had decided to settle in for the wait.

And yet, the moment Emma let her wall down still took her by surprise. Emma admitted being angry and not understanding and then … then her baby girl admitted she wasn't used to someone putting her first, and Snow could not stop herself from stepping over and wrapping her in a hug.

And when Emma squeezed back, for the first time in years, everything felt right.

Emma had taken the first step. She'd let Snow in. And Snow was determined not to let her baby girl down again.

Now she sat against the trunk of a tree at the edge of their campsite on watch. Emma was supposed to be on watch, too, but she'd nodded off a little while ago and Snow hadn't had the heart to wake her. And when Emma had snuggled into her side, unconsciously seeking warmth and comfort … well, Snow's heart had pretty much exploded with joy.

“Mary Margaret?” a groggy voice asked, drawing her from her reverie.

She looked down to find Emma blearily blinking up at her in the firelight. “Shh,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

“M'supposed to be on watch with you,” Emma murmured but her eyes were already sliding closed again.

“I've got it. Just go back to sleep.”

She started to shake her head in protest but eventually slumped further against her mother as sleep overtook her.

Snow smiled and, after taking a breath, chanced pressing a kiss on the top of her baby girl's head. “I love you, sweetheart.”

She would never be certain whether she really heard it or whether it was a trick of the wind against her ears, but she could have sworn she heard Emma whisper, “Love you, too.”

The Importance of Feedback

Something I have learned from my pretty much constant seven-month jump into the world of fanfic is that I cannot write in a vacuum. I'm my own worst critic, after all, and what I think is absolutely terrible may not be half bad, and what I think is nothing special may very well in fact be something special. (Seriously. "Can You Help Me" is at, of this writing, 86 favorites. I am completely confounded as to why.)

So I am once again offering something up for constructive criticism. Below is my rewritten prologue for The Witch of November. I wrote it in about forty-five minutes, so it's not polished and pretty but it's not worth taking the time to polish it up if it's not accomplishing what I need it to do. Does it grab you? Does the dialogue sound like you imagine two young women from the late 1870s would sound? Does it make you want to know what these two women have to do with the Witch in the title? Basically, does it do what a prologue should do?

Please help me out here. I want to get working on this sucker again, but it's so hard to do that when you think what you have is terrible and not working.