I read a story and I would like to share my thoughts with you.
I read a short story, published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, called The Weaver and the Snake By Blaine Vitallo. You can find it here in audio format and ebook format. Before I dive into the story, I want to say that for fantasy writers, Beneath Ceaseless Skies is among the best. They pay a professional rate of 6 cents per word and are looking for submissions under 15,000 words.
Synopsis. Do not read the synopsis until you have read the story.
Let’s get started, shall we? Our main character is Reilitas, who we learn right away is one hundred and three years old. She’s a weaver, but weaver is an overbroad term applied to her profession. I’d say she’s an artist who works with the dead beasts. She creates things from their bodies, their skins, their bones, their teeth. She is the best weaver in the kingdom.
SPOILER ALERT. READ THE STORY BEFORE CONTINUING.
Reilitas lives in Adamondor - and has lived there performing weaver tasks for some time. But just as we are meeting Reilitas, a great chasm opens and spits forth a great snake. Or so we learn through rumor and hearsay. And the snake causes the destruction of many cities by consuming them whole (not the inhabitants mind you - the snake only wishes to consume the buildings) and fear in Adamondor grows.
Adamondor begins to fill with displaced inhabitants of other cities, who of course need fed, but food grows scarce. Soon the citizens of Adamondor barricade themselves in their homes, for they are being killed by the hungry masses. Reilitas has done the same - she no longer leaves. One morning, after a brutal night - we learn that the snake has died. It tried to consume its own tail and choked to death. But this is no comfort to Reilitas for the snake took everything from her - all her art has been destroyed in the fighting within Adamondor. She has seen it.
And so she makes one final piece of art, for herself, please comment below what it is.
Review
The prose is wonderful. Description, which I usually find tedious, is pleasant in this piece. And for me - the description slowly added weight to a scale that eventually tipped and when it tipped - the truth of the story was revealed to me. Or at least the truth as I see it at this time in my life.
Fear born from rumor and hearsay has the power to destroy the very things we hope to protect. The city of Adamondor was never attacked by the snake, but its citizens were consumed by the inevitability of its destruction long before they wiped it out themselves.
I don’t know if Blaine Vitallo meant that to be the message in this story, but for me it clicked. I think at least part of the reason for consuming a short story is the ‘click’ we feel when we read something that hits home.
Of course, another reason why I read is to inform my writing. And what I take away from The Weaver and the Snake is that I want to learn how to combine my description with action. If you read the story, you will know what I mean when I say that. This story contains a lot of description - wonderful and rich - but it also contains action. I will give a small example, "Even the slaves whisper of the snake, their supposed Great Deliverer, from within their bamboo cages as they are carried on wooden carts across the desert, under the light of the moon." There is action here, but it also wonderfully detailed. It just works for me as a reader, and I want to steal this concept and add it to my writing (in my own way of course) to improve it.
War Room / Write Club
Thanks to @jordan.lesich and everyone who voted to bring me back to take part in War Room / Write Club, even though I only made it half way through Write Club. I am so glad to be a part of this group. I will do everything I can to improve my writing, and there's nothing that works as well as a steady diet of reading, writing and editing. Thanks.