#WordWeavers 2026.02.03 —Share a vivid sensory description from your story. What was writing it like?
Bolt's university student boyfriend, Molt, with whom she's had lots of fun and for whom she's just bought a gift, shows up pummeled. She will soon learn it's her mob coworker who did it. Molt is so frightened, he's packing to leave Home City. She's a day angel.
"Who did this to you?" I asked, trying to be the adult, a role I was certain to mess up, even acting out mother's how-to-be-motherly script. I brought up my wings, tapping joints on the wood ceiling, blocking the glaring light of the sprite lantern hung in the center of the room, creating an ever smaller shaded space we alone occupied; it didn't matter he was bigger than me. I hoped he felt protected, as protected as I'd felt growing up when mother did it for me. My splayed feathers filtered the dimness to blue, making his darkening bruises stand out. Lines of scabs on his scraped knees resembled distant barbed wire. Sweat. I remembered it was salty. My nose twitched. I'd liked his male scent—might have recognized him by it, but this? Acidic. Acrid. Fear mixed with someelse's stink. I hated the change. I hated who caused it.
The who did this answered itself.
A shaking palm flattened against my sternum, stopping me. I felt the distressed thump of my heart. He would, too. For a time, neither of us relented, breathing hard. He calmed though, snuffled mucus, and inhaled deeply.
—from a chapter titled Molting from Reluctant Courier (for the Mob)
Is it vivid?
The vividness of the language in this passage results from iterative revision. It's me asking myself if a statement is something I could feel, hear, smell, see, or taste. It's choosing active verbs instead of "was." It's replacing the non-concrete with the concrete, and then switching out cool measured words with words to insight fire and emotion.
The vividness of feeling comes from the context and what it demanded. Male and female gender roles are reversed here, and she is a day angel with wings. What comes before is her reviewing in her head the trauma of dealing with her own phobia of flying (mostly healed, not forgotten), and the family issues surrounding her not fledging until she was 10 instead of 3. It's her mob affiliation that's hurt him; she wants to protect him but knows it's impossible. I had to write in all their vulnerabilities and neither emasculate him nor prevent her jock instincts from robbing her of a nurturing side. Her feelings must come off as earnest.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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