Devilfish: an exercise in prose & description in a series of flash fiction

Hi! It’s me again; just over here practicing my prose as part of the editing process for my modern pirate adventure novel, Devilfish.

For my last exercise in prose, I chose to work with themes and motifs: tempest, devils, monsters, etc…

This time, I am going to write descriptive paragraphs based on a series of prompts in an effort to make various settings within the book more immersive and enamoring. These are raw and unedited. And maybe a little pretentious or flowery. But, honestly, I could do with some flowery. Storytelling used to be beautiful, full of art and expression and poetry. Now, so much of it has been tremendously commercialized.

I don’t want Devilfish to be “just another adventure novel.” I want it to be beautiful, captivating, enrapturing, and thoughtful. So, the goal is to free-write these paragraphs/scenes and then find a home for them in the third draft of my novel when I return to edits post-beta phase. (Some of them may be saved for the sequel.)

Prompt One: the Atlantic coast at midnight

Silvery moonlight streamed in rivers from the indigo ether, pooling upon the arched backs of cresting waves and vanishing into the white foam at their breaking. Crowned by the windswept trunks of defiant pines, rugged cliff faces gaped out at the sea in mournful indignation. There was a breeze also; a bitter bluster dragging its nimble fingers across the shimmering facet of the sea, collecting salt and dispersing it across the starlit sky. In the trees that skirted the city there was a sort of playfulness, a jousting of the boughs and a parrying of the branches while in their hollows the night’s creatures began to stir: the hoot of an owl, the bark of a fox. While all the world slept, another began to stir and would again withdraw beneath the veil of midnight at the dawning of the day.

Prompt Two: the sunrise over a New England city

Dawn arced across the cobalt sky; sailing arrows of amber and scarlet flung from the stars and sent to vanquish the empire of night. A fire sparked first upon the horizon and spread, then, like a blazing inferno to the waiting shoreline. The face of the city was set against the sun; every shadow dispersed and every dark dream dispelled as all creation roused and stirred. Songbirds resumed their daily watch and began their clarion call—“Revolution!” they cried, each new morning at the winter’s brink ripe with the anticipation and hope of a sudden turn toward spring.

Prompt Three: a dark and stormy night at Adler Mansion

Thunder rolled like cannon fire across the dark drapery of troubled sky; the whole of the estate shuddered. Crackling through the air and scattering like tongues of fire through dried brush, bolts of white light flared to life and then were extinguished just as suddenly. There, beneath the looming fray and the starless sky where the winds waged war one with another, an underworld of melancholy and gloom. Of the trees that dotted the estate’s sprawling domain, most all were assailed by angry gusts that littered their dismembered boughs across the hills like dust. Shadows grew in the night, coming to life all around—hellions clawing their way from the abyss as though the squall had ripped a hole through the veil of eternity itself. Yet against the sturdy walls of the estate, which had endured for more than a century, the wind did break; neither were the shadows, banished by the warm glow of light from nearby sconces, given quarter.

Prompt Four: the morning after a fresh snow

To see the world laden in white was to see it in magic and wonder adorned, winter’s parting gift a bride dressed in glittering gown and the leafless trees her wedding party. Set upon her lonely march, she came to the altar where awaited her groom with the first kiss of springtime. Avowed, the morning sun held vigil over her wintry domain; the cerulean sky reflected her beauty. And when she melted it would be a kind of death of the divine, for in even her departure there would be life abundant in the flowing of streams and the rising of river above the banks. She would be remembered by every grassy knoll that sprung from beneath her ebbing train. She would be revealed in every bud and bloom and creature that from the dormant slumber of her careful shelter stirred. She would be celebrated by the scores of children who rose early in the morning to play among her drifts and dunes. It was the morning after a fresh snow when all the earth held its breath and beheld beauty as if for the first time.