WRITING STYLES
From Helen Hollick
Historical Adventure Fiction
Cosy Mystery
Personal Blog
THREE VERY DIFFERENT WRITING STYLES – SPOT THE DIFFERENCE AND HIGHLIGHT PHRASES OR WORDS THAT TELL YOU WHAT KIND OF GENRE YOU’RE READING.
1. JESAMIAH. From BRING IT CLOSE (The third Sea Witch Voyage)
Chapter One
1st October 1718—Nassau, the Bahamas
Jesamiah Acorne, four and twenty years old, captain of the Sea Witch, sat with his hands cradled around an almost empty tankard of rum, staring blankly at the drips of candle-wax that had hardened into intricate patterns down the sides of a green glass bottle. The candle itself was smoking and leaning to one side as if drunk. As drunk as Jesamiah.
For maybe ten heartbeats he did not notice the two grim-faced, shabby ruffians sit down on the bench opposite him. One of them reached forward and snuffed out the guttering flame, pushed the bottle aside. Jesamiah looked up, stared at them as vacantly as he had been staring at the congealed rivers of wax.
One of the men, the one wearing a battered three-corner felt hat and a gold hoop earring that dangled from his left earlobe, leant his arms on the table, linking his tar and gunpowder-grimed fingers together. The other, a red-haired man with a beard like a weather-worn, abandoned bird’s nest, eased a dagger from the sheath on his belt and began cleaning his split and broken nails with its tip.
“We’ve been lookin’ fer you, Acorne,” the man with the earring said.
“Found me then, ain’t yer,” Jesamiah drawled. He dropped his usual educated accent and spoke in the clipped speech of a common foremast jack. The ability inherited from his mother, he was a good mimic and had a natural talent to pick up languages and tonal cadences. Also knew when to play the simpleton or a gentleman.
He drained his tankard, held it high and whistled for Never-Say-No Nan, a wench built like a Spanish galleon and whose charms kept her as busy as a barber’s chair.
She ambled over to Jesamiah, the top half of her partially exposed and extremely ample bosoms wobbling close to his face as she poured more rum.
“What about your friends?” she asked, nodding in their direction.
“Ain’t no friends of mine,” Jesamiah answered, lifting his tankard to sample the replenished liquor.
The man with the earring jerked his head, indicating Nan was to be gone. She sniffed haughtily and swept away, her deep-rumbled laughter drifting behind as another man gained her attention by pinching her broad backside.
“Or to be more accurate, Acorne, Teach ’as been lookin’ fer yer.”
Shrugging, Jesamiah made a fair pretence at nonchalance; “I ain’t exactly been ’idin’, Gibbens. I’ve been openly anchored ’ere in Nassau ’arbour for several weeks.” Since August in fact, apart from a brief excursion to Hispaniola—which Jesamiah was attempting to set behind him and forget about. Hence the rum.
“Aye, we ’eard as ’ow thee’ve signed for amnesty and put yer piece into Guvn’r Rogers’ ’and,” Gibbens sneered, making an accompanying crude and explicit gesture near his crotch.
“Given up piracy?” Red Beard—Rufus—scoffed as he hoiked tobacco spittle into his mouth and gobbed it to the floor, “Gone soft, ’ave thee? Barrel run dry, ’as it? Lost yer balls, eh?” Added with malice, “Edward Teach weren’t interested in fairy-tale government amnesties, nor ’ollow pardons.” He drove his dagger into the wooden table where it quivered as menacing as the man who owned it.
That’s not what I’ve heard, Jesamiah thought but said nothing. He had no intention of going anywhere near Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, though Black Heart would be as appropriate. Even the scum and miscreants who roamed the seas of the Caribbean in search of easy loot and plunder avoided the brute of a pirate who was Blackbeard.
Aside, Jesamiah was no longer a pirate. As Gibbens had said, he had signed his name in Governor Rogers’ leather-bound book and accepted His Majesty King George’s royal pardon. Which was why he had nothing better to do than sit here in this tavern drinking rum. Piracy, plundering, pillaging, none of that was for him, not now. Now, Captain Jesamiah Acorne had a woman he was about to marry, a substantial fortune that he could start using if only he knew what to spend it on, and the dubious reputation of becoming a respectable man of leisure.
He was also bored.
2. A MYSTERY OF MURDER – Jan Christopher cosy mysteries – episode 2
Christmas 1972. Jan and her boyfriend, Detective Sergeant Lawrence (Laurie) Walker, have just arrived at his parents’ Devon house...
CHAPTER 2
ARRIVAL
“Hello! Did you have a good journey?” Mr Walker, average height and weight and with slightly salt-and-peppered hair, held out his hand to shake mine, then changed his mind and drew me into a welcoming bear hug. He smelled of pipe tobacco and wet dog, two friendly, homely, aromas.
“Hello, Miss Christopher, Happy Christmas. I’m so glad you could come.” Mrs Walker was more reserved and formal. A little shorter than myself, slightly dumpier. She held out her hand for me to shake before turning to her son.
“Lawrence, pet, you’ve put on weight. What have they been feeding you up in London? Fish and chips with more chips than fish, I suspect.” She leaned forward for Laurie to kiss her carefully powdered cheek. Her short hair had been professionally styled and coloured to an attractive auburn. Her pink lipstick was recently re-applied – smartly dressed as if she were about to go to an important Women’s Institute meeting or something, not spending an afternoon at home with her family.
It sounded strange hearing someone call him ‘Lawrence’. No one else did. Uncle Toby called him ‘Walker’, surnames only where professionalism was concerned. ‘Old School’ habits and all that. To me, he was just Laurie.
“Hello, Mum, Dad. You’d better go and let that dog out before she breaks the door down,” Laurie said with a laugh as he opened the car boot and reached in to retrieve our cases. He ignored the two cardboard boxes which were hidden under a blanket; they had gayly wrapped Christmas presents secreted inside them. I’d been forbidden to poke around inside Laurie’s box, which was fair enough as I had forbidden him to peer into mine.
I was stiff. I stretched my shoulders and arched my back; it had been a long drive down from London, despite the newly opened (that very day!) section of the M5 motorway between Maidenhead and Swindon. It had been rather exciting to be one of the first to drive along it!
“Let me take that!” Mr Walker took hold of my case and mock-grimaced as he pretended to stagger under its supposed heavy weight. I didn’t have much inside it: all the usual necessities and my favourite teddy. (His name is Bee Bear, on account of him wearing a black and yellow striped jumper when I was given him as a present for my sixth birthday. The jumper is long gone, and yes, he is a little worn and moth-eaten. But I love him.)
My wellingtons, heavy-duty mac and comfortable walking shoes were also in the car boot: we were in the country, and the countryside meant suitable outdoor apparel, but I didn’t need them yet, so I left them beside the Christmas boxes.
“Goodness, it’s cold out here! There will be a frost tonight, maybe snow coming soon. Did you close the greenhouse door, Alfred?” Mrs Walker said as she peered up the path, which ran alongside a thick hedgerow of copper beech, holly, hawthorn, honeysuckle and wild dog rose. None of it was flowering this time of year, but there were a few patches of glossy, red holly berries that hadn’t been devoured by the birds yet. I was a townie, but Aunt Madge knew about trees and flowers and had taught me many of their names ever since I was a little girl. I looked along the path to where I could see the glass roof of a large greenhouse, and what appeared to be a well-tended vegetable plot. Aunt Madge would be in her element – she loved gardening.
Mrs Walker was right, the air was cold and crisp, our breath floated in plumes of mist and there was already a light sparkle of frost appearing on the windscreen of the Walker’s car, parked in the lane beside the hedge. I noticed an open-fronted barn a little further along the lane and wondered why the car was out here, not in there.
“Yes, light of my life, woman of the house, I did close up the greenhouse. Our winter veg and salads are all tucked up, with the paraffin heater lit to keep their rooty-tooty toes warm. And snow would be ideal.” Mr Walker was grinning, “Use a broom to sweep it off and it cleans the glass admirably. Put your car down in the barn later, Laurie. We’ll use mine tonight. Let’s get inside for now; as much as I welcome the cleaning potential of snow, we don’t want to stand out here any longer than we have to!”
Tonight? I wondered. What was a car needed for?
Mr Walker offered me his arm and, smiling as broad as the full moon which was just rising behind the trees and glowing bright against the twilight-blue sky, led me towards the house, in the opposite direction of the greenhouse, down the path which ran alongside the hedge.
“Yes, do go on in – take that case from your father, Lawrence. Alfred, you know you are not supposed to carry heavy things after your operation.” Mrs Walker part-whispered, part-mouthed the last two words.
I glanced over my shoulder at Laurie who was behind me. What operation?
He laughed. “Hernia, more than eight months ago, so well past the sell-by date.”
I frowned at him, not understanding.
He laughed again. “It’s a family joke. In my college days, I worked Saturdays in Marks and Spencer’s store room; they label their perishable food with a ‘sell by’ date. I now use the phrase for anything that is out of date. Recovery from operations included.”
I smiled back at him, teased, “So your battered old car is well past its sell-by date?”
He snorted. “No way, she’ll go a good few thousand miles yet!”
Mr Walker, quite easily carrying my case, his other arm still linked through mine, winked at me. “Only because the rust holds it together.”
3. THOUGHTS FROM A DEVONSHIRE FARMHOUSE – posted on my blog on the 1st day of each month.
Until recently I sent out a newsletter to subscribers via a small, free to use, online newsletter service. Naturally, it being good, useful (and free) it got taken over by one of the big (not so free) companies. So I rebelled, and decided to post my ‘news-type’ monthly chats on my own blog, inviting readers, if they wished, to subscribe to an email reminder list where I send a quick email to all as a ‘the latest Thoughts is now live’.
My aim is to be friendly and chatty using a random topic – not always sticking to the themes, sometimes rambling off into a different area. Here’s a sneak peak at next month’s (March) offering:
LOOKING BACK
Did you come across those charming sketches of the late Queen Elizabeth II as drawn from behind? There are several of them, I think they started with one of H.M. with Paddington and a corgi after the Jubilee celebration, but then came some poignant ones at her passing, several of which brought tears to my eyes.
I’ve Googled to see who the artist is, but there seems to be several talented young ladies (the designers seem to mostly be female), so I’ll let you search if you wish, suffice to say they are all lovely. I am kicking myself because the original artist was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 shortly before Christmas but I can’t remember which programme, nor can I remember her name – a delightful young lady, though, who explained that so more could be captured in a sketch when drawn from the back. She pointed out that without a face so much more meaning could be conveyed, and she was so very right.
I very rarely have the faces of my characters on the covers of my books (when commissioning my own covers from the talented Cathy Helms of www.avalongraphics.org that is), not necessarily because of conveying meaning but because I don’t want to influence my readers about the character. Once a face is portrayed, there is no room for imagination. I know exactly what my pirate, Jesamiah Acorne, looks like and would instantly recognise him if I ever physically met him, but I could never describe him well enough to show his face on a book cover.
You’ll find February’s Thoughts here:
https://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/2024/02/thoughts-from-devonshire-farmhouse.html (and details of how to subscribe at the bottom of the post)
OPENING LINES and a prompt idea from Helen...
These are adapted from some of my opening lines – I wonder what you can turn them into?
1. He lay awake unable to sleep, watched the intermittent flicker of lightning and listened to the distant thunder as it trundled away. Rain was beating against the skylight and was drumming on the roof. The cracked bell from the old, dilapidated church rang the hour of twelve several minutes slow, the sound tinny and distorted.
2. Above the great height of what remained of the ruined castle the sky swept blue and almost cloudless. The bright, sparkling blue of an exuberant spring that was rushing headlong into the promised warmth of summer. The flowers along the already dry and dusty lane that ran around the base of the ancient stronghold were massed in a profusion of splendid colour. She was picking them, randomly, a bouquet of scent and colour massing in her arms. She looked up, a smile starting to form on her face...
3. They pulled the house down. All right, I agree, it was old; the thatch was worn with gaping holes in places. Even the mice had abandoned that thatch, and the bats had moved on long ago. None of the windows closed properly – it wasn’t a draught that came in through those ill-fitting frames, but a howling gale, even when there wasn’t much wind. The chimney smoked. The floor tiles were cracked and uneven, and the oak rafters were riddled with woodworm. What can you expect? The was old. Old, like me. But to pull it down? Reduce it to nothing but a pile of dust and rubble? Ah, shame on them. That house had its memories, as do I...
And food for thought:
Think back to your teenage years when you still lived with your parents (or relatives etc). Do you remember a neighbour you either especially liked or were rather afraid of? Why did you feel like this? If you were to meet that person now, would you feel any different? What, with the benefit of hindsight, drew you to (or from) this person? What made this person be like he or she was?