Struggling with voice. Rewrote this short chapter intro two ways, can I get a vote?
Hello. Hoping to get some feedback. I'm a total amateur but I've been writing for awhile. I've always worried my prose is too purple, or trying to hard, or too soft, so I tend to keep my natural voice at arms length. I don't think that's the worst instinct, I think the middle ground, split difference, etc. I have found is more direct, more legible maybe?
That said, I am 1/2 the way or a little more into a new book and reading it back, I worry it has gone too dry, maybe I didn't split the difference in the right place.
Anyways, the exercise here was to take this characters first POV appearance and rewrite it closer to my natural voice. I was hoping I could get some votes or feedback on what people prefer, and why.
So, one or two?
ONE: This is how it exists in the book now. It's less emphasis on internalization than, close third POV, fairly straightforward prose I think, a bit mechanical but on purpose, because I want the character to read through their actions, not necessarily their thoughts, though they are present.
Addy pops the cork on another cider. The porch to her log cabin is solid beneath her, built from inch thick slabs of fir that Jacob himself hand-cut. The tide retreats toward the setting sun. The bay drains into a vast flatness of lingering puddles. Addy drinks until her face is flush, her body warm, and Jacob’s porch is no longer solid beneath her.
By her fourth bottle the puddles reflect only the blue moon, and the rotting stench of flat tide rides in on the cooling night winds. Gulls graze the exposed belly of the bay for defenseless clams and starfish and the small crabs scurrying for shelter under seaweed draped rocks.
The memories of Jacob, down there, squelching through the mud in oiled leather waders with bucket in hand, leading Zeke and Kai from tide pool to tide pool, are so vivid that she can almost see them. The kids would be wobbling behind, straining against the heel sucking mud, giggling and screaming and running in terror and laughter as Jacob and chased them with crabs and kelp whips. The aftertaste of the memory is worse than the rotten-egg smell of low tide.
She chucks a drained cider bottle over the edge of the eroding bluff and stands for bed when something catches her eye. A thin stream of smoke — something more than a campfire.
Within half an hour the faintness of a distant wild-fire dances amongst the trees on the east end of Vashon Island. A fire that crackles at the edges with a blur of unnatural blue and purple and green.
Addy locks the door tight with a pinioned iron bar and sits in the kitchen with a shotgun across her lap. Through the distortion of the cider and the thick handmade glass windows, she watches the flames lick at the trees. The trees do not burn.
TWO: This is more... purple? Slightly more internal but leaning toward Free Indirect Discourse. I would say this is actually more natural for me but I didn't write any of my current book in this style, it's all in the above (sample one) style. I like it... but I worry it's... distracting, or too much, or two soft. I don't know.
Her first cider is over-fermented, sour, and even with scraping fingers she can’t get the bits of pellicle off her tongue. The full bottle, a good weight for a heave, clears the bluff and harangues a flock seagulls to dart into the pale moon night. The next bottle is sour with no pellicle. After that they have no taste, they just keep her face warm.
By the fifth or something bottle the bay has drained Into a vast flatness of lingering puddles. The rotting stench of the tidal flats rides in on the cooling night winds. Gulls graze this exposed underbelly for defenseless clams and starfish and the crabs scurrying for shelter in patches of seaweed carpet and dark rocks.
The carton of cider might last all night, for someone else. For her it lasts until she no longer sees the bay for memories of it in brighter daylight and better times. Jacob squelching through the mud in oiled leather waders, bucket in hand — Zeke and Kai wobbling behind their father, straining against the heel sucking mud, giggling and screaming and running in terror as Jacob chases them with tiny purple shore crabs and kelp whips.
By bedtime the bottles are bouncing across the grass well short of the bluff and the porch is swaying under her and she has to grip the stair rails with both hands just to stand. The returning tide is so still underneath a sky so bright with hard stars that they mirror one another without horizon. The urge is to step out into this endless nothingness.
Only Vashon island, a solid mass of dark, breaks the illusion. And above that, caught in the moonlight, a thin stream of smoke from a people-less island — something more than a campfire.
From her kitchen, behind the distortion of thick handmade glass windows, with a shotgun across her lap and the door pinioned with an iron bar, she watches the wild-fire grow and dance amongst the trees on the east end of the Island.
The fire crackles at the edges with a blur of unnatural blue and purple and green. The flames lick at the trees. The trees do not burn.