Different P.O.V. for Fiction Story

“Keep that barrel pointed towards the ground!”  Uncle D commanded.  “And pick it up!  I don’t want to be trekking out here all day just trying to get to the stand.”

I nodded my head, vigorously, not wanting to speak and spook any deer that might be hiding in the bushes.  He’d warned me on the drive here that if I talked too much, he’d leave me in the middle of the woods, squawking my head off.  I believed him.

My cousin, Jared, laughed heartily from a few steps behind me.  “Dad, she’s already skittish as a squirrel!  You keep on like this and she’s liable to shoot at anything.”

I would not!  I silently defended myself.  Ooo, sometimes, I just want smack that cousin of mine, he’s so cocky!  Then again, he’s probably just trying to get his dad to go easy on me—I never know with Jared, just like I never know with Uncle D.

“Oh, hush!” Uncle D. chided, interrupting my thoughts.  “And step quiet now!  Do you want to scare all the bucks away from this place?”

We continued silently up the path until we reached the field where Uncle D. and Jared had set up some tree stands a couple of days ago.  It was the same field where Grandpa had taught Uncle D. to hunt.  I was so excited I nearly climbed up the wrong tree.

“Hold it there!”  Uncle place a hand to prevent me from following Jared up the trunk.  “We set up a stand just for you on the other side.  See that little house there?”

I glanced at the green shed nailed to the side of an oak with a ladder leading up to the door.  “Um, yeah.”

“Well, that’s just for you.  It’s got a space heater and everything.”  Uncle D. climbed up to take the perch next to his son, leaving me on the ground gazing up after him.  “Don’t want a girl falling out of a tree on my watch.” 

I was about to argue against the arrangement, then thought better of it.  The situation was settled in Uncle’s D.’s mind.  Reluctantly, I turned to take my position on the other side of the field.

Character Bio for Dave

William David Schuler Junior is fifty-seven years old.  He was born the youngest of three children (two sisters) and raised in Gallatin, Mo August 3^rd 1954.  In high school, he became a year-round athlete who excelled in football, basketball, and track.  He graduated with honors in 1973 and joined the military where he quickly excelled to Naval Officer.  In October of 1975, a year after his wife’s first fiancé died shortly after high school graduation in a car accident, he contacted via post card to ask if she would like to go on a date next time he was home on leave.  Six months later, they were married.  In 1979 his son, Jared, was born and in 1983 his daughter, Cassie.  In 1994, he settled his family permanently in Gallatin to be closer to the folks and started working local reserve.  Fall of 2001, his father, Bill, was diagnosed with cancer and in Summer of 2003 he died.  Now in 2005 he takes care of his mother for anything she needs, as well as whatever requests his eldest sister Barbra (Gabby’s mother) might have. 

He does not get along with Barbra.  She is a single mom who always seems to be in need of something (his truck, plumbing services, moving services, etc).  Even when they were young he found himself ‘looking out for’ his older sister, who was shy and not very popular back in school.  She talks so much that it makes him want to lose his temper.  Dave likes quiet, likes order, likes hunting and being alone with his son or his friend Rick discussing important things like politics or the weather.  He loves his wife, but women in general just need so much all the time.  Even his daughter (quiet as she was) got herself pregnant at a young age.  Girls to him are cute when their little but trouble later.

Hunting and guy time has a special meaning to Dave.  Growing up in a household with three women, hunting was his time to be alone with his father.  He learned a lot during those seasons.  Part of the reason he came back to Gallatin was so he could hunt every season with his dad and take Jason out to their favorite spots.  The year before his dad got sick was when he and his father saw the big deer for the first time.  Out of respect, they let it walk on, hoping perhaps to take it next season.  After his father was diagnosed, Dave spent his hunting seasons mostly alone.  Every time he spotted the deer, he would hold off for another year, hoping the old man would get better and they would collect it on their next hunt together.  He’d always tell him each time he saw it.  It gave them something to hope for even when he took a turn for the worst.  This is Dave’s first hunting season since his father’s death.

Goals for Fiction Story

The goal for my current short story is to create a working piece of adult fiction, something that a reader won’t have to stumble all over in order to understand.  The short short (outside of my preferred realm of children’s literature and poetry) is very difficult for me to approach.  I would like there to be a feeling of mystery for the components that aren’t fully explained, but I would like to provide everything people need in order to make sense of the story as a whole.  I want to hold up an example of a round, dynamic character, with a coarse exterior hiding many of the problems going on beneath (loss of his father, overwhelming responsibility to family, guilt etc.).  He should be a character that readers first flinch or laugh at for his gruff humor, but in time they should come to understand and pity him.  I would prefer the language to be economical, yet descriptive, bringing perceptions of situations to the reader that they may not have experience or thought of in that way before.  If readers of my story could enjoy the words as much as the plot, this would be an accomplishment.  All that I can expect of the reader is a little patience considering this is not my primary realm of creative writing and to enjoy.