The Beginnings of a Novella

I started the writing process for my novella, Rise, in the summer of 2014.  It all started by seeing a peculiar driver on the interstate and it inspired this idea.  I have created a skeleton of the story, the scenes are there but of course need quite a bit of fleshing out.  The story was built upon in my Fiction Writing Class during the fall semester at UNL and, unfortunately, I was only allowed to go to a certain page number.  This lead to the issue of elements of the story not coming full circle. I had plot lines that weren’t fleshed out and I had to make adjustments. I plan to continue building, revising, and working through this story until I find that it has reached it's peak.

Rise is about a young man taking the final journey to seek vengeance against his father.  A man that drove his truck wildly down I-80 in the summer inspired me, he had no shirt on and he seemed extremely agitated. He passed my car and he kept leaning over to the side, like something or someone was there. That’s when the first scene in my story popped into my head.

The most challenging part in writing this story was not to be too plot heavy. I have the aspiration to make this story into a novella, and so I had trouble configuring what to keep and what to cut.
The most rewarding of this process was getting my idea down on paper and forming a story around it.  I always struggle with sitting myself down and writing.  Maybe it’s because I’m lazy, or a fear of failure, but I think I’m past that now.  I want to keep working on this story because I feel that it has potential.  My professor and classmates think so as well, so it’s looking like it could work out for me.

Here is my first writing exercise and scene that came to my mind.

Theron sat stunned in the driver’s seat, the truck pulled over to the side of the highway.  The smell of iron from Wyatt’s blood was beginning to make his stomach churn.  The map of Nebraska lay crumpled with red fingerprints between the seats on the console.  Every inch of the front of his truck was sticky, tainted.  He looked in the rearview mirror to see his face, half illuminated by the sun while the other was stained with crimson.

Cars rushed past his, engines roaring towards their next destinations.  Theron looked out at the flat landscape, low grass plains and dirt surrounded the road.  The land was as barren as he felt.  They were supposed to make it through together, but that shootout was quick and Wyatt was inexperienced.  He looked back over at Wyatt’s soaked body, Theron’s white tank top balled up on the bullet wound.

Wyatt stared vacantly up at Theron, the boyish blue eyes he once had now held a tinge of gray.  Theron reached over and gently shut Wyatt’s eyes.  His stomach churned and he got out of the car.  The fresh air couldn’t rid him of the smell but it freed his lungs to breathe.  His breath stuttered before his guttural cries drowned everything out.