The picture I selected for this assignment is Ryan McGinley's Jack (Blue Mass) 2009 - pictured below.
There was a mysterious body of water that the whole town knew about - the Blue Mass. It was located in a cave, not too far from town. The travel time was not too long, but my was the commute a confusing one. This was not the type of destination that was on any map or any GPS, that would be too easy. To get to the Blue Mass, you had to actually leave the small town and drive north. You spend some time driving north to get on to the nearest highway, but before you know it, you're on a narrow dirt road with too many twists and turns – all a part of the journey. You're on this road, and roads like it, for a little bit before you have to just park and walk the rest. Most people go during the day, since it will be dark in the cave anyway. But, they also go during the day because this is not the kind of trip you would want to take during the night; rumor has it, several people have gone missing trying to get to the Blue Mass. The entrance to the cave is not the most inviting; there are even man-made signs advising you to turn around and go home. To the truest of explorers, though, these signs are no threat. After about half a mile of navigating through the untamed, seemingly undisturbed environment, you finally reach said entrance.
One day, during a typical Monday afternoon, a few kids from town decided to take this trip. Sammy, a skinny, 18 year old girl with extremely long blonde hair was the driver for that day's expedition. The second group member was Tony, her boyfriend of 2 years. He had dirty blonde hair and was only 17. Last, there was Vincent. Vincent was Sammy's younger cousin; he was only 11 and followed the couple wherever he could. He was short for his age, and did not really have any friends his own age.
After doing all the driving and wondering, they finally arrived at the cave. After reading the signs, Vincent and Tony expressed worry and wanted to back out. Sammy would not let them; she pressured the two to follow her in. The further the three walked, the darker the inside of the cave got and the deeper the water too. When the water was too deep to continue without getting all the way in, Sammy told Vincent to strip naked and get in the water. He hesitated, but he knew Sammy would just keep asking and pushing had he refused. So he did it; he took off all his clothes and got in slowly as Sammy took out her camera.
This picture was the only thing left of the three of them after that day.
I like the picture you choose a lot, and I love that you took the name of the painting to be the name of water source near the town. You're creating a mystery from the first line...The reader wants to know what in the world is going on in Blue Mass. It's intriguing that it's hard to find, and that it's not a place you want to travel to after dark. This is good storytelling...It's spooky and weird and specific.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to consider is to work harder on your descriptions. What do we learn about Sammy that reveals her personality by knowing that she's 18 years old? The details you provide must be vivid and interesting--otherwise, they will pull your reader out of the story.
I also usually warn student snot to try to take on a cast of too many people. Here, you have four characters who you have to make real and vivid. Are all four needed to tell the story?
Consider too that maybe the story is just about this one group who disappeared and the town is essentially the character, describing this most intriguing part of local history. The book and movie of The Virgin Suicides does this well--the story is told in second person plural ("we"), and we get close to the characters through the eyes and voice of that collective entity. You're doing that here a bit, and it works really well in the first section, so see what happens if you were to continue this technique in the second section. (i.e. so that would be something like. Mainly we were afraid of Blue Mass because of the disappearance of five members of the McKinley family...Get what I mean? Go here to see an example of this narrative technique:
"n the day of Mary Lisbon's death by sleeping pills, the paramedics' arrival at the Lisbon household seems almost routine. In the past year, all four of her sisters have committed suicide. Watching the EMS truck arrive the narrators, a group of neighborhood boys, recall the paramedics' first visit.
It is June of the previous year. Thirteen-year-old Cecilia, the youngest sister, is found with slit wrists in the bathtub clutching a picture of the Virgin Mary. She is rushed to the hospital and her is life saved. Neighborhood speculation suggests that Celia attempted suicide because of her ill-fated love for Dominic Palazzolo. Dominic, an Italian boy, had shown his own unrequited love for Diana Porter by jumping off the roof of his family's house. After giving Cecilia a series of tests, the hospital psychiatrist, Dr. Hornicker, simply diagnoses the suicide attempt as a cry for help. He suggests to Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon that Cecilia would benefit from social outlets outside of school."
The narrator is the boys of the town...And yet, it's really specific and concrete and the close attention that's being paid so that we get a sense that this entity is obsessed with the family. See what i mean?