I've decided that VESSEL should be told in third-person, but also that I liked the writing of my first-person experiment better. Here's a mash-up of the two (same three pages as before) which I'm really liking. Looks like I'm going to be doing some rewrites, ::cracks knuckles::.
Vessel, First to third sample
Isaac heaved a sigh as his father’s old Honda station wagon hummed along the village street. He watched the familiar houses and too-short lawns filter past his car window. Every window shutter was painted crisp the same color as in his childhood, and the same neighbors waved as fellow townsfolk walked the sidewalks with their dogs or strollers. There, in Glen Arbor, Michigan, everything was the same. But despite the familiarity, Isaac reeled in worry
He looked from the corner of his eye at his father in the driver’s seat. Carl Hill sat erect, whistling with the muffled radio as some dads do, and drummed his thumbs against the worn steering wheel. Isaac took in his sunny demeanor, pleated khakis and plaid button down shirt and couldn’t help but be a bit irritated by his obvious enthusiasm to be rid of him. Though he supposed that day would mark the first time in seventeen years that his eternal presence wouldn’t prevent his dad from stopping home on his lunch break to put the moves on his mom. He could tell that was the plan, too. His father’s insistence to keep the car window rolled down, despite it being forty degrees outside, had him sputtering in a surging storm of aftershave for the length of their ride.
But perhaps he was projecting. He swilled his tongue against his cheeks, trying to wet his mouth, which had been dry as the Sahara since the night before. He blinked his dusty eyes, feeling as though washers had been super-glued to their lids. He hadn’t slept at all that night, and so reasoned perhaps that’s why his dad’s pep seemed so irritating.
The engine clicking outside Isaac’s car window wasn’t distraction enough from the fact that they’d stopped. The brick building mocked him from across the crowded yard, where groups of students stood in packs, like herded sheep. Only a month had passed since the beginning of the semester, but they were all clearly adjusted. They stood talking, or throwing fistfuls of colorful, fallen leaves at each other with playful screams.
“Ready, Sport?”
Isaac’s dad had called him “sport” since the day he was born, funny given that he was six-three and only weighed one hundred and thirty-five pounds. He stared at his unusually pointy knees as he sat. They were poking through the holes in his jeans and had him questioning (again) his father’s choice of nickname, and his decision to wear that particular pair of pants. “I guess.”
He gave Isaac one of those all-knowing, sympathetic “dad smiles” before launching into a pep-talk. “Don’t be nervous. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with such a cool kid?”
He is talking about me, right?
Throughout the years of his sheltered existence, he hadn’t had the opportunity to learn what “cool” was. He began mulling it over in his mind, now fearful, not only over his choice of pants, but whether or not he was, or would be considered “cool.” This was about the point he discovered how close he was to chewing off his bottom lip. “Sure.”
Isaac opened the door, the squeak of which was so loud that he was certain the crowd would stop and stare. His legs felt like rubber as he placed them upon the sidewalk, and closed the door again behind him.
“Hey, Sport?” Isaac craned his neck to view his dad through the still-open window. “Really, you’ll be fine. Remember, this is what you wanted. I’m sure you’re ready. Your mom, well, she may not have been so prepared, but you know her, she’ll be okay.”
Isaac stared, imagining his father’s voice as one of those parodies where the speaker’s drone is replaced by a trombone, or static. He couldn’t understand what he was saying with the school’s evil eyes on his back. “Uh huh. I hear they have a pretty rigid schedule at these places, Dad, I should probably go.”
His dad just hit him me with another of those encouraging grins before igniting the engine and leaving him gaping alone on the sidewalk. He had instantly regretted telling him to leave.
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