Infamous "Chick Lit" class assignment - Excuse errors/typos

Remember the "Chick Lit" assignment I mentioned in the June 30th post? For those who don't,  refer to the link below for a refresher!

From "Writing Multicultural Part 5" post

DISCLAIMER: Sorry if there are errors and other grammatical hiccups. I didn't have time for another pair of eyes to look at it. I read this out loud in class. Sorry I couldn't provide it as a 3 formats. Also, Blogger won't allow me to save multiple pages in the 3 required formats (PNG, GIF, and JPEG). Sorry for the inconvenience!

My title is a play off the movie, "The Usual Suspects"(TM).
Here's "The Usual Witnesses"...

The Usual Witnesses

            There had been a no-contract murder. An unauthorized death. And as usual, the neighborhood wasn’t talking. Neighbors saw nothing, heard nothing, not even the hounds barking in the alleyway because they had been woken by the disturbance and were, in their own way, joining in the ruckus.

“And you SAW nothing?” Simon Ominnous wrote everything down as fast as the non-witness spoke.

“No sir,” the hollowed eyed girl spoke from behind the door with it barely a crack.

“Not a thing. I was in my bed, I was. Half past 10. Sleep like the dead, I was, Sir.”

“And STILL nothing?” Simon smiled in that ghoulish way of his.

“Not even that horrid, blood-curdling scream at half past 10.” The girl said. “Not a thing.”

Emmaline, in a faded black walking suit, came up the steps of the brownstone.

“Anything from this…witness?”

Simon tilted the notepad to her; Emmaline did an imperceptive glance though her partner knew she had read all the shorthand, taken in the info, and knew the type of paper in the notepad.

Emmaline looked directly at the young girl. The girl shrank more behind the door.

“The Protectorate is here to serve and protect. I give you my word. I am Detective DeathStone.”

The owl-eyed girl, all round, pudgy face and innocence, drew in a whisper.

Even her voice was too small for her age.

“I heard of you, Missus…”

Emmaline smiled and her arched, narrow eyebrow over her left eye punctuated her sincerity.

For the first time since Simon began talking to the reluctant witness, the young lady did a smile and made it disappear as quickly as she did behind the door.

Emmaline knew that she now had this witness’ trust. Out of her jacket pocket, she took out a business card.

“You have a cell?”

The girl scraped the door with her forehead as she nodded.

“If you clearly don’t recall anything, text your concerns to either myself or Simon. This is my partner, Detective Ominnous, that you had the pleasure of speaking to.”

“It was a pleasure. Missus. Sir.”

The door shut. Not abruptly, not in a rude way. But in the way when a person did not want to be spotted. And even with most of her behind the door, Det. Emmaline DeathStone saw that the girl had done a curt bow to them.

As both detectives went down the steps to the sidewalk, Simon put on back his high crown hat. Emmaline knew he was a clotheshorse if he could don that instead of the police standard bowler.

“Delightful girl.” He said.

“Just your type.” She said. 

“Unlike you, I know when someone is far too young for me.”

“Touché’.”

Emmaline looked a few houses down. The uniformed police were having trouble.

The fourth house from the one they just left.

Emmaline, always with her left hand, lifted her voluminous dress and ran ahead of Simon.

More uniformed cops milled in front of the brownstone’s stoop, nervous as bees. 

“Problem?” Emmaline asked.

A female officer, in her navy blue dress, turned to the newcomer.

“Pardon, Missus?”

A male officer whispered in the young woman’s ear, “This is Detective DeathStone.”

“Oh!” the female cop’s eyes widened and a sudden berth opened in the tight crowd of police as silent as magic.

“Hostile witness.” Another bobby offered, “We finally found someone that could talk when ‘e started up a fight with one o’ the lads!”

“Exactly how?” Simon came beside Emmaline.

“Swearin’, the usual lark. This guy’s a real fun time.”

Detective DeathStone began trotting up the stoop, her left hand holding up her skirts. The right hand clutched her signature walking stick, a rosewood cane.

The hostile witness watched when a woman approached. He continued to peep from his window. The same height as he, she was in a walking suit, long skirts and faded

jacket with broad-shoulders and in a smart mid-sized hat with bow in the back. He continued to peep from his window. “Mr…?” She looked at the nameplate to the side of the door.

“Quill-Raven? I wondered if you may offer me a few moments of your beleaguered time, if that will be all right with you?”

It pleased him to talk to her while observing her through the peephole. The space between him and the outside world gave him an advantage. He glared at her through the peephole. Even with the curvature of the peephole’s glass, the woman had striking features indeed. A narrow face, hawk-like, dark eyes, and her hair pulled back; even through this door, she emitted authoritative energy. He didn’t like that. The civil lackeys had brought in a superior. “What of it? What do you what?”

“It has come to my attention that a credible witness of great import has been found, and I believe that witness is you.”

He watched her calmly await his answer by pulling an inch from each finger of her right-hand glove in the manner of someone about to remove it. He knew she didn’t look the type to pull her gloves off with her teeth.

Real proper, stuck-up cow. He would fix her.

“Bugger off!” he sneered as he said this though he knew no one saw. The look she gave him reminded him of a trained falcon about to snap the meat from its owner’s fingers. Satisfied, he walked away from his door.

A banging that shook his house’s foundations quaked even through his floors. He ran

back to the door. What were they using, a battering ram?

He took a peek through his peephole again. The woman had her ungloved hand raised and was systematically banging her cane on the top part of his front door.

But no ordinary walking stick this was, like what most gentlemen carried, with an ivory shaft of a regular lion or eagle, but a thick rosewood cane with a large creature’s head.

“What the bloody hell?” Quill-Raven said to himself while he began sliding back each of the eight bolts he had installed.

Let him give her a piece of his mind. People had a right to have their property respected, even by the police.

The door opened barely.

“Now what is you--?”

The ‘proper lady’ lifted a laced up boot. A violent kick in the door and Quill-Raven felt himself thrown back into his foyer. He almost slid across the tile.

He barely got to his elbows when that woman stood over him and the cane’s silver shaft drove into his Adam’s apple. She gave it a practice tweak and he watched her face. If a falcon could grin before it swooped in for the kill, that’s how this policewoman grinned.

Detective Simon Ominnous rushed in with a contingent of the city’s finest in tow.

“Emmaline! Emmaline! Can you spell…Police Brutality?”

The uniformed officers in the room stared as frightened children. None came from

behind Detective Ominnous, however.

“Oh, I don’t think he will speak anything EXCEPT what he witnessed last night, am I right, Mr. Quill-Raven?” her grin grew more raptor-like. 

The rosewood cane scraped from his throat to the side of his face. Now he could smell the cane’s wood, scented by its owner’s personal affects. He could now clearly see the shaft; it was a silver dragonhead in magnificent detail of snarling rage.

He barely moved his head from side to side in a ‘No’.

Detective DeathStone pulled back her cane, hooking it over her right arm.

“I can’t abide bad manners.”

C. Welsh 6   The Usual Witnesses THE END

Writing Multicultural...Part 5

Writing 'multicultural' sounds like a catchphrase, for which I HATE catchphrases... I feel as if we're dumbing human wisdom down to bite-size morsels.

To 'show' multiculturalism in fiction can be for a sub-culture or segment of a population not considered 'mainstream'.

Case in point:

I've attended my share of writing seminars, courses, and workshops.

One such was a woman's fiction workshop, with the acrimonious name "Chick Lit".
Yes, I felt offended, and it also reminded me of the candies I didn't really like when the family lived in New York.

Yet, in this week-long workshop, the two instructors were professional writers; co-authors to several series about the lives and dramas in Black families and among Black women friends.

Both women were witty, humorous, and gave fluid instruction.

In one exercise, everyone in the classroom had to construct a character sketch, a paragraph describing one's female protagonist. Her dominating feature, whether it be a habit, physical - too easy! - , or the sound/tone of her voice.
I had a character already, one from my many attempts over the years.
She lived in a post-modern, Gothic-theme society, the literary industry now calls it steampunk, but I think the genre wasn't known except among its enthusiasts, and besides, I just wanted to write about a Gothic character.

As a teen, I learned about gothic people and their lifestyle. I was fascinated by their refusal to dress as the mainstream, preferring to wear the fashions of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

(There is even a Japanese version of goths called Gothic Lolitas, girls and women, no matter their age, who dress as living French dolls of the 1900s! More about these endearing women and girls in another post)

My protagonist's world had horse carriages competing with automobiles, but people carried cellphones! There were also other 20th - 21th century conveniences, such as computers.

However, given the stereotypical views of mainstream society believing Goths were all death-obsessed, in this story, death by suicide and heavily-contracted murders were permissible, as long as done within the law!

The wealthier citizens could even pay to be elaborately murdered!

And for more tongue-in-cheek, I gave my characters grim names, such as Simon Ominnous and Harradine Darkchapel, Mortimer and Quillraven.

My protagonist became Emmaline Deathstone, and though she came from wealth, had joined the police force as a young woman, and was now, at the time of my story, a middle-age detective, or commissioner, as they call them in different ways in Europe.

After sketches were approved, we had to then write a single scene showcasing all that was on the character sketch, without seeming too obvious.

My scene took place during a next-day investigation. A murder may have taken place in a wealthy suburb, yet, none of the denizens heard anything beyond a scream.

I borrowed descriptive patterns from U.S. cop shows, and my characters' speech from London... during Sherlock Holmes' era.

Once finished, the instructors pointed to each of us to read aloud this scene.

As a class, we were pleased by each other's creations.
The few men had surprised themselves in formulating credible female characters!

A young woman, Latin teen, approached me, wore glasses as I, and mumbled how much she enjoyed hearing me read my story.

She then gave me the highest compliment: she asked if I had once been a goth!

I told her no, but that I had always admired the sub-culture, and for my story, had researched online resources pertaining to Goths and Gothic living: where they worked, what were their hobbies, what they did for fun, and how they raised their families - they are VERY family-oriented, and from personal observations, often more faithful to their partners and spouses than those of 'mainstream' society!

After the workshop week ended, I, and that younger classmate, kept in touch on and off, and I must admit, I still chat with this friend online!
She is raising a family, has moved to other interests, and no longer writes, but stated she was pleased I kept up writing.

To summarize, I wrote this character out of a genuine enthusiasm and deep interest for a people often maligned and misunderstood by the general populace.
Yet, in my few interactions with Goths, I found very warm, highly literate, and old-fashioned, family-oriented folks.

My challenge to you, fellow writers, and to anyone who reads this blog, that couple with their children? The father's hair may be blue, the mother may have dyed hers a deep purple and wears black lace, and the children happen to wear metal spikes, Go Talk To Them!

You may be surprised. I found more 'normal' there than around so-called 'regular' persons!
You may also happen to be a Goth reading this post!

**I will upload the class assignment I mentioned on another day. When I do, let me know what you think!