[Dianne] Weeks 21-24: Building Scenes and the Scene Sequence

Whoops! We were so caught up in finishing preparation for a couple new stories that we completely forgot to post our exercises this past weekend. So here are mine...

This week is Firsts/Lasts, the first and last time the character did some important thing, and we decided to choose two each to write about. For Nico, I chose his first and last kiss (before the start of the story), and his first and last runs in the ambulance.

First Kiss:

The first time Nico kissed a boy, he was thirteen years old. The other boy, Miguel, was older than Nico by two years. He had dry, chapped lips and the first dusting of stubble on his jaw. Eagerness tangled up with terror inside Nico's gut and he barely managed to pull away from the kiss before he threw up all over their shoes.

Last Kiss:

Nights out with his friends had become a release valve for the stress and pressure that built up under Nico's skin each time he climbed into the ambulance. His last night on the job, they took him out for a going-away-party sort of thing. He saw the bottom of way too many pitchers of beer and all he can remember about the man he kissed was that he had dark eyes, soft lips, and they barely made it into the bathroom stall before his hands were in Nico's pants.

First Run in the Ambulance:

The first time Nico went out in the ambulance on a real job, not just a ridealong, it was looking to be a quiet night. He drank his coffee from a paper cup and thought about whether he should buy a travel mug if he was going to be doing this every night from now on. He'd just opened his mouth to ask his partner, Darnell, what he thought about the idea, when the call came in. An hour later, Nico's clothes were spattered with someone else's blood and his shoes were spattered with his own vomit.

Last Run in the Ambulance:

The last time Nico went out in the ambulance, last night of his two-week notice, he still didn't have a new job lined up. His mom had already made a list of work he could do around the house until he found something: fix the leak in the kitchen sink, paint his sister's room, things like that. She'd been letting him stay there a month already, after the lease on his apartment was up and he didn't resign 'cause he didn't know what he'd be doing after he quit his job as an EMT...and he still didn't know. But the radio crackled to life and then he didn't have to know. He just had to do his job one more time. Save somebody's life, or try to.