Question by HP Resource: Any tips for this bit of writing? Would you read more?
I’m doing a little writing exercise for a class. The focus is on dialogue and character, which is why there’s not much in the way of description. Let me know what you think of the dialogue, and if anything is glaringly bad. It’s just the first half of it, but wanted to get a feel for how my class may respond to it. Thanks!
—-
I’m not a good father, according to my wife. Paula’s always on about what Dr. Phil said today about men like me, and how Maggie’s gonna end up being a slut or a prostitute because I’m not around enough. Dr. Phil is full of sh*t, but I don’t want to take any chances with Maggie, so I’m taking her on a camping trip. That’s what my dad did with me and my brothers, so that’s what I’m doing with Maggie. I may not be a good father, but I’m d*mned good at camping.
Maggie’s backpack is almost as big as she is, which looks cute as hell out here in the woods. I don’t know how to fix her hair up like Paula does it, so she’s wearing my old, red baseball cap, snapped to the smallest fit it goes to.
“Daddy, how much more do we gotta walk?”
“Almost there, Magpie,” I tell her. She grins away like she always does when I call her Magpie.
“Remember,” I say, “Mommy thinks we’re at the campground with lots of people around, so don’t tell her we went camping way the hell out here all alone.”
“Okay.”
“If you tell, I’ll get in trouble with her. Then YOU’LL get in trouble with ME.”
I look down at her and she looks a little scared, so I can tell she gets it. Kids her age’ll say whatever they want, if you don’t tell ‘em otherwise.
We get to a clearing covered with red and yellow leaves and without too many rocks. It looks like there’s a fire pit dug out near the middle, probably from someone camping early in the summer.
I start getting camp set up, and Maggie runs around like a chicken with her head cut off. Of course, she trips and falls and scrapes up her knees.
“Stop crying,” I say, and she cries louder. “It’s what you get for running around and not helping me.” I’m trying to fit the plastic rod into the tent’s loops, and can hardly concentrate with her crying and carrying on.
“But it hurts!” she cries.
“Man up,” I say. “Man up and shut up!”
“But… I’m not… a man,” she says between sobs.
Her little grubby face has tear marks running down, and I realize that I’m not doin’ such a good job. Maggie’ll grow up to be a prostitute if things keep going this way with her and me. I give her a little hug and pull a candy bar outta my backpack. She stops crying, and I finish setting everything up.
It gets dark pretty quick, so I get the campfire lit. Maggie throws everything she finds into the fire like a regular pyromaniac, giggling like a little elf.
I start to tell her a scary story, one my brothers told me when I was her age. Her eyes go wide as saucers when I get to the part about the monsters in the forest. Even though it’d be good for her to face her fears and toughen up, I stop talking about the monsters and fill the story with things like horses and princesses. My brothers would hold me down and kick me if they knew I was telling fluff like this around a man’s campfire, and Dad would probably laugh as they did it. But none of them has a little girl, or else they’d do everything they could to keep her from being scared, too.
Maggie ends up on my folding chair, curled in my lap and asleep. I throw an empty beer can over my shoulder and pull the tab of a new one, being careful not to spill any on Maggie.
Then, all of a sudden and for no reason that I can figure, I get this funny feeling about the woods. I don’t hear nothing moving on the dry leaves, or see anything out the corner of my eye, but I sure can feel something.
It’s like I’m sitting in a police station, in that tiny room with the big mirror. Everyone knows it ain’t a mirror, and that people are watching you through from the other side. Right here in the woods, I know someone is watching me and my little baby girl…
—–
My teacher won’t mind about the prostitute stuff. We’re all adults in the class. I don’t think it’ll be a problem unless you think the topic is “untrue” in any way: that a person would simply never think those kinds of thoughts.
Best answer:
Answer by ✞✞KaššKašš✞✞
I really enjoyed it.
=)
I don’t think the prostitute section would do so well with your teacher.
good luck
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
bamboozledbones 
Jo Naylor 
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