Guest Post: On an Economy of Words

Please help me welcome our first guest blogger, Dan Moore:

It's time for my ugly little confession. I have held a novel in my hand and nestled back on my couch. I have buried my nose in its pages and surrendered to the author's fantasy. And, I have skipped over entire paragraphs of description out of sheer boredom. Honest. I've done it.

Striking the balance between description and advancing the plot of a story is an important discipline. I know that there are readers out there who just love endless descriptions. They swoon over wordy sentences with convoluted grammatical structure. I am not one of those folks.

I was taught to write for television and radio. In radio, every word counts. In television, you don't need every word. Although writing books does not bear the constraints of broadcast writing, there is wisdom to be found in its economy. Words are like water. Offered to the reader in well-crafted moderation, they are fine drink for the mind. If poured out in excess, the experience can be like water-boarding.

There are writers who can thrill their readers with verbosity, but many of us don't have the talent, or wit, to do it well. That is okay, because employing fewer words doesn't doom us to literary oblivion. One does not have to sacrifice elegance or power when choosing to be brief. Ernest Hemingway is credited with writing a six-word-story. It reads as follows. "Baby shoes, for sale, never worn." A few well-chosen words can be woven into uncommon prose.

Think of writing as a form of hospitality. When you write a story, you are creating a place for your readers to come and visit. You are the host, the storyteller. A good host doesn't bury his or her guests under everything that can be pulled from the closets and attic. The host gives the visitor space to linger and appreciate the environment. Economical writing is the act of being efficient and evocative. It creates space. It is not obsessed with saying everything that comes to mind. It allows the reader to fill the pregnant voids. Compact prose gives them an amazing gift. It gives their imaginations room to embrace your masterpiece.

In some cases, wordy writing suggests that the writer does not want to relinquish control. If everything is overstated, then the purity of the narrative will be protected. I see the reader as a partner in my storytelling. Writing is only half of the relationship. The reader completes the storytelling. Our narrative will always be shaped by the minds of our readers. Our story is impotent if it isn't. Great writing is always a catalyst for the reader's imagination. Catalysts begin the process; they do not subsume it.

Sometimes writers get wordy when they lose focus. Each scene we write has a purpose. Each paragraph plays a part in furthering the scene. Each sentence has a reason. Individual words matter. Staying focused gives us a metric to evaluate each word and sentence. It teaches us what is important and what is not. What does the reader need to know in order to move forward through the world I have created? Do I really need to describe every detail? Once a sentence has accomplished its task, there needs to be a period.

Wordiness threatens the pacing of a narrative. It weighs it down with an unnecessary burden. Every story has rhythm. Good writing is poetic. It breathes. Some scenes move quickly. Others meander, but the plot always moves forward. Economical writing imparts energy. It evokes movement and sustains the reader's interest. If storytelling is a dance, it is much easier to teach a gazelle than a hippopotamus.

Moore later...

Dan Moore lives with his wife Diana near Syracuse, New York. He is a freelance video producer and the proud father of two sons, two daughters-in-law and three grandsons. Dan caught the Science Fiction bug by reading Robert Heinlein’s “Spaceman Jones” when he was in high school. He holds degrees in Electrical Engineering, Theology and Broadcast Production and Writing. He has written three science fiction novels: Meridian's Shadow, The Rings of Alathea and Nixie's Rise.

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Screenplay Adaptation: "The Suitcase Man"

On February 29th, I said that my daughter, my niece and I were considering taking a short script and making a movie out of it for YouTube. I said that I'd keep you posted along the way, and mentioned that I'd already written the script. Here's a little bit more about that process:

I started by looking through the short stories I've written. I wanted one that:

• Had a very visual story.
• Could be filmed inexpensively (no exotic locations or special effects).
  
• Had a variety of characters to help demonstrate the talents of my girls.
• I hadn't sold the copyright to.
  
  And of course I ended up choosing "The Suitcase Man".
  
  I copied and pasted it into my scriptwriting program, Celtx, and broke it out into action, characters, parentheticals and dialog. Then I looked it over carefully and made a few changes for the sake of actors and locations. For example, I made the character Gretchen younger because my daughter will be 13 when we expect to film this. Finally, I adjusted some of the action and dialog to show onscreen some things that I had explained in the short story format.
  
  In the next "Suitcase Man" installment: how we chose our roles.
  

Free Online Writing Instruction: Scripts

I recently came across Buzz McLaughlin's blog, and I thought you should know about it.

Buzz is an active feature film producer and partner in the independent production company Either/Or Films. He's the author of many plays and screenplays and of the best-selling book The Playwright’s Process. A Ph.D in dramatic literature, he taught scriptwriting as Playwright-In-Residence for many years at Drew University and currently runs a script consulting service. And he happens to live not far from me (quite close, actually, but I'd have to borrow my brother's canoe).

His blog is called Buzz McLaughlin on Scriptwriting. Some of the post titles:

• "Developing a Script That’s 'Ready”: What It Takes"
• "Locations and Your Script"
• "The Myth of Recognition"
• "The Risk of Self-Exposure"

The latest is called "Leisure Time" and it's Part 7 of a series entitled "Developing Great Characters".

I've just begun reading the posts (there are a lot of them in the archives) and so far I've found lots of good information clearly written in a friendly style. I'm looking forward to learning more. I would like to add just one more piece of advice from my own experience, though: no matter how 'into' the writing you are, don't forget to eat.

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Terrorism in New Hampshire

My current primary 'real work' project is adapting Resist the Devil into a screenplay. It will be a full-length action movie about what happens to three New Hampshire residents when their town suffers a terrorist attack.

I know this is short but I don't want to spill too much this early. Watch here for more later.

Three Girls and a Suitcase Man

Last time, I told you I was looking into making a short film for Youtube with two other people. I'd like to introduce them to you:

Heather O'Hourigan has the amazing ability to recount scenes from movies or television, word for word and move for move. While that in itself may not be a useful skill, she makes it useful by combining it with a dose of logic and a formidable acting and writing talent. How this applies: she's the stickler who says, "I don't think that character would say, 'It's not'. She'd say, 'It isn't'." We shake our heads sometimes, but we do appreciate it. Heather's credits include Ms. Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life" and Trudy in "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe".

Gannopy Blakney-Urena has a great ear for flow and clarity, credibility and relevance. As an actress, she brings grace and sensibility to her characters. Her first movie (still untitled) is in post-production.

I don' t know how I managed to be so spoiled, but I'm blessed with a very talented family: Heather is my niece and Gannopy is my daughter. Yes, I'm very proud.

This project won't be done soon. For one thing, it's probably never going to be the top-priority project for any of us. School and marketable work come first. For another, Heather's the only one with any experience at all with Youtube beyond just viewing. And it goes on from there. This is going to an educational exercise, an exploration, and, just possibly, one day, a short film.

Oh, and it'll also be a lot of fun, and we want to take the time to make sure it stays that way.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Leap Day Project

I just wrapped a project with two other people, and it was wonderful working with them.

Now we're exploring the feasibility of a new project, and I thought I'd share the process with you as we go along. It's new territory for me at least: I'm a writer and the writing part's already done. We're thinking of taking a short (nine page) script and making a movie out of it for Youtube.

There are three of us, all female. Here's the script:

The Suitcase Man

by

Mary Jeddore Blakney

Based on a short story by the same name.

EXT. PARKING LOT NIGHT

An older car is parked at a convenience store. GRETCHEN, a

pretty young woman, goes around the car with growing alarm

trying all the handles but everything is locked. She stands

in disbelief for a moment, then walks into the store.

INT. STORE

GRETCHEN is in the aisles, looking carefully at the products

on a shelf. She doesn't find what she's looking for. She

looks up and sees a store employee, KAYLA, straightening

a cooler shelf.

GRETCHEN

Excuse me.

Kayla jerks her head up. She'd been falling asleep.

GRETCHEN

Sorry to bother you, but do you

carry lockout kits?

KAYLA

Nope. Manager doesn’t want to be

responsible for car thefts. Can’t

say as I blame her, either. Lock

yourself out?

GRETCHEN

(Nods and sighs)

KAYLA

Child in the car?

GRETCHEN

No, fortunately, my brothers are

safe at home.

KAYLA

(Grunts)

GRETCHEN

Would you happen to have a wire

coathanger?

KAYLA

(Jumps. She's been sleeping on

her feet.)

Sorry, can’t help you. I had one,

but I gave it to a guy to tie up

his tailpipe with. It was starting

to fall off, dragging on the

ground.

GRETCHEN

Is there an auto-parts store around

here, close enough to walk to? Even

if it’s a couple of miles, that

would be okay.

KAYLA

No, closest one’s in Bradford, and

that’s got to be, gee, twenty

miles? I’m trying to think…

GRETCHEN

How about a dry cleaner's?

A middle-aged female CUSTOMER comes into view, picks up a

package of donuts, changes her mind and puts them back.

KAYLA

Well, yeah. Actually, there’s

one…it’s not that far. Can’t be

more than a mile, anyway. I’ll give

you directions but you might want

to write them down; there’s kind of

a lot of turns.

CUSTOMER

(Pulls out a pen and hands it

to Gretchen)

That’s my business. You can keep

it.

GRETCHEN

(Looks at pen. It advertises

cruises.)

Thanks.

Customer exits.

GRETCHEN

I should have asked her for a ride.

KAYLA

She would have said no anyway. She

comes here all the time, so I kind

of know her. She’s paranoid

someone’s going to steal her car.

EXT. SIDEWALK NIGHT

GRETCHEN trudges like she's been walking for a while. She's

alone and there's not much traffic. The sidewalk is crumbly

and sometimes disappears into a well-worn dirt path.

EXT. DRY CLEANER SHOP NIGHT

GRETCHEN arrives and is disappointed to find the shop

closed. She scours the parking lot and eventually finds what

she's looking for: a wire coathanger.

EXT. PARKING LOT NIGHT

There's less light now: the store is closed. GRETCHEN

struggles to straighten the hanger with just her hands, her

knee and a parking curb. She keeps wincing and flexing her

fingers because she's hurting them. When she's got it

straight she starts poking the seal around the driver's door

window and eventually gets it in. She struggles for a long

time, pulling the wire out and bending it, trying again,

bending again, until finally she gets it to reach the lock.

But it's too weak and bends instead of pressing the button.

She's exasperated and scared. She sits on a parking curb,

very discouraged, pulls her phone out of her pocket, dials

and puts the phone to her ear.

FADE TO:

EXT. PARKING LOT NIGHT

GRETCHEN is still sitting on the parking curb with the phone

to her ear.

911 DISPATCHER (O.S.)

I'll transfer you to the State

Police.

GRETCHEN waits.

STATE POLICE DISPATCHER (O.S.)

“The only thing we can do for you

is find you a wrecker service.

Unfortunately, we don’t perform

lockout service. Would you like me

to help you find a wrecker service?

GRETCHEN

Yes, please.

INT. WRECKER COMPANY

MADDY, the twenty-something night desk person, sits with her

feet on the desk. The phone rings.

MADDY

Howard Towing service. Servicio de

grua.

(listens)

We don’t do lockout service. I wish

I could help you, but they

shouldn’t have sent you to us. What

you need is a locksmith.

GRETCHEN (O.S.)

Can you help me find a locksmith?

MADDY

(Looking around for it)

I got a phonebook around here

somewhere. I could look in there.

GRETCHEN (O.S.)

That'd be great, thanks.

EXT. PARKING LOT NIGHT

GRETCHEN paces, holding her phone and a piece of register

receipt paper full of writing on both sides. She pulls up

her left sleeve and there are several phone numbers written

on her arm. She dials one and waits.

GRETCHEN

Hi, how much do you charge for

lockout service?

(listens, looks disappointed,

writes "$85" on her arm under

the number)

Kay, thanks. I might call you back.

FADE OUT

EXT. PARKING LOT NIGHT

GRETCHEN sits on the parking curb. All the phone numbers on

her arm have prices written under them now. They are all $80

and up except for one: $45.

GRETCHEN

I know I said I wouldn't call this

one, but...here goes.

(dials, doesn't wait long)

JEREMIAH (O.S.)

Lockout service.

GRETCHEN

Hi, my name is Gretchen and I

called a few minutes ago.

JEREMIAH (O.S.)

Yes, I remember you. Did you decide

to go ahead with the job?

GRETCHEN

(grimacing)

Yes, I did.

JEREMIAH (O.S.)

Great! That’s automotive lockout

service for forty-five dollars.

Will you be paying with cash?

GRETCHEN

With cash, yes. I even have exact

change.

JEREMIAH (O.S.)

That’s fantastic, Gretchen. Just

sit tight, and we’ll get you out of

there - or, into there, I guess. If

he’s not there in twenty minutes,

just give me a call back, alright?

EXT. PARKING LOT NIGHT

GRETCHEN paces, waiting, and an unmarked white pickup pulls

up. It parks nearby and JEREMIAH, a shaggy, heavyset young

man gets out. He's wearing blue coveralls with no markings.

JEREMIAH

Are you Gretchen.

GRETCHEN

Sure am. Thanks for coming.

JEREMIAH

(Walks toward her, offers his

hand.)

No problem. I'm Jeremiah.

They shake hands.

JEREMIAH

Listen, I know we quoted you

forty-five dollars over the phone,

but if the money’s an issue,

there’s a way you can actually get

the job done for free.

GRETCHEN

(disgusted, ready to defend

herself)

Listen, Mister, some things are

just not for sale. I was told I was

going to get my car unlocked for

forty-five dollars, and as far as

I’m concerned you’re here to unlock

my car for forty-five dollars.

JEREMIAH

(flinches, backs up, turns his

palms out)

Oh, no, no, no, Ma’am, it’s nothing

like that. It’s just that…well,

here’s the deal: I’m not a

locksmith. I don’t actually know

how to get your car unlocked.

GRETCHEN

(pulling out her phone)

You’re kidding me. You’re not a

locksmith? What are you, then, some

kind of sicko?

JEREMIAH

(taking another step back)

I didn’t mean to scare you. Hear me

out, okay? I promise I won’t touch

you.

GRETCHEN

(her thumb over the '9'

button)

Okay.

JEREMIAH

We’ve got a suitcase - some

business associates and me - and it

needs to be somewhere else. It’s

not that big, kind of small, like a

small carry-on bag or what my

grandmother used to call an

overnight case. Not that much

bigger than a laptop case,

actually, and probably a little bit

lighter, too. The problem is, it’s

not doing anybody any good as long

as it’s sitting here with us, and

we’ve got a customer in Maryland

that would very much like to have

it.

GRETCHEN

(almost amused)

Somebody in Maryland would like to

have your suitcase?

JEREMIAH

What's in the suitcase - which is

locked, by the way, and you don’t

need to worry about what’s in it.

It’s not hazardous, not radioactive

or explosive or anything like that.

That’s all you need to know.

GRETCHEN

Okay.

JEREMIAH

The transaction is of a

rather...sensitive nature. It’s a

drop ship situation - you know, a

middle-man deal, and we can’t

reveal the middle-man’s source

(that’s us), and the middle-man is

actually a guy in a wheelchair who

spends all his time online and

doesn’t really leave his apartment,

so delivering it himself is not an

option. What we need is to find a…a

neutral third party, you might call

it, to deliver the product for us.

Now here’s where you come in: if

you choose to be that party,

there’s five thousand dollars in it

for you. And of course, with five

thousand dollars you can hire all

the locksmiths you like.

GRETCHEN

(with a dry laugh)

You’re forgetting one thing. I

wouldn’t be able to deliver it

anyway, unless I got my car

unlocked first.

JEREMIAH

(points)

Got that all taken care of. See

that parking lot?

GRETCHEN

(turns to look)

Yeah?

JEREMIAH

That’s the park-and-ride, and you

can’t see it from here, but right

on the other side of that is the

bus station. So you won’t need to

use your car to deliver the

suitcase; you can take the bus.

Your car can just stay right here

until you get back; it’ll be fine.

I’ll buy you a round-trip ticket.

GRETCHEN

So what’s in the suitcase?

JEREMIAH

We already went over that part.

Come on, Gretchen. I’m not stupid,

and it’s pretty clear to me that

you aren’t either. Let’s not play

any games.

GRETCHEN

Right.

(Stares at him for several

seconds.)

You really expect me to do this for

you?

JEREMIAH

(Shrugs)

It's up to you.

(Looks around)

But honestly, from the looks of it,

it doesn’t really seem to me like

you’ve got a whole lot of other

options.

New Hampshire in 1762

Here is a sneak peak at Chapter Two of Pyte:

In 1762, Patterson, New Hampshire, consisted of some ten houses clustered around a common pasture. The school hadn’t been built yet, and even the meetinghouse was nothing but a few sketches and a dream. Old Lady Abbot did have a store of sorts: her son made the trip to Boston every month, and she sold the goods from her house. It was one of the nicer houses, with a summer kitchen and a birthing room, and it was in the birthing room that she stored the goods until they were sold, both because it was warm there and some of the goods could be damaged by freezing, and because neither she nor her sons were likely to have a baby anytime soon.

The worst house in Patterson was definitely James Davenport’s, and it was also the oldest. It was a simple affair made of logs, with a thatched roof, no windows and a dirt floor. A stone chimney had been built to replace the original mud one, and now the chimney was the only sound part of the structure.

James’ grandfather had built the house with nothing but his two hands and an axe, in two weeks one fall on a settlement grant. He’d chosen a great spot on the river where boats could land safely, and when the house was finished he’d built a dock there. Nowadays the dock was rebuilt every year by the Abbots, because they needed it for business.

The house wasn’t as cold as one might think in the winters, since James and his wife Sarah had eight surviving children and the cabin was only about ten feet by twelve. But James worried every time the wind blew.

The problem wasn’t that he and his sons couldn’t build a new house. It was that there were houses on every side, and the old house was smack in the middle of its yard. There just wasn’t enough space left on any side to build a decent house--not and have room for a kitchen garden, and Sarah insisted that she couldn’t cook properly without a kitchen garden. They could knock the old one down first, and then start building after they’d cleared it away, but James didn’t like the idea of the little ones being without shelter during the building. This house was going to be a proper one that an Englishman could be proud of, and a house like that took a lot more than two weeks to build.

There were plenty of trees to cut down for lumber. He’d have to take them to the sawmill in Pennacook, of course: you had to have beams and posts and planks and boards for a proper house.

What he needed was a new piece of land. The old house was in a prime location; any of his neighbors would jump at the chance to take it in trade for any nice lot on the edge of the village.

So James Davenport rose early on a June morning in 1762. He dressed in deerskin breeches and moccasins, strapped on his knife, his musket and his powder pouch, grabbed his satchel and filled it with smoked venison, bread, cheese and wild strawberries. Then he kissed Sarah and the babies and went quietly out the door. He always kissed the babies: you never knew how long they’d be with you.

He headed into the forest on the north side of the village, the river to his right. Southward there was no soil for growing things, just gray granite ledge with a little grass and lichen on it. In a few spots there was enough soil for a blueberry bush to take hold, and the berrying was good there. But it was no place for a house. And westward was the bog.

Sarah would have preferred to build a wigwam instead of a house, and he had to admit that a wigwam would have been much more practical - warmer in the winter and less buggy in the summer, and easier to build, with no lumber to mill, no expensive imported hardware to buy. But luckily it was out of the question and he could have his beautiful English house. Then he could show off to Mr. Steade and his rich Boston friends that he, too, had a fine home. Or at least his children could show it off to Mr. Steade’s grandchildren; it might take a while to build.

The reason building a wigwam was completely out of the question, besides the fact that it wouldn’t win him any goodwill from Mr. Steade, was that it was now illegal - not just technically illegal, but very definitely, totally and impossibly illegal. The law had officially been passed some time ago, decreeing that the wigwams in the Colony settlements were to be demolished, and word of it had gotten to Patterson eventually. Of course most of the villagers pretended they hadn’t heard until an official messenger came from the royal Governor’s office, and then nobody could deny knowing anymore. Yet still those who lived in wigwams continued living in wigwams. They had already built their frame houses, as prescribed by a previous law, but that law just said that everybody had to have frame houses; it didn’t say they had to live in them. This time, with this law, the wigwams were banished altogether, and any still in existence were to be destroyed. But there were plenty of people who hadn’t gotten around to destroying then when a band of redcoats came and got rid of the wigwams for them. They threatened to burn the whole village, too, but James and Mrs. Abbot and Parson Merrick managed to calm them down and, by recruiting enough villagers to help pull the wigwams apart, they prevented any torching.

Sarah Davenport was a Pennacook, like James’ mother and most of the rest of the colonists’ wives. The Pennacook were an Abenaki people, and they took their name from the spot, south of Patterson on the Merrimack River, where there were a lumber mill and a village and, more importantly, waterfalls and sand banks.

But James owed a lot to Abijah Steade. The Steades had been, for three generations now, the patrons of Patterson in general, and of the Davenports in particular. They'd provided the capital to start the town and grow it, and bound themselves with the duty to send up “meate and sundrie provisions” if ever a disaster threatened to wipe out the entire village. In turn they received a tribute of furs and maple candy and birch beer, a monopoly on the sale of molasses and rum, and the right to name the Town. Or, more accurately, Abijah Steade’s father Elias had named the Town, and he had named it for his mother, Dorcas Millisante Patterson.

Abijah Steade, like any true gentleman, had time for leisure, and his favorite leisure pursuit was the astounding field of natural philosophy. Once when James had paid a visit to his patron at the grand house in Boston, Mr. Steade had proudly shown him a crude-looking homemade box hiding under a skirted table in a corner of his office. James had reached out immediately to open the box, but as soon as he'd touched it, he had jumped back with a yell. The box had bitten him. Well, not bitten exactly. It was really indescribable, what the box had done, but whatever it was, it was sudden and painful and thrilling and loud. It stopped your lungs from breathing and even your heart from beating, but only for an instant and then it left you alone, euphoric and quivering.

“What is it?” James had asked, when he could find the words to speak again.

“Electricity,” came the answer. “The box is lined with certain metals of high purity, and contains strong vinegar. The result makes a very nice parlor trick, don’t you agree?”

Abijah Steade and the legendary Abenaki Chief Passaconaway may have come from two different worlds, yet both performed wonders that seemed impossible. Some said that Satan’s power was behind these wonders, but James didn’t think so. How could such good things come from evil? Didn’t the Bible say that good fruit could only come from good trees? Mr. Steade was fond of saying that creation held many secrets, and marvelous works could be accomplished by any student determined to learn them. And that made sense. James’ own grandfather and everyone else from his boat would have died of starvation and exposure if the Indians hadn’t shown them the secrets of creation they needed to survive in these parts.

Speaking of surviving, it was a special dispensation of Providence that Patterson wasn’t on the Merrimack, because these days the French had been sweeping down the Champlain Valley and trekking across the territory of the Western Abenaki to raid villages all along the Merrimack and carry away captives to New France. The ransom for just one captive was beyond the means of ordinary people, even if they could have paid in goods. But the French insisted on coin. If the raiders ever did come up the Blackwater, James had firmly decided already, he would give his life in Patterson’s defense. If any of his family were taken, then without the means to get them back, his life would be meaningless anyway.

With an act of will, James turned his attention to happier subjects. He thought of his grandmother and his mother, who had taught him how to hunt, how to catch and preserve fish and how to build a wigwam. (The Davenports themselves didn’t have a wigwam, but they did help their neighbors build them.) They taught him the importance of washing sick people, although his grandfather used to laugh and quote his own grandmother, back in England: “With washing comes the malady. The Lord has ordained a protection about the body, and by washing the protection is removed.”

In the bigger river valleys, where there were ancient flood plains, they grew a lot of corn, and as a child James had gone with his mother to help his cousins plant the corn and to help them harvest it, and so he had learned that, too. Patterson bought a lot of corn from the corn-growing towns, mostly from Pennacook where vast fields of it grew in the flatness of the Merrimack plain, but they didn’t buy it with currency. Currency was a rare thing in the Colonies, and whether it was pounds or galleons or francs didn’t make much difference; it was Crown policy that coinage belonged at home and the Americans should be content with goods. So the people of Patterson set traps, and traded furs for the corn, and the furs doubtless continued down the Merrimack to the sea and ended up warming the soft white necks of fashionable ladies in England.

And of course in the spring everyone went to Sewalls Falls for the fish run, and the fish were so thick in the falls that all you had to do to catch them was to put a bucket in the water and pull it out. Everything teamed with life at the fish runs, with the water so full of fish and the land so full of people. You got to see all your cousins again, you caught up with friends you hadn’t seen since the last run and made new ones, you made business deals and marriage deals. He’d met his own Sarah there.

And then there were the swallows carved in the rocks. Pennacook, which in Abenaki meant Place of Falling Sands, was named for the place where the swallows lived. The sand bank swallows were the symbol of the Pennacook people, the symbol of the renewal of life in the spring, of the annual banishment of the death that came so easily in the leanness of March and April. Because in May, when the moon was right, the fish would run and the yearly famine would be over. And when the fish ran, the swallows were active in the sand banks; the swallows always announced the running of the fish.

James spent a fruitless morning tramping through the woods, looking at the land. He just didn’t like the lay of any of it. Maybe he should have crossed the river and looked to the east. Or maybe he was being too picky. He shrugged and trudged northward.

Finally, he found it. It was the perfect spot, great terrain for a house and barn, a garden and hay fields and pasture land. The view from where the front porch would be was simply gorgeous.

But what was he thinking? He was several miles from the village by now, and besides, the river here was impossible. He would need to bring the lumber up by boat from Pennacook and no boat would stand a chance in this mess of rocks and foam and roaring torrents. Maybe he’d just have to have it delivered at the village dock and drag it up here by oxen.

The good thing about all these stones was that at least he could probably cross the river now. He turned for one last glance at his house site, saying goodbye, then stepped out onto a rock at the edge of the river and took a careful, calculated leap onto its neighbor.

He didn’t leap again immediately. For a long moment he stood staring down at the rushing water, imagining the lumber boat and how it would fare if it happened to be there. No matter that it couldn’t be there, that there was no way to fit such a large object into the narrow chasm he had just crossed. The pure power of the water scared him, fascinated him, held him entranced.

And that’s when he realized. This really was the perfect spot, and the rapids here were part of the perfection. Pennacook and its mill were far away, and Patterson was growing. James and his sons would build a sawmill here.

He smiled and jumped back to shore and walked home. He arranged with the Abbots for some illegal shovels (all-metal ones, not just metal-clad, made by a man named Mr. Ames who dared defy the law that such products were to be made only in England) and diverted some of that rushing water into a mill race. He bought a minimum of lumber from the Pennacook mill just to get started, and milled the rest himself, along with his sons and a hired man, built the house and the barn and finished the mill.

Over time, a village grew up around James Davenport’s mill, and the people called it Patterson Mills. And now, more than two centuries later, Dean Davenport Massilon lived in Patterson Mills with his wife and daughter and three grandsons, in a big white house with five bedrooms and a summer kitchen, next door to the Heikls who lived in the house that went with the sawmill.

In 2005, Fred Strage and his wife bought a piece of property two miles down a dirt road and four miles by road from Patterson Center, and built a rustic house there.

It was a timber frame house, built largely from local materials, including as much as possible the very trees that had been cut down to make room for it. Fred didn’t finalize the design until he’d looked at the trees, and the living room especially was a masterpiece of posts and beams as continuous wholes, trunks and branches left as they’d grown with only the bark removed.

The house was very small, little more than a cabin, with a composting toilet and a high-efficiency wood stove with an afterburner for the smoke and a heat-powered fan to circulate the heat. It was very bright inside, and the electric lights were cleverly placed and well-reflected, and the hot-water supply ran in coils of copper pipe around the stovepipe, all to keep the electric usage to a minimum.

Downstairs were a sitting room and a bathroom, a bedroom and of course the kitchen. Besides the wood stove in the kitchen there was a gas range for summer use, converted for propane, and besides the standard faucets there was a hand pump at the sink. The hand pump drew a lot of comments and even some criticism, but to Fred and his wife it was important. It was one of the things that had really brought them together, in fact: the odd coincidence that they both wanted hand pumps in their kitchens.

Upstairs, under a sloping roof, was a pair of water tanks, one for hot and one for cold, and another hand pump over the cold one in case of power outage, and a loft with four built-in beds with drawers underneath and two little windows, one in each end, in the gables.

The only flaw, perhaps, was in the insulation. Only after the fact did Fred begin to learn about thermal bridging and the possibility, not only theoretical but brought to reality in actual houses, of insulating so well that even in the cold climate of Canada a house can stay warm with nothing but the incidental heat put off by the warmth of bodies and appliance motors. But as it was, the house needed quite a bit of heating, and with only the wood stove that made it hard to go anywhere for very long in the winter.

The house project, overall, was a huge success and Fred went on to design three more, each better at preserving heat than the last. The marriage, though, did not succeed, and in 2010 they were divorced. As usual the wife got the house, but in this case Fred didn’t mind. He was already working on a design for another one, and for this one he wouldn’t have to compromise with anyone.

The wife, of course, was a red-headed freelance translator by the name of Jade Massilon.