Writing exercise: immersion

[StillStunned]

This new Writing Exercise is a companion thread to @anthrodisiac's discussion On Writing: Immersion.

Show examples of what *you* consider immersive and/or less immersive writing. Maybe add a few notes to explain what you're doing as well.

Try not to get sidetracked into arguments about generalisations: this is about our own writing, as individual writers, and how we go about engaging our ideal reader, or what we would like to read in someone else's writing.

Obviously the snippets are short, so it will be difficult to get the full effect. Still, I think a few hundred words can serve to illustrate what you're trying to achieve.

Usual rules apply: try to stick to about 350 words, and don't write anything that wouldn't be published story-side.

 

[StillStunned]

My own snippet describes a woman having a bath. The first half is her getting it ready, the second half is her in the water. The "immersion" is quite literal, but I've tried to emulate it in my writing too. The first half is full of actions and thoughts, the second is about feelings, and uses sounds (lots of "oo" sounds and soft consonants) to show her relaxing.

===

It had been a long day, and all Jackie wanted was a long soak in a hot tub. She deserved it. That, and a glass of cold cava.

While the tap was running, she stripped off her clothes and hung her dressing gown up. The fluffy one that felt like being cuddled by kittens, and that was perfect for when she was done in the tub.

She ran her finger over the row of bottles on the shelf. Gentle Jasmin, Luxurious Lavender… no, Relaxing Rosemary. A generous squirt in the water, and bubbles began to form immediately. The scent wasn’t quite like real rosemary, but it was close enough.

With the wine already poured, there wasn’t much else to do. Select some music – Sade, for that “professional massage environment” feel – and light a candle. Then she turned off the light and climbed into the tub.

Warm water wrapped around her, swallowing her whole until only her face remained. The aroma of rosemary was thick in the air, thick and close in the clouds of steam above the bubbles.

She sucked in a lungful of the heavy perfume and closed her eyes. Her shoulders sank beneath the surface and she let the stress out, forced it out, from her neck along her spine, into her arse and down her legs and all the way to her soles and toes.

Another thick lungful, hold and let go slowly, so slowly, let herself go down into the warmth of the bathwater, washing over her with the soft steam, the soft light, the soft music…

 

[Bazzle]

A little bit of a "Bazzle" WIP- so there is smoking and peeing.

They managed to link arm in arm the progress forwards, giggling at every lurch, slowly moving through the building watching the floor and walls that were always gently swaying or spinning. They laughed as the wall unexpectedly moved sideways towards them. Desperately trying to follow the straight line of the pee filled metal drain grates in the floor. When that failed there was a knack. The others had taught her to bounce off the walls whilst trying to keep moving forward. They both squealed as they tripped up over their own wet feet and stumbled on to their knees. The next step for ease as they sat cross legged on the cold floor leaning against the wall was to light a cigarette.

Nelly could have sat there smoking all afternoon waiting. There was no point rushing these things. Sitting there with Bryony was fun. A quick drunken kiss as another dribble of urine in the process turns into a river as it pours out on the floor splashing off both thighs. Nelly accidently looked up the ceiling, it also swirled and danced around so that it could be perceived as watching swinging chandeliers. The whole scene was as if it was from some scary horror movie. No fixtures seemed to be fixed, everything was continuously swaying and moving.

 

[SimonDoom]

Bill jumped into the Brazilian river, a tributary of the Amazon, deep in the rainforest.

He was naked. The warm water enveloped his body.

Bill enjoyed the sensation of immersion, until a sharp, painful tug on a particularly sensitive part of his body reminded him that the waters were infested with piranhas.

 

[Erozetta]

As you enter the bedroom, you see me fastening the tiny pink velvet collar around my neck.

You groan and move behind me, kissing gently above it. "You ready for this one?" you ask softly before you move to your closet and retrieve clean pants. We really should've undressed you, but I do like being nude and fucking the exposed cock on a man who is otherwise fully clothed. Messiness is just a risk you have to endure for me.

I nod. For you? I'm ready for anything, even the pink collar.

~


Though, my fantasy lasts much longer and is sometimes much more detailed than that. What do you think? Is that something you'd be interested in? Could you play that role for me? Fulfill my desire to fulfill you?

Maybe you have an idea for what the pink collar signifies? If red is 'take me without hesitation' and black is 'play to my need to please'... If white is 'fill the role of obedient housewife,' and gray is 'tight ropes knotted beneath my dress'... If purple is 'tie me down before you take me, I want to fight and resist,' and blue is, 'I need you to hurt me in ways you normally refuse'... What exactly does a pink collar indicate? Or, should I ask, "What would you like it to indicate, Sir?" What's your desire?

Do you have your own fantasies you'd like to act out? I'm willing to listen if you want to share. Maybe I can be who you want me to be. As long as that's not some diddly little obedient housewife for more than a few hours. I need more than that. I can be so much more than that.

Would you let me be? Maybe if I get on my knees and beg? I'm very good at being exactly as good or bad as you desire.

And remember, your pleasure heightens mine, so tell me exactly what you want from me, and I'll do all I can to be yours.

Excerpt is from an already posted story of mine:

Collars and Cravings - Fetish

I have it recorded as an audio but never had the guts to put it up. Only one person has and will ever hear that version. I'm planning a minor rewrite of it and will be doing an audio of it with a friend at some point in the future, but no idea when we'll have time to record our parts.

Still, I think it's probably the most immersive thing I've written, and it's not just because I bring the reader into it at the end there. The entire story is a woman telling her fantasy to her lover, so it tries to bring you fully into her head and thought process, which is messy.

 

[yowser]

Hearing Uncle's footsteps coming up the front steps off the porch never failed to excite me.

Regular, the familiar, rhythmic sound-pattern on the wooden planks from his workboots, supple on his sturdy feet.

I sat on my sofa in the front room, overlooking the wind-rippled salt marshes of Cape Cod Bay, deserted in the off-season, my hands gripping the hem of my skirt just so they had something to do. The off-shore breeze that crept in through the closed but drafty windows and doors of the family summer cottage was salty, oceanic, elemental.

Four strides across the porch, vibrations coming through the floor, then his hand on the knob and the door opening.

"Uncle Quim, excellent to see you!" I was breathless. I knew my face was flushed.

A smile came easily to that broad, English face with the long, sharp nose. I don't think he was capable of an inauthentic expression.

"Camille, my same feelings in return."

He closed the door, and in five steps was in front of me, bending in for a kiss.

His eyebrows were dark and craggy, his temples just the barest hint of gray. Even when I was still at university I had found myself drawn to men, rugged men, older than myself. My father's brother had always been handsome, now he had become irresistible.
His eyes met mine. It seemed that they gleamed.

"The drive from Ipswich alright, Uncle Quim? The slog through Boston is never easy."

"It's never tiresome when I have an end-goal in mind, Camille."

My quim tightened, needing no other prompting. My nipples, bare against the inside of my coarse, woolen sweater, were erect. I was aware of his eyes on their protruding humps.

He put his shoulder-bag down, its surface worn and leathery.

"How many quims have you had, Uncle?" I began our foreplay early.

He laughed.

"You always ask me that. And I've always answered." He held up five fingers of his open right hand.

"More than this."

"Two hands-worth, Uncle?"

"A bit more," he smiled. "But fewer than three. Yet none sweeter than yours, Camille. Might I see it, love? It's been ages."

"Three whole weeks."

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

It had been a long day, and all Jackie wanted was a long soak in a hot tub. She deserved it.

This is immersive af

 

[StillStunned]

This is immersive af

I write your truth, Jackie.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

I write your truth, Jackie.

And for free!

 

[SmilingLez]

Immersive and Non-Immersive Micro-Fiction


Rain hits my window. I touch it. Cold. Outside, the streetlight blurs everything yellow. A car drives slow, tires hissing. Dog barks once. Quiet again. My breath fogs the window. I wipe it with my sleeve. Nothing out there. Just rain. Just me.

++++++

A woman stands by her window at night. It's raining. She touches the glass. It feels cold. She sees a car drive past and hears a dog bark. Her breath makes the window fog up. She wipes it with her sleeve. There's nothing outside worth looking at. She stays there anyway.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Smooth vs. jagged:

1. The sparkling stream meanders through the verdant forests, a swishing serpent carving her path through soil and shrub, oblivious to all around her, content, peaceful.
2. The sparkling stream, a swishing serpent, meanders through the verdant forests, soil, shrub, oblivious — but content — to all around her.

Much easier to parse 1 than 2. First sentence has a very natural flow, with a construction mimicking the gentle meandering imagery in the sentence, clauses as bends in the stream, shifting direction slightly as the sentence continues.

Sentence 2 is rough, zig-zaggy, doesn't mesh with the vibe of the sentence at all. It's something you'd want to use for jumbled thoughts, or tension, where you're keeping the reader off-balance. But the way it's written creates a dissonance between imagery and structure, as well as increases the difficulty of reading comprehension in comparison to the first. The second is almost stressful to read compared to the languid vibe of the first.

 

[FrancesScott]

This is the beginning of Abby’s Sapphic Deliberations (the initials are wholly intentional). I wanted to put the reader viscerally in the position of the narrator; both what was happening and how her brain was processing it.

I sat in my car, trying to calm myself. 'You did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong.' And yet the flashing red and blue lights had appeared out of the darkness in my rearview. Bright, too bright, and pulsing. I could see them still and quickly averted my eyes from the mirror. And then the siren. Blaring but thankfully only briefly.

'It's OK, Abby. It's OK, Abby. It's OK, Abby.' I traced the five fingers on my left hand with the index of my right. Now what was I meant to do? I saw both doors of the car behind me open and a shadowy figure emerge from one of them. 'Think, Abby! Think!'

I breathed deeply. 'OK. Engine off, check. Roll down the window, check.' The figure was approaching. A light it was holding was dazzling in the side mirror. 'Quick, Abby.' Another breath. 'Interior lights on, check. Hands on steering wheel, check.'

 

[EmilyMiller]

Maybe a different kind of immersion…

—

We burst into the cavernous room, a female Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid; if Sundance had been topless and with nipples standing to attention in the cold air, that is.

Two massive snakes reared up at the far end of the chamber, their orbits glowing murderously green. "Watch the eyes," I yelled to Lily, as rays of searing light burst from them in our direction.

"Ya think?" cried Lily, somersaulting sideways to safety and deploying her feathery wings with a damp whoosh. "Ow! My back is still sore," she grimaced, flapping off the ground.

My own bat wings sprouted from my shoulder blades and unfurled. I leaped into the air, just as a blast of light hit my take off point. Now both airborne, we had the advantage, and turned our minds to counterattack.

Lily and I each had the benefit of helpful parental genes. Mom was the second most powerful demon in Hell, behind only Her Satanic Majesty, Lucy Morningstar herself. Dad might be a founder member of the assholes club, but the power of a God was nothing to be sniffed at.

As for Lily, her late father had been an archangel, as was her missing mother. And she was now brimming with the power of manticore semen - which appeared to function much like its human equivalent, Divine Grace.

Red lightning screamed from my outstretched palms, hitting one snake. Lily's blue electrical discharges enveloped the other. Both serpents writhed and hissed in agony. But basilisks were not creatures to be underestimated. As I recharged, lethal green rays raced toward me. I tumbled right and evaded them, but it had been close.

Looping the loop to avoid more blistering beams, I attacked again, smoke now rising from the serpent's seared scales. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. Rapidly glancing sideways, I saw Lily's adversary had a big chunk missing from its body just below the head. But its obvious pain seemed only to infuriate the beast more, and it sent volley after volley of chartreuse bolts at my girlfriend.

One caught the tip of a wing, and Lily screamed, plummeting downward. The injured basilisk slithered forward, sensing a kill.

I dove down and to the left, pulling the dagger from my school socks as I plummeted, aiming directly for its damaged flesh. At the moment of impact, I thrust forward the enchanted blade and wrapped my wings around myself. The demon steel cleaved the creature's flesh, and I flew right through its body and out the other side.

I halted my trajectory, spun, and looked back at two pieces of snake, each twitching in obvious death throes. I was covered in basilisk blood. It was in my mouth and eyes and nostrils. It gummed up my wings, and it was all I could do to hover helplessly. Semi- blinded, I just about made out the second serpent's gaze trained on me and closed my eyes, accepting the inevitable.

Then a calm voice said, "No."

The basilisk began to levitate, coiling in confusion. Beneath me, Lily was standing, her left wing still smoldering, her arms stretched out. She twisted her hands and the snake tied itself into a knot. Then she flung her arms wide and her adversary was literally ripped in two. It crashed to the ground, lifeless.

Lily sat down heavily as I laboriously flew to her. I could see a dazed look on her freckled face. "You OK?" I asked, deeply concerned.

"Yeah," she replied dreamily. "Did not know I could do that."

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's that time of year again when the blossom tree outside the back window begins to bud. At first it's maybe six or seven blossoms on the lowest branch, then a few days later maybe fifty or sixty in a dense cluster. In a week there will be five or six hundred and the lowest branches will be covered in white. A week after that, the whole tree, tens of thousands of blossoms. They're pure white, like snow, tiny blossoms not much bigger than the tip of my thumb. I've called them Degas ballet dancers, tiny beautiful animate things. Right now they're looking up to the morning sun, as if to leap up. At midday they'll still be looking up, seeking the hot heat of the sun, reaching up for him, their tiny arms outstretched. Come dance with me, tiny angels!

When it rains, their coats fall to the ground and the tiny white petals blow away, turn brown. For a few weeks my garden becomes a Japanese print, Ukiyo-e, and I'm conscious of another year passing. This time coincides with my birthday, too, and my years getting older. I become contemplative, and spend long times just looking, drifting back into my mind. Tears drop sometimes, I don't mind; there's a stillness here that I like, calming the year with quiet purpose. I dreamed of Veronica last night.

I Dreamed of Veronica Last Night

 

[XerXesXu]

Song-Liu waited for several hours, walking around, reading a newspaper, but always keeping an eye on the shelter. Then she appeared. She walked to the shelter and sat. He approached casually, then pounced on her. "I’m Song-Liu of the State Security Bureau… you are under arrest.”

She attempted to fight him off. They tussled for minutes; as Ting-Tong began to tire Song-Liu got the upper hand, still he was unable to control her. She knocked his phone from his hand; he immediately regretted not calling for back-up before the arrest.

Xue-Ruiquan was in uniform, walking through the park when Song-Liu called out to him. “You there… come and assist me... I’m Song-Liu, a director from the Security Bureau… I’m arresting a spy.”

Rui’s ears pricked and he strolled over. “You appear to be assaulting a woman… Who did you say you are… Do you have any ID?"

Song-Liu reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his warrant card. “There… Don’t make a song and dance out of this or it will be the worse for you.”

“Ah, yes… Song-Liu… Director of… Social Credit Enforcement…" he glanced at his summoner and smiled, as if pleased to meet him," ...at the Regional Security Bureau.”

He looked toward the deep-blue lake, then back at Song-Liu. “Can you swim?"



"Drowned! ...What was he doing in the lake... did he think he was on holiday?" The Bureau was having another rough day.