Literally Reruns – Whooosh by Jane Dougherty

Leila has selected a second story from an author who has been a contributor to the site since very early in our existence but with only a couple of stories she leaves us wanting more. This is what Leila had to say about Whoosh by Jane Dougherty:

After reading and selecting Ms. Dougherty’s other fine contribution to the site (Friday), I checked out this unnerving little piece and came away both impressed and envious.

In Whoosh the author sets up firm reality then pulls it out from under the reader without warning. There is nothing inconsistent about this technique, for the POV of an imaginative and, perhaps, disturbed child makes the transition from one state of being to another natural.

I daren’t say too much about Whoosh for I have no desire to overstate the oddly ethereal yet substantive effect it had on my mind. Let’s allow Ms. Dougherty herself to add further comment.

Q: Throughout, multiple mentions of the “finger claws” and “anger upstairs” elevate the tension and, in my mind, enhance the mystery. Please explain how you selected the right little places to insert and reinsert them in the piece?

Q: How come only two stories, Jane? Huh? A writer of your ability should come around much more often than that.

Leila Allison

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Whoosh

Jane’s responses:

Q: Throughout, multiple mentions of the “finger claws” and “anger upstairs” elevate the tension and, in my mind, enhance the mystery. Please explain how you selected the right little places to insert and reinsert them in the piece?

I suppose I put them where it seemed appropriate. Not a proper answer, I know. A lot of writing with images is happy coincidence, fingers curl like claws, the mother pecks the child’s cheek, things are soft as feathers, sharp as talons. I wanted to link the child, the mother, the angry thing-that-shouldn’t-be using images but without adding anything concrete that would clear up the mystery. The reader can speculate on everything, the child/parent relationship, the child’s mental health, what really lived upstairs and whether it (or the child) really did for the insensitive parents.

 Q: How come only two stories, Jane? Huh? A writer of your ability should come around much more often than that.

The element of subjectivity, I suppose. These two stories just happened to be what the editors were looking for at the time; I have proposed others that weren’t. Ability, I have discovered, is fine as far as it goes. You have to write what ‘fits’ too. I’m flattered that you think I have the ability part of the equation though.