Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.
This week’s Halloween snippet comes from Chapter 6, “Samhain Proposal,” of my long-hiatused WIP Green Sunrise (the sequel to Little Ragdoll). I’ve shared a few excerpts from this chapter over the years, but I don’t believe I shared this particular one yet.
It’s Halloween 1974, and the Troys and the Ryans have gathered for the birthday party of one of the youngest members of their family before heading out for holiday fun. Because they grew up poor and never had the chance to wear costumes or trick-or-treat at the normal age, they treasure the opportunity to make up for lost time.
Before everyone sets out for trick-or-treating on Halloween, they meet at Lucine and Zachary’s house for Simone’s second birthday party. Simone is dressed as a tiger and sitting in a chair decorated with pink and purple streamers and balloons. Some of her friends from daycare are also in attendance with their parents.
“I helped frost the cake we made for you at the bakery!” Fiona says. “It’s made out to look like a wrapped present, and has cherry filling.”
“What a great costume!” Emeline tells Simone. “We had a storytime and Halloween activity for young kids today at the library, and a bunch of ‘em were dressed in such unoriginal costumes, like princesses, kings, ballerinas, cowboys, and witches.”
“Do you like Amelia’s and my costumes?” Irene asks.
Emeline smiles at her. “I suggested to your mommy that you two could be a Colonial girl and a pioneer girl, and I helped her with shopping for fabric.”
The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.
“How long are we going out for this year?” Ernestine asks as Allen insists on taking several pictures of the cake.
“Simone can probably only handle an hour at most,” Lucine says. “Oliver and Robbie will probably be the same. Don’t tell me you’re going.”
“Deirdre and I are both going. We’re changing into costumes back at the house. We never did it growing up, so we might as well milk it while we can still get away with it. I’m going as a sexy saloon girl, and Deirdre’s a female pirate. Afterwards all us girls are gonna try our hand at divination.”