Wow, Wolfram! You sure know how to bring the horror...
I think I'm ready to tackle my antagonist and protagonist again. On the bus this morning, I did a version of what TB suggests. I imagined them meeting as boys and being friends. I plotted out the next time they'll meet in my world. And then I thought about this scene, and did what I almost never do consciously--asked the characters what their motivation was at this point in the story.
Now I just need to try to write it again. I think I need to find a way to use a little more of my work breaks for writing and less for surfing the internet, because this whole "writing only after Annabel is asleep" is working against a lifetime of habit and the fact that my energy levels peak from early afternoon to evening, NOT late at night.
It's not sequential, although that's a good word too. (Oddly, thesaurus.com does not consider sequential and chronological to be synonymous.) It's one of these words that almost doesn't seem English. Maybe it's Latin? When I rack my brain, the words that keep popping up are sartorially and tertiary so I think that word I'm looking for might be consonantly similar.
Looking back at my piece, I think I rushed the denouement a bit so it ended cheesily. But still good for a (creepy and awkward) chuckle.
Well, now that you've brought it up, if/when you find it, come back and tell us. Me at least, 'cause I'll be picking at it all day.
I was about to say "serial". That's the only other "s" synonym for chronologically I can find. The other being sequential.
There's seriation, but that's mostly in archaeology.
Seriatim. Ginger's suggestion finally knocked it loose. Thanks guys!
Whee! My characters are cooperating again!
"two people in a dark room"
In the dark there’s nothing but the green lights of the machinery, the vague rustle of the doctor’s coat, until a light comes on over the chart on the wall.
“Can you read the bottom line?”
He can, a string of meaningless letters, just like always. He rattles them off, uninterested.
“Your vision’s still perfect,” the doctor says, stool’s wheels whining across the floor. “Good news for a man your age.”
It’s not a surprise. He fingers the unexpected pink slip in his coat pocket as he leaves, bill in his other hand. Even so, he didn’t see that coming.
