Drafting a Love Story - 20 minutes

Tynie and Maxie

This is my first love story, based on one of the love story possibilities from the first exercise.

Explain the story first – it will help you get started finding your way inside the story where you can do more showing and less telling.

Tynie was about 11 years old, he had arthritis in his hips, we were afraid we would have to put him to sleep (strange phrase, that, which refuses to admit that we hold power of life and death over our animals). Our miniature dachshund had had to be put to sleep a couple years earlier when he threw his back out. So we were looking at being dog-less in the near future.

We decided to get a mini dachshund puppy – she was red and so affectionate that you wanted to hold her every minute of every day. She was so small she fit in Tim’s hand when we brought her home – her body fit in his hand with legs and tail and head spilling over like a dachshund waterfall, bouquet, like a floppy doll, like a what . . .

The story is from the point of view of the Golden Retriever. We need to get inside Tynie’s head. This is a classic flip-flop love story, from hate and annoyance to love and tenderness.

Details – maxie’s arrival, how she looks, maxie’s mistakes, maxie afraid, maxie nipping at me begging to play.

* * * *

My family hadn’t been gone long, at least it didn’t seem long though a nap never seems long unless you wake up with your joints stiff. That doesn’t happen so much any more, not since they started feeding me the scoops of peanut butter with the crunchy bitter pill thing in the center. But, it didn’t seem to be a long trip. And they all went together, even though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t church because they didn’t get all dressed up, and leave right after they ate breakfast. It isn’t often they all go together.

I heard the car come down our street, there’s a small hill, so the sound comes suddenly, like it just got turned on or something, after they crest the hill. Of course, then the garage door opened and the car rolled in – all pretty normal stuff.

Even taking me outside was normal, in a way, because the first thing the grown-ups do when they get home is take me outside. Sometimes Daniel and Thomas forget, but Mom and Dad always remember. Not to the back yard, though, and that was confusing. Mom opened the door and called me with him to the front yard and Dad called me over, there’s a new smell I thought, to him in the front yard and made me lie down. “Down,” he said. The new smell was very interesting and I wanted to track it down. “Down,” Dad commanded and he raised his right arm so I knew he was serious. So I lay down on the grass, which was soft and rich smelling from all the feet crunching on it. It was hard not to wiggle, because my nose wanted to taste the smell and it seemed to be coming from somewhere up high, near mom, maybe.