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(Essay for authors) 
REACHING OUT
(660 words)
Bob Brown

In John Steinbeck’s classic short story The Chrysanthemums, Elisa, a lonely rancher’s wife, was instantly energized by a complete stranger, a drifter, who praised her flowers. Exhilarated, Elisa has just explained how to grow chrysanthemums:

She was kneeling on the ground looking up at him. Her breast swelled passionately.

The man’s eyes narrowed. He looked away self-consciously. “Maybe I know,” he said. “Sometimes in the night in the wagon there…”

Elisa’s voice grew husky. She broke in on him. “I’ve never lived as you do, but I know what you mean. When the night is dark—why, the stars are sharp-pointed, and there’s quiet. Why, you rise up and up! Every pointed star gets driven into your body. It’s like that. Hot and sharp and—lovely.”

Kneeling there, her hand went out toward his legs in the greasy black trousers. Her hesitant fingers almost touched the cloth. Then her hand dropped to the ground. She crouched low like a fawning dog.

 Steinbeck’s description of Elisa’s desperate need of someone, anyone, to ignite a spark in her lackluster life, sent shivers up my spine when I first read this many years ago. Elisa didn’t actually touch the drifter, not even his trousers, but her intense desire for human contact is almost sexual.
        Anne Perry, who is a major best seller, has this to say about fighting in World War I in her novel Shoulder the Sky. She’s talking about friendship between two men in the trenches:

“…the friendship that was his lifeline to the laughter, the warmth of human touch, the hand that reached out and grasped his in the inner darkness of this seemingly universal destruction.”

Touching, reaching out, in a story will convey an intimacy that a paragraph of words can not improve on. I’ve used this writing device several times in my own writing. In Nathan’s Valley, Nathan and Nellie Lee struggled with religious beliefs that prevented them from getting married. They are subdued after an argument with no satisfactory conclusion:

He helped her clean the table and wash the dishes. When they worked close to each other, Nathan could feel the attraction in his heart. He sensed if he reached out and touched her arm, or even her hand, she would not pull away from him.

 Another example appeared in the short story, The Walking Woman, by Mary Austin. The Walking Woman told a near stranger of a significant man in her past. The woman hearing the story commented:

            As often as I have thought of it, I have thought of a different reason, but no 
            conclusive one, why the Walking Woman should have put out her hand and laid it on my 
            arm.

“To work together, to love together,” said the Walking Woman, withdrawing her hand…

An intimate moment was described in Carol Buchanan’s novel, God’s Thunderbolt (Publication TBD). Daniel’s thigh wound was being treated by Martha, a married woman he loved desperately, but she was married to another man. Having the wound taken care of was the last thing on his mind. The touch of her fingers to his skin was the only thing he was aware of. One hundred words could not have described his profound affection as well as the sensation he felt when she touched her fingers to his thigh.
       Follow the example of Steinbeck and others in telling your story. All readers have experienced reaching out in their own lives so they will share the emotions of your characters on an intimate level. The author’s story will then become the reader’s story as well.
       Use reaching out to enhance dramatic moments. Overuse will dilute its effectiveness. Even once in a novel or short story may be enough for the reader to remember it long after the last page is turned, just as it happened with me when I first read Chrysanthemums many years ago.

NOTE: The Chrysanthemums and The Walking Woman are both short and may be read on the Internet.

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