Conroy's Stop-Time

The Jaguar scene gives us a preview of things to come. It allows readers to see the driving force of the entire book, anger.  Why does someone try and tempt death by driving so fast? Who is this person? How did this person come to be? These questions are in the readers' minds, and now they are hooked for the ride.

The scene I choose to write about is the introduction of Lucky. I believe he is the catalyst of Frank's sexual ways. I don't know if he would turn out the way he did if he didn't know Lucky, but he would've had a year or two of more yo-yo playing.

We were first introduced to Lucky, Frank’s cousin, when Frank catches him playing by the water. Lucky, who is a couple of years older than Frank, watches the water as if he was an Olympic swimmer.

Lucky is at the age where puberty comes into play. “Judy’s tits are so big she has to watch it going around corners. The other one has red hair down to her waist.”(120) “Do you realize that in a very few minutes little Miss Titties will be ever so graceful slipping out of her teeny little bathing suit.” (121) He’s a womanizer and wants Frank to know that. Only girls are on his mind and that’s normal for a guy his age.

We see the transformation of Frank from kid to teenager when he is invited to come with Lucky to watch girls undress themselves. Here Conroy creates a scene of anticipation with humor. “I leaned forward and spread the branches farther apart. Sweet Jesus! She was undoing the belt of the bathrobe! She was….‘Eeeyow!’”(131).

The scene reads like a novel. It so happens that Lucky’s pet squirrel attacks Frank just right before the girl is completely nude. It does, however, work with the story. Since these are just high intense scenes that usually involve risk taking, it would be less exciting just to see the girl undress and nothing happens. In the end Frank runs away with Lucky as his joys of yo-yo playing is left behind.

I think the best way to create an intense scene without fabrication is seeing things that people forget to see. A writer’s gift is seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary and with this can help make any scene more intense. I still have problems with it though. I might take out things that just so the story flows better and have a 180 ending that a reader can’t guess, since I didn’t leave any clues for them to follow. I