Why not try it out?

I liked the part of the Delbanco and Cheuse textbook that describes exposition.  I had never really thought about what writers have to do from the outset in order to make the reader care what happens to the characters in the story.  So I had kind of a crazy idea.  Why not try it out?  I used a protagonist with a bit of a chip on her shoulder following our Greasy Lake reading.  Let me know if, by the end, you care about what happens to her or not.  Or try it out yourselves.  Turns out it's kinda fun.

In the privacy of the dark woods behind Colton Leavitt’s home, only dizzy crowds of white-cold breath frost could discern their conversation.  It wasn’t that they were discussing anything worth hiding exactly—Colton told Shayne about his grad school plans, and Shayne told Colton about how she bought six boxes of Waffle Crisp and now the roof of her mouth was destroyed—but hardly anyone would approve of two people just casually chatting after they had almost gotten married and then didn’t.  The last time Colton tried to visit Shayne, her mother hit him over the head with a yard sign so hard that he actually blacked out.  And 96-year-old Mrs. Teerlink made sure to send Shayne halfway to Nevada on errands, so that Shayne had to learn about the visit and the shouting and the shiny blood on the grass long after Colton had already left.

Like one great never-ending circus freak sideshow in these parts, if you asked Shayne.  Good thing she moved to Sacramento.  But today the directionless breeze around her hometown felt like a nice thing to move through, like it might spin pinwheels of fortune across her skin.  Shayne recognized an overgrown dirt path unwinding to the left.  “This way!”  They rode their bikes to an abandoned fire tower, and Shayne had the rusty padlock removed before Colton could even notice it was there.  She climbed to the top and Colton followed.  Way down below their feet, a stark black burn forced apart the thick green and then drew into itself again after a few miles.  Why a fire would have originated at the base of a lookout tower, they could only guess, but they were both bound momentarily by its unlikely beauty.

“I brought food.  I thought we could have a picnic.”  Cole pulled his backpack around and his hand brushed Shayne’s.  She recoiled at the tender familiarity of his knuckles on the tips of her fingers.