Let's change up for the holiday weekend!
Instead of writing a story, tell us about your main character
Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm looking for:
Josh stood to go as Skylar stepped through the door, slender and gorgeous, wearing a black moto jacket over a short black dress, black tights, and black ankle boots. Her hair was different. Burnished auburn, long on one side, short on the other, with a single blonde streak. Even with Josh being all the way in the back, their eyes locked, and she smiled, a crooked smile he found charming. Josh had never decided if the smile made her seem knowing or bored. Josh liked her. He was even impressed by her, but he was also put off. She was smart —maybe, in a way, brilliant —but she was dumb as a rock in other ways, and deeply flawed. She was one of the most self-destructive people he knew.
Racing the Light
Robert Crais
Most of the usual rules apply:
The usual rules apply:
1. Write a story character description using 130 words or fewer.
2. Use these words in the story:
To compete for the Steve Forti Deft Use of Prompt Words prize (or
if you are Steve Forti) you must also use:
3. You must use the whole word, but that whole word can be part of
a larger word. The letters for the prompt must appear in consecutive order.
They cannot be backwards.
4. Post the entry in the comment column of THIS blog post.
5. One entry per person. If you need a mulligan (a do-over) erase your entry and post again. It helps to work out your entry first, then post.
6. International entries are allowed, but prizes may vary for international addresses.
7. Titles count as part of the word count (you don't need a title)
8. Under no circumstances should you tweet anything about your particular entry to me. Example: "Hope you like my entry about Felix Buttonweezer!" This is grounds for disqualification.
8a. There are no circumstances in which it is ok to ask for feedback from ME on your contest entry. NONE. (You can however discuss your entry with the commenters in the comment trail...just leave me out of it.)
9. It's ok to tweet about the contest generally.
Example: "I just entered the flash fiction contest on Janet's blog and I didn't even get a lousy t-shirt"
10. Please do not post anything but contest entries. (Not for example "I love Felix Buttonweezer's entry!")
11. You agree that your contest entry can remain posted on the blog for the life of the blog. In other words, you can't later ask me to delete the entry and any comments about the entry at a later date.
12. The stories must be self-contained. That is: do not include links or footnotes to explain any part of the story. Those extras will not be considered part of the story.
Contest opens: Saturday, December 24, 7:40am EST
Contest closes: Monday, December 26, 9:00am EST
If you're wondering how what time it is in NYC right now, here's the clock
If you'd like to see the entries that have won previous contests, there's an .xls spread sheet here http://www.colindsmith.com/TreasureChest/
(Thanks to Colin Smith for organizing and maintaining this!)
Questions? Tweet to me @Janet_Reid
Ready? SET?
Not yet!
Enter!
Sorry too late! Contest is closed.
29 comments:
Iggy had grown so much in the past few years. On the day his brother was murdered, she had a round little face and a Campbell’s kid smile, a tight shock of wiry curls crowning her head like a halo. Now, her face had lengthened and fleshed out. The chubbiness was gone, replaced by the soft supple curves of adulthood. She had Frankie’s light brown eyes, but everything else about her belonged to her mother. Her squat, athletic frame, her cocoa-tinted skin. Even her dimples were her mother’s.
“I swear, Uncle Donnie,” she said, flashing the dimples as she skittered a nearly empty gallon of milk across the counter. “You’re worse than a kid. How come you’re always putting stuff back in the fridge empty?”
“Here she is, the Regional Vice-President of Tech Tower, Ms. Gretchen Goodwin.”
A tall, slender woman in a rich tangerine-colored business suit emerged and approached the microphone. She confidently crossed the gym floor, waving with the poise of a Miss America contestant.
Steep high-heels and expertly applied makeup complemented thick shoulder-length red hair. She was a page from Vogue.
“Good morning,” she smiled. “Good morning!” they shouted back.
“I am so pleased to be here, with a message from the Tech Tower Community Foundation.
As incentive for your Quiz Bowl, Tech Towers will give the winning team tangerine Tech Tower Talent Team T-shirts.” She held high an orange shirt; a visible slump occurred in the bleachers.
Gretchen Goodwin expected this – you don’t become a Regional Vice-President without understanding your customer.
Twelve-year-old Calvin Jones speaks with birds. The doctors think what Calvin hears is caused by his brain tumor. His parents believe his imaginary friends are simply vivid childhood fantasies.
Maybe they are.
But Calvin has a secret. Not only does he converse with them, but he soars wing tip to wing tip.
To ascend into the sky means no school, no bedtimes, no responsibilities, and no chemo.
The birds say, “To fly is to live.” And to soar forever as a bird is Calvin’s dream, but returning to humanity may be impossible once committed.
Which is either bird-brained or a bonus. Calvin’s not sure, but life with cancer—stinks.
Sometimes I've thought it would be cool to have someone appreciate how good I was at my job, a panel of judges holding score cards: 9.8, 10, 10, 9.9. But when your job was to kill someone, having judges watching…well, that wouldn't be smart, would it? I am both very smart and very good at everything I do.
When my prey-person walked under where I perched, I dropped down, landed on his shoulders, and pulled back his head. My hand swiped once, the talons of my bagh nakh slashing through throat and trachea.
With a bubbling gurgle, he collapsed.
I jumped clear as he fell. It was a huge rush of a moment, a gymnast's dismount easily worthy of a 10.
Seconds later, he was quite, quite dead.
The young woman was on the wrong side of the road, hitch-hiking, wiggling her thumb as though unsure this thing worked. He couldn't tell her age, but maybe 20.
As he slowed, she dropped her hand, eyeing the truck without expression. She was wearing a little white sweater, skinny jeans and clunky high-heeled boots, all soaked. Everything about her shouted 'I don't belong here―I don't want to be here.' So what the hell was she doing here, trying to hitchhike on a rainy November evening?
“Should we offer a ride, Betty?” he asked. The old dog offered no opinion. “But why would she get in a truck with the likes of me?” He stopped, rolled down the window, and leaned out. She did not move. “Hey, there,” he said, smiling.
Someone comes to stand beside me. I look up and do a double-take.
He looks like Sebastian. Same cheekbones and deep brown eyes, hair just a little more sun-blanched on the edges. This must be the brother. He’s tall and lean like my human, but he’s got an artistic musculature to his torso, arms folded as he watches Sebastian on stage. He’s dressed like he fought with a bear but changed shirts on the way: his plain white T is clean but his jeans and boots are scuffed, and I think I catch a waft of pine needles and sweet grass. If a tree trunk rammed into this brother, I bet the tree would stop.
Simon Milgrew – or Mildew, as my mind auto-corrects - stands on my porch. Even with the face of a slug and the personality of its slime trail, he considers himself a ladies' man, so I block him before he oozes his way inside.
But he just wrings his meaty hands, the sweaty flesh squelching together.
"Clare, Fifi got out again. Can you help me look for her? Please?" He leans closer. I'm hit by a hammer of cologne, but flattened by the misery in his eyes.
I sigh. A man who loves a pet so much cannot be totally odious.
"This better not be another of your tricks to get me alone. " I pull the door closed behind me. "Now, let's go find that snake."
Daphne Flowers unfolded herself from the SUV. She still had the grace from being the Sexiest Woman in Sports, but had filled out some. She couldn’t let herself go, because of the internet.
As her sneaker clad feet hit the sand, she knew the suit jacket would stay behind. She stood, flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder, and unknotted her blouse from the shoulder holster.
She smiled inwardly, while keeping her cop’s demeanor intact. There was a body here and she was going to be able to investigate it. It was one of the reasons she left beach volleyball, the other being that she had gotten enough sand up the crack of her ass. Her niche was forensic accounting, but she would rather be a real cop than a mini-Madoff chaser.
Back in the bedroom, which has two mattresses on the floor, one for me and one for Mom (although she hardly ever uses hers and right now it's covered with laundry), I stuff my basketball inside my backpack, then my lunch. Shove my feet into sneakers with worn out Velcro and a hole over my right big toe (I'm saving the better ones for school). Drop wrap-around sunglasses over my regular glasses and pop a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap on my head to hide my face and hair. I get teased a lot, because I'm albino, which means I'm not just white, I'm REALLY white, including my hair. Teasing isn't fun, although it's way better than getting beat up.
You can trust me on that one.
Hollis was tall, but gravity and anxiety stole a few inches, knocking his stature from six foot one to five eleven. He smiled halfway, only his right cheek ticking up, when he saw me wave him over. He skulked towards me, like a ghost in a room full of mediums. He hadn’t yet grasped that billionaires at a gala were hard to hide.
He looked so much better than the last time I’d seen him. The black suit he wore was impressive, so I didn’t have the heart to point out the ink stain on his collar. I was, however, curious as to how it got there. With Hollis, there was always a story.
Amanda is bitter. She’ll never forgive that her husband left to be with ‘The Whore’.
She swore to herself she’d never lose the only other man in her life – William, her son – and made a plan: The clergy. When William was grown and moved into St Andrew’s rectory as priest, Amanda purchased the apartment next door. She made sure: no other woman!
Amanda died in September 2006, sixty years old. She’d dialled William’s number a dozen times. But William had never answered. In agony, she’d dialled 999. Which service do you require? Realising she’d lost the grip on William in this world, she hung up and waited for her heart to stop.
Amanda is bitter. She haunts her son day and night, so he’d not ‘leave’ her for another whore.
I’ve concluded that my parents’ DNAs caromed against each other haphazardly during my conception. I possess none of Dad’s German propensity for precision engineering, none of my Filipino mother’s talent for singing. I’m not sure where I got the stomach for malt whiskey, super spicy food, and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Appearance-wise, though, people who’ll find me wandering in the woods will know which set of parents to return me to. I inherited Dad’s Aryan facial bone structure, six feet height, his halblaut speaking voice. The rest of me? All-Mom. Dark brown eyes, black hair, fair skin. Even that chin mole.
Luckily, my genetic mashup apparently worked for the only segment of society whose opinion mattered to nineteen-year-old me — them lovely girls of Anne Arundel County, Baltimore.
There was something in the way that Violet carried herself as she crossed the bar, and the confidence she had in every interaction. The wave and waggle of her fingers to someone she knew, the flirtatious eyebrow raise to someone she did not. How she froze a whole table of conversation by leaning in to whisper in one person’s ear for just a heartbeat. Travis had been around many cocky frat boys and finance jerks, but Violet was genuine in her self-assuredness. It was magnetic. But even more than that, it was the effortlessness with which she swiped two people’s wallets, extracting the money and returning to original pockets without breaking her stride or getting noticed by anyone else that captivated Travis’ attention.
If you are doing any reading between the lines, Dear Reader, you may have put two and two together and concluded that my entire knowledge of sexual matters was purely academic. If so, your conclusion would not be inconsistent with the facts. I’m not saying that the appearance of New York City on my personal horizon did not at least offer me the hope of some new experiences. I am saying that it most certainly did. According to Wikipedia, seventy percent of American girls claimed to have had sex by age nineteen. Of those that hadn’t, I’d bet that most were compelled by religious beliefs not to partake; either that, or they had highly controlling parents. I’m not judging anybody. I just knew that I was behind the statistical curve.
In the midst of this maelstrom stood she, a prisoner of the inevitable, the window for her escape quickly slamming shut, precious seconds ticking away. Standing in her way… her target, who had turned the tables, and now led their dance. Upside-down and firmly in his clutches, she fought off the combined effects of the blood rush and the punch.
I am screwed, Zola thought. Royally screwed.
On the bright side, a premature death would excuse her from yet another interminable debriefing session.
Of all the perilous scenarios she had envisioned, and the attendant escape techniques she'd devised, “Mid-Waltz Extrication” never had come to mind.
"I shouldn’t have had that last drink," she mumbled.
“The last drink wasn’t the problem. It was the six before that,” said The Voice rudely invading her head.
His voice was like melting caramel, smooth and euphonious. She especially loved the way he said certain words. Baaaby. All drawn out like she was the center of his universe.
She closed her eyes, as if that made her hearing more acute, and adjusted her head upon the pillow. She let herself be lulled and her breathing slowed.
Hypnotic. Bathed in liquid sugar. Her limbs (legs freshly shaved, mildly nicked) mired in molasses.
She would listen till midnight, like every night. The transistor radio pressed against her ear tugging at the hair clipped into pink sponge curlers, flannel nightie traded for the much cooler baby doll pajamas.
Ignoring the top forty till the bittersweet, “and that’s a wrap Cats and Kittens. Till tomorrow, Mustang Memphis signing off.”
He was royalty. Exiled maybe, but royalty nonetheless. His kingdom: the stretch of High Street between Lombard and Grainge. Here he could stride proudly in his leather jacket emblazoned with words that made the neighbourhood recoil in horror. His jeans were threadbare in places and fitted him almost too well. Young girls giggled and flushed as he passed. Older ladies clutched their purses tightly to their chests. Mothers dragged their daughters to the far side of the street as he approached. The same daughters who sighed his name as they went to sleep at night and scribbled his name on hastily crumpled slips of paper. His swagger down High Street reflected his ownership of this part of the city. But it had been a long battle and it showed.
After a couple episodes of a Korean drama and a couple bottles of Soju, he notices he’s late… as always. He slides the PPK into his ankle holster then pockets his skeleton keys and straight razor. Time to punch the clock.
He walks in the shadows as quietly as a freshly dug grave, disappearing into the crowd around him. His job performance is flawless, albeit always late. Sometimes his methods are macabre, sometimes ironic, sometimes comedic, but always deserved.
He walks into the appointed office and closes the door.
“Who the hell are you?”
He acknowledges the man that ran so many fake charities for children. He sees a cup of lollypops and jams a couple down his throat. He lets go when there’s no more fight.
“The names Karma.”
By the summer when I was seventeen, my hormones were on a collision course with my common sense. I had been looking for someone whose primed animal instincts were all wrapped up in a fine pair of faded Levi’s, someone with a sweet talkin’ smile, someone whom mothers feared and sweet young thangs dream about, at a time when the local high school boys seemed gawky and crude. The moment I saw him I knew, in that heart-thudding second, he was the one. He had a casual perfection about him. His lean body moved with the fluid, hypnotic grace of a jungle cat, which fueled my nightly aerobic dreams.
Phaedra chose a form that rendered her invisible, bang average, another face in the crowd. Neither short nor tall, neither fat nor skinny, neither ugly nor a great beauty. She looked like a thousand other island girls.
Her strange confidence mixed with uncertainty, her lack of social graces, her dark and direct humor attracted Husk. A bond formed between them, fragile yet unbreakable. Pity the curse that forbid anyone to touch Phaedra without being burned alive.
She gave Husk a brown-eyed stare, puzzlement as she attempted to probe his thoughts, an ability she relinquished in favor of physical form.
“What are you staring at?” she demanded.
“Your form looks more innkeeper than powerful sorceress.”
“What do powerful sorceresses look like?”
“No idea. You’re the only one I’ve ever known.”
Tante stood in her bedroom doorway, wearing a robe, holding herself carefully, her silvery white hair frizzy in its braided coronet.
Surely she used to be taller, sturdier, but her hands though bony retained wiry strength and her profile remained patrician—hollowed cheekbones, sharp jawline, resolute chin. Laughter lines fanned softly from her eyes.
She also sported a black eye.
“Oh Tante.” Addison’s throat blocked at the signs of Tante’s physical aging, her increasing frailty, and leaned in for a careful hug. She wanted to stop time and hold the ones she held dear in place so there would be no more losses.
“One little fall and Doris sends for an invasion.” Tante spoke with some acerbity. “Liebe. How wonderful to see you. Finally.”
Mitch thrives on the graveyard shift in a world most living people avoid—the morgue. He’s rail-thin, with white-blond hair and a pasty complexion. Honestly, there are corpses with more color than Mitch. Rumor has it he moonlights at a local funeral home when he’s not in the morgue, so it’s possible he never sees the sun. A lack of Vitamin D won’t be the ultimate cause of his demise, though. He’s a decade younger than me, but I’ll outlive him unless he gives up his pack-a-day habit.
“You’re the boss, Doc,” he says easily whenever I ask him about a case. “I just do what I’m told.”
It’s a game we play almost every time we work together. We both know who’s really in charge.
Maggie put down her book and rubbed her eyes. A pale beam of streetlight leaked around the blanket that partially covered her lone window, which was frosted by an icy ooze of January air off the East River. In the yellowish light it looked like frozen urine, and being a basement window, it could have been. She pulled the bedcovers further up and glanced at her growing library of 193 books, every one of them stolen. On top of everything else, she thought, I’m starting to look and feel like a mole.
I greet her each morning alongside old Mr. Roo. First his cock-a-doodle-doo, and then comes my hee-haw too. She is a whimsical wonder, for each day, she dresses up in her finest gown—only the best for the most beautiful place around.
With a kind, gentle heart and a wild free spirit, she dances with goats and sings to the chicks. She runs with the horses, climbs atop bales, then stands in the breeze before she catches a kitten and gives it a squeeze.
Her dress sparkles like crystals and is torn by the fence. Her boots are painted with mud and embellished with straw. Green eyes glow past her dirt-covered face.
The beautiful barnyard would not be the same if ruled by anyone other than Dusty— Princess of the Dirt.
It takes a second for my eyes to adjust before I see the guy – my sham groom, I mean, who I might as well tell you is called Septurbine Govret and looks like it too. He’s looming beside the officiate’s desk in a Harbak suit so old his grandfather probably wore it to cross the rift, ugly hairstyle draping to his square chin, full lips pressed into a line. His deep-set black eyes are, as usual, fixed in a glare he could market as vermin control. In the five years I’ve known him, he’s morphed from student to scholar to overqualified stay-at-home son – and not become an iota more likeable in the process.
He glances my way, then turns his noxious glare on the badly-panelled wall.
Yeah, the loathing’s mutual.
Skylar resisted the urge to tug at her dress. This was the longest she'd been under and she couldn't wait to ditch this persona. But the pay was good and the stakes were-- well, failure wasn't an option.
She crossed the room, gave a smile she hoped wasn't too convincing. Her handler had nailed the best approach. Act just smart enough that her mark felt superior when she pretended to mess up.
Josh was loyal, eager like a pup, and frustratingly tight-lipped. She only needed one more piece of the puzzle.
Time was running out.
A guy she'd pegged as a PI had been hanging around, asking questions. He seemed vaguely charming. She hoped he stayed out of her way. It'd be a shame to have to hurt him.
Laura stared at Ashton from across the classroom with those horribly calm, almond grey eyes that spoke to a character that could not be rattled by anything – not by change, not by time, not by throwing her over the side of a boat. Framed by a perfect dark bob, her face was tired, but it was tired as if she had spent a lot of time doing something she loved, and the number of medals decorating her cadet uniform spoke to her passion.
She was the kind of girl kids envied, the kind of student teachers loved, and, as the corners of her red lip turned upwards in response to his venomous stare, the kind of person that Ashton really wanted to throw over the side of a boat. Again.
I rewound the tape. His easy-going stride could walk down a horse. A craggy face from squinting into a thousand sunsets, impossible to tell if the lines held laughter or tears. Later, witnesses would say he was no taller than five seven and over six foot. The marks on the wall put him at 6’3” in those heavy engineer boots favored by truckers and bikers.
The teller said he was, “Almost apologetic. I got the feeling he needed the money for a sick aunt or something.”
His voice boomed when he told the guard, “Stop.” Then almost a whisper, “I don’t want to shoot anyone else today.”
I chewed my pencil, wishing it was a Pall Mall, and wondered how someone so memorable could be non-descript.
In the bathroom, he threw cool water in his face. The mirror showed him a haggard young face. God, he needed a break. For a moment, he was sure he saw his father. It had to be London that made him think of him, not the mirror. Yet there was his father's straw-coloured hair, missing only the white-blonde at the temples. There were the thin, aristocratic features, the tired lines around the mouth... he averted his gaze - an instinct now - before it landed on his eyes.
It had been years since the memory of his mother's eyes had left him screaming, but in this city so full of memories, he needed to keep that one at bay.
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