Put Down Your Red Stapler and Go Home. It’s Friday.

Three things.

Uno – The “First and Last” contest is coming to a close tonight at midnight… but if you ask really nicely, I might let you finish your story over the weekend. Here’s a link to the contest info. And thanks to all who have already entered. So far, nearly 20 of you have taken on the challenge. I suspect a few more are waiting until the last minute to submit your brilliant work. Looking forward to reading each entry.

Two – I invited you to send suggestions for first and last lines that I might choose from to write a story… and some of you have done that. I might try to find a way to fit more than two of these in my story. This reminds me of a similar challenge I faced in an old blog of mine. I told readers I’d write a story using any word or phrase people sent in. Most sent a single word, and each got a short story. But this one sassy blogfriend sent me like a dozen (including, among others, “maggot-infested corpses” and “sargassum tea” and “Hello Kitty band-aids” and “a kite-flying windy day”) and challenged me to fit them in a single story. I did. And it was almost brilliant, if I do say so myself. (I’ll tell you more about that later.)

Here’s what I have to chose from so far.

First lines:

Joan hated dogs, especially hated them for breakfast.

If only he could see the future.

The end of the world was the best thing that had ever happened.

The striped cat glared at me.

The scent of roses had a chemical edge to it.

It had to be a trick, Nessie was just a myth, right?

Three attempts for three failures, and the last the worst of them all.

She wore bling like Christmas tree decorations, and I wondered if she could pay.

The song finishes too quickly.

Maybe this fertilizer will make our garden grow.

Last lines:

I was still hungry.

The jar was broken beyond repair.

The last thing he heard was, “dance for me monkey, dance.”

It burned on.

The feeling lasts forever.

Hot and sinfully smooth, just the way I like it.

If only the chairs were edible.

But it didn’t matter, not now.

The rain washed it all away.

He opened the envelope, no longer afraid.

Third Thing – While you’re waiting for the results of this contest (hopefully, by next Friday), I have a new challenge for you. Remember this post about what not to do with dialogue? Well, I want you to start thinking about what good dialogue looks like. Grab your favorite book and see if you can figure out what makes the dialogue shine. Listen to a conversation in a coffee shop and imagine it on the page. What would you keep? What would you delete? How many times do you need to mention who said what?

Next week, I’ll show you some of the good examples I’ve run across in recent reading.

Until then, write well. Read a lot. And send me cookies. (I prefer the cake-like cookies you typically only find in swanky bakeries. You know the soft’n’chewy kind. Chocolate chip. Peanut butter. Snickerdoodles.)