A couple of years ago I won a prize at a writing conference for writing the following story in about 10 minutes:
It didn’t jive: foxes and God? What had one to do with the other? Yet here was this brewer, regaling me with stories of how both God and foxes made numerous cameos in his life.
“What does God say in these cameos?” I asked – assuming the cameo foxes were not talking cameo foxes.
“Well, it usually happens during a nap, so it’s kind of a dream, but too real to be a dream,” he said.
“I’m sitting on the ice – I’m dry but I’m frozen, and I always need to pee, but I don’t think that’s part of the message from God. That just happens because I have a large glass of water before my nap.”
“Ok, so you’re sitting on the ice…” I say, trying to pull him back from his tangent.
“Right, right, I’m on the ice…” he continues, “Everything around me whitens and out of a large hive come large bees…”
At this point I wonder if all this actually happens unaided or is the result of some brandy-spiked chocolate fondue.
“So the bees print messages in the snow, they dab themselves on the pure white blanket and print words. I sit there watching until six bees – its always six – grab my ears and turn my head.”
This is getting weirder by the moment, and I wonder if he’d notice if I snuck out and left him there alone with his story. No such luck. He grits his teeth and looks me straight in the eye and says:
“Here’s the best part…”
Ok, here’s how the story was written. We were given a photo of a finished Scrabble game board and we had to use as many of the words on the board as possible to create a story on the spot.
Below is a picture of a finished Scrabble game board. It’s not the same one I used but it will work for the same type of contest. Try it out – use as many of the words on the board as possible, then email the story to me (michael.krahn@gmail.com) or leave it in the comment box below.
