by Jennie Bentley
The results are in for the first part of the Flash Fiction contest, better known as The Guessing Game. The other part, where you, gentle readers, post your own 200 word stories, starting with the sentence, “If you have to die, February is the best month for it,” in the comments section of a certain post you’ll find if you look to the right of this... that’s still ongoing. At the end of February, Wilfred Bereswill is graciously giving away a copy of his book, “A Reason for Dying,” to the guest story determined to be the best of the bunch.
This time around, the prize is one of my DIY books: “Fatal Fixer-Upper,” “Spackled and Spooked,” or “Plaster and Poison,” or an advanced reader copy of “A Cutthroat Business,” first in the Savannah Martin real estate mysteries.
You know, I had no idea when we started this that it would be so hard to match stiffs to stories. I figured everyone would get at least me and Will and John Lutz matched correctly, since our work is readily available even if you’re not familiar with it already. Imagine my surprise when no one – and I do mean no one – guessed that I wrote #2.
Yes, folks, the male POV 3rd person science fiction piece is mine. I figured if I wrote first person female like I always do, you’d know right off the bat that I wrote it. So I decided to be devious. Even so, to me, it still screams in my voice, loud and clear. The sentence structure, the rhythm, the flow... Yet even Will – whom all of you; every single person – thought had written it, told me that he if he didn’t know which entry was his, he’d have thought he wrote mine.
I’m going to take that as a huge compliment, y’all. Little old girly-girl me wrote male POV well enough to fool everybody!
Here’s the actual rundown of who wrote what:
1. Will
2. Jennie
3. Joyce
4. Gina
5. John Lutz
6. Pat R.
Nobody got’em all right. A few of you got a few. The person with the most matches, interestingly enough, was someone who doesn’t know any of us: Kris the Cajun Book Lady! Congratulations, Kris. Email me or DM me with your address and your choice of reading material, and I’ll get a book in the mail to you!
Thanks for playing, everyone! And don’t forget to post your 200 word Flash Fic pieces in the appropriate place for a chance to win “A Reason for Dying.”
3 comments:
This was a lot of fun.
At first I thought #2 was Will's, but after I read all the entries over several times, I had a suspicion it might be yours, Jennie, but mostly because you said you had trouble getting it all into 200 words and could have turned it into a book. #2 could easily turn into a book.
I knew #4 was Gina's because I know her well enough and that was exactly the thing she'd write.
I thought #1 might be Will's, but had no idea who wrote #5 or #6.
I didn't think mine would be all that hard to guess. I thought it was pretty funny that everyone thought Jennie wrote it! I'll take that as a huge compliment!
Tee-hee. Yes, it WAS fun. And yes, I could easily have spun my entry into a book. Everyone else managed to write a complete story; trust me to write an opening paragraph! Pity how sci-fi isn't a big seller these days, or I might put some effort into it. I like Quinn!
I actually wrote 2 versions of my story. The first one had the husband as the killer, then I decided it would be creepier if I made the wife the killer and it had the benefit of confusing our readers.
I guess it worked.
When John Lutz emailed me his, "Monthly" all I could do was laugh. If you know John, it wouldn't surprise you at all.
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