To foretell events is to thrust readers out of the story and into the author's face. The suspension of disbelief is gone. Suddenly those who were living in another world now realize they were merely reading about it.

An author's worst fate.

Hold readers' attention by creating a captivating present, not by alluding to a captivating future. As in life, let that story unfold naturally.

EXAMPLE:
His voice pleaded in her ear, but Margaret felt no sympathy. She slammed the phone down and left for the club. Little did she know that in less than a day, she would regret that heartless move.

CLEANED UP:
His voice pleaded in her ear, but Margaret felt no sympathy. She slammed the phone down and left for the club.

EXAMPLE:
"What do I look like, your mother?" the sheriff asked as he handcuffed the young man. "Tell it to your lawyer." But the lawyer would soon tell the sheriff the boy he handcuffed was a lot more than his standard run-of-the-mill perp.
 

CLEANED UP:
"What do I look like, your mother?" the sheriff asked as he handcuffed the young man. "Tell it to your lawyer."

It’s dusk, Halloween.  

Murder has occurred in the affluent neighborhood of a small town.

Your lead character, who works in some capacity of criminal investigation, is the first one to arrive. But this crime scene is unlike anything your lead character has seen before. This crime scene would frighten even the most seasoned big-city investigator. 

What’s the story?

Grand Prize

$100
Story published in The VERB
One Opinion, also published in The VERB
Signed copy of Ridley Pearson's novel,
The Art of Deception
 

Get all the details at the Contest Cafe.

    Marco led the Intelligence and Reconnaissance patrol of nine men and his sergeant, Ray Shaw, on their fourteenth reconnaissance that night. Chunjin, Marco's orderly, appeared suddenly at his elbow, out of the almost total darkness and persistent silence.

     Chunjin was the captain's interpreter, the general guide over terrain, who, no matter where they were sent in Korea always insisted gravely that he had been born within two miles of the spot.

     Chunjin was a very good man with a frying pan, a shoe brush, a broom, a shaving kit and at crating and transshipping books to San Francisco. He was small and wiry. He was a very, very tough-looking fellow against any comparison. He had the look of a man who maybe had been pushed around a lot and then had taken his life into his hands by deciding not to take any more of that kind of stuff. He always looked them right in the eyes, from private to colonel, and he did not smile at any time.   

     "What?" Marco said.

     "Bad here."

     "Why?"

     "Tricky."

     "How?"

     "Swamp all around thirty yards up. May be quicksand."

     "Nobody told me about any quicksand."

     "How they know?"

     "All right! All right! What do you want?"

     "All walk in single line next two hundred yards."

     "No."

     "Patrol sink."

     "It is tactically unsound to go forward in a single file."

     "Then patrol sink in thirty yards."