Friday April 20th, 2012

The exercise:

Four lines of prose about: the mastermind.

So concludes my three day mini-story. For now.

I'm considering bringing it over to Protagonize and expanding it quite a bit, then letting people play with it. I'll toss up a link here should I actually get around to doing so.

Mine:

He sits before a wall of television screens, each one displaying the interior of a village home. To his right, screens share their view of key public locations: the beach, main street, the park.

He watches the villagers as each box is opened, monitors their reactions, listens in on their hushed conversations.

Then he pulls a remote from his jacket pocket and presses its green button to let his clients know that wagers are now being accepted.

5 comments:

Krystin Scott said...

Most certainly not the stellar ending I had hoped for but I took it as far as possible with only 4 lines of dialogue.

<>

For two days Faith performed the same routine, but on the third evening three men followed her into the alley.

“We’ve been looking for you, Delilah, Interesting name. Faith Hope?”

Delilah stood frozen in place. “Jesus always said the world needed a little more faith and hope.” She turned on her heel clapping and laughing as she looked over the three men in their sterile white lab coats. “Oh John, Michael, Jesus, you’ve come for me after all! Did father send you?”

John took hold of Delilah’s arm, with Michael walking ahead and Jesus on her side. The four walked purposefully to a waiting black sedan. They entered and the car sped away. Passing under a large wrought iron arch Delilah looked up to read the words “Mount Zion Institution” and grinned.

Continuing up the drive the car stopped at the entrance to a huge stone building. Upon entering, they walked down a hall lit by a multitude of blaring florescent bulbs. They placed Delilah in a Plexiglas room where she was forced to sit opposite a well dressed old man who coughed and choked as he puffed on his Cuban cigar.

“Father.” she spat. “Your product kills people!

She grabbed him by the shirt and the truth was revealed. His breathing was shallow. He looked more ragged then the last time she’d seen him, he was nothing more than a shell of his former self.

She sneered, “It’s killing you too old man; your days are numbered. Repent and get right with God while there is still time.”

Cathryn Leigh said...

Bah! Make me go and write something about Beta-Vegas 5 Management will you? Well you wanted the Mastermind – here you go!

The Mastermind

“And you are absolutely sure,” the man drummed his fingers on the table, “that this, Rachael Beth Chalston was once Elizabeth Rachael Anderson?”

“I helped to change her name,” the woman leaned over the desk, showing off another advantage of hers.

“And you have all of her psych evaluations,” the man’s eyes did not waiver from the woman’s, despite the view, “that you’ve performed while she was aboard the Dread Pirate Robert (for lack of a better name)’s ship?”

The woman nodded, biting back her annoyance that he wasn’t falling for her body as other men had, still it seemed that he was going to help her get revenge on that little spacer b***h.

Yes, you did not misread – “Dread Pirate Robert (for lack of a better name)” – it comes straight from Rachael’s 2011 NaNovel. After all he was a ruthless space pirate, and I couldn’t think of a name for him so I padded my word count *grins*


I think we've all ended in a place where many of us might want to know more. :}

Marc said...

Krystin - intriguing twist. Very curious about this Father person. Would not complain if you kept going with this :)

Cathryn - hah, that's an excellent word padder :)

Interesting to see a new side of the story. And yes, I certainly would like to know more!

Iron Bess said...

Seth had set the computer to alert him if it detected any movement outside, it had been quiet for almost two days now, but he wasn’t about to take any chances.

Jan and Brigitte lay in a heavy exhausted sleep on the bed behind him, and his heart ached every time he caught a glimpse of identical strawberry blond curls on the pillow they shared.

Suddenly a small beep directed his gaze back to the monitor it showed a small, black helicopter landing just down the street from his house four men dressed in black stepped out once the blades stopped moving.

Seth had prepared for this for three days, his boot holster, shoulder holster, hip holster, and rifle were all loaded and ready to go, and four people were about to die, one would be the mastermind behind this game and he only had minutes left to live.

Marc said...

Iron Bess - great scene, all the details really brought it to life.

Very intriguing, I'd love to see more of this.