Saturday, January 15, 2011

How do you make a story from 25 words?

Jenny Matlock 

Another week gone by and it's time for another Saturday Centus! This week again we have been thrown a big twist to the regular challenge. Instead of the normal 100 word limit to our Centus we now have just 25 words to craft a story. 25 words. Though 25 seems like a HUGE number to a 5 year old, we all know it isn't much. In fact my first two sentences already totaled 25 words. So really this could be considered the Two Sentence Centus. Sounds pretty catchy.

In addition to our 25 words we are provided a 3 word prompt to use, unaltered, and base our story around. The prompt this week: The lottery ticket

I haven't got a chance to read any of the others yet but I'm really curious to see if anyone took the whole "stone to death" approach from The Lottery.

Below is my two sentence Centus for the week. The prompt is in bold. It's titled: Wishing

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Wishing

At the store, she bought hope for a dollar. Maybe a perfect life was possible. As she wished, the lottery ticket matched, but happiness didn't follow. Wrong wish.

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~Lissa

14 comments:

  1. so much depth with so few words, well done!

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  2. Very well done, and I loved ... 25 seems like a HUGE number to a 5 year old ... hehe

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  3. Doesn't seem like a bad wish, though, does it? Nice take on the prompt. I thought about the whole Shirley Jackson thing too. I just couldn't figure out how to manage it in 25 words. Kat

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  4. Ah yes, isn't it funny how much who we are paints our path not what we have?

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  5. Terra said it so well! Money makes life easier, pays the bills,but it guarantees nothing of contentment or happiness.

    Wonderful take..........cj

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  6. I love "she bought hope for a dollar." Nice job.
    donna v.
    http://donnasbookpub.blogspot.com

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  7. I guess one needs to get the "ducks in a row" before buying that lottery ticket. Your character did not it appears...very well done...Peace

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  8. Perfect last line. It's unexpected, and leaves room for hope.
    Be well.
    xoRobyn

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  9. A well written 'be careful what you wish for' piece. Beautiful.

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  10. Loved this. I said too in my centus money doesn't buy happiness. I LOVED the phrase "hope for a dollar", very good.

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  11. I'm sure there are lots of problems with big wins!

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  12. Dashed hopes; really sad.

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  13. Awwww....so you're saying money can't buy happiness. Darn! There went that dream of mine...sigh.

    Thanks for linking. This was great.

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