You ask, I provide. Snart writes:
Okay, I’ve given this long and careful thought (at least 30 seconds). I am abandoning my current book and writing NASCAR fiction.
Think of NASCAR terms…come on, this screams for scenes of action, intrigue and romance.
It also screams of a writing challenge. O, Meg O’Death, care to issue a challenge to your readers?
Here’s the challenge. Write the opening paragraph to an auto-racing themed novel. 200 words maximum. THE WORST WRITING YOU CAN POSSIBLY MANAGE.
Extra prizes for purple prose, awful puns and, of course, conflagrative death!
14 responses so far ↓
Snart // August 23, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Yee-haw! I can’t wait. Thanks, MOD!
djpaterson // August 23, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Even after all these years I cannot pass a filling station without the heady scent of gasoline tickling my olfactory sensory neurons and filling my mind with images of Hugo. My memories of the only man I ever loved are always in the same Technicolor as my aged cine films of him, and are as fleetingly fast as the roaring cars he raced so successfully in 1955. He was a man like no other (although I learned in later life that transvestism in strong men is not as uncommon as I had once believed), and the day he was toasted like a marshmallow when his car exploded whilst crossing the finishing line in the 1955 NASCAR championship deciding race was both the worst and the best day of his life. And the last. And for me too (although not the last, as I wouldn’t be able to regale you with this tale if it were (unless I was telling it from beyond the grave (but I don’t believe in that sort of thing (although I do believe you go to heaven, but I’m pretty sure you can’t phone or write home)))).
Meg // August 24, 2007 at 8:37 am
Bravo! You’ve set a high bar for contestants to crash over, DJ.
Snart // August 24, 2007 at 8:28 pm
For Whom the Wheel Spins
Monika grabbed Spokes and pulled him into the darkened hallway just before the exit door, running her body the length of his with lubricated ease. “Where you going so fast, Nasty Car, ain’t you got time for a pit stop,” she whispered in his ear, her hand fiddling with his gear shift. “Baby, there ain’t never gonna be time. I done tolt you, it’s over ‘tween us.” “Your ball bearings say that’s nuthin’ but a lie,” she growled hungrily. Faced with stiff resistance, she switched gears. “A high-performance machine like this oughten be left idle,” she purred. “You don’t use it, it’ll turn into a clunker that only needs diesel, not super-high octane like me.” She heard the growl in his chest, the hum of a primed motor beneath a safety-latch hood. “You got the green flag, darlin’,” she said, strumming the words against his lips with hers, “and I’ve got good position, sitting on the pole. Whatcha waitin’ for?” Pedal to the medal, he attacked her curves. She’d just started to clinch the title, when suddenly he spun out. “Damn,” she said, breathless and angry, “forgot you drive a sprint car.” It was simply too fast and too furious.
djpaterson // August 25, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Hey Snart - you have a real gift for auto-eroticism!
Snart // August 25, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Oh, DJ. You should be punished for that one!
Meg // August 25, 2007 at 5:10 pm
A hummer, Snart. But where’s the flaming death?
Ken // August 28, 2007 at 8:56 am
I’ve been out of circulation for a few days. Is it too late for my humble submission?
The pre-dawn silence was shattered by the sound of a high performance motor crackling into raucous life. The man, in the driver’s seat of the low-slung car covered in colourful sponsor’s logos, blipped the throttle and, as the revs increased, the sound resembled the tearing of good quality calico. The air being sucked into the 8 hungry cylinders sounded much like a vacuum cleaner with the curtain cleaning attachment fitted. The man slipped his helmet over his head and his handsome features disappeared behind the dark, opaque visor. He pulled his driving gloves on one by one and gripped the steering wheel in a grasp that has caused many a man to flinch from pain during handshakes. The engine note rose to a crescendo that set the teeth of the, dozen or so, on-lookers on edge. With a screech of protesting rubber which sent clouds of acrid smoke rising into the rapidly brightening sky, the car accelerated down the deserted race track.
The noise of the car masked the sharp report from the high powered rifle held in the steady arms of a mysterious man lying hidden in the long grass bordering the track. Nobody saw the windshield of the speeding car shatter into millions of diamond-like fragments or saw the small hole that appeared in the centre of the driver’s visor. All that the on-lookers saw was the failure of the car to negotiate the sharp left-handed bend at the end of the pit straight. They stood transfixed in disbelief as the car hit the retaining wall and somersaulted high into the air before crashing to the ground in a burst of bright orange flames. Silence, apart from the crackling of the flames, once again descended on the tableau.
Meg // August 28, 2007 at 9:19 am
Our first sniper in the long grass - kudos! And extra credit for the absurd perfection of your final line.
“Silence, apart from the crackling of the flames…”
Makes me smile.
Snart // August 28, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Sorry, Ken. Disqualified, though superb. 200 word limit. Though, knowing Meg, you’ll win for the conflagration!
Ken // August 29, 2007 at 5:27 am
Snart, I claim poetic licence.
susan // August 29, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I’m disq
susan // August 29, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Heck, this weird keyboard went and sent the posting before I was finished.
I’m disqualified from entering this contest, since, as a Romance Writer (albeit unpubbed) I’m estopped from making derogatory comments about the genre, even when men who mix testosterone and gasoline are involved.
None of my heroes owns a car that’s even vaguely race-worthy. A beat-up old pick-up truck, and fourth-hand Jeep, an ancient Volvo. My guys are soooo|Beta.
Meg // August 30, 2007 at 8:17 am
But I bet if they drove their vehicles into a retaining wall at 200 mph, they’d be as hot as the slickest race driver. Am I right?
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