Here’s a fun experiment and writing exercise for us. I’ve started a story for our little group here about a young woman named Lauren. It is about 470 words long, a mere introduction to her dilemma. What I’d like you to do (talking my writer friends now), is take this intro and add to it. Build the story out how you think it should go, but your word count and mine together can only be 1,200 words at most. The story doesn’t have to wrap up, though you can do so if you want.
Post your continuation of the story in the comments section along with a title. Try to write free form and don’t take a lot of time to edit or over-think it at first. I took about an hour to work this out. The idea is to just get it down. After we’re all done I’ll choose my favorite, then we’ll edit it together and post the complete co-authored story online.
Cool? Click READ MORE below to get started. Have fun.
The tang of pine and damp earth hung on the air, but it was the pungent smell of gas that pulled her out of that thin place between waking and dying.
With a loud gasp, Lauren took a breath. Then another. The night air reached deep into her lungs and awakened pain that spread through her arms and legs until every fiber caught fire.
But pain meant feeling, and feeling anything meant one thing: she was alive.
She blinked, eyes drifted right then left. The world was a jumble of smudges and blurred shadow just out of reach. But slowly, forms and lines emerged then forced themselves into place like living puzzle pieces.
She was in a car. No, her car. She hung from the driver’s seat, her body weight held by a taut seatbelt that cut deep across her chest. Gravity tugged, but the strap kept her from tumbling through the crackled skin that had once been the windshield. To her right, the glass had crumpled and given way to a wide hole on the passenger’s side.
A faint smile nudged her lips. It had worked. She had nearly killed herself doing it, but it had worked.
The car was pitched nose down, almost vertical. It must have come to rest on a rock or tree on the hillside. Below her, no more than twenty feet away, slate colored water churned through rocks that glistened in faint moonlight.
Her eyes flitted back and forth. Where was the man?
Then her eyes saw him. There on the hood lay a lifeless lump of shadow. She froze and watched him for what felt like an eternity, but he never moved. The only thing that kept him from sliding completely off the hood was a jagged corner of windshield that had snagged his shoe.
She had taken a gamble and it had paid off. Sure, driving her car over the edge off a mountain road was three kinds of crazy, but so was doing nothing. She couldn’t just do nothing. If she was going to die, it would be on her terms and not someone else’s. And definitely not a killer’s.
“C’mon, girl. Get moving,” Lauren whispered to herself.
Lauren’s eyes focused nearer, to the dashboard just beneath her. Pale green light bled into the car. Her eyes traced the curve of the steering wheel to a silver ring hooked near the bottom. She tugged once. A faint metallic clink answered back. She yanked her right hand again, this time harder, but the cold steel of the handcuff bit back so hard it nearly took her breath away. She choked back a yell. Broken in the crash, her hand had swelled to nearly twice its normal size. She had to get free. She must get free. But the only way to get free was a key.
And that was in the man’s pocket.