Sunday, February 3, 2008

Don't Bother with the Novel--Just Write the Last Paragraph


What follows is “time on my hands,” although I do indeed know a writer who types “final paragraphs” in the hopes of discovering a plot thread he can, as they say in the military, reverse engineer. He obviously takes the writing exercise more seriously than I.

Passion Foamwave looked wistfully as the schooner, oddly named Wednesday is Hump Day, left the harbor, disappearing over the clichéd, sun-speckled horizon. She would miss Stubble McBone, the high-tech pirate with the aluminum leg, but she would carry on. Stubble still held her heart—literally—since he was actually a cardiovascular surgeon from the Mayo Clinic and performed heart transplants. Passion’s artificial heart now beat faster, although that was owing to the fact that Stubble had been in a hurry to make off with yet another stolen organ (and Passion’s bling), not because of eternal love. But how could she have gotten mixed up with such a dishonest doc in the first place? She’d met him at the cardio convention in the San Francisco Marriott ballroom—the cocktail weenies were to die for. She knew it was love at first bite since Stubble had some vampyric qualities, although the scoundrel claimed he was just measuring her electrolytes in case she ever needed surgery. Plus she’d always had a thing for men with aluminum legs since they reminded her of the metal bats in her fast-pitch softball league in Schenectady. And then there had been the nights of wild monkey-love in Pittsburgh (Stubble had a pet capuchin instead of a parrot) and an uncomfortable romp on his stainless steel lab table, followed by his request that she count backwards from one hundred. When she reached sixteen, the impatient Stubble knocked her out with a mallet. “Damn the chloroform!” he bellowed. And here she was, her heart having been ripped off (well not exactly—he’d at least bothered to suture her ample double D chest) by the handsome man with a Louisville Slugger where his right patella should have been. Such is love. She went to the Castaway Diner for Scorned Heroines, feeling hungry from copious blood loss. When the waitress asked if she wanted mayo on her BLT, she, like Jesus, wept. She subsequently married an insurance salesman and got her own TV show—Passion’s Gift Baskets—on cable access.

Picture: Public Domain

5 comments:

virtual nexus said...

rofl - don't tell me, this is the plot line for Pirates of the Caribbean IV??

Charles Gramlich said...

I kind of like the idea of reverse engineering a story, although if I knew the ending I might quit right there. Good scene here.

WH said...

Julie, I don't think Depp would agree to play in this one ROFL.

Charles, my friend's idea does have some merit. I might actually try it for real one day to see if I come up with the germ of an idea. Thanks for stoppong by.

Shesawriter said...

Wild Monkey Love?

ROFLMAO!!!! In Pittsburgh of all places. LOL!

WH said...

Shesa, my son says I'm not a well person, but I'm glad you enjoyed this. Yeah, Pittsburgh and monkeys don't really cry out "Love!"