SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

Welcome to prompt 14 of the Friday Fiction Writing Challenge! Here’s a complete list of all the posts so far. Feel free to join in.

This week’s random word is: Goal

I had a slight panic attack when the generator spat out this week’s word. I’ve been struggling with setting concrete character story goals for book two of the Deniable Unit (DU) series this past week—had two competing plots in the outline. Aargh! And, when I saw goal, it felt like someone/something was messing with me.

When I finally got over my freak out, I got to work on the challenge. I forced myself not to write anything sports-related—mainly because I’m not into sport. I decided to play around with the outing of a character’s secret goal.

Here’s it is (basic editing):

Sam slipped into the dark of his tiny makeshift base before flicking on the light. He wasn’t alone. Someone was sitting at his desk. In the dim light, it was hard to make out if the person clad in black was male or female, but they were armed. Sam gripped his weapon and scanned the room for more danger.

“I’m alone.” Martine’s voice ripped through the silence.

He’d never been blindsided before. He was rooted to the spot, unable to comprehend her presence here. “Why are you here?”

Martine lowered her hood, her storm blue eyes edged with red boring into him. “Is this how you’re going to do it?” She held up the syringe he’d tossed to the back of the drawer.

“No.” He bowed his head. “Yes, but—”

“What exactly is your plan? Don’t spare any details.”

He’d been an idiot. The whole job was screwed the moment he’d kissed her. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Sam took slow steps toward the desk. 

Martine stiffened, her grip tightening on the syringe. “I don’t trust you.” Her brow creased. “That was the goal, wasn’t it? Build my trust enough for you to get close to me to use this.” She gestured with the syringe.

Sam rounded the desk and holstered his gun. “Yes. But I changed the plan.”

She lowered the syringe, though didn’t loosen her grip on it. “To what?”

“I’m terminating the contract.”

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

HOW IT WORKS

1. Don’t think too hard on the word; just write about it for a maximum of twenty-five minutes or 250 words.
2. Once you complete your sprint, give it some basic editing.
3. Be courageous and post your results to your blog.

RULES

1. Complete the challenge on your blog before 1700 UTC of the following Friday.
2. Link to the original prompt post and make sure to use the tag Genre Scribes so that we can see all the posts together in WP Reader.
3. Your text must be fiction (preferably one you publish in (or plan to).
4. No real-life stories.
5. The text can be dialogue, an interior monologue, a scene, flash fiction, anything… so long as it’s fiction.

Full information is on the Genre Scribes: Friday Fiction Writing Challenge page.