{"id":185,"date":"2009-05-15T09:24:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T09:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-story-contest-winner.html"},"modified":"2009-05-15T09:24:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-15T09:24:00","slug":"five-sentence-story-contest-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-story-contest-winner.html","title":{"rendered":"Five-Sentence Story Contest Winner!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Ted Slater,<\/span> the winner of yesterday’s Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest<\/a>. Honorable Mention goes to Lauren Sawyer, who also had an excellent entry.<\/p>\n

To recap, I posted a photo of an unknown family standing in front of the world’s largest ball of twine in Darwin, Minnesota<\/a>. I asked for a scary story to be written about the photo. Rules: the story had to have only five sentences, and it had to use the name Jimmy.<\/p>\n

I was thrilled with the results. Some of you are really good writers — especially when it comes to establishing a mysterious and\/or foreboding tone.<\/p>\n

Why did Ted win? <\/span>Though being longish in length, his story was very tight. It was bookended with the same creepy phrase (“Jimmy had a secret”). It contained a paragraph-length sentence held together with semicolons — a genius move. It had a dog named Scraps and the phrases “inglorious death” and “doorless tribal hut.” Nice work, Ted. (We shouldn’t be surprised: Ted is a publishing professional<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Here’s his submission, along with the photo:<\/p>\n

Jimmy Had a Secret<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Jimmy had a secret.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was well-acquainted with the legends surrounding the mysterious doorless tribal hut, had read all about it in the latest issue of <\/span>National Geographic Kids. The stories of those who had merely brushed up against its fibrous exterior, all doomed to spiral into a mind-twisting dementia and an eventual and inglorious death.<\/span><\/p>\n

He thought of his father, who had asked him (for the last time) to stop asking if we were there yet; of his mother, whose penchant for country music had grown wearisome; of his sister, who kept touching his leg in the car; of his brother, who never, ever let him hold Scraps, their pet dog.<\/span><\/p>\n

And all this left Jimmy giddy in anticipation, for Jimmy had a secret.<\/span><\/p>\n

————–<\/p>\n

Shiver.<\/p>\n

Congrats, Ted. Expertly done. Shoot me an email with shipping address and I’ll send you a book.<\/p>\n

And great job, Lauren<\/a>, who managed to work a creepy orphan, creepy nuns, a request to the gods, and the freezing of a soul into her story. Very nice.<\/p>\n

Let’s do this again sometime. It was fun.<\/p>\n

(And if you happen to know the people in that photo, you might check up on them. I’ve got a bad feeling about that kid with the dog.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Ted Slater, the winner of yesterday’s Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest. Honorable Mention goes to Lauren Sawyer, who also had an excellent entry. To recap, I posted a photo of an unknown family standing in front of the world’s largest ball of twine in Darwin, Minnesota. I asked for a scary story to be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contest","category-five-sentence","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"\nFive-Sentence Story Contest Winner! - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-story-contest-winner.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five-Sentence Story Contest Winner! - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Congratulations to Ted Slater, the winner of yesterday’s Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest. 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