Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: MIX (10/22/15)
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TITLE: All Mixed Up | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tanika Feaster
10/29/15 -
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“I’m at a church right now.” “Okay, it will only take me a few minutes to get there. The church is just a couple of miles away from the bar,”Lena explained to the person on the other end of her cellphone. As soon as she ended the call, Lena stood up, said her goodbyes, excused herself, and left. Joan and Marie, the two women who were sitting across from Lena, scooted their chairs closer together and began to discuss the fact that Lena had left the pastor’s anniversary dinner to go to a bar.
“And she calls herself a Christian,” Joan whispered.
“I know, and she’s the youth group leader,” “that’s shameful,” Marie answered back.
What the ladies didn’t know was that the person on the other end of the phone was Paul, the owner of the bar Lena was headed to. Paul and Lena had grown up together and remained good friends. Paul often had to call Lena to his bar to pick up her younger sister, who was fighting a battle with alcoholism. More times than she cared to remember, Lena had gone there to get her baby sister, who was usually belligerent and unsteady.
Joan and Marie had hastily and incorrectly judged Lena and questioned her christianity. This is a common mistake made in the body of Christ when we seek to try to determine who is and is not a true Christian. In Matthew 13:24-30 Jesus taught, in The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, that we are to let them mix and he would do the separating.
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Short but to the point which we all need to remind us to examine ourselves.
I'd love to see you use all of your 750 words. You have the start of a great story. Remember each time someone different speaks, you start a new paragraph. As long as it's the same person and there isn't a break in the dialog, you only need one set of quotation marks. You had some POV shifts. It's a hard concept to fully understand, but you can only tell the reader what the MC knows, sees, feels or thinks (in novels sometimes these shifts are done in different chapters). One way to fix it would be to possibly tell the story through a third person's eyes. For example:
The two women sitting across from Lena in the church fellowship hall raised eyebrows when Lena's cell phone trilled.
“I’m at a church right now.” “Okay, it will only take me a few minutes to get there. The church is just a couple of miles away from the bar,”Lena explained to the person on the other end of her cellphone. As soon as she ended the call, Lena stood up, said her goodbyes, excused herself, and left. Joan and Marie, the two women who were sitting across from Lena, scooted their chairs closer together and began to discuss the fact that Lena had left the pastor’s anniversary dinner to go to a bar.
When her cell phone thrilled, Lena glanced at her friend, Amy. "I'm sorry, but I have to get this; it's Paul. I bet my sister is in trouble again."
Lena put the phone to her ear. "I'm at church right now." Sighing, Lena started gathering her belongings. "It'll only take me two minutes to get to the bar..."
Amy turned her attention to two ladies who had groaned when Lena answered her cell. Leaning closer Amy heard Joan's fake whispers. "And she calls herself..."
Here instead of switching the POV to the ladies, you could have Amy lean over and tell them about Paul and Lena and how she was going to help someone. Everything would be seen from Amy's POV, which avoids the shift into the ladies' thoughts and into Lena's and if Lena is the MC, she wouldn't know what happened after she left, but Amy would be there to tell the reader.
If you're a gold or platinum member, one of the perks for a short time is a free ebook, Bring Your Writing to Life. I never fully understood POV shifts until I read that book. Even if you're a Silver member, the book is just a few dollars.
You really did a great job with this story. I liked how you started out with the conflict right out of the box. It pulled me in and made me hang onto every word. The ending was great too. Your characters felt so real. Sadly, I think there are ladies like that in every church. I cringe whenever someone says, "And you're supposed to be a Christian." There's a long story about why it bothers me, but I thought your use of it brilliant and quite fitting.
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