The Short and Long of It

10 Min Challenge

Hey, the point of this book is for me to improve my writing skills, so when I don't have any short stories to publish I'm going to choose a prompt put five minutes on the clock and try to type out 1,000. After ten minutes, I'll go back in to fix grammar and spelling (just to make it legible) then publish it. I won't change any syntax, dialogue, or details, so if there are any really cringe parts or continuity errors... that's why.

As usual, criticism--constructive or otherwise--is appreciated and encouraged.

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Prompt: Character A has an affinity for modern books like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Character B is an avid reader of the classics, like Pride and Prejudice or The Great Gatsby. While both love reading, they despise each other's preferences and frequently argue, leading them to dislike each other. That all changes one winter night when a blizzard traps them both in a library.

Prompt by writing-ideas-in on Tumblr

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Linda stretched her arms above her head and yawned. According to her watch it was nearly midnight. The library should have closed an hour ago, but the librarian loved Linda and let her stay late to research for her term paper.

Linda packed up her things and headed for the door, but she couldn't push the library doors open. She wiped the frost off the window, but only saw white. Snow had piled against the door barricading her in. 

"Guess I'm spending the night with you, Ms. Megarity." Linda smiled at the kind, old librarian who was reading a book and sipping tea behind the front desk, "Could I possibly use the library phone to call my roommate and let her know that I won't be back in our dorm tonight?"

"You can use it when the young man is done with it," She answered with out looking up. I glanced over to see who she was talking about, and if he was cute, but what I saw almost made me wish I was trapped outside in the blizzard.

It was Cole, my arch-enemy. I realize that it was silly for a grown woman of eighteen to have an arch-enemy, but if you had met Cole you would understand why I hated him with a passion. Cole and I had gone to high-school together. I met him at the first bookclub meeting of ninth grade and I had hated him ever since.

He was the kind of boy who worshipped modern authors, that type of "literature" that became Hollywood hogwash that brainwashed the masses. To make matters even worse, he had the audacity to shame me for my taste in books. He laughed at Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, calling them "girl books". He wrote The Great Gatsby and Cat on A Hot Tin Roof off as overrated, as if the writing in Harry Potter wasn't subpar.

He hung up the phone, and turned to Ms. Megarity, "Thank you for letting me use your phone." The librarian grunted in response.

I walked up to the phone and picked the handset off the receiver, and that's when he first saw me.

"Linda," He said cooly with his eyes narrowed, "We meet again."

"Indeed," I said as I dialed my roommates landline.

"What are you doing in the library so late?" He asked me, as if he suspected me of replacing all the copies of The Hunger Games and Divergent with works by the Brontës, you know, actual literature.

"I have a paper to write." I rolled my eyes as I listened to the phone ring, "And I could ask you the same thing."

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So, in ten minutes, I wrote a little over 400 words. This is technically flash fiction, not a short story, but hey, I'm a slow typer. Let me know if I should continue with this prompt. I'll definitely posting regular short story soon.