Random thought: When life gives you melons, you might be dyslexic.

It seems like only two weeks ago that we met here to discuss my so-called adventures in storytelling. And yet, like many of the criminals I met along the way in my former life, you have also returned to the scene of the crime.

This week’s tale comes from a prompt that takes a bit of explaining. When I was at my first mystery writers’ conference back in July, they had a little contest designed to show off your writing ability in the area of “Show, don’t tell.” The rules were:

Write a story of three sentences or less.

Describe someone without telling us who they are or what they do, and it makes it clear they are either a: (can just be one).

Soccer mom

Serial killer

Sociopath

Unlike my 101-word stories, there was no maximum word count. Keeping all of that in mind, here was my offering. Well, that’s not exactly correct. My original entry did not conform to my 101-word rule, but this one does. I’ll explain more at the end.

And with that, let’s get to the Story of the Week.

     Battle of the Black & White Ball

It wasn’t unusual to have fights break out during the games, but this time it was the parents—not the kids—who started the melee. They charged the field, crushing the scattered juice boxes, mini-Oreos, and those pseudo “healthy” fruit snack-packs; pulling hair, kicking and punching. All the violence (perhaps not surprisingly) committed by the much-feared mama bears. The sugar-charged kids encircled their mothers, chanting, “Sock her, Mom! Sock her, Mom!”

From the bleachers, an amused writer scribbled furiously, proud of himself for finding a way to tell the tale without breaking the rules of the writing contest—at least technically.

Note: If you’d like to see my darker, original version, where I incorporated all three elements (soccer mom, serial killer, and sociopath), let me know and I’d be happy to share. If you request it via the Google rating form, be sure to let me know who you are. In the actual contest, there was no word limit, but since you had to tell the story in three sentences or less, I definitely had to lean into punctuation (particularly semi-colons), and it took me 121 words.

NOVEL NEWS & OTHER NOTES…

While I stand by for notes from my editor on the latest draft of Questionable Characters, I’m still playing around with another (long) short story about my noir-inspired P.I. character. I’m calling him Tony Barca, and he’s more than a bit jaded. Since I really like the way my first story with him came out, I just sent it out to an editor (not the same one editing my novel). If, after making whatever changes she suggests, she believes it has potential to be published, I’ll try to find a home for it.

In other news, I just got back from a whirlwind trip to New Orleans, where I attended Bouchercon 2025. You know what that is, right? Yeah—neither did I. It’s a huge conference for mystery writers (and the fans who read them), named after Anthony Boucher. You know who he was, right? Yeah—neither did I. If you’d like to solve that mystery, check out his Wikipedia link HERE:

A lot of the heavyweights of the mystery and crime-writing world were there, including my hero, Michael Connelly. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m stalking him, since I’ve now seen him at three writing events in the past year or so. Can you say “restraining order?”

In any event, just being around all those great writers (and their fans) was very inspirational. I attended lots of great panels, met new writing pals, and reconnected with some I met in July at my last conference. A good time was had by all, and I’ve never been more fired up about writing. Knowing you’re out there cheering me on (or at least mildly curious about whatever’s next) provides more fuel to keep me going.

Thanks for that!

Scotty out

Want to catch up on all the stories you missed? Here’s the LINK: