  Short Stories
This week: Where Can I Put the Dead Body? Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Can I Put the Dead Body in a Glad Trash Bag?
It's getting harder and harder these days to find places to hide your dead bodies. In the garden and under the front porch are full of skeletons and the back of the closet is reserved for Uncle Buddy. Not everyone can drive out to the Pinelands like we can in New Jersey, so we'll need to find another way to dispose of them. A Waste Management dumpster? Hmmm.
The question arises; can we use name brands in our writing? The short answer is yes. The qualifiers to go with that yes are you can't defame or tarnish that product's good name. You're not allowed to confuse your readers with similar fake names and water down the goodwill of that product. So instead of using a brand name garbage bag for your dead body, you'll have to just say garbage bag or make up a product brand for the dirty deed. But if your character is admiring a lovely lady in a Camaro, you can leave the brand in. If you do decide to use a brand name, be sure to spell it properly. Kleenex is a facial tissue, not a kleenex.
Don't waste a lovely afternoon of pecking away at the keyboard on researching a brand name instead of writing a few chapters of your story. But when you have the time for research during edit, do be sure to check spelling and infringement error. So BoneyBoy Pinelli can drop the carpet-rolled Chucky Three-Fingers Malone in a DumpStar container behind the Lucky Casino. Be creative and try something unexpected with your corpse. It will always make for good reading.
This month's question: Where do you hide your bodies? The dead ones, I mean. 
Send in your response below! 
Editors love feedback! |
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Excerpt: “Babe,” he would say (for he always called me Babe), “you know what my dream woman is? She has nice mustard hair, not soy sauce like yours. Plump ketchup colored lips and fair mayonnaise skin. And her personality. Oh, that personality!" At this point he would usually put the spoon or fork-full of whatever he was eating down and use his hands to further illustrate his point. "Not a sweet and sour pickle relish like yours-love it though I do, don't read me wrong. No, she is all hot peppers, dangerously fiery, and beware of that first bite.” He would then sigh and get a far off look in his eye before he continued to eat.
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Excerpt: I cut the dead limb away from the roof and it crashed to the ground, sending up a plume of debris. That should stop the banging that was keeping the family awake, I thought, but it won’t do a thing for the constant howling of the wind through the broken window frames. The old house was full of strange sounds. I could hear an old wooden gate complaining from the backyard, as the gusts tried to budge its rusty hinges. It sounded like distant voices.
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Excerpt: He fumbled for the inside pocket of his lab coat and retrieved a small vial. Its contents shimmered benignly in the half-light provided by a guttering fluorescent; his hands were shaking uncontrollably.
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Excerpt: Dierdre worried me. Ever since her boyfriend David had died, she'd become more and more withdrawn. Gone was the vibrant red-haired beautiful best friend I once knew. She sat across the table from me in the diner with sleep-deprived eyes. Her normally bouncy red curls hung limply around her pale face. She barely resembled her former self. I wanted to help her but I didn't know how.
Excerpt: As he spun around to get the report for Mittersen, Oswald knocked over his coffee. It was messy, but Oswald was prepared this sort of thing. He kept a roll of paper towels in a desk drawer, so he quickly tore off a few sheets and began wiping up the spill. He never suspected there was an exposed wire underneath his computer or that when the spilled coffee reached it, the current it conducted would electrocute him.
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Excerpt: As I reach the first turn, at my feet I spot a pile of debris. It is the remains of a heavily muddied yellow dress. A once beautiful dress with white daisies on the sleeves. A dress that when worn I am certain dazzled all that where near.
Excerpt: Late one night I rounded Dead Man's Curve. Something distracted my vision and I lost control of my car. When I awakened I found myself deep down in a ravine far from the highway. I had been thrown out of my car near the bottom.
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Excerpt: They had called me, “Ghost girl,” again.
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Excerpt: When the SFPD forensic agents entered the third store on a rainy evening, the familiar sight caused Jake Parker to laugh and remark in his southern drawl, "Boss, this is turning into a shitty job lately.” His supervisor, Jeff Randall, shot him an amused look at hearing this mild witticism, but otherwise they didn’t exchange another word for the next 10 minutes.
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This month's question: Where do you hide your bodies?
Send in your response below!
Editors love feedback!
Last month's question: Have you ever been distracted by a bad detail in a story?
Lothmorwel  replied: There was a phrase in a fantasy book once that made me think two things: "How did they get published?" and "There's hope for me yet!". I can't remember the book or the exact wording but it went something like this: "his reactions were quick as a sword-slash". 'Sword-slash' does not roll off the tongue, does not give an impression of speed and is a classic example of being careful when you make up your own descriptions. The rest of what I read was cliched and cheesy. It renewed my hope in my own writing.
faithjourney said: Absolutely. I was reading a novel where the writer interrupted the flow of dialogue for the main character to order a "Killians beer - naming her favorite lager." It seemed just silly for the writer to stop everything to tell us that Killians was the character's favorite beer. It never came up again nor was it an important detail in the novel. I don't know why that stuck out but it does.
LJPC - the tortoise commented: Hi Leger! Great newsletter about the importance of setting in creating a believable world for the characters. Sounds and smell are crucial to making it seem real. Funny thing. I'm writing a novel set in Egypt. Because most scents are activated by moisture, and it's extremely dry here, there aren't actually very many scents. In order to make the setting seem real, I have to make them up! -- Laura
Fi answered: I am often distracted by a bad detail in unpublished writing, but hardly in published. It sounds odd, but it's true. I always try to note that bad detail in my reviews to help the author.
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Short Stories: March 16, 2011 Issue [#4287]
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