The new short story posted today is Part One of a short story contest I entered recently. It is a unique series of stories in that they are told backwards. Part 1 happens in some point in time after Part 2, which happens after Part 3, which happens after Part 4. So the reader will know the ending before he/she will know the beginning. To make it a bit more challenging, the folks running the contest provided items that must be included in some way in each of the four parts. We were then given 2 or 3 weeks to complete the new section. If that wasn’t enough, each section was shorter than the one before (Part 1 – 1000 words, Part 2 – 900 words, Part 3 – 800 words, and Part 4 – 700 words).

I will be posting them over the next few weeks in the order they were written. The brief for Part 1 stated the story must include: a new beginning, a clock, and travel.

The great thing about the contest is that I’ve received judges’ feedback on each of the stories. I have found it very helpful in each of the installments of this series as well as with my work on the novel. If you don’t want to wait as I play out the series here, all of the pieces (except for Part 4) are available on the contest’s website:

http://needleinthehay.net/