Literary agent Janet Reid held her PANIC writing contest at her website. We had to write a story in 150 words or less that contains several of the homonyms she listed. I chose the following:
rain/reign/rein
marshal/martial
slew/slough/slue
ore/or/oar
faux/foe
weather/wether
Here’s my story. How did I do?
__________________________
Rain. The fourteenth year of the reign of Great Timarchus, who slew the Ur-panther, and what do we have to show for it? Dishing around in this slough for yellow ore, when we should have been training the men in the ten martial disciplines, or at least marching.
Rain again. The wether wool of each man’s cape is soaked, useless. “Hey Pelius, give us an oar to walk through this rain, eh?” Pelius gets that funny look. He talks of planting faux ore, then watching Timarchus’ adjutant slue around like some clumsy mast.
The weather breaks. I look up. The lead regiment of our foe, the Tregidain, marches in. Of course. No regiments here. Just pans full of sodden pebbles. I approach their field marshall, arms limp. I gesture with the rein that should have led my bronze-armored steed.
“Here,” I say. “Hang Timarchus with it.”
I loved it! Especially this line: Just pans full of sodden pebbles.
ReplyDeleteIf I wasn't concentrating on my novel, I'd have a go myself!
Good job Mark, let me know how you did in the competition.
ReplyDeleteConsidering how difficult the word choice was, I'd say you did a brilliant job. What a great exercise. I had actually never even heard of the word "wether" before; I guess growing up in the suburbs shelters one from such terms. Now I know. Sara
ReplyDelete