S.G. Browne

The second part of the exercise was to use those same elements and write the END of your story.  Most writers don’t seem to have a problem starting a story or even getting into the meat of it.  But ending your story or novel is always the hardest part.  At least, ending it with satisfaction.

So here’s the ending I wrote for my beginning:

By the time the fire department and the paramedics show up, the nurse is dead, my third Thursday three o’clock is unconscious on the floor in a pool of sculpting gel, the leprechaun has stopped breathing, shoved halfway into the mouth of his sousaphone, and the gerbil has escaped with my virginity and the contents of the cash register.

I always was a sucker for rodents with a French accent.

At my Tuesday writers’ group in the Mission, we always start the workshop off with an exercise.  Last time was my turn to facilitate, so I decided on an exercise where each of the members in attendance would provide one element to use for the beginning of a story.  Those elements included:

a setting, an object, a profession, an animal, and a mythical creature.

 For this exercise, those elements turned out to be:

a hair salon, a sousaphone, a nurse, a gerbil, and a leprechaun.

Below is what I came up with:

One day at the hair salon, I’m giving a simple cut and wash to my third Thursday three o’clock, when in walks a leprechaun with a sousaphone.

“Mind if I play?” says the leprechaun.

I look at the leprechaun, all three feet of him, staring up at me over the lip of the tuba, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s a bad idea to say “no.”

“Sure, whatever,” I say, figuring it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The woman in the chair, my third Thursday three o’clock, looks at me in the mirror and says, “That’s strange.”

I figure she’s talking about the leprechaun, who’s standing by the hair driers playing the opening notes of “The Girl From Ipanema,” when in walks a nurse with a gerbil on a leash.

And I’m thinking that this looks like trouble.

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