AROUND 5,000 WORDS.

Characters have first names, but no last names. First names should either be very unusual—Basil, Hand—or strikingly ordinary—Mary, Jerry, Frank. Or Anna. No in-betweens.

Sprinkle in a roughly equal number of males and females. Okay for females to be smarter.

Anna is an 18-year-old au pair who works for a family with five children. She is tired of people asking where she's from in Germany. She is from Sweden.

Setting is a mid-sized American city, or somewhere tremendously foreign. Africa is a solid choice in the tremendously foreign category.

Storyline gives reader the illusion that things are going somewhere, but they don't.

At the beginning of the story, Anna puts all her energy into caring for the African children, but they pinch her incessantly. She is exhausted, and bruised.

Pure description limited to two words or less in any given scene. No roads that seethe red chalky dust as tires thunder over them like broiling hordes of wild horses.

Anna's sister, Ona, has her own dental practice in a suburb of Toulouse, France.

Use contemporary references—Ann Richards, CBS, Gore-tex. Stay in the now.

Be different with dialogue. Try no quotes and see what happens.

Ona tells Anna about a new dental X-ray machine being developed by a company in Lyon. Anna researches this company on the Internet, but her connection is too slow. She gets frustrated, prints out a picture of the machine, and the African children find it.

Include references to ancient Rome, Greece, or classical music. To give the story some weight, and also show off a little.

Break rules, be clever, do cool stuff that's never been done in a short story before.

Ona dies suddenly of necrotizing fasciitis. The children build an ingenious mock X-ray contraption of reeds and sticks. They name it Ona. Anna cries and hugs the children and for once they do not pinch her.

Be quirky. Be quirky. Be quirky.


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