Story Challenge #4

Challenge yourself if need be

By Moristotle

The unwitting contributor of today’s challenging beginning underestimated my deviousness. He emailed me that so far none of the beginnings offered have really challenged his particular interests. But he said he hopes some future one will...or he might come up with a beginning himself, telling a story out of his own life. (Some of you may have noticed that I do exactly that with my Goines On vignettes.)
    On my customary walk after reading his email, I realized that he is probably not our only reader to have been not “really challenged” by any of our offered beginnings so far (although some of you may just not yet have finished the story you’ve started writing).
    In offering the beginning below, we challenge you to find a fitting “contrast of personas” in your own life. Feel free to alter the details below for your own beginning, and then continue the narrative. Tell your story in as engaging a way as you can. Go wherever the story (or the actual details of your own life) may lead you.
    If you know my email address, send your submission to it, either in the body of your email or as an attachment. Alternatively, use the Contact Form in our sidebar. We hope to hear from you before forever. Good luck!
    Here’s our “template” for your own self-challenging beginning:

He had led—shall we say?—a colorful life as a young man. He’d had two personas, two sets of friends, almost two separate lives. There was the top student in high school and college, 3^rd in his high school’s history on his SAT scores Class of ’73 (first has been his brother Don, in 1967), Dean’s List his first quarter in college.
    Then there was the slick dope dealer and womanizer who always got away with everything. Because he was smart. Smarter than most of the other kids, and—it turned out—smarter than most average cops. He’d had girlfriends in three high schools and was sometimes an absolute shit to women. Jesus, he thought, the things he’d done. He wasn’t proud of it, but it was a little late now.

    To see previous Story Challenge columns for their challenging beginnings, go to this column’s Story Challenge tag.

Copyright © 2022 by Moristotle