SUSANNA HILL'S 4TH ANNUAL HALLOWEENSIE CONTEST - My Entry

Once again, it's time for Susanna Hill's Annual Halloweensie Contest. I've entered a couple of her other contests, but this is the first time I've tried my hand at writing one for Halloween. She always has some tough guidelines to follow. This time around the story (told in prose or poetic form) had to include the words pumpkin, creak and broomstick, AND it had to be 100 words of less. Yikes!

Here's my entry. After you've read it, I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment. Also, please go back to Susanna's blog and click on the links for the other entries. Thanks!

TILLY'S NEW BROOMSTICK

Tilly sighed when she picked up her broomstick. It creaked and groaned every time she flew. “I need a new one, but I’m broke. What else can I use?”

She tried a curtain rod from the window. Too flimsy.

She found a board in the garage. Too heavy and too splintery. Ouch!

Would her snow shovel, propped beside the pumpkin work? It did but the shovel end made it too hard to guide.

Tilly cut that off. With a bit of string, she tied some straw to the handle.

“Perfect,” she said. “Now I’m ready for Halloween.”

Query Letter and First 250 words of THE RIDDLE OF THE RAINBOW

This post is part of a contest that I'm entering.

Dear Agent,

First, let me thank you for taking the time to participate in this contest. It’s a great opportunity for writers like myself and we greatly appreciate your time and effort.

Brother and sister, Rhonda and Kenny, discover a magic crystal. Touching the crystal together transports them to the Carnival of Color. Each scene of the Carnival of Color is presented in a different color, starting with red and ending with violet, using all seven colors of the rainbow. The children must solve the “riddle of the rainbow” in order to find their way back home by choosing the proper door (the violet one – the last color of the rainbow) in the last scene of the Carnival.

RIDDLE OF THE RAINBOW (word count –  approx. 6740) is a middle grade chapter book with a total of ten chapters. The story incorporates the idea of prisms and the concept of “Roy G. Biv,” a technique for remembering the colors of the rainbow.

Sincerely,

Christine M. Irvin

THE RIDDLE OF THE RAINBOW

By, Christine M. Irvin

CHAPTER ONE – CRYSTAL PARK

            "Hurry up, Rhonda.” Kenny Burton tried to get his sister, Rhonda, to move a little faster.

            "What's the big hurry?"

            "I want to get there, now! I don't want anyone to find the crystal before I do." The children lived close to Crystal Park, reclaimed mining land, now covered with trees and flowers.

            "There isn't any crystal." Rhonda claimed.

            "Yes, there IS!"

            "No, there isn't!"

            "Yes, THERE IS!"

            "No, there isn't!"

            "Is TOO!  The old miner said so." Kenny insisted. "They named the park after the magic crystal." And he had come to the park to find it.

            “They named it Crystal Park because they used to mine quartz crystal here. And, besides, there's no such thing as a magic crystal." Rhonda retorted.

            "But the legend - "

            "Do you believe that silly legend? The old miner just told us a story. Only babies believe that stuff!"

The children had met an old man at the local museum yesterday. Their parents had taken them there to see a rock exhibit, as their father was a geologist. While their parents read all the little signs and looked at everything under the glass, the children had wandered away for a moment. An old man, standing in a corner, had motioned for them to come near. “I have a secret,” he said.

“What kind of secret?” Kenny asked. He loved secrets.

“About a magic crystal.”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” Rhonda pointed out, “and besides, we’re not supposed to talk to strangers.”