Thursday, December 19, 2019

A Magical Holiday Treat

by Crystal Moore from the December 16, 2019 issue

Tagline: As the only singleton at her friend's Christmas party, Gretchen feels lonelier than ever...until she finds a surprise guest beneath the tree.

Observations: I loved this story and its humor from the very first sentence.

Gretchen stared at the sweater before her as a llama with a string of lights blinking around its neck stared back.

LOL. In fact there were many lines I liked.

Gretchen, if you didn't spend so much time at your bakery, you could meet someone. Wouldn't it be nice to spend time with a man not made of sugar and spice?"

I always love the snarky best friend, in novels and in Woman's World stories.

Sure enough, she saw the dachshund beneath the tree, but instead of having his nose in the presents, he was belly up, having his ears scratched by a guy who was so handsome, she wanted to slap a gift tag on him that said To: Gretchen.

This was the funniest line in the story and I think it's partly because of one word choice. See, Moore could have used "taped" or "put," but she chose "slap," which is much funnier for some reason. When writing your stories, don't be afraid to get down to the tiniest details, like switching out one word.

Photo by John Mayer via Flickr cc license


2 comments:

Pat said...

Great Christmas story. I loved the characters, the premise, and the wonderful writing. Moore did an amazing job with the internal dialogue.

Merry Christmas, Kate, to you and yours. Have a Happy New Year also.

Kate said...

Thank you, Pat! To you as well.