Tagline: Marley never imagined her birthday wish would actually come true--but then she met Bob, er, Josh...
In A Nutshell: Celebrating her birthday with her friend, Marley wishes for a man. Obligingly, her friend has already arranged a blind date with Bob. Unfortunately, the sketchy description of Bob leads her to approach the wrong guy, twice! The second guy, Josh, offers to help her identify the real Bob. Fortunately, Bob never arrives and Josh asks Marley out for dinner instead.
Teaching Points: When writing these stories, you actually have to make the reader AND the heroine fall in love with the hero, so make sure your story has a place, or places, where you show the hero demonstrating heroic behavior in some way. He can be thoughtful, kind, helpful, romantic, funny, brave, or any combination thereof. This can be shown in action or in dialogue.
In "Make A Wish!" here's where I fell in love with Josh:
"I'm a high school science teacher and a lonely bachelor--except sometimes I pretend I'm a knight in shining armor who rescues beautiful damsels in distress."
Here's Marley's equally funny reply:
"I work in a bookstore...my hobby is wandering around coffee shops looking for men wearing blue shirts."
Which brings me to another point. Humor is always welcome in a Woman's World story. The goal of their magazine is to improve women's lives and if you ask me, laughter is one of the easiest ways to accomplish that. Another really funny part was in the beginning of the story:
"I wish I would meet a wonderful man, fall in love and be married by my next birthday!"
"That's a lot to ask from one candle."
So, those are the lessons to be learned from this week's story: make your hero heroic and make the reader laugh.
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