Every good story needs a main character. Writers work at creating a personality readers will care about and root for.
This story has one.
A rodent.
Brown beady eyes, a big furry tail, and a set of feet that permit it to climb to unfathomable reaches.
My husband and I named her Mischief.
Intrigued?
She first caught our attention when she scaled a concrete wall and wiggled inside the squirrel-proof birdseed dispenser on our back patio. Apparently the feeder design team failed to recognize that a bar that closes when a heavier animal lands also needs a squirrel proof top. Mischief pulled the lid off like she was opening a jar of peanuts and helped herself.
So much for squirrel-proof.
Writers need to create conflict. This squirrel looted the bird seed with too much ease and without consequence. Story suspense flattens.
Enter the villain.
My husband put a screw in the top and moved the feeder to a more unreachable location. Mischief could not jump from the roof, climb the gutter, scale the wall, or leap from a bush. Problem solved.
Can you feel the conflict growing? Have you chosen your champion? Man vs Mischief? Are you turning the pages eager to see who wins? Writers know that makes a good book.
Mischief spied the trellis instead. Time for more conflict.
The feeder moved to a third location, nothing to climb except the back screen door, which Mischief tried, but couldn’t stretch far enough to reach the feeder.
Begin Act II.
Mischief turned her attention to the suet dispenser—a small wired box that holds a mix of suet and seed that birds can feed on. Too small for a squirrel to climb in. Neither did it offer a platform large enough for a squirrel to land.
Unless you jump from a lilac bush and land on top.
Which Mischief did. There she sat, her front feet clinging to the dispenser, her hind legs and tail dangling as she wolfed down huge bites of honey-flavored suet with sunflower seeds.
Obviously she’s a gourmet.
We were ready for a climactic ending. Will the man defeat the rodent? Or will the squirrel declare victory as the man is reduced to a fit of frenzy?
Begin Act III
My husband erected a ten-foot pole in the center of our patio table. He mounted the suet feeder on top and positioned the pole in the center of the patio so the squirrel could not jump to it, nor could she use other furniture pieces to work her way up.
Like a frustrated writer creating a new scene that wouldn’t cooperate, the squirrel sat on the fence and studied the pole. She’d look at it from one angle, then move to another position and calculate her next move. She moved to the lilac bush, then scurried to the ground. We never saw a camera in her paws, but watching her a passerby might think she had one, taking pictures at every angle to achieve her quest. Like the determined writer, the squirrel with her God-given abilities fleshed out the scene for herself.
Time for the climax
On day two she climbed the pole as if she had toe clips. She sat on top and had her meal.
My husband considered a gun—a fitting end for a furry freeloader.
Instead, he inverted a slick-sided bucket on the pole and set the feeder on top. If the squirrel were to reach the feeder, she would have to find some way to grab the sides of the bucket and boost herself up. We watched her make several attempts, but each one failed. She’d climb and reconsider, scurrying back down the pole the way she’d come.
The final resolve
Several weeks have passed and Mischief hasn’t managed to reach the new feeder. My husband has moved on to other challenges. The story has resolution and a final scene.
I expect Mischief on the New York Times bestseller list.
Patricia Lee is a published author, having written since she first learned what words could do at the age of six. She holds a BA in journalism from the University of Oregon. Articles to her credit have appeared in Moody Monthly, Power for Living, Expecting and Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse as well as in two anthologies— Cup of Comfort Bible Promises and In the Company of Angels. She is part of a team of bloggers who submit short devotionals for FaithHappenings.com.
Patricia is a member of the Oregon Christian Writers and of American Christian Fiction Writers. She and her husband have two adult children and live in the Pacific Northwest with two sleepy cats.
The 4th book in Patricia’s Mended Hearts series released August 1, 2020.
All Eily McKintrick needed was an onion.
Across the fence an entire garden waits, but her brusque and unfriendly neighbor Marshall Frye doesn’t want to trade for the needed vegetable. Annoyed, Eily crawls through the fence to borrow the onion anyway, risking the wrath of the contrary man at the property line. If she’s caught.
Marshall would only be too happy to gift the widow with an onion, if it weren’t for her choice of friends. She spends time with Hillary Shepherd, a determined divorcée with her sights set on him. After his wife died, he retired early as a high school principal to live a contented solitary life growing vegetables for the local food banks. But when he finds Eily on her knees in his garden, the ensuing adventure is more trouble than either are prepared to handle.
Will Eily and Marshall find love for a second time? And what will Hillary do?
Lana Christian