UPDATE: The winner is…Colleen C!
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I’m getting close to “The End” of Malcolm! Good thing, too. It releases next Tuesday! Since the story is on my mind constantly—I kind of live it in an alternate reality in my head—today’s Word Search puzzle is filled with random elements of the story.
Enjoy the puzzle and the excerpt from the story below! And if you leave a comment, you’ll be entered to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
Excerpt from Malcolm…
Malcolm Winslow knew he stood out in this crowd. How could he not? With his longish, uncombed hair, thick beard, and the tattoos displayed by the rolled-up sleeves of his plaid shirt, not to mention the fact he was armed and wore a Kevlar vest, he drew every eye the second he entered the fancy barn that was lit up like the Fourth of July.
Those closest to the open doors were the first to fall silent. Hands touched shoulders and then pointed toward him as he resolutely made his way toward the trellis constructed between horse stalls on either side of the wide space and strung with white lights and roses, where a couple in their wedding finery stood before a preacher.
A groomsman tapped the groom on the shoulder, and he tore his gaze away from his stunning bride to glance down the aisle Malcolm strode down.
The groom’s eyes widened, and he turned to his bride, dug something from his pocket, and then said, “Candy, here are my keys—run!”
The groom slapped keys on her palm, straightened his shoulders, and stepped in Malcolm’s path.
Malcolm gave a single shake of his head, smacked away the groom’s raised fists, then bent to ram his shoulder into the other man’s chest.
The groom flew backward as Malcolm picked up his pace and ran toward the smaller back door of the barn through which the bride had just escaped.
Outside in the dusky gloom, he caught a glimpse of bright white as the bride, Candy Bodine, almost Carmichael, climbed a corral fence. He was surprised at the number of people standing on either side of the door outside this end of the barn but didn’t have time to figure out why they were there because Candy had just jumped down from the fence to the other side, snagging her long train on a nail. She ran forward, but her train held fast, springing her backward and onto her butt on the dirt.
She rolled, tangling herself in petticoats and torn train, and got to her knees. She stared back at him as he jogged toward the fence, planted a hand on the cedar fencepost, and sailed sideways over the top. Yeah, his feet skidded a bit in horse poop when his boots hit the ground, but the bride wasn’t so pristine now either, kind of like her rap sheet.
This time, she’d failed to appear before the judge for a drunk driving/failure to yield at a stop sign/fleeing the scene set of charges. And if Malcolm had anything to say about it, she was not heading to the private airport where Daddy had a plane waiting to fly her to some resort vacation in the Caribbean. As soon as Malcolm snicked the cuffs on her wrists, she’d be spending what should’ve been the first night of her honeymoon inside the detention center in Bozeman.
No amount of crocodile tears was going to dissuade him from his purpose.
I bought this little brainstorming tool years ago at some writers’ conference. “Story Cubes” is a brainstorming game. You roll the dice and whatever pictures appear, face-up, are the ones you use to riff off a story. You can try to include all the cubes in your “story” or choose a few.
