Monday, August 15, 2016

A Yard Sale to Remember by Rochelle Banks

From the August 15, 2016 issue

Tagline: Olivia believed there was someone out there for her...but she never dreamed of meeting him at a yard sale!

Observations: I scribbled "a dance of conversation" in the margins, because what I really loved about this story was what was happening beneath the conversation. I think Banks did a terrific job of showing all the little things that had happened between these two, even though they'd never officially met until the day of her yard sale.

Her: She'd seen him riding his bike by her house and found him attractive.
Him: He'd noticed her (sans makeup) just after she'd moved in. (This part made me laugh. I loved the use of the word scampered.)
Him: He knew exactly how long it had been since she'd moved in.
Her: She'd been timing her breakfasts on the weekends so she could observe him going by, and she knew he was fibbing when he said he varied his route sometimes.

Banks gave us all this history while she was moving the story forward. (Did you also notice how she dropped in the bit about Olivia having broken up with her boyfriend as she talked about the bike?) Woman's World stories are so short that you really have to keep things moving.

Photo credit: r. nial bradshaw via Flickr Creative Commons License

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