The Fifteen Minute Novel: Day 1

In 2020 I wrote a fifteen minute writing prompt every week day. At the end of it I wound up with a little over 147,000 words of prose. While i consider that quite an accomplishment all those words were on a multitude of stories. So I decided I would take one of the story starts created by the fifteen minute prompts and write one continuous story. Or at least see if i could. Each day will start with the last sentence from the day before. I’m sure there will be plot contradictions and gaps in the story that I will later need to fill, but I want to see if I can actually write a full novel in fifteen minutes a day. I’ll also be taking notes of things I need to look up or alter when I get around to editing, but for now, I am just going to see how the story develops. It could be fabulous, it could be an unholy mess. On day fifty I could just load all my characters onto a buss and have them drive off a cliff.

Fab or flop, it should be fun. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Incidentally If you are following along the Fifteen minute novel posts will all be tagged with The Fifteen Minute Novel so you can find them more easily.

Day 1: It was all a blur.

It was all a blur.  Afterwards James could only remember it in fragments, like snapshots clicking into his memory with the press of a button and playing in his mind with the same sort of clicks he remembered from high school slide shows. He could almost hear the whir of the machine’s fan as each slide clicked into place.

Click. He saw his car break down, smoke drifting out from under the hood. 

Click. He saw himself check the phone and discover he had no cell service. 

Click. He saw the lights of the nearby building still on. 

Another click and he flashed on the older man behind the counter, his friendly smile warm and welcoming on a cold and drizzly night where it seemed fate decided nothing was going his way. 

James closed his eyes.  The snap shots flipped by faster, the clicks a whirring blur of sound now.  The old man showing him into the office where he could call a tow truck. The wall of two way mirrors showing him the shop’s interior as he called for assistance from the office desk phone.  He saw his own hand place the old Bakelite receiver down on the cradle ending the call, confident that someone would soon be by. 

The sound of gunshots spun him towards the mirror.  He saw the shots, the shooters, then the kind older man falling to the ground. 

From here the pictures blurred.  He heard himself call 911 his voice rattling in his head, but he only saw blood.  The EMT’s pried him off the older man when they arrived, or so he was told.  He was using his shirt to try to stop the blood. 

It wasn’t enough.  The man died.

From there it was a sickening kaleidoscope of official inquiries followed by an agreement to testify.  James didn’t realize what he was getting into then.  No one gave him the full details. He guessed they were afraid he’d bolt and pretend he saw nothing, their case falling apart in the wake of his departure.  It was only after they sent him to the safe house with a hastily packed bag of clothes that he realized this wasn’t an ordinary shooting.  It wasn’t a simple robbery.

And his life would never be the same again.

James opened his eyes and took a deep breath.  The air was cool, but had the same recycled feel to it that all airplane air had to it. He was out of the safe house now. He looked out of his small window.  It was a private jet, but unlike the ones he was accustomed to using in his travels, it had none of the luxuries he associated with private air travel.  Everything about it said that this was a government plane designed to ferry witnesses from point A to Point B with no one knowing a thing.

‘Including me,’ he thought. 

James wasn’t certain where he was going.  It was dark outside.  There were lights scattered in the darkness, but he could make out none of the area landmarks.  There was nothing he could pin down on his mental map. The plane was landing though, he could feel it in the descent.  The fasten seatbelts sign flashed on.  As James hadn’t unfastened it, he ignored the elevator door ding of the announcement.  The pilot apparently felt no need to make a further announcement regarding their arrival.  The man next to him, the man whose name he never caught, his case worker, his agent and at the moment his only connection to the world, leaned over the aisle.

“We’ll be there soon,” he said.  He offered James a reassuring smile.