Intriguing Stories

The other day in my introductory fiction-writing workshop wetalked about the intrigant, a term coined by Jerome Stern in his book MakingShapely Fiction. An intrigant is anything in a story that makes the reader wantto keep reading.
As an exercise I had each student write one sentence thatthey thought would work as an intrigant. Then each student passed their paperto the person on their right, and each got to read someone else's intrigrantand then add another "intriguing" sentence to follow from the first. Then thepapers were passed again, and another sentence written, and so on. After sevenpasses, the eighth person's challenge was to come up with a satisfying concludingsentence. The end result being a collection of micro-stories of eight sentenceseach, each one written collectively by eight different people.
Here are three of the stories:

"Why is there a box sitting right there James?"            Jamesglanced around wildly but could not find the source of the voice. Outside ofthe small pool of light in which he and the box stood, he could see nothing.The question echoed in his mind, pushing him to open that box and find ananswer, lest he suffer some horrible punishment for not knowing.             Yetthe voice waited just outside of recognition, and the hair on his arms stood ashe contemplated his choice.            "Thebox, James," the voice pushed, "why is it there?"            "AmI dead?" asked James, his voice almost failing him.            "Thebox, James," repeated the voice, "is your life. If you are not inside, then youare--"            "Dead,"James finished, the word turning sour in his mouth.



"You aren't crazy if the shadows start calling your name,"my father told me, "but the next time you go for a walk, take a flashlight."            Ionly wish he had told me not to call back.            Nothinggood ever came of calling back.            Nexttime I went I was glad to have the flashlight because it was good for more thanfinding my footing. It was probably what saved my life, that little piece ofmanmade light. Or rather, was it the manic elf who lived on my shoulder (thoughit seemed no one else could see him)? He usually had my back, I found, but myfather wouldn't let me talk about him, saying only crazy folk hadshoulder-elves, and his daughter was certainly not crazy.            Theelf agreed.



After buttoning her burberry trench coat and tying on herHermes scarf, Brenda swung the Chanel bag containing the severed hand onto hershoulder and called to her husband, "I'm ready."            Hewas already at the door, frowning back in consternation as he tucked hisworries into the back of his mind; they were already an hour late and theirclients weren't known for being forgiving. On the contrary, they were known forbeing singularly unforgiving. They didn't want to repeat what had happened thelast time. So this time, Brenda had taken several precautions – hence thesevered hand she had so carelessly tossed over her shoulder.            Justas they were about to close the door behind them, he stopped. "Brenda!" hecalled in anxiety, "I don't know where I put the eyeballs!"            "Don'tworry, sweetheart, I have them too."            PlanningHalloween parties was a very stressful job.