Write a complete short story that has a beginning, middle, end, and includes a main character and portrait of that character.*
Lester was barely out of breath when he caught up to the woman for the last time. Only a slight perspiration had begun on his forehead and in his armpits. And soon after the last quick step and the yank on her long tresses, his breathing and body temperature were back to normal.
Because Lester was neat and precise by nature, he made the killing quick and clean. The woman didn’t suffer long, except perhaps at the initial shock of the yank on her arm and the hopeful run away from her assailant. Once he had her prone and immobilized, her arms pinned beneath his knees, he did the killing quickly. Where he took time and care was in his signature.
Morethane was here, he inked precisely across her chest.
Lester had never liked his name. As a child, his family called him Little Lester for so long that he was nearly stuck with the asinine initials LL. But after learning about negative numbers in sixth-grade algebra, other kids called him Less Than and made him feel less than nothing. When in high school, he squeaked onto the basketball team, he was assigned jersey number 00. The coaches were in on the joke by then, but the administrators who could put a stop to this misconduct were not.
Only Lester knew that the main reason he hated his name was that it had been his father’s name beforehand. He was convinced that the jibes and teasing meant nothing to him. But he planned to legally change his name as soon as he turned 18. He had chosen Morethane after reading about King Arthur and his sister Morgane.
*My work from an exercise during “The 1-Day MFA: Lessons in Voice, Character, and Dialogue with Sara Kocek,” a workshop designed to condense the most important lessons of an MFA degree into one comprehensive tutorial, put on by the Writers’ League of Texas. (I didn’t manage to write a plot, but this character has potential!)