Story: The Treasure Hunt

What follows is an analysis of a Woman's World story with suggestions/observations for people who want to sell stories to WW, peppered with some personal opinion, too. :) If you truly want to learn, it's best to have a copy of the story in front of you. (And no, I don't get a kickback for pimping the magazine here!)

Story: "The Treasure Hunt" by Serena Miller from the January 14, 2008 issue.

Tagline: Molly's nephew had helped her find her heart's desire...

In A Nutshell: A woman goes geocaching on the suggestion of her nephew. She meets a professor while she's at it. He's geocaching, too, on the suggestion of one of his students. Turns out, the nephew and student are one and the same.

Teaching Points: Since the word count was recently reduced even more to 800 words, if you want to include physical descriptions of the characters, you have to do it succinctly. Here's how Miller did it:

She tucked her red hair into a loose knot to keep it out of her eyes.

He sounded as excited as a young boy, although he looked to be in his early forties, like she was.

Woman's World Standbys: Matchmaker relative

Best Part: ...Molly fell into the warmest brown eyes she'd ever seen. How sweet!