Where have all the tea leaves gone?

When did thievery go out of fashion in fiction? What happened to the Pink Panther, Robin Hood, Raffles, Bilbo Baggins, The Artful Dodger, Nancy Drew, Beanstalk Jack, and the very talented Mr Ripley?

Your challenge is to write a quick micro fiction story that introduces us to a an original character who is a thief.

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This challenge has now closed. Thanks to all for your support. Winners are announced and showcased here:

Winners of the Golden Tea Leaf

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This is a quick competition, so no need to spend too much time worrying and refining. Just get the words down on paper, or on screen, as fast as you can and then spend some time editing the text to get it right and to trim it down to size.

One prize only: $5.00 tip for the best entry.

STOP PRESS: First five entries also get a $1.00 tip

The object of the exercise is to have some fun and to practise writing with economy and precision, and a focus on authenticity. You must invent a character who is believable and somehow attractive to the reader.

Not sure if you can do it? Give it a try! What have you got to lose?

Not sure where to start? Here are some tips which I hope will help:

Have a think about what a thief does and what they are.

You do not have to take the word 'thief' literally, but you can if you want to.

Have fun, make your character funny, a caricature, a cliché, or make them serious. Make them so bad nobody could love them, but perhaps someone does.

Don't make them wooden. If they are bad, give the a redeemable feature. If they are good, give them some faults. If they are a folk hero (like Robin Hood) make it clear that they have their own agenda too. Or perhaps they are not what they seem.

Put your character to the test. Given them a problem and see how they deal with it.

Don't bore us with their life story, just give us a snippet, a tasty morsel.

Don't think of stealing as a crime, think of it as a virtue or consider who might say it is a virtue (including the thief).

Are they male, female? What about transgender? Perhaps they are not even human or not even a living thing (procrastination is the thief of time, for instance). Perhaps they are dead.

Above all, don't waste time on the story. This is a quick writing exercise. Allocate yourself some time and keep to it. Is an hour enough, or half an hour? 5 minutes? Surely everyone can spare 5 minutes. Bash the story out and then see what you have.

Once you have written your draft, read through and think what you can take out without taking away from the story.

The above ideas are just suggestions. You don't have to follow any of this advice. Do your own thing and make us love (/hate) your thief!

There is no maximum word count but this is intended to be a quick exercise so keep it as short as you can while still telling the story. Consideration will be given to brevity, the ability to tell the tale without too much blah, blah, blah. It's not about length, it's about quality and economy.

Still can't think of a story? Then what could be a better way to tell a story about a thief than to be one? Why not steal a story? By steal a story, I don't mean copy it. Steal the idea but adapt the story and character so you end up with something original. Example:

Nice as pie

Simon was the nicest man you could ever meet. Always ready to help a friend, never a cross word, nothing was too much trouble. His one weakness? Pies! He was no baker and had no money, so the only way to get a pie was to take it, often while it lay cooling by a window. The villagers wanted revenge. They baked a pie the size of an ox, with a rare surprise for the pie thief. They left it on the village green and watched from a distance.

When Simon saw the pie he could just not resit. Taking out his knife he broke open the crust. Whereupon two dozen screeching crows emerged and flapped about, frightening Simon the pie thief half to death.

125 words. Total time taken = 10 minutes: 5 to write and 5 to edit

Where did the idea come from for the above story? Ever heard of the rhyme … “four and twenty black birds were baked in a pie”? Yes, the story was stolen. Even the name was stolen: "Simple Simon met a pieman...." Simple Simon had no money to buy a pie.

Why not see what you can come up with in 10 minutes? Sometimes we spend too much time thinking when all we need to do is put pen to paper or fingers to keys.

Here are some more hints, tips, cheats and steals

Still not sure what to write about. Take a look at the featured image. The card, if you don't recognize, is a from a Tarot deck. It is the Seven of Swords, sometimes known as The Thief. Look up the meaning of this card and see if that generates any ideas. The skull was just something handy to prop the card on for my photograph (Doesn't everyone have one in their writing space?) Maybe that will give you some ideas too.

How to enter

Write your story, trim it down to a compact, easy-to-read micro fiction. When you are happy with your work, submit it to Vocal in the usual way. Probably best to stick to Fiction (selecting micro fiction to avoid rejection on word count) or Poets but this is not a condition of entry. When your story has been published, post a link to your story in comments below.

Deadline: Sunday September 8 @ 23:59 (one minute to midnight) EST (UTC+4).

And please remember, this is a fun exercise, not a chore. Don't waste time, just write it down.

The winning story will be the one that makes me laugh the most, and/or cry, and or/want to read more about your thief. The thief character must be new, original and believable. They must have something about them that will fascinate, entertain, engage, enrage, endear...

Happy writing folks!