(Soundbite of clock ticking and bell dinging)
LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:
The clock is ticking on Round Four of our Three-Minute Fiction contest. The deadline is tomorrow by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. And don't forget the four little words that need to appear in your stories:
Ms. ANN PATCHETT (Novelist): Plant, button, trick, fly.
WERTHEIMER: That's novelist Ann Patchett, our judge this round.
Remember, you can use the words as nouns, adjectives or verbs in any tense.
Ms. PATCHETT: So, planted, buttoning, tricked and flying are also fine.
WERTHEIMER: To see the full rules and submit your story, go to our Web site, npr.org/threeminutefiction - all words spelled out, no spaces. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
