# Answer key - creative writing

## Must be exact
- First sentence below the title: The book was due on the ninth of June, 1995.
- Last sentence: I keep the receipt.

## Must not appear (each use counts)
suddenly · realise · realize · realised · realized · breath · heart · silence · shattered · tears · whisper · echo · somehow (and their inflections: breathe/breathing, whispered, echoes, heartbeat, tearful).

## Must hold
- First person, present tense, outside dialogue. "I was", "she said", "I had" are drift.
- One scene, one room, real time. A flashback rendered as scene, a cut to another place or day, a phone call, breaks it.
- Two people speak; no third person appears, is quoted, or calls.
- A library card, twice, with a change of meaning between the two.
- Spoken dialogue under 80 words in total.
- 700 to 800 words below the title.
- A title. No preface, no note, no offer, no paragraph after the last sentence.

## Must not be
- A dream, a ghost, a dead narrator, an unreliable-narrator reveal, a "twist" that reframes what came before.
- A closing paragraph that states the meaning ("I understand now", "It was never about the book").