For the last writing stream (along with special guest Abbey), we tried something new.
For our writing exercise, we used the Japanese “Poop Kanji Book” to get some random sentences. In the book, every Japanese character (kanji) is given three example sentences that uses it, each of which (of course) involves poop.
After getting a random page number, we opened to the page with the kanji for “corner.” The chat voted on which of the three poop-sentences would start our story, and this is what we wrote: (bold sentence was our “random” sentence)
“Poop is falling on the street corner. Please proceed with caution. If your daily commute goes by Plain St. and Garden Way, you’re going to want to steer clear of the Hellman’s Building this morning. According to reports from police officers who have surrounded the premises with caution tape, CEO and president Nicholas Hellman snuck into the building last night and consumed over fifty jars of pure low fat mayonnaise.
“As of seven-fifteen this morning, Mr. Hellman has been relieving himself from the top of the building, pouring down feces with the force and texture of a small waterfall, eyewitnesses report. Police have tried to persuade him down with no success, claiming the smell is too overwhelming to approach closer than fifty feet.
“Unfortunately the Hellman’s building has not closed for the day, and employees are still required to report to work. Management is encouraging concerned employees to either use a sick day, or to enter the building via the currently non-toxic back entrance. However some employees have voiced concerns that the back entrance still remains unusable due to Vice-President Stanley Shiteley’s similar diarrhetic outbreak last year over the other side of the building.
“Vendors have set up shop outside the perimeter selling ultra-thick two-ply umbrellas to any employee or passersby in need. Latest reports showed that umbrellas were being bought en masse and scalped for over one hundred dollars each, resulting in mini riots of the accused being pushed into the stream of raw human sewage.
“We will continue to update you as the situation develops. For now, I’m Sophia Stepman, back to you in the newsroom.”
Once the camera was off, Sophia turned to her producer and winked. “Man, and I thought my job was shitty.”
I honestly thought this exercise was a lot of fun. It forced us to really be creative, get disgusting with some detailed descriptions, and write a story outside of our comfort zone. I have a feeling we will be consulting the “Poop Book” for more exercises in the future.
Next we moved on to the writing prompt and chat voted on this one by Dunabu: “Inexplicably, the inner children of people all around the world begin manifesting as physical beings, following their adult selves like shadows. To say the least, this has created drastic, strange changes to all people affected, and to society.”
There were a ton of directions to take this story: something positive with a shadow-child and adult reconciling, something negative with them hating each other, seeing what happens if a shadow-child runs away from their adult, imagining what happens if two enemies’ shadow-children becomes friends. The only hard part was picking one.
But thanks to some amazing suggestions from chat, I’m really happy with where our story ended up.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-9:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch it here on rerun until Twitch deletes it.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso