For the last stream, we had special guest Abbey join us, so we tried a new collaborative exercise: Five Forced Words.
To do this exercise, first chat voted for a story prompt, and then Abbey and I alternated writing sections of it… but with a twist. For each section, the person who wasn’t writing came up with five words that the other person had to use in that section.
We did our best to tell a coherent story using all of these restrictions. Did we succeed?
Read what we wrote and decide for yourself:
(Forced Words are in bold, Abbey started off)
Lieutenant Steven was wandering down the street, trying to get his life together by scribbling random events into his schedule book. His shift was nearly over, and had to get some much-needed nourishment to supply his tall, lanky frame with energy. He then tripped over a stove on the sidewalk, hurt his ankle, and ended up in front of a hotpot restaurant that had the smell of wieners wafting from inside. He HAD to stop in and try it. Lt. Steven loved wieners.
(I took over here)
Steven opened the door of the restaurant and a series of bells went off like a rave. Chimes cascaded above him on the top of the door, playing the chorus of Darude’s Sandstorm, signaling his entry inside. Hearing it made Steven feel more lucid than he had in days. It reminded him of back when he was a young raver, spinning girlfriends by day, spinning glowsticks by night. If this place had both wieners AND good music, then he’d be coming here more often. Especially if they were his favorite: Oscar Meyer Moisties.
(Abbey took over here)
Oscar Meyer Moisties sound like they’d be a brand of moist tissue, but they were actually just wieners that were more delicious when you boiled them in a hotpot environment. Lt. Steven sat down at his table, but didn’t need to look at the menu. He was victorious, and already knew what he was about to order. A small, elderly Asian woman approached his table, and set down a steaming ornamental teapot full of tasty warm tea in front of him. Lt. Steven noticed something strange about her, as he spent at least two years in college studying psychology. He had to know her secrets.
(I took over here)
“How’s it going, ma’am?” Steven asked, rolling out his napkin and folding it politely on his lap. The woman just scowled at him.
“Whaddya want?” she barked, her breath the smell of fetid carcass. Steven desperately hoped she hadn’t been eating whatever he was going to be served. This was his chance to investigate.
“What do you recommend?” he asked. She glared at him.
“For you?” She glanced down at the handcuffs hanging on his side. “A cop? I’d recommend the tablecloth. Maybe with a side of chicken butts.”
(Abbey took over here)
Little did she know, Lt. Steven loved chicken butts, and was raised eating them on the family farm for years. Nothing said home to him more than eating a portly vertebrate that made funny noises.
“I’ll take the chicken butts with a side of moisties please, ma’am. I’m happy to find an establishment that serves such fine foods.”
The lady looked at him like he had just spoken Portuguese. She embraced him with both arms, gave him a motherly pat on the head, and scuttled back to the kitchen with his order. Who knew that chicken butts were a uniter of peoples.
She returned to the table moments later with a large pot, frothing with delicious broth to dip the moisties and chicken butts in. This was going to be a great meal.
(I took over here)
…is what Lt. Steven WOULD think if he were an innocent civilian, and not a cop with twenty years of investigative food poisoning experience under his belt.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, calling back the waitress. “But there appears to be something extra in my soup.”
The waitress’s face turned white as Steven gave her a knowing grin.
“Whaddya mean?” she seethed, suddenly back to her old, hateful self. “That soup is perfectly potable!”
I dunked my moistie into the soup and scooped out a thick layer of bright white bat scat along the tip. I held it up to her knowingly.
“Looks like this hotpot has been tainted with rare guano poison,” he said. “If I were to ingest this, I’d require immediate treatment, or it could be fatal… just like the cases we’ve had recently with other cops who’ve gotten sick. Isn’t that right, ma’am, or should I call you by your street name, Viking Vixen?”
The woman’s fear dissipated. She grinned, reached over to the wall decorated in gaudy memorabilia and knick-knacks, and pulled off the viking helmet. She slammed it on her head and growled at Steven.
“You’re smarter than the others, piggie!” she said. “But you’re still going down, just like your brothers! I run this town and none of you are going to–”
THWACK!
Something smacked into the Vixen’s helmet hard, knocking her unconscious. She crumbled to the ground, and behind her, an old Asian man with a potbelly, greasy apron, and scowl on his face stood behind her, holding a baseball bat.
“I’m sorry about my wife,” he apologized to Steven. “She won’t be poisoning anyone’s soup anymore.”
“Glad to hear,” Steven said. “If you ask me, she was definitely acting a little… batty.”
I may have never passed a test at Secret Agent High, but it wasn’t for lack of skill. It was because I wanted to keep my true prowess a secret. Just like a real secret agent should.
Okay, so it’s not the best story ever, but it was still a lot of fun to write. The exercise really forced us to stretch our creativity, even if the final product wasn’t exactly a perfectly-flowing story.
And that’s a good lesson in itself: you don’t need to worry about making your first draft good. if we went back and editing this story, I actually think we could whittle it into something pretty good. But we would’ve never gotten to that point if we’d worried about writing a good story from the start.
After that we did a writing prompt and chat voted for this one submitted by Symposium735: You save an octopus that washed to shore. Ten years later, Cthulhu looks at your puny figure and thanks you.
This was a tough one to write. We had a lot of options, including which point of view to tell the story from, and whether or not to take it in a serious or funny direction.
In the end, we decided to go with Cthulhu’s point of view, and mix both serious and funny together. It may not be a perfect story, but it’s good for a couple Elder God laughs.
Or you can watch us write/read the story here.
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-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch Rubbish to Published, the writing exercises, or the writing prompts on YouTube, or watch the full stream reruns until Twitch deletes them.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming November 2018.
Featured image: Xaotik Design Industries