For the last stream, we tried a new exercise: taking a mundane/miserable activity and writing it in an interesting way.
Stories aren’t always about explosions and aliens; sometimes it’s good to have conflict, mystery, and vivid descriptions in the more mundane parts of life. That’s what this exercise was all about.
To do that, chat voted for a mundane activity, and then we wrote a story about it. They chose this one: Waiting in the checkout line while someone ahead of you pays by writing out a check.
Here’s what we came up with:
It’s incredible how sharply tuned your senses become when you’re being subjected to absolute misery. As I stood in line behind an elderly woman writing a check for her groceries, everything around me came into painful focus.
Have you ever noticed how grating the generic music is that plays at grocery stores? It’s worse than elevator music. At least elevator music is something soothing, and worst comes to worst, is over quickly enough when you leave. But grocery store music – you’re stuck with it the entire time you’re inside the prison walls. And they even have the audacity to play songs with lyrics that crack and fizzle in the ancient speakers like little firecrackers going off in your ears.
And then there’s the racks of goods by the conveyor belt. Diabetes-causing candy and soul-sucking magazines about every celebrity and soap opera imaginable. The box of Reese’s cups is empty with one of those “Please Refill Me” signs etched into the bottom of its cardboard. Next to it, the box of cinnamon breath mints is packed full, never wanted by anyone. I can see the already-passed expiration date on the bottom of one of the plastic containers as clearly as I can hear the register beep as it rejects the old woman’s check.
“Oh,” she said in surprise. “Is the total forty-five fifty-three or forty-five sixty-three?”
The cashier–a young kid, probably a junior in high school–glanced awkwardly at the bright display that showed the total cost.
“Uh, neither?” he said. “Your total comes to fifty-five seventy-three, ma’am.”
“Oh,” she grumbled. “Guess I’d better write a new one then.”
I let out a long sigh as the woman tore up her check. For the eight-hundredth time I looked around to see if there awereany other open registers, but at this time of night, there’s none. Yet another reminder of my engulfing loneliness.
Behind me in line I heared giggling. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a young couple, completely engrossed in each other, and totally oblivious to the old woman chiseling away at a new check. They were buying some Orville Redenbacher popcorn and Napa Valley Merlot, probably going all out for a date night at home.
Seeing them made my heart ache, reminding me of the woman I’d left behind in Canada. We’d dated in college, then stayed together through long distance for two years, and she’d invited me over last weekend to visit. I’d expected a weekend of awesomeness, but she just wanted to break up with me in person, face to face. Now I was here, buying Lucky Charms, Kraft dinosaur macaroni and cheese, and a Red Baron pizza to drown my sorrows in empty calories.
If I ever got to pay for them, that is.
The old woman handed the cashier her check, but just as he was about to process it, she let out a howl.
“Wait!” she cried. “I just remembered.” She reached into her purse, rummaged around, and pulled out a wrinkled old coupon. “I have a coupon for that cottage cheese.”
The cashier took it from here. “Uh, I’m gonna have to rerun to order if you want to use this?”
“Well of course I want to use it!” she said. “It’s seventy cents off. That’s almost a whole dollar!”
The cashier shrugged, pressed a button, and everything disappeared from the display. He began scanning all the items again one by one.
Every beep of the scanner sent another wave of hatred through me. All I wanted was to get home, reach into my box of Lucky Charms, and scoop out handfuls of carbohydrates and sugar while a pizza cooked on the oven and mac and cheese bubbled on the stove. Was that really so much to ask for?
An agonizing five minutes later, everything was re-scanned, and the new total (seventy cents cheaper) was on the display. The woman hadn’t even begun writing her new check yet. She wrinkled up her face and picked out a box from the bags.
“Do you think these Gordon’s fish sticks are okay?” she asked the cashier. “Says here they’re going to expire tomorrow. Maybe I should get a different one.”
I snapped. I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to just get home and shove short-term happiness into my mouth!
“It doesn’t matter!” I yelled. I drowned out the music playing and immediately got the attention of the couple behind me and the cashier. The old woman gasped at me in horror, but I kept going. “By the time you finish checking out, it will be tomorrow anyway! So here, take this and just go already!”
I was barely conscious of what I was doing. I’d reached into my pocket, ripped open my wallet, and thrust some cash in the cashier’s face.
“Are you, uh, paying for her?” he asked.
“Yes!” I cried. “Please… just take it and let’s move on with our lives.”
I inched the cash further to his face, and he reluctantly took it. The old woman beamed at me.
“What a nice young man,” she said. “We need more people like you in your generation.”
I grit my teeth, took my pitiful change from the cashier, and even helped the old woman pile her bags into a cart and watched her wheel it away. Finally, I sighed with relief as the cashier scanned my three boxes of junk food.
“Your total comes to nine eighteen, sir,” he said.
I opened up my wallet and realized with horror that I didn’t have any money left to pay. I only had a dollar in change, and my debit cards were useless. I’d emptied my bank account to buy those stupid plane tickets to Canada.
But there was something else I could use. I reached into the back of my wallet, past the graveyard of old receipts and photos. It was there, shiny and new, as another hated memory of my trip. I pulled it out and sheepishly asked the cashier:
“Do you take traveler’s checks?”
What an emotional rollercoaster! We started off with a miserable event, but through careful writing, made it a pretty fun read.
It’s not perfect, but it sets the scene/tone well at the beginning, has a good hook, and a pretty nice setup/payoff. I’m a fan!
You can watch us explain the exercise and read the final story here.
After that we did a writing prompt and chat voted for this one submitted by JackalopeSpoke: With rising competition for college admissions, universities have made their admissions process a little more… intense.
This was a fun one, especially during the brainstorming period. We had a lot of ideas and different POVs to potentially tell them from.
In the end, we decided on starting the story zoomed-out to set the scene, then zoom-in on a single character and follow their story. I think what we ended up with has a nice twist on the idea.
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: imgflip