For the last stream’s exercise, we tried something new: writing about the same object in a GOOD way and an EVIL way.
What this means is you write about the same object (a rice cooker, a photograph, a house, etc.) and describe it in a happy/fun way, then describe the exact same object in a foreboding/malignant way.
This is a great exercise to force you bring out the emotional significance of an object, rather than merely describing it as-is.
I left it up to chat to decide what we’d write about, and they voted on this: Halloween party decorations.
Here’s what we came up with:
“GOOD” (HAPPY) VERSION
I can’t believe it! Our living room is actually decorated like a real haunted house. Thick cobwebs and hand-sized tarantulas cover the walls, images of projected ghosts fly over the ceiling and floor, and black lights make the neon-blood splatters on the wall glow like a madhouse. There’s a buffet of body parts on the table, a bowl full of eyeballs, a bloodied hand, and a brain sitting on a platter.
My ten-year-old jaw drops open at the beautiful sight of it all. It’s even better than I imagined. Even better than all the monster books I’ve read.
“Garrrrrrr!”
A werewolf jumps out from the kitchen, baring his claws at me. For a second my heart stops, then I break out in laughter as he removes the mask. Underneath is my dad, smiling in a satisfied way.
“Whaddya think, kiddo?” he asks.
Before I can even reply, the doorbell rings. His eyebrows shoot up in excitement and he tosses the mask back on.
“Want to help me spook some kiddies?” he growls.
I nod, put in my vampire teeth, and wrap my cape around my front. It’s the best night of the year.
“EVIL” (FOREBODING) VERSION
I can’t believe it… our living room is a real haunted house. I don’t know when or how it happened, but dad called me out from my bedroom, and now I’m standing in the middle of a nightmare.
The walls are covered in a horrifying, inescapable maze of cobwebs and hand-sized tarantulas, waiting for me to fall into their trap so they can suck me dry. Ghosts wail and fly over the ceiling and floor, begging me to release them from their eternal prisons. There’s some sort of writing on the wall, written in what looks like blood splatters lit up like neon lights, but I can’t read it… I’m only six years old!
I want to cry out for my dad, but my breath is taken away when I see what’s on the table. It’s covered in body parts, organized perfectly as if a butcher had separated them out while mutilating his victim. Eyeballs, hands, brains, they’re everywhere! Are they dad’s? Will mine be next?
“Garrrrrrr!”
A werewolf jumps out from the kitchen, baring his claws at me. No, that must’ve been what got to dad! My heart stops, but only for a moment, when I find the strength to scream and run away.
“Hey, come back, kiddo!” comes the voice of my dad.
I won’t let the werewolf fool me. He’s just imitating my dad’s voice! I make it to my bedroom and roll under my bed, curling up in a ball. Hairy werewolf feet run into my room, walk around looking for me and calling for me, but I stay hidden and silent, shaking as I force my mouth shut.
Just when I think the beast is going to find me, the doorbell rings. He lets out a sigh of disappointment and leaves my room.
But then I realize whoever is at the door is in danger. I can’t just lie here, let them get chopped up, and wait for the werewolf to chop me up too. No! It’s time to take matters into my own hands. I grab my tee-ball bat from under the bed and slowly start creeping out back to the living room, ready to strike.
I really liked doing this exercise, not only because it stretched our creativity muscles, but because we also saw the story change organically. We wrote the “good” one first, then copy-pasted it, and changed it word-by-word into the “evil” one.
But as we changed the emotional description of things, the entire story began to change too. It was fascinating, watching it take on a whole new life of its own, just from a few small descriptive changes, until it became its own thing.
This exercise really shows the importance of describing things, not just physically, but emotionally as well. It can lead your story in wildly different directions.
After that we moved on to today’s prompt, and chat voted for this one submitted by The_Red_Knight38: Two werewolves fall madly in love, but only during the full moon. When they’re human, they can’t stand each other.
As soon as I saw this prompt, I had an idea of where to take it. By some miracle, chat voted for that idea, so I had to go for it.
I like how this one turned out. It’s one of the shorter stories we’ve written, but I said everything I wanted to say in it, and it’s a fun, quick read.
Or you can watch a quick video of us writing/reading it 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: DeviantArt/Novawuff