Fantasy, romance, horror, comedy, Oprah’s Book Club…
let’s find out what happens when we take the same story premise and shove it into different genres!
During the last stream, the subscribers voted that we write the same story idea in different genres.
Watch a short version of the stream here or scroll down for what we wrote.
First, we got some weird stock images from the Twitter account Dark Stock Photos, and chat voted on which one would inspire out stories.
They voted on this one, bathtub bread:
— Dark Stock Photos (@darkstockphotos) February 8, 2021
After that, we spun the Wheel of Genres, and the first one we got was “fable.”
Here’s the bathtub-bread fable we wrote:
Once upon a time there were two families of toast that lived on the rim of a porcelain bathtub, and who carried on an ancient grudge. The Lightly Toasteds, the Tawnys; and the Darkly Toasteds, the Welldones. Both families believed that their type of toast was superior to the other.
“Anything more than a little browning makes you more roast than toast!” the Tawnys would say.
“Anything without a satisfying crisp might as well be dead than bread!” the Welldones would say.
The two sides would glare and grumble at each other from opposite ends of the bathtub, never daring to actually confront one another for fear of falling into the soapy water below. The Tawnys stayed on their side, and the Welldones stayed on theirs, and that was that.
Until one day, when Toasteo from the Welldone family and Jellyet from the Tawny family, met underneath the metal faucet. The two of them had never seen a more bread-thtaking slice in their lives. Toasteo was so used to his crispy bread-thren that the softer, milkier Jellyet was like a beautiful flour to his ryes. For Jellyet, she was so used to the breadwinners in her family being off-brown that the dark, mysterious Toasteo had her shivering with the mere sight of his glutenous glutes.
It was love at first bite. The soft crumbs of the two lovers crumbling off their fire-kissed exteriors, baking each other into their minds — and bodies — for the rest of the day.
When Toasteo and Jellyet didn’t come home, their families went out searching for them, and were aghast to see the two half-baked toasts on top of the faucet, and on top of each other, kneading each other so.
“Toasteo!” the Welldones yelled. “Get down here before that nasty girl scrapes off your tasteful chars!”
“Jellyet!” the Tawnys cried. “Get down here before that nasty boy rubs off on you!”
But Toasteo and Jellyet didn’t listen. They held each other tighter, saying that they were each other’s bread and butter, and would rather perish than have their love sliced away.
The two families moved in, and not having any other choice, Toasteo and Jellyet leaped into the bathtub together.
But to their amazement, Jellyet was the perfect floating device. Not completely toasted, the water filled her wheaty pores like a sponge, and she inflated to the perfect life raft for Toasteo to ride. They sailed all the way to the other end of the tub, where it was Toasteo’s turn to put his hard, burnt exterior to use. He was the perfect walkway for Jellyet to climb up and out of the water, and for her to help him out to the rim. The two lovers were on a roll!
But where they were, they had no idea. It was a mysterious land, with a tall table, chairs, and a strange plastic bag with other breadfolk inside it. Cautiously, the two of them approached, when one of the slices, the heel, wobbled out of the bag and spoke. Toasteo and Jellyet had never seen anything like it before. It was completely white all over.
“You two,” it said. “Are you like, braiding a twist roll, if ya know what I mean?”
Toasteo and Jellyet said yes, they were in love. The slice just cringed and backed away.
“You know, we’re all from the same loaf. You two, you’re bread-ther and sister. You’re cut from the same crust. Risen from the same yeast. It’s not right for you two to give rise to a new loaf.”
But Toasteo and Jellyet didn’t care. They embraced one another.
“I can’t live wheat or wheat-out you, Jellyet,” Toasteo said.
“Neither can I, Toasteo,” Jellyet said. “I don’t care how in-bread our children are. We’ll raise them with love, together!”
And that’s the story about how pumpernickel bread was first made.
After that, we spun the Wheel of Genres again, and we got “fantasy.”
Here’s the bathtub-bread fantasy we wrote:
I was ready to make the sacrifice. For generations upon generations, my family had been Kneaders, passing down the sacred knowledge of breadmaking. We performed the ritual that brought together water, flour, and yeast, imbuing it with life. All different shapes and sizes of bread, baked with our love, blessed with a droplet of our soul, so they rose to life after we took them out of the oven’s flames.
It was not our duty to raise the Breadkin, we left that responsibility to the ranchers. The bread pigs and bread cows that we crafted, they grew the same as flesh animals, until the time came to harvest them and enjoy the soft, buttery bounty that the bits of our love and souls had brought.
But I had always wondered: what would happen if a Kneader put their whole heart and soul into a Breadkin? I’d gone through the training, been taught how to pluck a small droplet of my lifeforce, and disperse it into the dough. In the back of my mind though, the nagging thought would never go away.
I could never ask anyone, for fear of being excommunicated. Putting your whole heart and soul into a loaf of bread was something I’d have to try on my own.
The night before my initiation ceremony as a true Kneader, I slipped away to the washing room, my arms full of the holy ingredients. Tomorrow, I would be expected to bake a Breadkin in front of everyone, and use a droplet of my soul. This was the only chance I’d have to give it everything.
I mixed and pounded the hallowed flour, divine water, and consecrated yeast in the bathing trough, crafting the largest loaf anyone had ever seen. It needed to be big; it was going to house all of me.
Mumbling the prescribed doctrine, I scooped within myself, not sticking the tip of the soul-trowel inside my being, but burying the entire head. My body shook as I shoveled the entire thing up, its roots snapping from inside me. It was heavy, like pulling a smith’s anvil from my stomach. I exhaled, sweating all over, and pushed my entire soul into the loaf.
Everything went white.
When I came to, I was no longer in the washroom. The trough and my bread were nowhere in sight. Everything was a blank void. I looked around, and I could see shadows, hear grumbles, but not enough of anything to focus.
Then I started to rise. I felt so light, as if carried upward in a gentle, constant breeze. As I rose, the shadows turned clearer. I looked down and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
They were my ancestors! The Kneaders from generations past. The ones I had heard stories of, who had baked loaves for decades, putting tiny bits of their soul into every single one. I even recognized some of them, my grandparents and their parents before them, all the way back to the first Kneaders.
But why weren’t they ascending like me? Why were they stuck on the ground as shadows?
Then I saw why. Some of them would begin to float upward like me, but then they would cry out, and beneath them a vision of someone in the world eating a loaf of bread they had Kneaded. Their droplet of soul mixed with the devourer’s as they ate the Breadkin, tethering them still to life.
That soul that would then have a droplet put into another Breadkin, then another, then another, leaving part of them still in the previous world, unable to ascend to the next. Forever, or until the Kneading process stopped.
I wanted to help my ancestors, to yell out to the ones still alive, who had yet to bake their souls into bread. To warn them of the fate that awaited.
But I was already too far away. They were shadows beneath the grand light that I was ascending up toward.
Be sure to check out the video for some dramatic readings!
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 join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Images: Twitter