We’ve had so many great story ideas that have made it to the polls… but failed to win.
Let’s give some popular ones a second chance to finally be brought to life!
During the last stream, the subscribers voted that we write some “revived” prompts.
Prompt #1: A tramp stamp that says “prologue.”
Here’s what we wrote:
“Sir,” the voice of my secretary came through the speaker phone. “Your four ‘o clock is here. Shall I send her in?’
Ugh, was it that time already? I swear the afternoon goes by faster every damn day. Something about lunch just speeds things up. Must be all the carbs in that turkey club sandwich. Or the chips. Maybe that’s how they get the pickles so crunchy, adding little time-speeder-uppers to them.
Whatever the case, I was going to need to get through this meeting with… I didn’t even remember her name, honestly. She was in charge of a Gaelic publisher, and I was looking to sell her the translation rights for one of my client’s books. Didn’t even know they published books in Gaelic, honestly. Whatever, though! Another untapped market to fill with cozy pirate romances.
“Send her in,” I said, brushing the leftover chip crumbs off my suit and sitting up straight.
Although when she walked in, and I saw what she was wearing, I’m not sure if I really needed to clean myself off at all.
Business suits are the typical attire of everyone in the publishing world, but apparently not for this woman. She was wearing sweatpants, an oversized Baby Shark hoodie, which alone would have been strange, but what struck me the most was the scowl on her face directed right at me like a laser pointer.
“You,” she seethed, closing the door behind her. “We’ve got business to discuss.”
She stood before my desk, arms crossed, fuming.
“Uh,” I stammered. “I’m guessing you’re not from Leabhar Publishing?”
“No!” she said, smacking her palm down on my pile of papers. “I just said that to get to see you face to face. My name’s Erica, ring any bells?”
Nope. My brain was as bell-less as a Christmas tree out on the curb.
“Sorry,” I said. “But I’m kind of busy here, so if you don’t have urgent business then—”
“I do have urgent business!” she said. “April 10th, two months ago. Do you remember getting a query letter about a little manuscript called Captain’s Booty?”
Oh god. So that’s what this was about. An unhappy author. I guess I had two minutes to spare to break the bad news.
“Listen, Erica,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “I get 20 queries a day from potential authors. I can only take on three or four new clients per year, so there’s a lot of rejections. I’m sorry, but you can try elsewhere if you’d like. It’s a very subjective business, so maybe you’ll have better luck if—”
She didn’t say anything, just turned around, grabbed the elastic of her sweatpants, then yoinked it down. For a moment I thought I was going to get a full moon right in my office, but thankfully she stopped before the moonrise was complete.
It was just down enough to read a tattoo splayed across her hip: the word “PROLOGUE” in beautiful swirling colors.
“You may not have given my book’s prologue a chance,” she said, twisting her head back at me. “But now, you have to read this one!”
She didn’t move, just stayed in the same position as my eyes danced over her tattoo over and over again. Having made her point, I expected her to leave, but she wasn’t budging. So there was only one thing I could do.
Slowly, I stood up, removing my tie, then blazer, then unbuttoning my shirt one button at a time, letting my skin hidden beneath peek out.
“Hey!” she yelled. “Don’t get any weird ideas. This is just revenge, not—”
I flung open my shirt, revealing my entire bare chest. Stomach. And “EPILOGUE” tattoo engraved in swirling colors between my nipples.
For a moment, the two of us just stared at each other, not saying a word. Not needing to. Our tattoos did all the talking.
“Hey,” I finally said. “I know a place where you can get a mean turkey club. Their pickles are out of this world. You wanna join me sometime?”
“Uh, sure,” Erica said. She pulled up her sweatpants and turned back to me with a slight smile on her face. “Do you mind if I bring my book, so you can, I don’t know, maybe take another look at it?”
“Sure, why not?” I said, buttoning my own shirt back up. “I suppose there are some things you can miss about a person from just a query letter anyway.”
Prompt #2: The date was going just fine until they pulled up disturbing compilation videos on YouTube.
Here’s what we wrote:
My date with Terrance at Smashburger was going so well that when he asked me if I wanted to come back to his place to hang out afterward, I said yes right away.
Usually I like to wait until the second or third date for things like that, but for Terrance, or Terr as he liked to be called, I knew things would be different.
I followed him to his house — yes, house! I guess that’s what you can afford on a big anesthesiologist salary like his. He didn’t even try to grab my butt or anything as he unlocked the door and we stepped inside.
“Hey,” he said in an excited whisper. “Do you mind if I show you something that… turns me on.”
“Sure,” I said. We’d already come this far down the rabbit hole, might as well see what’s at the grimy bottom.
Any other guy would take my hand and lead me into his bedroom, but Terr had different plans. He brought me into what looked like a small office, with shelves of medical books, a desk, and bright computer screen shining in the darkness.
We walked behind it together, and he let me sit in his comfy leather chair while he stood next to me, opening up his Internet browser — Tor, a rare one.
“There’s something that I’d like to show you,” Terr said. “I want to know what you think.”
He went straight to LiveLeak, a video sharing website, and typed so quickly into the search bar that I didn’t even get a chance to read it until there were already a dozen video thumbnails displayed across the screen.
Each one of them showing animals getting hit by cars and exploding into puddles of blood and viscera.
He clicked on one of them “NATURE VS MAN MAN WINS LOL,” and before I knew it an ostrich got slammed into by a jeep. Then a deer thwacked by a Buick. Then a fat beaver sliced in half by a motorcycle, both ends left twitching, only a streak of red connecting them.
“Well?” Terr asked. “What do you think?”
What was I supposed to say? I was at a loss for words. There were so many feelings mixing inside of me that I couldn’t pin them down.
I reached into my purse and took out my phone.
“You think that’s bad?” I asked with a smirk. “You haven’t seen anything!”
I quickly brought up Bestgore and snapped over to “You Can’t Stop.” A video of five women on treadmills, hooked up to ECG monitors while wearing gas masks, jogging until they passed out. The treadmills didn’t stop moving as they lay there unconscious.
I looked up to see Terr’s reaction, and he was smiling down at me.
“I was just trying to start you out in the kiddie pool,” he said. “But I see you already know how to swim. In that case….”
He brought up a compilation video of people taking the 72-ounce steak challenge at Big Texan, then throwing up all over the table and desperately trying to force the vomit back inside, all for the sake of a free steak.
Clearly I needed to up my game. I had a personal cache of videos I’d gotten from a friend who works as a Facebook moderator. It was time to crack open the safe.
Pure gold. Women screaming and giving birth as the camera lens is splattered in blood. Actual beheadings filmed from Saudi Arabia. Drug cartel executions that… well, turned people into meat.
“Okay, fine,” Terr said. He held up his hands like I thought he was admitting surrender, but instead he went to the most tame website imaginable.
YouTube. Nothing there could possibly one up what I’d—
“TWERKING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TALENT SHOW”
Ah ha. So it seemed we were no longer going up in levels of disturbing, but rather moving to a whole new dimension.
If that was the direction this relationship was headed, then I was already miles ahead.
I typed “CandiceCam” into the search, then brought up the channel. Not just any channel, though.
My channel.
“What’s this?” Terr asked. “It just looks like a bunch of videos of feeds from a house.”
I watched his eyes as he watched, the reflection of the screen bright in his irises.
Then, it clicked. I always love seeing that click.
“Sh*t,” he said. I could taste how cold his blood was. “That’s my house. All these videos….”
I grinned up at him.
“I’ve always wanted to take a shot at dating an anesthesiologist, Terr,” I said. “I’ll bet you have lots of fun sedatives to share.”
“I never told you my work,” Terr said, his voice trembling for the first time. “Or that my friends call me Terr.”
“Oh, you didn’t have to,” I told him. “I always do my own investigations.”
That’s when I pulled out the handcuffs from my purse.
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!
Top image: Pakutaso