Lake Jucas posted:

American Werewolf in America
Haha cool title I am totes pumped to read a funny werewolf story.

Words: 1088
Element: Chlorine. Flash rule: must have a pool but no one gets wet.

First thing you gotta know about me is that I'm a werewolf. Good opening. The second (and more important) thing is that I am a skateboarding junkie who'sse desperate attempts to get my fix had turned me into a public menace. Tense is weird here: so is perspective. Plus it's overcomplicated and pretty much squanders the sweet kickflip of the first line. Cut after 'junkie'.

Anthony knew this and went immediately for the jugular.

“My parents had the pool emptied. Dan, it's perfect for skating.” He had me cornered at my locker.

“If it was perfect it wouldn't be the full moon.” I said, casting a nervous glance up and down the hall.

“It will be fine, no one will find out your secret. I'll just lock you in the basement cage when it gets dark.” As much as my parents wanted to keep a lid on my condition, you can't expect a little kid to keep something like that from his best friend. Anthony's parents had a cage to house me for sleepovers after they came around to the idea that I was a lycanthrope.

“I don't know...” I shifted uncomfortably.

“The only way Ashley will come to the party is if Jess comes, and Jess will come if she hears you'll be there.” Anthony had been wanting to hook up with Ashley since freshman year. Jess though...ugh! Okay so you're doing a sort of ok job sketching out these relationships but it's terribly bland just listing the names like this. Introduce characters when they have something to do, not just as speech tags.

I tried to say no, but when I looked for the words all I found was the electric thrill promised by the possibility of pool boarding. There's actually a much better story about an ultra-gnarly skateboarding werewolf that I really wish you were telling us right now. “Alright, I'm in.”

The rest of the week dragged on. When your characters are bored, your readers probably are too. Any attempts to focus in class were sabotaged by the skateboarder lurking within, threatening to make its way to the surface. Friday couldn't come soon enough. When the final bell rang I dashed out of physics, freed my skateboard from my locker, rendezvoused with Anthony by his car in the parking lot. I wanted leave immediately, but he told me we had to wait since we were giving a ride to Jess and Ashley, so I killed time skating circles around his car. seriously this is like hella dull

Most of the parking lot had emptied when Jess and Ashley finally met up with us. It was about time, since at that point I was trying to figure out how much speed I would need to get to jump Mrs. Schumacher's car, which she had carelessly parked at the bottom of side entrance staircase. like bodaciously ennuyeux if you catch my lingo duder

We piled into Anthony's Taurus and set off for his place. Ashley took my spot in the passenger seat, leaving me trapped in back with Jess. Jess was delighted, of course. She had been obsessed with me since forever (I have no clue why), but I felt the complete opposite. Everything she did managed to get under my skin, from the way her voice went up at the end of every sentence like she was asking question to the fact that she was currently wearing a Team Jacob t-shirt (seriously, in 2014!!). can't type falling asleep

“I got a joke.” she announced. I bit my tongue for Anthony's sake, but he was nowhere near as generous.

“Go for it.” he said, grinning as he looked at me through the rear view mirror.

“What's the difference between a werewolf and a mermaid?”

Seriously?!

“I don't know, what?” Anthony asked, stifling laughter.
“Werewolves can't swim while mermaids aren't real.” Anthony was the only one that laughed. Bastard could hardly contain himself. zzzzz

I didn't even wait until his car had finished pulling into the driveway before I leaped out and dashed straight for his back yard. The smell of chlorine was lingering in air, beckoning to me. The change was coming on soon, heightening my senses and making the pool-cleaner's aroma intoxicating. When I laid eyes on the emptied pool I nearly wept for joy. cliché, tell/show, still blah

Anthony's family had money and their pool was one of a number of indications. It was massive, five feet deep in the shallows and eleven in the deep end. It's IT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR 'IT IS' bowl shape made it perfect for skating. I hopped on my board and dropped in with abandon. perfectly wrong word choice bro

The next few hours were a blur. cool glad you didn't give us any awesome werewolf sk8r antics that migh have been interesting Other people stared to file in to the party, but I was ambivalent to them and the lovely pop-songs they blared over the speaker system. Other skaters joined me, in the pool, but none could match my fervor or intensity. Tell/show I was MISSING 'A' dervish, flying high and free as I careened between them. My board and I were one, and felt a glorious release from the confines of gravity.

“Bro! What are you doing?” Anthony said, pulling me away as I was about to drop in for nth time.

“Huh?” I saw the hickey on his neck and the look of worry in his eyes.

“The sun is going to set any moment.” he said. He was write i will seriously eat your face off i am like a werewolf but with dumb grammar errors rather than the full moon. It was dusk and I hadn't even noticed.

“We got to get you into the basement.” I knew he was write ffffff, but my skateboard was calling to me, urging me onward to sicker and sicker tricks. If Anthony hadn't pulled me away I think I would have stayed until I had reverted into my bestial form.

My skateboard clenched to my chest, I was lead down stairs to my prison to wait out the night. He locked the cage, wished me could gggn night, and scurried away back upstairs.

The change came quickly. My blood boiled. My bones broke and re-knit themselves together. Muscles and sinew swelled until I became the beast of nightmares and legends. One think BBBBAALLLLRRRRRRRHHHGGGGG filled my frenzied brain: skateboarding.

I had lost track of time entirely until I heard the door to the basement open. Music bellowed from above, while the scent of alcohol and perspiration filled my nostrils.

“Dan, are you down here? I heard – Oh my God!” Jess's cries where kggJAJSKDHJFKAJHHHF downed out by hoard of high schoolers singing along to Miley Cyrus's “Wrecking Ball.”

“Dan, is that you?” she said. She was terrified, but there was something that kept her from running. Probably her werewolf fetish. loving Jess.

“The key. Over there.” I managed to growl out. She nodded and took the key from the peg on the far wall. With only a moment of hesitation she unlocked the cage.

I took a furtive step out of my cell. The wolf in me was calling for blood. I reached out to her with one of my massive clawed hands. But I had another urge besides carnage, an even more powerful urge. I curled my hand into a fist and scooped up my board in the other.
“Pound it.” hOOOOOOOOly poo poo so you set him up as a werewolf and did all that dull stuff just so you could what have him be about to do cool stuff as the story ends? Get out of my sight, Jucas, you disgust me. Also I am a werewolf now on account of your poor proofreading so gently caress you for that too.

WeLandedOnTheMoon! posted:

I'd appreciate being flashed.

Whalley posted:

I'd like a flash rule too actually. This could be a horrifically bad idea!

Whalley posted:

Uh I have the perfect thing for that actually, and it's something I've talked to quite a few people about in the past~

sebmojo posted:

Surprise flash rule: story cannot be depressing.

PROMPTPOST posted:

Nota bene: If your story contains one whiff of whiny woe-is-me bullshit, I will give you something to be sad about. You have been warned.

sebmojo posted:

Surprise flash rule: story cannot be depressing.

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

I'm thinking about entering this week, but I'm going to be moving to another country/exploring steamy jungles next week and probably unable to judge if I win. Can I like, take the crown but defer the judging onto somebody else or would that be a super lovely thing to do?

Sitting Here posted:

Yes

sebmojo posted:

Some crits.

Lake Jucas posted:

“Dan, are you down here? I heard – Oh my God!” Jess's cries where downed out by THE hoard HOLY gently caress THAT'S THE OTHER KIND OF HOARD, YOU MEAN HORDE YOU GRADE-SCHOOL WORD CONFUSION MOTHERFUCKER of high schoolers singing along to Miley Cyrus's “Wrecking Ball.”

quote:

Jay O - Salvage

The crows called out when they saw Martin coming up the hill. He could hear them, even through the drum and roll of the rain off his poncho's orange hood, and it sounded to him like laughter at his expense. He cursed at them under his breath, and he cursed the mud harder. It was a slog to plow uphill one foot at a time, dropping to his hands every few minutes to shove against the sliding downhill muck when his boots got sucked under and trapped. He wasn't here because he wanted to be.Lame hook: Ooooh, why is this faceless character standing on a hill? (Good hook: He's here for a reason that the reader isn't equipped to fully understand yet, and thus wants to know more about.)

Schloop! Tripped again. Martin smashed into the ground face first. He could feel the cold, wet clumps of jagged earth pressing into his belly and rainwater pouring in little rivulets down his pants. He pulled himself to his feet, yanked his shirt down, and hissed more swears.This is evocative and lyrically written, sure, but save your pretty images for the emotional heart of the story, not some random guy walking up a hill. You could've got him up to the top of that hill in two lines.

Then he saw what he had come for, yards ahead of him, and his throat tightened.

"Sh-poo poo. poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo..."

Martin kept chanting his sutra of poo poo cute. as he clambered up the soggy grass and soil to the Tinhouse. It wasn't made of tin, really, but that's what he and the guys had called it back in high school. Corrugated tin roof, rusty tin panels on the walls, so it was a Tinhouse, right? But the carcass of their old haunt, underneath the tin-skin, was all just wood, and rotten wood after years of neglect. A wave of mud had slammed through the back of the Tinhouse. Water streamed down the hillside and through this new back door, blocked only a little by the trunk of a gnarly dead elm tree that grew behind the shed. again, way way way way way too much here. Trust your readers: they need fewer words to picture a scene than you'd think, especially if they're the right words. Martin knew it must be flooded inside. He'd hiked all the way up here for nothing.

"Wait."is he talking to himself?

With level ground under his feet again, Martin shot around to the back of the shed and breathed a sigh of relief. The torrent of mud from above had crumpled in the back of the Tinhouse, but it had also formed a dam, forcing the water and muck to fork along the sides of the shack's outer walls and splash down the hill. Gave me a lot of trouble on the way up, he thought. But if the Tinhouse wasn't flooded, maybe some stuff could be salvaged. okay, I'm starting to see the issue here. You have this very complicated physicality in the scene, like you're picturing a very specific image of how the whole hill, mud, etc. with the tinhouse is set up. but the point isn't to package the image that you have in your own head and give it to the reader, it's to guide the reader to develop their own images.

Martin tore open the front door. Some water rushed out, and the floor warped under his feet, but it wasn't Atlantis in here yet.neat image. The gamebooks should all be on the second shelf in the corner. All Wizards of the Coast stuff, most of them with original sheets, some with the supplemental stuff. oh god here comes parade of the nerds. I see what you're trying to do, but this stuff just sticks out so much when you add it as incidentals. Gamebooks aren't 'background'-y enough (compared to, say, board games, or, idk, regular books) that your reader won't start expecting the story to be about them.

Martin shuffled off the backpack he'd been carrying--another high-school relic--and piled every one of them inside. The guy at the comic store said 750 flat for the whole lot. Some of these looked real old...could be less than they were worth...definitely less, the more he thought about it. But he was already a week behind on rent. Too late to think about eBay. Comic store guy could pay him that day, if he was still there. Martin left, what, 40 minutes ago? So 40 minutes back?<< this might have happened in a real world scenario, but it's not relevant to the story you're trying to tell. veracity is not all-important. Also, you could basically have started the story here and it would've ended up the same.

drat rain. drat mudslide. drat bills. drat--

Martin realized he was staring at a few pepperings of metal in the muck at his boots. They weren't rocks, too oddly shaped and...familiar? He fished one out of the earthy slime. Tin. It had a little head, lopsided arms, and big clumpy feet melting into a bigger clumpy stand. The little tin staff was made too thin and the end had snapped off at some point. Oh. That's right. He made these.

The books belonged to Chris, originally. He was a good DM. He took the game seriously without forcing anyone else to. This figurine was made for him. It didn't look like much, but it was supposed to be a god-thing, with a beard and a staff. That's all Martin did in high school. He played D&D and he made little figures. see, this just makes him sound boring. but you could make this a meaningful emotional thing easily. why didn't he do normal stuff in high school? can that reason come up elsewhere in the story? There was more than enough tin left over from making the Tinhouse, and it was easy to heat and bend while everyone else was tallying numbers or arguing semantics. Chris was a bland-lookin' guy and he always DM'ed. He didn't have a game character, so Martin was proud of what he had come up with for him. Bland or not, Chris was the only guy in the group who had a girl. Still did! They were married now, with a kid. He seemed happy now. don't tell me about Chris if he isn't a character.

Thunder rattled the shack's ruffled roof and snapped Martin back to reality. He really should get going, but...were there more of his figures in here? This storm was probably going to wash away most of the Tinhouse. They'd all be gone.

Martin set his backpack down and started picking through the sludge like a sandpiper for all the little treasures he'd made.

There was Mark, a dwarf. The baby of the group, they used to pick on him for needing a ride all the time. He was graduating college this year.

This rusty one was Eddie, a mage. He flaked on half their meetings, but he was funny, so they kept inviting him. Graduate school now, engaged.

So does he still hang out with these guys? A good story might be the story of how Martin feels like he's been left behind by them as they grew up.

Martin pawed through the mud for six more minutes, but his own figurine never turned up. Whatever. He could be running out of time, and a one-inch tin ranger smushed together by a high-school dropout wasn't worth anything. He slung his old backpack over his shoulder and schlepped back out through the slop, bracing himself for a long leg-locked trek back through a torrent of muddy water.

"Caw-caw-caw-awk!"

Martin froze. Crows collected shiny things, didn't they? He looked up at the dead elm behind the shack, full of dead nests. There was something dull amidst one little clump of twigs, copper wire, and earth.

The rain was coming down harder now. His muscles ached and his lungs burned. The way down might even be slower than the way up.

He dropped the backpack and swung his leg into the crook of the tree. It pinched his foot, secure but a little painful, and he hoisted himself up to the swaying, soggy nest about ten feet up.
There were bits of wire, glass, and metal laced throughout the melting nest, but all Martin saw was Ranger Thranmoor, leader of the Timberland Warriors. He twirled the tiny hero between his thick fingers.

Hey buddy. It's been eight years.

It wasn't going to pay his bills this month. He might not have an apartment to bring it back to for long. But... and finally we get the emotional heart of the story, 95% of the way through. This isn't a carrot to dangle over your reader's head, it should be present the whole time.

The wave of mud from the mount above him rushed down almost silently, but the force was incredible. It shook the thick elm. It swallowed his backpack. It swept away two crows as five others screamed and took flight. It swelled to six inches below his shaking feet before stopping. He could walk from the tree to the Tinhouse roof on the new ground. So he did, quivering in shock. more excessive irrelevant physical detail.

Martin sat on the roof with Thranmoor until the rain stopped. When his heart finally stopped racing, he tightened his bootlaces and prepared to head home.

Little Mac posted:

Room to Breathe Blah title Element: Oxygen, 1132 words

“So, you think I should talk to her?” Emmett asked, slumping into his chair. He glanced across the room to Esther, who was vacantly staring into a screen. Her short brown hair was bunned up underneath her hat, allowing Emmett to fully take in the profile of the girl he had longed after for months now. You've set your story in a submarine, and you waste your first para on bland blocking. this is a bad thing in case you couldn't tell from the tone of my typing. I hope you don't want the fact it's in a submarine to be a shocking tweest.

“What better time than the present?” asked Chet, shoving his friend in the shoulder. Emmett winced – he was weak and bruised easily. He let out a small breath as his chair spun around with the shove. “Listen, pal, I’m just going to be honest with you: say something to her or stop whining about it! I, for one, am a bit tired of it.” blah this is a dumb and pointless para.

Emmett sighed. “But won’t it make things awkward?” he asked. “What if she says no? What if she says yes and I’m just boring? Or a wet blanket? What if she just doesn’t like me at all?”

“If every man deliberated so much before talking to a lady we’d be a much less populous planet, rest assured.” Chet removed his hat, rolled it up in his massive hands, and slapped Emmett on the back. Ok, so you've sketched out some characters with tolerably specific detail (I like the hat move, for eg), but 'DO THING. NO. GO ON. OK.' is just fundamentally tedious to read, especially at the top of the story.

“Go get ‘er, tiger.”

Emmett stood but he felt light-headed. these two things are not contradictory so why the but He held on to a bar above him as he walked over toward where Esther was sitting, still lost in the blinking lights and subtle beeps emanating from the panel in front of her. Emmett cleared his throat and then, after an awkward silence why is it awkward if she hasn't noticed him, said Esther’s name aloud.

“Oh, hey Emmett,” she smiled. HOW DOES SHE SPEAK WITH HER SMILE IS SHE A WITCH WOMAN Her smile was soft and subdued bad description choice I have no idea what this looks like, but he could see his reflection in her glittering teeth. o god no he loving couldn't that's ridiculous How did she keep them so white, he wondered? She stared at him and he thought he might drown in her ocean eyes. He shuffled his feet from side to side and then stopped, placing his hands in his pockets. He turned his face away from her hypnosis.

“Do you want to-” he stammered, words falling out like water dripping through a sieve, water flows through a sieve, it doesn't drip “do you want to maybe have- have lunch together? Today, I mean.” Suddenly the sieve broke wat the water poured in like a dam had been keeping the ocean in this manages to be both agonisingly literal and completely nonsensical check: “Imeanwedon’thavetodoittodaybutImeanifyouwanttoandImeanifyoudon’tthat’sokaytooImeanyoucantakesometimeandthinkaboutitunlessyoualreadyknow-“

Esther giggled and shushed him. “Sure, I could eat. I’m off duty in an hour. Sound good?” Emmett took a second to fully process her response, perhaps sucking the loose words back in to his now-empty brain. His face lit up and he nodded wildly. so is this like a sub for retards or what are we dealing with here.

“An hour,” he gasped. gasped, asked, shushed, smiled, are all speech tags, or 'said book'isms. Just use 'said'. It's essentially invisible to the reader.

After fifty-eight minutes of frenzied pacing, stopped only by what Emmett could only describe as a moment where the reality of the situation had hit him and turned the world upside down, Emmett grabbed his lunch card and began walking toward the cafeteria. I'm just gonna start cutting words that don't matter, k

Fifty eight minutes later Esther was already there when Emmett arrived and he plopped his tray down in front of hersEsther's. The cafeteria was empty, which was not a common occurrence. He kicked his feet in the small layer of water on the floor. Emmett chalked up another win for fate. As he twirled his fork around the spaghetti, Emmett made an attempt at small talk.

“So,” he said, fear overcoming his confidence once more, “what do you, er, do here?”

“Radar, mostly,” she replied, wiping sauce from her chin with a wet nap. “Though sometimes they’ve got me on comms. I’m not super-interested in that kind of stuff. What’d you do before, Emmett?”

“Before?” he echoed. His socks seemed drenched with sweat.

“Yeah, before they put you down here. What’d you do?” don't do 'A?' 'a?' 'yes, A?' 'well, B' because it's dull filler

“Well, I was a dentist,” he said proudly, moments before realizing that was the lamest thing he could’ve said. In his mind he scolded himself, thinking he should have said racecar driver instead.

“And you gave up being a dentist for this?” She took a swig of milk.

“It’s not as exciting as it sounds,” he replied. Emmett’s face lit up. Emmet is the viewpoint character, so you describe things from his pov - this line jumps outside that. He’d made a joke! She even giggled a bit. Was he actually charming? No one had ever described Emmett as charming, or even really funny, but he was very glad that she might think he was.

“No,” she stifled her giggle under bread 'Stifled giggles under bread' did a few good singles back in the NO YOUR DUMB LINE IS SO DUMB I CANNOT EVEN DO THE BANDNAME GAG and the echoes of screams, wat “I meant that it probably paid a lot. Most of us signed up for this because we needed the money. So if not that, then why?”

“I dunno, seemed fun.” Emmett thought for a moment on his words and then realized he never did come to a conclusion as to why he’d signed up. It was fate that brought him here.

“Oh yeah, big fun,” Esther laughed again. When she laughed her autumn hair curled a bit. Emmett tried not to get distracted counting the curls but he couldn’t help it. After ten seconds of silence, words fired forth like a torpedo. He shifted in his wet chair and took a bite of his meal. tHIS IS AN INCREDIBLY DULL CONVERSATION WHY ARE YOU WASTING OUR TIME WITH IT

“What’d you do before?” he asked, tomato sauce flying from his mouth onto the table. seriously, why on earth do you think we care about these peoples' table manners? Was your mother v strict in that respect and you are working out your issues with her via flash fiction?

“Just college, mostly,” she sighed. “I wanted to be a lot of things. I- I don’t dream much anymore.” She reached her hand across the table and intertwined her fingers with Emmett’s. Her glossy fingernails sparkled in the swirling red lights. Their eyes met. “Chet told me about you, a long time ago. I’ve been hoping you’d ask me out for a while now.” cheesy, implausible and dull are all adjectives that could be applied to this para. I do like the magic realist disaster happening in the background but it's basically a tourist from another much better story, taking pictures while it waits for the bus

Emmett smiled and was about to say something when Chet burst into the room. He sloshed through the waist-high water and slammed his fists down on the aluminum table.

“Esther,” he growled, “this is your fault!”

“Her fault?!” Emmett exclaimed, standing up with a splash. “Our date’s going so well, pal. Why’re you ruining this?” Emmett looked down at the water is it untucked his shirt. wat “What’d you say you did again, Esther?”

“Radar,” she smiled, finishing her milk and dropping it into the drink.

“If you hadn’t been on this date. If someone had been on the radar,” Chet moaned. “Now we’re done for. We’re sunk, quite literally.” QUITE LITERALLY BECAUSE WE ARE IN A SUBMARINE LOL PSYCH dude this doesn't even make sense in its own ridiculous terms because submarines submerge and are already sunk. It is their natural state of being, man.

There was a flush silence wat as the water reached their shoulders. Chet rolled his eyes and dove his head under the water, perhaps hoping to die in a room where he wasn’t absolutely furious at everyone inside. Emmett looked up at Esther.

“So, not a boring first date,” he smiled. I BEG TO DIFFER Shards of torpedo floated into the cafeteria and up between them. FYI TORPEDOES ARE MADE OF METAL, THE LEAST BUOYANT OF THE SOLID MATERIALS She leaned forward and rested her head on some metal.

“I’ve had worse,” she laughed GGGN. “Everyone’ll be gone soon, and what about us?” Emmett was finally coming to the realization that she was probably really terrible at her job. She sighed again, the water enveloping her chin. They could feel the air thinning. pov but really why am I bothering at this point.

“We’ll always have the bottom of the ocean,” Emmett smiled. these aren't people they're retarded flesh robots. that's the other twist, right.

They embraced as the submarine fell silent. I hated this story a lot.

Martello posted:

Add handsome in there and you've got me, so I'll do it.

Write up to 2000 words of cyberpunk/technoir/space-based near-future sci-fi. Any of those three, interpreted how you want. Writing about violent criminals and street mercenaries (my ouvre, in other words) may get you bonus points but ain't necessary at all. If you write a cyberpunk oppressed housewife story that gets the cyberpunk part across in a way that makes sense, I'll probably like it even more.

Deadline is Sunday night. If that's too short, let me know and we can figure something out.

so like, write some poo poo

Sitting Here posted:

Due date: Thursday, February 13th at 11:59:59 PM, PST

Sitting Here posted:

Djinn and Flakey, just about 9.533.5 hours remain for you to get the dream police up in my head.

God Over Djinn posted:

Sparrow posted:

I think I need a flash rule also. Thanks in advance.