Fiction Friday

            Hereby, let the end of the week be known on my blog as – Fiction Friday.  

            So much for the official announcement, now on with setting up the ground rules. What I intend to do is serialize a story and post the latest installment every Friday. The actual writing shouldn’t be too bad, but I expect that ending each one with a cliff-hanger, like they did with the old-time Serials, will be challenging. At the very least it should be an interesting endeavor.  

            Then the second part of this grand adventure will be introducing points where you, the audience, will get a chance to determine where the story goes. I plan to do this by using a poll to ask my readers what they think the hero will do next. That probably won’t happen every week; otherwise, it will look like I have a protagonist that couldn’t tie his/her shoes without help. And it might really mess with the pace of the story. Still, there will be posts that will include a poll where you can choose the direction the story goes from there.

            Now all we need is a story to be told. And what better way to start off my version of Fiction Friday than with a poll that will decide which story I will write. Looking through the Writing Prod examples I’ve done so far, I came up with the following candidates. You can vote for one of them or you can offer an alternative. The poll will stay open for a week and then I will start the Serial.

 

            The wonderful Susanna Leonard Hill suggested my first nomination.            

            “High” School 

            Jackie, the head writer for the high school newspaper, was thrilled when she heard that the city council had declared their very own “War on Drugs.” Washington High was infested with everything from pot to the latest designer drugs and all of them impacted the quality of education the students were receiving. But then within the space of a week her best friend, Joshua, is identified as a major Meth dealer on campus and then dies in a freak accident. The only problem is that Jackie knows Joshua too well. There is no way that he was taking drugs, much less dealing them. Just as she cinches up her reporter instincts to find out the truth she receives a mysterious message in her locker. “Collateral damage happens. Make sure you stay clear of the combat zone.” 

 

            My brother happened to read this prompt and now whenever we get together he nudges me to actually write it.  

            Ball 

            Touted as the ultimate team sport they just call it Ball. Some think of it as a mangled version of volleyball, soccer, and dodge ball. Allen just considers it awesome. He is on the fast track to becoming the first Ball player drafted out of high-school. The big teams are wooing him to sign when he is contacted by a government rep to play for the National team. But when he signs with the Nationals he finds out that it isn’t a game at all. The government is using the sport to influence the minds of the country’s citizens. Now Allen has to choose between playing along and becoming the greatest Ball player of all time or destroying the very game he loves. 

 

            This next story idea I liked because it’s quirky, but still has possibilities for great dramatic tension as well.  

                        Samurai Sheriff 

Helen breaks down in the little town of Grove, Texas. Right away, she can tell that this is no ordinary place. The people all have a strange accent and are led by a Samurai sword-wielding Sheriff called Chow-Lin McGhee. Worse yet, the town doesn’t have an auto mechanic, or any automobiles, or even any phones so that she can call for help. All she can do is wait for the next stagecoach out of town and hope it takes here someplace familiar.

But while she’s waiting, one of the townsfolk is murdered. Could it have been done by the crazy preacher? Or the spirited school-marm? Until the stagecoach arrives, Helen is on the case and plans to find out not only who done it, but why the town is the way it is. 

 

            For those of you who think I should write something comedic, this would be the choice. It would probably work best as a YA story.       

Spook Dance 

Frankie is no different from all the other monsters. He has a creepy family, a bunch of ghoulish friends, and a sinister job. But he also had a dream. Frankie wanted to dance. He could feel the beat coursing through his body; all the way from Bernard P. Wilson’s head down to Thelma Billing’s big toe. The problem was that having been put together with parts from so many different people that he had no rhythm. Or maybe it was a matter of having too many rhythms and not being able to get all of them to agree on when he should move. Determined to be Transylvania’s premiere entertainer, he set out to Vegas to find his groove. 

 

            If I went with this story I would have to change the title, but this would make a good choice for those of you who would like me to write in the genre that I am most familiar with – Speculative Fiction.  

            Swim Day  

            No one considered what would happen to the inmates of Harbor Island Correctional Facility if the world stopped functioning as it always had. Now, ten years after the cataclysm, the survivors are desperate to find a way off the island. The first day of every month is Swim Day. The lucky winner of the Swim Day lottery gets a day to live as a cell block celebrity and then is cast into the waters and forced to attempt a trip to the mainland. If any have made the trip they haven’t come back to help the others.

            Stitch is drawn to make the swim. He’d been counting down until the day of his execution when everything went bad. Dying during the swim doesn’t bother him, but leaving behind the only person who ever treated him humanely does. He must do more than just survive the watery ordeal, he has to find a way to return and save his brother, the prison guard. 

 

            I couldn’t resist throwing in one more option. This is adult Sci-Fi with a liberal dose of humor thrown in.  

            Space Junk  

Roy Spunkmeyer wanted to be a space merchant since he was old enough to observe the stars in the sky. When an old friend of the family announces that he is ready to retire Roy jumps at the chance to buy the “slightly used” ship that Bill had been using over the last sixty years. Only after Roy spends the last of his savings, exhausted all sources of credit available to him, and convinced his parents to take out a mortgage on their home does he find out he has not only bought Bill’s business, but all of the problems that go with it. How will he, and the crusty old alien that comes with the ship, solve a cargo full of problems that were forty years in the making and do it in less than a month?


That's it. Just post a comment with your vote for the story you want me to write.