Writing Prompt: A Collaborative Story A-Z

What would writing group be without some wine-assisted hilarity? Every week we start our meeting off with either a writing prompt or a topic of discussion. When we're feeling serious, these discussions and exercises are grave and weighty. We're hardly ever feeling serious. 

Ashley brought this prompt to a meeting in September. We each submitted an anonymous a sentence starting with the letter a, and as a group we chose our favorite. Haley's won, with all of its intergalactic potential, and we counted off through the alphabet one by one so that each of us had letters to begin the rest of our sentences (i.e. I ended up with E, O, T, etc--without knowing what my fellow writers were doing with their sentences). Our collaborative story is horrendously confusing, and of course funny. 

Prompts like these always make me think of how absurd the creative process can be, and how sometimes the silliest things spark a new project or send me in a different direction. That's one of the best parts of writing group--you never know what's going to come out of our nerdy writing talk. In this instance, it wasn't so much creativity that I took from it, as a close look at my sentence structure alongside my friends'. Holy cow my sentences are long! (And yes, you're reading more examples of these monsters right now.) In other meetings, we've talked about sentence structure and variety. This exercise helped me notice how my sentences probably tend toward unbelievably long incoherent messes of words strung together--and also lack of variety. 

Thanks, unnamed planet, for showing me the potential error of my sentence ways. Without further ado... 

Untitled 

By Writing Rainbow

A long time ago, on a planet not too different from this one, two strangers met and their lives changed forever. Before theses strangers met, however, we must trace the steps to how this chance meeting saved a galaxy.

Cars lined the street, but sat empty and covered in dust. Dingoes gathered around the couple for the ceremonial eating of the baby. Eclipses happened often here on this cold planet, leaving inhabitants angry and stir-crazy, explaining the odd happenings of late. Fortunately for the two of them, they were both equipped with an equal but different set of useful skills. Gone were the times when places like this were safe. Home wasn’t home anymore. In case you hadn't noticed, this was a deranged place.

Just as she started to speak, he put his finger to her mouth. Karo corn syrup was the only liquid available and useful for the job. Left unattended, she looked both ways and quickly snatched the necklace off the table. Moreover, she wasn’t totally convinced that he would even understand the gravity of her situation. Not long after that, the happy couple found themselves in a rap battle.

Outside the dwelling, there was a loud wailing howl. Patterns had emerged and she couldn't help but wonder if he saw them too. Questions buzzed through her mind as she whirled from the shock. Recklessly swerving through the narrow streets, he drove the car toward a destination they still hadn’t identified. Singing loudly, the dingo chorus took it to the bridge. "Thank you ma'am," he said with a tip of his space helmet. "Unbelievable," he said quietly.

Victory would be hers, however it needed to be won. Where would they even go? Xanadu the soundtrack would play on repeat for infinity. Yet to this day, the full story is as confusing and convoluted as I have here described it. Zig-zagging into darkness, everything went black.