Writing Exercise Results

Authors were to write scenes from novels based on fake plots.

Teen vampire Debbie Noogle explains her difficulties getting a date, getting a drink and getting a publisher.

1. Debbie stood outside La Toutou and peered in the window.

She pulled out her fake ID and walked to the door. The bouncer looked her up and down, especially up, as she was wearing her Victoria’s Secret Apex bra and the low cut top from Hot Girlz. He never did look at the ID, he just winked at her as she passed by.

The room smelled of big fat publishing success and Debbie knew all the players. She’d Googled them after reading Media Bistro’s email invitation to the party. But tonight there was only one player on her mind.

She coddled up to the bar next to Evil Editor. His eyes landed on the manuscript in her hand.

“I don’t take unsolicited material,” he said as he looked away from her.

Debbie smiled. “How about a drink then, big boy?” She gave a quick flash of her fangs as she stared at his neck.

Evil Editor looked back at her. “Uh sure, what you drinking?”

“Blood.”

“Another Bloody Mary for the pretty lady,” he called to the bartender.

“So you want to hook up?” she said as the bartender handed her a drink. “I know a little place around the corner where we can do it.”

Evil Editor’s eye grew big as waffles. “Do it? Shit! There’s no way in hell I’m going to edit your manuscript tonight.”

--Judy Gregerson


2. Debbie wanted to cry. Whenever she asked a boy out, it was the same. Her muscles strained as she lifted the body, Toby, into the movie theater dumpster. They always wanted to neck. She told them no. She would tell them she was serious and she would kill them if they got fresh. They never believed her.

"Goodbye Toby." She kissed her fingertips and touched them to the dumpster. Then she made a face and wiped her hand on her pants. "Ick."

It wasn't the boys that were the problem, it was the cats. Her worst fear was she would end up an alcoholic with thirty cats. Thirty cats was just giving up. Being drunk, she could handle. Not that she would be drinking anytime soon. She thought she looked mature in black makeup. The bars disagreed; every single one carded her. She badly needed a fake I.D.

Debbie had always considered alcoholism a viable lifestyle. The hypothesis was easily proven by her high school. Poe, Hemmingway, London, and Faulkner, so far they hadn't studied anyone in Mr. Estevez's Literature who enjoyed sobriety.

Estevez was a problem as well. He said he would proofread her short story a month ago. Every time she asked him about it, he said he would have to get back to her when he was not so busy. She needed that story to send out to magazines.

Actually, Mr. Estevez had given her story to the school counselor, thinking her a troubled child.

--Anonymous


Carol and Tim could never understand why their dinner guests always ran away screaming. Why didn't the guests just keep their eyes downcast, if it was so upsetting to see the mounted heads of Carol's deceased relatives?

1. My fingers slid over her cool, smooth skin, feathering the paint across the apples of her cheeks. Fingers are always better than a brush, more delicate, more sensitive. Especially this time. The hinges of the door sighed softly behind me. Tim. "Must you?"

Tiny specks of pale powder nestled in the downy hair that ran down the side of her face. I stroked them away with my fingertips, and then caressed the hair; softer than velvet, paler than sunlight.

Tim's breathing was out of place in this room; booming in my ears like the ocean. "Go," I said.

"But--"

"Just go."

The door sighed again, clicked and he was gone.

With a tiny brush pinched between my finger and thumb I combed through her lashes, dark and curling under her translucent blue eyelids. A doll's lashes. One of those sleepytime dolls that closes its eyes when you lay her down. This doll would never open her eyes. My breasts leaked sour milk on to my sweater and my belly, flopping loosely over my waistline, ached with emptiness.

--McKoala


2. Debbie looked down at her soup, certain that she had seen something move. She picked up her spoon and trawled through the viscous green liquid. It seemed clear enough.

“Everything all right, Debbie?” Tim smiled at her from the top of the table.

“Yes thanks. Fine.” She glanced around the table. The other guests didn’t seem worried. John had almost finished his already, his spoon scraping across the china as he scraped up the last dregs.

When Debbie caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, she was in time to see the ripple in the surface of the Asparagus and Lentil. A drip, then. She looked toward the ceiling, meeting the cold, dead eyes of Carol’s first husband, James. Another bead of putrescent fluid formed at the base of his severed neck and plummeted down to the oily surface of her soup.

She closed her eyes, fighting the bile that threatened to add more colour to the table and pushed her plate away.

“Not hungry, dear?” Carol enquired from the opposite end of the table. She followed Debbie’s nervous glance upward. “Oh don’t mind James. He’s always a bit of a drip when we put the heating on.”

“I’m sorry.” Debbie smiled hesitantly. “I can’t eat asparagus, it passes through me too quickly.”

“Never mind.” Carol picked up her wine glass. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy the main course. It’s liver, courtesy of my late husband Peter.”

--Rachel Green