Story

[Mike]

As a kid I played a game with a group of people where a person writes a line and then passes it along to the next person who writes a line and so on until a short story comes out. Often times it was funny.
Think it would be fun to do the same here.
Here is how I propose the story game to work. I'll start the first line and the next person writes a line using the quote tool to include all the text from previous lines. This way if someone wants to make a comment with their line they can do so outside the quote box. Example below:

First line of text ............................................ (Name of person who wrote the line)
Next line of text - hope the story doesn't turn into word salad. (Name of person)

One rule besides the forum rules. You can only add one line of text.

So here goes

Once upon a time there was a 3rd density planet called earth, yet for those that inhabited this planet time was an illusion. (Mike)

 

[paulnotbilly]

Lunchtime doubly so. (Douglas Adams)

 

[rs]

This reminds me of the Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin and Susie (his "nemesis") are assigned to co-author a story by Mrs. Wormwood. Susie writes a story mixing a romance novel about love and the middle class and Calvin writes a story about a rebellious private eye.

It was one of the all time classic strips. Watterson's artwork jerking back and forth between the two styles of story was simply brilliant.

As another segue, I received yet another of those SPAM mails trying to get me to buy some ridiculous penny stock where there is a GIF image with the actual advertisement and a synthetic text message to get past the SPAM filters. This particular text however was sort of interesting. I have slightly edited it to improve readability (added spaces between run-on words and quote marks where needed).

Soon he found himself involved in the shrubbery.

Orlando then for the first time noticed a small cloud gathered behind the dome of St Pauls. He had been a soldier and a sailor, and had explored the East.

With the twelfth stroke of midnight, the darkness was complete. With the eighth stroke, some hurrying tatters of cloud sprawled over Piccadilly.

It now seemed to her that the whole world was ringed with gold. And down came the flagon on the table: there was the mark of it still.

"Shel, my darling", she began again, "tell me." She quickened her pace; she ran; she tripped; the tough heather roots flung her to the ground. It was Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, Esquire. Rugs appeared; beards were grown; trousers were fastened tight under the instep.

The ivy had grown so profusely that many windows were now sealed up. "So do we all, m'lady", said the Widow, heaving a profound sigh. "My hands shall wear no wedding ring", she continued, slipping it from her finger.

So they don't inherit, which is all to the good. The house, the garden are precisely as they were.

"I'm passionately in love with you", she said. And down came the flagon on the table: there was the mark of it still.

The rooks hoarse laughter was in her ears. "Shel, my darling", she began again, "tell me." Such thoughts had never entered her head before. Thick smoke exuded from a damp bonfire at the end of the garden.
Had she not been lame in the left foot, she would have sat upon his knee.

A change seemed to have come over the climate of England. But whichever it was, nobody answered it. Hens laid incessantly eggs of no special tint.

It was heavier and more drab than any dress she had yet worn. Even she, at length, was forced to acknowledge that times were changed. True, Queen Victoria is on the throne and not Queen Elizabeth, but what difference. Soon he found himself involved in the shrubbery. After all, she thought, getting up and going to the window, nothing has changed. When it was over and they were seated again she asked him, "what was this talk of a South-west gale?"

"I have known many men and many women", she continued; "none have I understood." True, Queen Victoria is on the throne and not QueenElizabeth, but what difference. "Everyone is mated except myself", she mused, as she trailed disconsolately across the courtyard. He had been a soldier and a sailor, and had explored the East. Was it the damp, was it Bartholomew, was it Basket, what was it?
Cucumbers came scrolloping across the grass to his feet. He seemed to himself to crush the mould of a million more under his feet.

I couldn't have put it better myself...

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Here's a funny joke I read about a cooperative story writing assignment:

This assignment was actually turned in by two of my English students:

Rebecca and Gary
English 44A
SMU
Creative Writing
Prof Miller

In-class Assignment for Wednesday

Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.
----------------------------------------------------------

At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel." Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth -- when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

Little did she know, but she has less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow'em out of the sky!"

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.

Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.

You total $*&.

Stupid %&#$!.