Thread: The Amazing One-Sentence Story!
(Shamefully taken from Comatose Luck on Archive.)
I've been meaning to re-animate this forum game for a while, as I personally found it to be great fun. With the increased activity around here, I am hoping that it will get a little attention, and hopefully last for a decent while.
Basically, this is a group-created story, where everyone is allowed to contribute, but no one is permitted to contribute more than one sentence at a time. This can make for some crazy antics and interesting twists, among other things. As Comatose_Luck said:
"— It is the great equalizer! Everyone has an equal influence on the story as everyone else.
— If you can write a sentence, you can write a story. You don't need to be able to create an extended narrative, witty dialogue, or anything that other stuff within conventionally story threads. If you can turn out an awesome sentence, this thread is for you, regardless of how terrible your sense of plot is.
— Often limitations help create really good writing. In the case of this thread, less is more. By having so little space to say what you want to say, you are forced to come up with creative ways to say as much as possible as little as possible."
The rules for this story are quite simple.
1) You can only contribute one sentence.
---DON'T try to make a super-long, convoluted run-on sentence. That's considered to be breaking this rule.
---DON'T try to contribute more than one sentence.
---DON'T double post as an attempt to contribute more than one sentence.
---DO have fun.
2) Go with the flow! If the plot takes a strange twist, follow it! At the same time, if you don't like the way the plot is turning, try to accept that you only have limited control. Choosing to say "it was all a dream" in order to revert things back to a previous state, or choosing to revive your favorite character immediately after xyr death might be frowned upon.
Finally, if this does take off, I will be updating this post with the story as it progresses.
Since that's pretty much all of the basics which I can think of including, here is the first sentence:
"Nothing interesting ever happens on airplanes," she said aloud.
----------
I've been meaning to re-animate this forum game for a while, as I personally found it to be great fun. With the increased activity around here, I am hoping that it will get a little attention, and hopefully last for a decent while.
Basically, this is a group-created story, where everyone is allowed to contribute, but no one is permitted to contribute more than one sentence at a time. This can make for some crazy antics and interesting twists, among other things. As Comatose_Luck said:
"— It is the great equalizer! Everyone has an equal influence on the story as everyone else.
— If you can write a sentence, you can write a story. You don't need to be able to create an extended narrative, witty dialogue, or anything that other stuff within conventionally story threads. If you can turn out an awesome sentence, this thread is for you, regardless of how terrible your sense of plot is.
— Often limitations help create really good writing. In the case of this thread, less is more. By having so little space to say what you want to say, you are forced to come up with creative ways to say as much as possible as little as possible."
The rules for this story are quite simple.
1) You can only contribute one sentence.
---DON'T try to make a super-long, convoluted run-on sentence. That's considered to be breaking this rule.
---DON'T try to contribute more than one sentence.
---DON'T double post as an attempt to contribute more than one sentence.
---DO have fun.
2) Go with the flow! If the plot takes a strange twist, follow it! At the same time, if you don't like the way the plot is turning, try to accept that you only have limited control. Choosing to say "it was all a dream" in order to revert things back to a previous state, or choosing to revive your favorite character immediately after xyr death might be frowned upon.
Finally, if this does take off, I will be updating this post with the story as it progresses.
Since that's pretty much all of the basics which I can think of including, here is the first sentence:
"Nothing interesting ever happens on airplanes," she said aloud.
----------
"Nothing interesting ever happens on airplanes," she said aloud.
"I know," said her husband, as he read his copy of the Aeroplane Safety Booklet. The booklet mentioned something about cryogenic storage in emergencies, but he didn't pay much attention and looked to see if there was anything else to read. He found a discolored pamphlet lodged between the seats, off-white with large black and red type and illustrations, and read its title. The pamphlet had a faint musk of sulphur, and its title read in broad, bold lettering: '101 Ways to Hijack an Aircraft'. Vaguely interested, he flipped through the pages, noticing that the middle half of the pamphlet had been ripped out. "Oh, what an awfully convenient shame," exclaimed Monsieur Pickleberry, just as one flight attendants passed by.
Having had her attention attracted, Madam-Dame Pickleberry-Goose, who thought herself quite progressive for a madam-dame, what, with the hyphenated name and all, was nonetheless suppressedly perturbed to see the title of the pamphlet her husband was perusing. Written in shifting runes of sinister form, it was the singular memetic key "Madam-Dame Pickleberry-Goose" needed to assume its true form as the fell elder god Cyäegha. With a plane-shaking roar, Cyäegha snatched the pamphlet from her former husband's hands and ate it whole, not noticing the flight attendant hurrying to the pilot's cabin. Emitting a sulfurous burp, Cyäegha turned on her husband, strangling him with a tentacle as he writhed in desperate convulsions.
Suddenly, the door to the cockpit opened, and the pilot entered carrying a gun, seemingly making everything more boring with his presence. The man seated next to the formerly-alive husband stood up, as this was what he was waiting for. Using his gun-enhancing superpower, the man, unsurprisingly Gun Enhancement Lad of comicbook fame, transforms the pilot's firearm into a literal giant flame-licked arm, rippling, veiny, swoon-inducing muscles, holding a gun of its own, which looks like a double-barrel crossbow-launcher.
At that moment, taking advantage of the man's lapse in awareness caused by the use of his powers, Cyäegha tightly grabbed Gun Enhancement Lad around the neck with a tentacle and violently defenestrated him. Meanwhile, exasperated by the rowdiness of the passengers and moderately unimpressed by her fellow cabin member's lack of professionalism, the flight attendant gingerly begins her routine tour of the plane with her crumpet-filled cart. Cyäegha loosened her grip on her husband's windpipe long enough for him to ask the flight attendant, "I forgot my book in the airport and I was wondering whether you have anything more interesting to read than this drivel?" waving the pamphlet.
"SMEG OFF YA BLOODY SMEG" replied the flight attendant in his naturally serene, tranquil tone.
"Okay there, now, lads and lassies, there's no need to make this into a great big situation when it doesn't need to get any bigger than it has already become at all at all," said the pilot, doing his job beautifully. The pilot stood in the gangway proudly, leaving the rest of the confused passengers in shock over who was flying the plane. He then fired his double-barrel crossbow-launcher at Cyäegha, hitting the monster in the mouth a turning it into a cute, fuzzy, murderous bunny. 'Hmmmmmmmmm, how incredibly interesting', he said. The gunlord, briefly forgetting something, pulled the pages of the pamphlet that he ripped out of his pocket and then replaced them back into his pocket while nodding.
As the plane plummeted towards the World Trade Center, the pilot removed his turban, revealing a copy of the Koran, and began the incantation of a prayer. The prayer was to make this moment a fixed point in time, so that no time travellers could fly in in their police boxes and stop him from doing what he was about to do. "How do you know what the prayer's about?" the pilot demanded of the narrator, his thick pilot's beard quivering with inordinate suspicion. "You're supposed to be screaming right now", replied the Narrator, "I wouldn't worry about it anyway." The pilot said, "Why should I be screaming? I know what to do; I WROTE THE PAMPHLET AND KNOW THE COUNTERMEASURES!" The crew and passengers of the plane all turned to stare at the pilot, Cyäegha with an outrageously fearful expression. The plane suddenly did a barrel roll and continued its flight path upside-down as the flight attendant whom everyone had forgotten about attempted to alter the plane's course while eating a tuna.
The proud American Eagle of Justice, Liberty and Freedom saw the terror that has, alas, befallen his country and swooped down majestically upon the airplane. With a glorious cry of democracy, the eagle attempted to halt the plane using its claws, despite the fact that it was less than 1/50th the size of the airplane. /Shit/. With the almighty power of OMEGA-3 locked inside the tuna, the flight attendant became the smartest person on the planet and, using her telekinesis that all smart people have, tore open the 'roof' of the plane and let Liberty and Freedom inside.
Meanwhile on the top floor of the World Trade Center. John Smith the average daily Joe Bloggs was preparing to make a jump out the top-floor window into the carefully placed marshmallow on the ground below. As he jumped, the American Eagle of Justice saw the marshmallow and dove down to eat it. "How terribly inconvenient," muttered John whilst passing the 52nd floor. (We would like to take this oppurtunity to apologise to anyone who was affected by 9/11, and to commemorate the passing of those who died that day.) John continued his descent, as he witnessed the plane sharply turn upwards and then stall. John yawned deeply, and there was a brief intermission from the story during which several bright-stripe-clad men and women whose heights averaged four feet and 3.33 (threes repeating infinitely) inches (which is 132.079 {nines repeating infinitely} centimeters) danced about comically, some doing cartwheels and others playing pan flutes, confetti erupted from cannons, and champagne was spilled in quantities far greater than those at which it was consumed, and the story returned to John still falling and still holding a flat palm in front of his mouth with which to catch the yawn. After a boringly thoughtful analysis of his impending doom and associated flashback of his average daily Bloe Jobby-life, John became enlightened and decided to follow the way of the supple, sensual, soft, siren, soaked with gastric juice marshmallow with a thirst for vengeance.
Passing the 21st floor, John waved at his horrified wife. Mrs Smith the average daily Josephine Bloggs was busy preoccupied with trying to figure out how to work the coffee machine, and failing miserably. Through a physics-defying level of self-control, John slowed his descent long enough to shatter the 21st floor window with a single punch, grab onto the glass in just the right way so as not to be hurt, punch a hole in the glass large enough to fit through, walk up to the coffee machine and show his wife that it wasn't turned on. "I WAS GETTING THERE YOU MISOGYNIST PIG" screamed John's wife, flailing her arms madly and knocking an ornate vase off a pedestal. John, still mid fall (it looks like he's floating, but he's actually falling really slowly), pushed off various furniture back out of the window. "How awfully unfortunate," murmured John as he slumped into the air-resistance's soft pillows.
Halting the Smiths' gravity-defying character development, the narrator was kindly coerced into describing the ostensibly final moments of the passengers to consolidate the readership and friendship of Cyäegha's most kind followers. The pilot, finishing his incantation, pulled the plane out of its stall, going the other direction, so that the plane fell away from the towers while picking up speed(so that it would right itself). The captain expertly manouvered the aircraft into a vertical position and began to fly upwards, callously ignoring the laws of physics. The captain swore under his breath, realizing that the plane had not yet flipped over, and that what he thought was up was actually down. The flight attendant sighed and renewed her disdain towards the pilot, enough to heighten her newfound 100% fat-free Omega3 powers, now with the goodness of antioxidants. Unfortunately, the health benefits were all a hoax fabricates by the neo-nazis of the advertising, marketing and publicity department. The laws of physics suddenly returning, the flight attendant realized that tearing off the plane's "roof" while the plane was flying upside-down might not have been the best idea as the former passengers began falling from the plane onto the ground and people below like rain falling onto a busy antbed in the middle of a thunderstorm.
"I know," said her husband, as he read his copy of the Aeroplane Safety Booklet. The booklet mentioned something about cryogenic storage in emergencies, but he didn't pay much attention and looked to see if there was anything else to read. He found a discolored pamphlet lodged between the seats, off-white with large black and red type and illustrations, and read its title. The pamphlet had a faint musk of sulphur, and its title read in broad, bold lettering: '101 Ways to Hijack an Aircraft'. Vaguely interested, he flipped through the pages, noticing that the middle half of the pamphlet had been ripped out. "Oh, what an awfully convenient shame," exclaimed Monsieur Pickleberry, just as one flight attendants passed by.
Having had her attention attracted, Madam-Dame Pickleberry-Goose, who thought herself quite progressive for a madam-dame, what, with the hyphenated name and all, was nonetheless suppressedly perturbed to see the title of the pamphlet her husband was perusing. Written in shifting runes of sinister form, it was the singular memetic key "Madam-Dame Pickleberry-Goose" needed to assume its true form as the fell elder god Cyäegha. With a plane-shaking roar, Cyäegha snatched the pamphlet from her former husband's hands and ate it whole, not noticing the flight attendant hurrying to the pilot's cabin. Emitting a sulfurous burp, Cyäegha turned on her husband, strangling him with a tentacle as he writhed in desperate convulsions.
Suddenly, the door to the cockpit opened, and the pilot entered carrying a gun, seemingly making everything more boring with his presence. The man seated next to the formerly-alive husband stood up, as this was what he was waiting for. Using his gun-enhancing superpower, the man, unsurprisingly Gun Enhancement Lad of comicbook fame, transforms the pilot's firearm into a literal giant flame-licked arm, rippling, veiny, swoon-inducing muscles, holding a gun of its own, which looks like a double-barrel crossbow-launcher.
At that moment, taking advantage of the man's lapse in awareness caused by the use of his powers, Cyäegha tightly grabbed Gun Enhancement Lad around the neck with a tentacle and violently defenestrated him. Meanwhile, exasperated by the rowdiness of the passengers and moderately unimpressed by her fellow cabin member's lack of professionalism, the flight attendant gingerly begins her routine tour of the plane with her crumpet-filled cart. Cyäegha loosened her grip on her husband's windpipe long enough for him to ask the flight attendant, "I forgot my book in the airport and I was wondering whether you have anything more interesting to read than this drivel?" waving the pamphlet.
"SMEG OFF YA BLOODY SMEG" replied the flight attendant in his naturally serene, tranquil tone.
"Okay there, now, lads and lassies, there's no need to make this into a great big situation when it doesn't need to get any bigger than it has already become at all at all," said the pilot, doing his job beautifully. The pilot stood in the gangway proudly, leaving the rest of the confused passengers in shock over who was flying the plane. He then fired his double-barrel crossbow-launcher at Cyäegha, hitting the monster in the mouth a turning it into a cute, fuzzy, murderous bunny. 'Hmmmmmmmmm, how incredibly interesting', he said. The gunlord, briefly forgetting something, pulled the pages of the pamphlet that he ripped out of his pocket and then replaced them back into his pocket while nodding.
As the plane plummeted towards the World Trade Center, the pilot removed his turban, revealing a copy of the Koran, and began the incantation of a prayer. The prayer was to make this moment a fixed point in time, so that no time travellers could fly in in their police boxes and stop him from doing what he was about to do. "How do you know what the prayer's about?" the pilot demanded of the narrator, his thick pilot's beard quivering with inordinate suspicion. "You're supposed to be screaming right now", replied the Narrator, "I wouldn't worry about it anyway." The pilot said, "Why should I be screaming? I know what to do; I WROTE THE PAMPHLET AND KNOW THE COUNTERMEASURES!" The crew and passengers of the plane all turned to stare at the pilot, Cyäegha with an outrageously fearful expression. The plane suddenly did a barrel roll and continued its flight path upside-down as the flight attendant whom everyone had forgotten about attempted to alter the plane's course while eating a tuna.
The proud American Eagle of Justice, Liberty and Freedom saw the terror that has, alas, befallen his country and swooped down majestically upon the airplane. With a glorious cry of democracy, the eagle attempted to halt the plane using its claws, despite the fact that it was less than 1/50th the size of the airplane. /Shit/. With the almighty power of OMEGA-3 locked inside the tuna, the flight attendant became the smartest person on the planet and, using her telekinesis that all smart people have, tore open the 'roof' of the plane and let Liberty and Freedom inside.
Meanwhile on the top floor of the World Trade Center. John Smith the average daily Joe Bloggs was preparing to make a jump out the top-floor window into the carefully placed marshmallow on the ground below. As he jumped, the American Eagle of Justice saw the marshmallow and dove down to eat it. "How terribly inconvenient," muttered John whilst passing the 52nd floor. (We would like to take this oppurtunity to apologise to anyone who was affected by 9/11, and to commemorate the passing of those who died that day.) John continued his descent, as he witnessed the plane sharply turn upwards and then stall. John yawned deeply, and there was a brief intermission from the story during which several bright-stripe-clad men and women whose heights averaged four feet and 3.33 (threes repeating infinitely) inches (which is 132.079 {nines repeating infinitely} centimeters) danced about comically, some doing cartwheels and others playing pan flutes, confetti erupted from cannons, and champagne was spilled in quantities far greater than those at which it was consumed, and the story returned to John still falling and still holding a flat palm in front of his mouth with which to catch the yawn. After a boringly thoughtful analysis of his impending doom and associated flashback of his average daily Bloe Jobby-life, John became enlightened and decided to follow the way of the supple, sensual, soft, siren, soaked with gastric juice marshmallow with a thirst for vengeance.
Passing the 21st floor, John waved at his horrified wife. Mrs Smith the average daily Josephine Bloggs was busy preoccupied with trying to figure out how to work the coffee machine, and failing miserably. Through a physics-defying level of self-control, John slowed his descent long enough to shatter the 21st floor window with a single punch, grab onto the glass in just the right way so as not to be hurt, punch a hole in the glass large enough to fit through, walk up to the coffee machine and show his wife that it wasn't turned on. "I WAS GETTING THERE YOU MISOGYNIST PIG" screamed John's wife, flailing her arms madly and knocking an ornate vase off a pedestal. John, still mid fall (it looks like he's floating, but he's actually falling really slowly), pushed off various furniture back out of the window. "How awfully unfortunate," murmured John as he slumped into the air-resistance's soft pillows.
Halting the Smiths' gravity-defying character development, the narrator was kindly coerced into describing the ostensibly final moments of the passengers to consolidate the readership and friendship of Cyäegha's most kind followers. The pilot, finishing his incantation, pulled the plane out of its stall, going the other direction, so that the plane fell away from the towers while picking up speed(so that it would right itself). The captain expertly manouvered the aircraft into a vertical position and began to fly upwards, callously ignoring the laws of physics. The captain swore under his breath, realizing that the plane had not yet flipped over, and that what he thought was up was actually down. The flight attendant sighed and renewed her disdain towards the pilot, enough to heighten her newfound 100% fat-free Omega3 powers, now with the goodness of antioxidants. Unfortunately, the health benefits were all a hoax fabricates by the neo-nazis of the advertising, marketing and publicity department. The laws of physics suddenly returning, the flight attendant realized that tearing off the plane's "roof" while the plane was flying upside-down might not have been the best idea as the former passengers began falling from the plane onto the ground and people below like rain falling onto a busy antbed in the middle of a thunderstorm.
'I know,' said her husband, as he read his copy of the Aeroplane Safety Booklet.
The booklet mentioned something about cryogenic storage in emergencies, but he didn't pay much attention and looked to see if there was anything else to read.
He found a discolored pamphlet lodged between the seats, off-white with large black and red type and illustrations, and read its title.
The pamphlet had a faint musk of sulphur, and its title read in broad, bold lettering: '101 Ways to Hijack an Aircraft'.
Vaguely interested, he flipped through the pages, noticing that the middle half of the pamphlet had been ripped out.
"Oh, what an awfully convenient shame," exclaimed Monsieur Pickleberry, just as one flight attendants passed by.
Having had her attention attracted, Madam-Dame Pickleberry-Goose, who thought herself quite progressive for a madam-dame, what, with the hyphenated name and all, was nonetheless suppressedly perturbed to see the title of the pamphlet her husband was perusing.
written in shifting runes of sinister form, it was the singular memetic key "Madam-Dame Pickleberry-Goose" needed to assume its true form as the fell elder god cyäegha
With a plane-shaking roar, Cyäegha snatched the pamphlet from her former husband's hands and ate it whole, not noticing the flight attendant hurrying to the pilot's cabin.
(This is an interesting turn of events. I wonder what will happen next? What will the flight attendant do? Also, we don't yet know what powers Cyäegha possesses, nor even what It looks like.)
(This is an interesting turn of events. I wonder what will happen next? What will the flight attendant do? Also, we don't yet know what powers Cyäegha possesses, nor even what It looks like.)