Sign up for our newsletter and receive a bonus Third War story as our thanks!

Posts Tagged ‘Cats’

How We Write – Perils of the Princess

Orion wrote this little story for the prompt: The boy beside the mailbox. When Kyros first read the story, he made a face, saying he needed a shot of insulin to counteract the sweetness overload!

It was an okay story, as written, but the editing made it much more fun and not quite so sweet. It’s sort of an extended joke. Kyros felt that the story gave away the ending way too soon, so he suggested some edits that helped conceal the surprise until the very end.

We hope you enjoy our little modern-day fairy tale.


Photo by Ricky Kulmann

 

PERILS OF THE PRINCESS

 

The boy beside the mailbox waved his arms at the fire truck. The first fireman out of the cab ran to him, kneeling to the boy’s level.

“You all right?”

“Yes, sir. You gotta hurry! Our dopey old doorman is trapped in daddy’s office by the front door.” He sniffed and wiped a tear from his soot-covered face. “And you gotta save my sweet princess!”

The fireman turned quickly to the other firemen. “There’s a man inside. Doc, Hap, find him!”

Turning back to the boy, he asked, “Is there anyone else in there?”

“No, just the three of us.”

“Good boy. Now tell me where to find your princess.” (more…)

How We Write – Warm In The Night

The prompts, two men and a flapping tarp, brought to mind for Orion a rustic, possibly medieval setting. Hmmm, a cart with a flapping tarp? Now why would that picture spring to mind? Where was the cart going? Why? And why would the reader care?

Ah, there’s someone in the brush beside the road the cart is on. Who is it and why is that person hiding?

And it needed a cat. A cat always helps a story, right?

So why not make the cat the narrator?

And the story spooled out from there.


WARM IN THE NIGHT

She-Who-Is-Warm and I wept when we left our first home.

Warm’s father said we had to go live with the strange man. There were too many mouths to feed and Warm was the youngest daughter. He told her the strange man would protect us, keep us safe, even love us.

That is not what happened though. (more…)

How We Write – All Wet

The prompt for this piece was just the word Rain.

Orion tried to think of something funny to depict on this topic. Someone getting splashed by a passing car? Too easy! The end of the world in flood? It’s been done dozens of times. Hard rain? Perpetual rain? Well, Orion does live in the Pacific Northwest, so that’s a given, during the winter anyway. (It’s currently raining, in fact.)

Read on to see what direction Orion took.

This is one of the shortest short stories we’ve ever written!


ALL WET

I HATE getting wet!

Remember that snappy pop song, I Love A Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt? He didn’t know what the hell that guy was talking about. Rainy nights were the worst!

I swear, he thought, this rain is trying to smash me into the pavement. My hair’s plastered to me like a second skin. It’s coming down so hard I can barely see my path. (more…)