Round Up: Week Fourteen

This week’s delay was brought to you by laptop repair, where sometimes laptops break and need to get repaired so stories are late.

The Round Up is also late. Sorry about all the lateness.

Last Week’s Prompt

Write (your version of) the true story behind any urban legend. you can either show it's true or show it's false, just pick an urban legend and tell a story

Amanda

I had so much fun with this prompt. In fact, I based the prompt around an idea that bloomed in my head for a story as I listened to a podcast about crop circles (thanks, Stuff You Should Know!). I have always been interested in urban legends and unexplainable events, but crop circles are one of those very much explainable phenomenons that still boggle people's minds and make them wonder. It’s an artform; one of the most scientific artforms there is. I love the combination of art, science, and crop wreckin’ that comes from crop circles.

My story of Noah and his new group of friends is an idea that I adore, and one that I will expand on, so stay tuned for a possible bestselling novel. Noah, who never had much time in any one city to make friends, finally finds himself with a group where he is needed and adored for his skills in drawing. This week’s story focused on his first crop circle, but the group becomes more advanced until one day crop circles start appearing that they had nothing to do with. Maybe they truly did contact an alien species?

MY VOTE: Kylie

Korrin

The Hook Handed Man is one of my favorite urban legends that I have heard.  Besides Bloody Mary and Scary Sherry it is the one that freaked me out the most and I have always remembered how it made me feel.  

The moral of the story is that being naughty with your partner is a bad idea which I agree with completely (outside of marriage) and there is not enough of that left in the world so the story should be told over and over again.

I thought it very plausible for the story to be created by teenagers pulling a stupid prank that was sure to lose them a friendship if they ever said anything to the victim of the prank. As such a legend is born.  If you don’t think it is plausible, watch Pysch more.

MY VOTE: Amanda

Kylie

My story explores the deep theme of what it means to be alien. After all, being “alien” just means that one thing is different from what one majority has experienced. What does it mean to truly be alien? What does it feel like to be out of that majority?

In other words, this piece is about a race of dumb aliens who keep driving their rovers in cornfields and making circles and then not being able to figure out why they can’t get any viable research on that pesky third planet from that really big star. Darn humans, planting all that corn. It confuses the aliens.

MY VOTE: Amanda

Next Week’s Prompt

We all have ideas for novels.  This week create something from the realm of your novel.  This could be a chapter of the book, a character sketch, a short story outside of the stories plot, maybe just a random character in the world that has nothing to do with the story doing stupid things, anything.

Readers, please note that this will be rough draft writing and will probably be nothing like any published works we may or may not have in the future.