Members, let's write a novel together

oxrageous

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Every now and then I get into a creative mood and decide to just sit down and start writing the first thing I think about. So I'll write a few chapters, have no idea where to go with the story, and it dies there.

Well, I wrote a few chapters recently (2.5 really) and I figured, wouldn't it be fun to solicit chapter-by-chapter ideas from the members of Gatorchatter so I can keep going? I certainly have no idea where to take it. No clue. Perhaps we can write the greatest novel man has ever known together.

This idea is almost certain to crash and burn, but what the hell. It's the offseason. The first three chapters will come in my next 3 posts.
 
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oxrageous

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1​
Herb Atwood stood in line at the supermarket, staring blearily at the old woman in front of him that wanted a price check on a cantaloupe. Evidently she felt it was priced 40 cents too high.

"I think your scale is off,” she told the cashier. “That cantaloupe weighed less than that on the scale over there.”

The pizza-faced cashier, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere else, simply punched a couple of buttons until the price was more to the customers liking, possibly deciding to pay the difference herself if it would just get the old bag out of there.

“Thank you,” the old bag said. Upon being informed of her total, she leisurely dug through her handbag and pulled out her checkbook. Herb’s heart sank. All he wanted to do was go home, now he had to wait until this hag filled out a check?

While she did so with excruciating slowness, to Herb the 21st Century had never seemed so far away. He closed his eyes and waited for it to be over.


.​
 

oxrageous

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2​

Things didn’t get much better in the parking lot. As he reached his car, a wino in dirty, baggy clothing with bad teeth approached him and asked him if he had any change.

“Don’t carry cash, sorry.”

“Ah, that’s all right. Did you know there was a guy over there that took a shot at the military? I don’t know what this country is coming to! Woulda tuned him up if I hadn’t broken my back protectin’ dumbasses like him in Iraq back in the day!”

Herb, unmoved by this discourse, opened his door and threw his groceries inside. “Yeah, that’s a shame, all right,” he said blandly.

“You’d think people would treat veterans better,” he said, throwing his arms up. “We gave it all for this country!”

“Yesiree,” Herb said, and slid behind the wheel. His urge to get the hell away was quite strong now.

The veteran wino, determined to get in his full say (and whatever change was jingling in Herb’s pockets), leaned into the door jamb before it could be closed. An aroma of cigarettes, booze, pot, and sweat gently pushed against Herb’s face.

“Sure you can’t help out a Marine, my man?” He smiled grotesquely.

“Sorry,” Herb replied softly. He pulled the door shut, missing the wino’s face by half an inch.

As he pulled away, his new friend gave him both fingers. Ooh Rah.



.​
 

oxrageous

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3​

The following morning, Herb experienced his usual pang of abhorrence as he pulled into his office parking lot. He had hated his job (and working in general) for so many years this feeling had become like second nature. He entered the building and punched the button for the elevator, which never seemed to be on the first floor.

Herb hated everything about elevators, from having to wait on them to having to share them with other people. The idea of holding the elevator for some idiot who didn’t want to wait disgusted him, so he avoided it whenever possible. He had been known to repeatedly punch the “Close Door” button while some clown came running down the hallway yelling to hold the elevator. Seeing it close in the wide-eyed face of people like that brought Herb a level of satisfaction he would never admit to. Needless to say, it had never made him particularly popular with the other companies in the building, and he couldn’t care less.
 

oxrageous

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That chapter above is incomplete. I'm not even sure what Herb's occupation should be.
 

Durty South Swamp

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doodley doodley doo!
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Herb seems like the inner monologue of one Aaron Ox Bland...

Im liking the thought pattern. Ox has some talent. I read a lot and the best novels are always the ones that start out where the main protagonist is in some doldrum, boring job/routine/life and loathes most everything around him.

The key to those novels is that not too far into his horrible routine misery, something quite unexpected happens and sends his life into a complete tailspin where he becomes embroiled in some wild plot that has national or international implications and the bored, slow, out of shape and timid protagonist is forced to make a drastic decision and become something he's never been or thought he could be, a brave, daring and central figure in a life and death situation that the world will never be the same from.
 

I Have No Friends :(

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I agree with Durty. Herb Atwood is destined to either stop the zombie apocalypse by himself or save earth from an alien invasion led by the alien leader who disguised himself years ago as a human female named Hillary Rodham Clinton.
 

Ingle Martin

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Every now and then I get into a creative mood and decide to just sit down and start writing the first thing I think about. So I'll write a few chapters, have no idea where to go with the story, and it dies there.

Well, I wrote a few chapters recently (2.5 really) and I figured, wouldn't it be fun to solicit chapter-by-chapter ideas from the members of Gatorchatter so I can keep going? I certainly have no idea where to take it. No clue. Perhaps we can write the greatest novel man has ever known together.

This idea is almost certain to crash and burn, but what the hell. It's the offseason. The first three chapters will come in my next 3 posts.

 

crosscreekcooter

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A good novel always has steamy sex. The kind where both actors are in the short rows and mom comes home. And it has to be the normal kind and unfortunately probably has to include some type of brief tender moment, maybe he engages her in short meaningless conversation so that it captures the feminine audience. And the smell of beer and cigs on his breath. Maybe include some grunting. I think you have something here.
 

MidwestChomp

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If you combine I Have No Friends and CCC's ideas you have either alien sex or zombie sex.
 

bradgator2

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I agree with Durty. Herb Atwood is destined to either stop the zombie apocalypse by himself or save earth from an alien invasion led by the alien leader who disguised himself years ago as a human female named Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I think this is what makes Herb Atwood different. He is going to be confronted by something big and unexpected. It's looking like a classic hero story. But Herb is no hero. When the time comes to pull the trigger... he basically says **** it. He's a true jerk. And you want to kick his ass by the end of the book.
 

I Have No Friends :(

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I think this is what makes Herb Atwood different. He is going to be confronted by something big and unexpected. It's looking like a classic hero story. But Herb is no hero. When the time comes to pull the trigger... he basically says **** it. He's a true jerk. And you want to kick his ass by the end of the book.

What if every way Herb tries to not help ends up helping more? So, he's the reluctant hero through no choice of his except how the stars align to make sure that he completes the quest as a hero, even though we all want to kill him at the end.
 

bradgator2

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His job is something that is equally jerk-worthy. Like... a paper pusher for the county tax collector's office or something with the IRS. He needs to come across something by accident. Like he stumbles into the middle of a crime. Or he overheard a conversation at work about some illegal business in the IRS.
 

WobbleGator

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When the elevator doors opened up to Herb's floor, he decided he was done with this world. Herb went to the nearest window and jumped. With the wind flowing through what was left of his hair, a smile came across Herb's face. Herb experienced a joy he had not felt in a long time. Sadly, the joy did not last long because he had just hit the ground.
 
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crosscreekcooter

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hudsucker19.jpg
 

heavychevy

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Not much of a shock to Herb, yet another failure at life, he didn't look before he jumped, the bobble wrap company he works for was loading up the latest shipment. Herb's fall was cushioned by a 12ftt tall roll of bubble wrap. the Fork lift operator didn't even notice as the thud of Herb's body was northing more that a few pops, stuffed the roll in to a burgundy freightliner and locked the door.
 

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