Day 1: August Writing Challenge
Challenge details here. For August, I’m attempting to do a bit of writing practice to help with my craft and get my creative juices flowing. I found this challenge and thought it would be a great way to have a community and do something new!
Day 1 prompt: Write a story about a person who knows they are a fictional character in a novel.
Details: entirely unedited, short story written in one sprint. Not based in any of my fictional worlds, this is an entirely new story and has no impact on anything I am currently writing.
Here’s the thing; I am fully aware of the irony. You read enough novels that it just becomes apparent that you are, indeed, stuck in the books you care so much about. And I’m not talking about just being obsessed with them that you lose track of the world around you. I’m talking about actually existing inside a freaking book.
I know it isn’t a strictly fantasy book, considering I have yet to be stolen away by the fae or fallen into a portal to another world or even met a vampire, despite my tendencies to be out late at night and absolutely favoring the kind of places you would run across a vampire even if you weren’t trying. Hell, for a good chunk of time there, I was actively searching for the paranormal.
The thing is, I’m fairly well-read. I’ll pretty much read anything that is put in front of me. That’s how I know this isn’t a memoir (I’ve done nothing noteworthy in my life), not young adult (thank you, late night tendencies I mentioned earlier), sadly not a cozy (I would give my left tit to be in a cozy right now), and I am definitely not in a murder mystery or horror story (though, to me, the reality is quite horrific).
I’m in a fucking romance novel.
Dear reader, fuck you. Because I know you just rolled your eyes. You’re thinking “why the hell is she complaining about being in a romance novel?”
The answer is: because I’m a fucking side character.
Not even the best friend side character who is hilarious and deserves her own book.
I’m the fucking other girl.
Before you go judging me again, I’m not the one who makes my lover stay back from their dream or bitches about how they work too late and don’t pay enough attention to me. I’m the one who, at the end of the day, realizes I’m not “the one” and slides back into the background while my ex gets the happily ever after. I let my ex-boyfriend go back to his hometown after he rekindled his relationship with his high school sweetheart. I didn’t even bat an eye when my ex-girlfriend realized her work-enemy was actually her soulmate.
Yup, I’m just the girl who gets forgotten at the end of the day. I’m the one no one reads about because they were never rooting for me to be with the main character in the first place.
Please, for the love of all that is holy, I’m begging for you to root for me now. I’m serious. I… I don’t know what I’ve done, but whoever is writing my story must have something against me. That’s the only way I can rationally justify what is happening to me.
I’m not sure what I did. I mean, I stepped on my brother’s pet caterpillar when I was six. It was a complete accident, I promise, but then again, I’m not sure he ever forgave me. He brings it up every Christmas. I found a penny at a grocery checkout and didn’t give it to the cashier and was convinced I had committed a robbery of the place. Maybe that’s it. Then there’s that time I forgot to return my library book and I was a day late. Actually, now that I think about it, that’s punishable by side-character-in-a-romance death.
I just can’t understand why it never ends. You’d think once was enough. Like that time I had a taboo workplace romance with my billionaire boss even though I was his secretary. It wasn’t the first time a relationship had ended up all kinds of trope-y, but it was the first time I realized the pattern. Because right after that, on a whim post-breakup, I ended up in a small town with a broken down car during a local festival. The only place to stay was an inn with an impossibly gorgeous owner with tattoos and a distrust of anything my “city-slicker pantsuit” had to offer.
I’d go into detail, but you know the book. We have our cranky differences, my car takes forever to be fixed, we have a surprisingly amicable baking session in his kitchen, suddenly we are having very not-young-adult chapters, a fight, and then… my car is fixed. Except somewhere out of the blue, another girl gets stranded on his front lawn. And oh, look, it seems that room he was renting is now available for the beautiful woman, and I’m forgotten.
Sometimes, when I like to get drunk on my couch with a tub of cookie dough (I’ve since given up my vampire tendencies of clubs and tight dresses that reveal my very attractive neck), I doom scroll. It’s like my own self-loathing spiral likes to fuel itself. Turns out, he married her. Like, a month after.
It’s not that I hate her for it, but… why didn’t I get assigned her writer? Did no one want me so they just keep passing me around to each trope until eventually I’m too old to be in a romance?
That’s the shit that really frightens me, because there is no such thing as too old in a romance. I could be stuck like this until I’m fifty. I could end up in a relationship that the author intends to ruin and then kick me back out into the dating world at eighty.
I’m already thirty-one and I’ve lost count of the exploratory relationships I’ve been in. The only bright side is, I’ve seen it all so I know what I want. My dominatrix-exploring girlfriend at age twenty-five? Fun while it lasted, but I’ve avoided it since. Role-play? Hard pass, and I can’t tell you why since I’m naturally pretty outgoing and comfortable in my body. Get near my feet and I’m going to kick you in the face. Call me a good girl and… oh yeah, that’s the one. Seriously. I’ll settle for anyone who will say that in the bedroom.
But then there’s the tropes. The enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, reverse harem, second chances, I’ve had it all. Got caught in the rain? Check. Fake dating? Done it. Desperate date to a wedding? Been there. Please don’t ask about the marriage of convenience. I don’t need to hash out the whole “married and divorced at age twenty-two” stigma and embarrassment that one gets me. And don’t say I tried actively avoiding the dating pool, because that one was a massive failure as well. No matter how hard I tried, it’s like my damn writer said “haha nope!” and suckered me into yet another trope. I’m once again thankful that I’ve not been assigned the accidental or secret pregnancy trope… yet.
Reminds me I should probably, thankfully, change my tampon.
That situation under control, I settle back into the padded seat of my table at the coffee shop. Laptop open on one side, third coffee cooling on the other. I’ve got my playlist up, my tabs and highlighter and pen queued, and a crisp new book in front of me.
This is my game now, because if my writer isn’t going to give me my HEA, I’m going to force their hand a bit. Example one: no more night life. The tropes I have yet to experience in that realm are honestly more terrifying than I’m willing to bargain with at the moment. If I don’t go out, I’m not susceptible to that plot. That is how I met my last girlfriend, though, because in an effort to not go out, I went to buy booze and ice cream in sweats, a messy bun, and house slippers and ended up stealing the last of her favorite flavor—butter pecan.
Example two: hanging out in a coffee shop. Part of it is because I can’t get into trouble if I’m just sitting here reading. I’m being purposely boring to the outside world. I chose this specific café because none of the baristas are going to be interested in me (gay, straight, married, furry). I have the most bizarre decoy playlist name with decoy songs so no one can look over my shoulder and think they have something in common with me. I also have a fake book cover for Ice Planet Barbarians that I put over my copies in case anyone looks to see what I’m reading. That did fail me once, though.
So, I continue to be boring. I continue to sit here and annoy whoever is writing me because there’s only so many times you can describe the same coffee shop (brown and cozy), smells (coffee), lighting (I’ve been here at all hours of the day), and table (brown and cozy). Eventually they have to realize I’m getting sick of their games. Eventually they have to, you know, give me my own HEA so they can move on to another character.
Right?
I’m so busy angrily stewing in my thoughts and rage-highlighting this book that I don’t see it before it’s too late. My table is jostled, my coffee is spilling into my lap, and then a body is tumbling down as well. I’m catching hot liquid in my hands, what seems to be another coffee into my already soaked yoga pants, and a lot of flapping limbs.
“Shit, fuck, damnit,” the voice says.
The voice says into my tits. Because that face is now pressed into my chest (at least they hit padding instead of the very hard back to my bench). Arms are still flailing, and I think something just fell from the ceiling.
Yup. That’s definitely part of an egg sandwich crushed under a boot. The other half seems to be stuck rather impressively to the low ceiling.
“Most people have a better experience when their face is up close and personal with my best asset,” I say, trying to ease the awkwardness as I help the individual up. Which I realize is probably just making things more awkward for them, considering now there is a slurring of apologies and scrambling for napkins and trying to keep all of our things from getting soaked in coffee.
I’m definitely not thinking about any of my things until I hear a murmured “great song, though” and realize my headphones have been yanked out of the jack.
That should have been warning number one.
Warning number two is when the voice says, “Huh, book decoy cover? Wish I had thought of that.”
And finally, warning number three is when I finally get a look at my assailant. Big brown eyes, disheveled black hair with the ends dripping of coffee. Soft, pouty lips that are opened on a gasp. Possibly the most beautiful little freckle just under those stunning eyelashes.
I blink a few times, and I realize I should be cursing and running for the hills too late.
The moment I open my mouth, I say instead—
“Hi.”
