I don't know if any of you know of collaborative fiction...I'm guessing some of you might have. But here's the basic idea - a writer starts off a story by writing a segment, then another author writes the next segment, and the next one writes the next segment, and so on. Okay, that's a bit of an oversimplification, but it's better explained at Wikipedia anyway.

Back when I was a relative newbie to forums in general, one of my favorite activities to do on forums was partake in collaborative fiction. Often the stories written were rather humorous and lighthearted in nature, and although they were lacking in quality much of the time, the pure organic feel of the evolving story was really fun to watch develop. I figure it's been a while since I saw anything like that on any forum, so I thought I'd try to get such a thread started here.

So, on that note, I'm going to write the first part of the story here, and hopefully it's clear what to do next - write the next part of the story! Some guidelines, though:

• Stay with the story. I.e. don't go off on some random unrelated tangent all of a sudden.
• The genre I'm going for here is comedy, so while that genre can be bent, don't go completely outside of it.
• Do put some effort into typing your replies. I.e. complete sentences, reasonably good grammar, that sort of thing. An obvious exception would be a character who doesn't talk that way, though.
• Make your segment as long or as short as you want, within reason - i.e. don't just type one sentence, or pages upon pages (the proverbial wall of text).

Hopefully I'm being clear enough here, but if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask. So, without further ado, here is the start of the story!

*******

In the relatively ritzy part of the city, as part of an old historical building too important to tear down yet not important enough to maintain its appearance, was a quaint little cafe that went by the name of The Stargazer's Delight. It has all the elements to please any pseudo-intellectual’s heart in terms of atmosphere - lots of Van Gogh painting replicas, antique-looking furniture, and even the lighting is somewhat dim to create an aura of seriousness. You wouldn't get that aura of seriousness from Lydia, though - as she performed her routine maintenance of the front counter, she put in little disruptions of the atmosphere in the form of fuzzy mascots she put in random places. These cute little fuzzballs, adorned with two googly eyes, plastic feet, and all manner of accessories from top hats to thin plastic signs, almost seemed to form a protest march against the seriousness.

Thankfully, they weren't enough to deter any customers - not that the usual sort of customers here would mind, anyway. One walked in wearing a suit and tie, although he carried himself like he wanted to wear something different, and he bopped a fuzzy on the head in his first attempt to ring the bell. Despite his miss, though, Lydia walked up to him behind the counter as if she did hear the bell ring.

"Uh...hi there," the customer stammered nervously.

"What can I get for you?" questioned Lydia, plainly.

"Something sweet and iced."

"Can you be a bit more specific? Do you want...blended? Or just a coffee-type drink, or..."

"Just something with caffeine that's drinkable."

"How about an iced latte with an espresso shot, then?"

"Um...sounds good to me!"

Lydia prepared the beverage with the efficiency only a cafe owner could muster, enthusiastically mixing the ingredients. With a few flicks of her wrist to stir the contents of the plastic cup, she then placed it on the counter in front of him. Currency was then exchanged, in perhaps what was the most boring part of the conversation. As the customer turned to leave, though, he then turned back and pointed to the fuzzy next to the bell...or where it once was, anyway. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but paused; after finding another fuzzy that was in an obvious location, though, he spoke what he meant to say - "Nice fuzzy mascots."

After he turned and left, Lydia figured he must have knocked the fuzzy off the counter, and shrugged it off. She glanced around to look for it, though, and much to her surprise...she found it in the pastry case.

How did it get there? She wondered. She certainly didn't remember putting it there...it'd probably violate some health code if it was in there, though, so she took it out and put it next to the bell again. However, when she turned away once again, the fuzzy started to move of its own accord...

*******

There, now the next poster, write the next segment! And for reference, the fuzzy mascots I wrote about here are like the one in my sig.

Come on...my fiction writing isn't that bad, is it?

It's not that hard to add to the story! It's not like multiple pages is required...you could just do a short paragraph or two and that'd be fine.