Story A Day In May - Story 7

Well I made it through the first week. This is another short one, but it was a tough prompt. Though I like this idea, and maybe will write the whole story one day. "Choose two very different and seemingly incompatible genres...” I was going to do romantic comedy/ghost story, but that is The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Then I thought vampire/mockumentary. That is What We Do In The Dark. Supernatural/romantic comedy, Sandra Bullock's Practical Magic. Hard to think of something new. I went with Ghost Story / Self Help

A Chapter From The Six Habits of Highly Effective Ghosts

by J. Smith Kirkland

Chapter 4 – Understand, Then Be Understood

Desmond is not convinced this book is helping him be the best ghost he can be. That's what Alma said it would do, but so far everything he tried from the other chapters has ended poorly. He is willing to give it one more chapter, and if it is a disaster, he is done with the book.

As a ghost, it is often hare to efficiently communicate with the living. Even when they know you are there, they don't seem to understand what you are trying to tell them. The problem often lies with how one tries to communicate. We often express ourselves in terms that we understood while we were alive. But the living may not interpret those expressions the same way we do. First, before you communicate using your own symbols and language, listen to what is going on in the living person's life. Understand how they see the world, then you can find ways to make them understand you.”

Okay, that sorta makes sense. Desmond always did subscribe to the idea that you had to listen to the other person in a conversation before you could respond to what they said. He thinks maybe he is only waiting to say what he wants to say instead of listening first. If he is going to have to cohabitate with this guy, he has to do something. He is willing to give this book one a shot.

Desmond is following his living house guest around for several days now, trying to understand what is going on in his life, what different objects mean to him, and what words he uses to describe things. The main thing He has learned, as far as Desmond can tell, is that Bob is the most boring individual on the planet. As far as Desmond can tell, Bob's vocabulary is limited to what he watched on YouTube the night before. There are no special objects that have any sentimentality to him. No gift from his father, no card from an old flame. Every item in his house is from IKEA or Amazon. And what's going on in his life is nothing.

Every living person has an aura. As a ghost, you can see that aura. This allows you to further understand how they communicate. The living with indigo and white aura tend to communicate with their eyes, and with caring compassionate words. Those with green auras tend to communicate more with physical action and active words like racing, dancing, and soaring. There is a breakdown of communication types by aura in the appendix.

Desmond looks at Bob. He's pretty sure he has seen auras on other people that have come to the house, the postman, the plumber, that church lady with the bad wig. But he doesn't think Bob has an aura. If he does it's out of focus or something. Looking at Bob is sorta like watching an old black and white movie on a High Definition monitor. Something about it is just wrong.

The Prompt

Choose two very different and seemingly incompatible genres and think about how you might combine them to create an interesting piece of fiction.

Sketch out a plan for a longer story or experiment with a single scene for a story.

Some genres: fantasy, folk tale, sci-fi, dystopian, horror, slipstream, magic realism, fairy tale, mystery, detective, noir, Southern Gothic, Appalachian noir, bodice ripper, gorno, tall tale, picaresque, yarn, mockumentary, conspiracy, parody, LGBTQ, pastiche, dark comedy, slasher, chick-lit, new weird, apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, saga, historical, pandemic, alternate history, period piece, ghost story, bildungsroman, feminist sci-fi, action, planetary romance, space western, fan fiction, cyberpunk, post-cyberpunk, nanopunk, steampunk, biopunk, superhero, new age, forensic, psychological thriller, docudrama, medical drama, slapstick, Christian, instructional, self-help, dinosaur erotica, cli-fi, postmodern, memoir, disaster, family saga, high fantasy, epistolary novel, fake blog, fictional autobiography, Afrofuturism, fictional biography, space opera, reality, supernatural, speculative, roman a clef, young adult, zombie, wuxia, vampire, allegory, epic, comedy of manners, melodrama, travelogue, creepy kids, splatter, etc. etc. . . .

Story A Day Framework

I chose romantic comedy / conspiracy