Short Story Pitch
Wait wait wait so okay it’s a story, right, and the character wakes up depressed, right? And and the first thing they do is smoke a cigarette. In bed, right? Because they’re depressed. And they’re like, in bed, with a premarital sex partner that they don’t feel all too much affection for, like, cuz like, it’s a one night stand, or something, or, or maybe it’s like, a more long term relationship that’s been going downhill, or something, and they don’t know what to do. Idk, you can iron out the details later. Okay. But get this: they have sex anyway. First thing in the morning. And, and, it feels hollow. Empty. Right? And, and they smoke another cigarette. And they know the cigarettes might be killing them, right, but see, they don’t care. Get it? Like, since they’re depressed, they don’t actually even care when stuff is bad for them? Isn’t that, like, I don’t know—neat? Okay but then, but what if then they like, I don’t know, they get up and it’s like, 2 p.m. in the day already, and they go get a coffee, and then they smoke another cigarette while drinking the coffee? And and okay, and then maybe while this is happening they’re having a fight over text with that person from before. That was in bed with them. That they had premarital sex with. There could be some kind of problem, idk, you can come up with the specifics when you write it (maybe they’re the one who actually did do something wrong, like maybe they actually hurt the other person, but they don’t even care? That could be dope), but this could prompt the character to reflect on how they always mess everything up, maybe something about how everything they touch goes to the S-word? (I was thinking there could be all sorts of swear words strewn throughout the story). Are you still with me? Some other stuff could happen, but eventually, right, we go into the finale, where this character ends up in the park, or somewhere, right, and they could reflect some more on different ways that their life is messed up. And and, not just their life, but Life, in general. That should kinda be like the thesis of the story, that Life is seriously messed up. That’d be awesome. And like, the character could evidence the fact that Life is messed up by way of some kind of anecdote from their own childhood or adolescence, you know, something they went through that might allow the reader to kinda, I don’t know, see where they’re coming from a little more? I guess the point kinda being that the reason their life is messed up is only because Life, more generally, is messed up? Maybe they could gesture to some political injustice going on in the world too? Something like that could be cool. I don’t really know. I guess I’d just like to see a story where, you know, the big takeaway is some kind of like, badass, stone-cold message about Life that people usually aren’t brave enough to be honest about: like, like, that it’s disgusting, that it’s depressing, that it’s cruel, that it’s ugly, that it’s meaningless—you know, kinda like, badass, honest stuff like that.