To Days Two Win The Stoopid

"Best Seller" Pitch Fiction

Caution: Sharp and snarky road ahead. Buckle up!

Step One: Hire an editor to proofread your gifs.

Hey, who wants to write a Best Seller?

I do.

And, who wants to write a Good Book?

That’s me, too!

Who figured out that Best Seller and Good Book are not always the same thing?

I did! I did!

Gosh, you’re smart.

“Best” is a superlative given to something that has no equal or greater than.

A Best Seller sells better than any other seller. Make sense?

Yup.

“Good” is a relative term given to something that is deemed “of good quality.” Mind you, one person’s “good quality” could be another person’s “garbage dumpster.” Still with me?

Uh …

Not all Best Sellers are Good Books. And not all Good Books are Best Sellers.

Some of this has to do with marketing. And some of this has to do with insanity.

I’ve written a few books.

Are they “Good Books”?

Um … I think so.

Are they “Best Sellers”?

No.

Why not?

Because I didn’t write them to be Best Sellers. I wrote them to be Good Books.

LIKE A FRIGGIN IDIOT!!!!!

Seriously though, I have no idea what it takes to write a best seller. Or why some books get pulled from the slush when others never see the light of day. I don’t have the voice code protocols to unlock an agent’s gate or the secret to twisting algorithmic nipples into SEO submission.

I do know that I write books from the heart hoping they’ll reach someone else’s, and maybe that’s the wrong move. Maybe I should be writing books from my lizard brain and hope they’ll trigger the lizard brains in others. Maybe I should aim for the garbage dumpster knowing that my garbage dumpster could very well be someone else’s good quality!

Enough useless speculating. You came here for fiction, and I’ve got your hearts and lizard brains covered. Please enjoy this series of photo-inspired novel pitches, crafted by yours truly. The fact that one of them is as likely to land me a book deal as any of the books I’ve actually written is both reassuring and anger vomit inducing.

I also tried out a few tasty pseudonyms, knowing that the name Meg Oolders is unlikely to sell anything other than soup mix and orthopedic socks.

And if my gorgeous cover designs inspire, those skills are for hire!

Here’s to my first Best Seller! 🥂And yours! 🥂But don’t steal my ideas, please.

1. Home Raker - Thriller

When ruggedly handsome bachelor, Harold Raker, moves his landscaping business into the small, quietly elitist, town of Plowville, ME, his maritally dissatisfied female neighbors are thrilled. Finally, there’s a capable man around to mow their lawns, tend their overgrown bushes, and rake their thatch, who doesn’t complain about the back injury he sustained while pleasuring his mistress.

But when Harold ends up dead, impaled on a rake handle in the backyard of Clinton Martinvilleburgson III, the wealthy politician/adulterer/bigot/misogynist with a reelection campaign in full swing, his unrealistically-hot-for-her-age wife, Celeste, suspects foul play.

With the help of her old law school roommate turned necromancer, Nona Sensina, Celeste embarks on a quest to find the truth about Harold’s murder. The only things standing in the way of her taking down her impotent husband and reuniting with her sexually proficient personal landscaper are an indestructible patriarchy and irreversible death.

Will this trophy wife’s stunning good looks, vapid personality, and inbred inborn privilege be enough to get her anything and everything her heart desires?

Probably.

2. The Nondescript Individual With The Mildly Peculiar Nature - Historical Fiction

No one in the village of Lillywater thinks much of Annabelle Worthington. She is not much to think of. Not that people do much thinking in these puritanical times. But Annabelle thinks about things quite a bit. She also thinks about people, which might have earned her a stern look or raised eyebrow had anyone been paying her any attention.

There is one person, in particular, that Annabelle thinks about with such ferocity it keeps her from sleeping soundly at night. That person is Timothy Jellingsworth, the strong-backed, gangly, illiterate printing press operator who works at the local newspaper. Annabelle finds Timothy fascinating and spends many an afternoon and evening at the newsstand, paying him attention.

One night, after an ample amount of attention from Annabelle, Timothy spontaneously combusts, causing a mild stir among the citizens of Lillywater.

Not wanting to be implicated in the mysterious explosion of her acquaintance, Annabelle runs away to join a convent, only to discover that she is pregnant.

Annabelle is about to learn a valuable lesson about the many dangers of paying attention. And what happens, in these puritanical times, to women foolish enough to think.

3. Say My Neighm - Romance

Daddy’s Little Bluebird is no stranger to the hardships of racing life. The training. The pressure. The flies. Her only respite comes in the nightly company of her stable hand, Bastien, who spends hours massaging her tired muscles, brushing her chestnut brown hair, feeding her sugar cubes, and reading to her from his collection of equestrian sonnets. It is in these stolen moments that Bluebird is truly happy.

When Bastien bravely and passionately confesses his love for Bluebird on the eve of her fifth birthday, it’s as if he knows what’s about to happen.

It seems billionaire idiot, Ronald T. Ducharme, has been eyeing Bluebird as a potential broodmare for his prized stud, the brutish and egomaniacal Lord X. Knowing she could be retired from racing, sold, and sent away from her one true love, to become breeding stock for the next generation of thoroughbreds, is more than Bluebird can bear.

Through their shared romance language of stomps, snorts, and whinnies, Bluebird tells Bastien that she plans to take a fall in the next race, neighing she’d rather die than bear offspring to anyone but him. But Bastien has a plan to free her from a life of forced domesticity and loveless insemination. A plan that will let them live out their days together, as nature never intended.

But can their bond survive an elaborate scheme to castrate Lord X that involves Bastien seducing and marrying Ducharme’s human daughter Salacia to earn the family’s trust?

4. To Days Two Win The Stoopid - YA Fantasy

OMG! The popular kids are at it again. It’s senior year and the hormone fueled teens at Blown Staff School for Sorcerers and Sociopaths are foaming at the mouth. It’s been four years since the last Stoopid Trials, and everyone is dying to magically murder the competition this year.

Wispy wallflower Mousy Jones is new to Blown Staff and has a mysterious past that will slowly be revealed over the course of two days, because constricted timelines make better stories. When Mousy meets Fox, the first decent looking guy she sees after getting off the bus, feelings emerge. But you won’t have time to appreciate them because there’s a Stoopid to be won!

Who will take this year’s meaningless title?

Will it be the bully jocks and sadistic cheerleaders (plus token social outcast who learns to fit in by abandoning his principles) juggernaut this year?

Or will the band geeks and cosplay gamers (plus token hot girl who isn’t hot yet because she still dresses practically and doesn’t put-out) be the victors?

Or will Mousy and Fox team up to give their enemies a common enemy, thus making the enemies friends? And will those friends become lovers? And will those lovers become enemies? With friends? With benefits?!

Orgies, street fights, seances, the SATs. Anything can happen when you’re a sorcerer sociopath with only To Days Two Win The Stoopid.

Just ask Mark. He’s the REAL hero of the story.

Welcome back to Stock Fiction, a (mostly) short fiction newsletter inspired by stock photography. I recently updated my “About” page to include a little more info about “Me.” If you’re new to Stock Fiction, (or you’re not and you’re just super curious about how much I’ve revealed about myself) I invite you to stop by. May it serve as a welcome palate cleanse after today’s nonsense.

Hey, question for those of you who read and write a lot on Substack: What’s your take on the trend of writers publicly thanking new paid subscribers in their posts?

Good? Not good? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m only asking because

Amran Gowani

, producer of the scorching satire publication

Field Research

, and

Samuél Lopez-Barrantes

, creator of the evocative mix tape

if not, Paris

, recently became a Founding Member and an Annual paid subscriber, respectively, and I’m trying to decide the best way to thank them while simultaneously pointing you, my readers, to their incredible work on Substack.

Hm. I’ll keep thinking on it, I guess.

Thanks to all of you for reading, and for supporting me in all the ways you do. I’ll see you next time, with whatever next time brings.

Book cover photo credits: Welcomia, Monique Rodriguez, Nevena1987, jeremyiswild.