Cousin Stories

One spring day three cousins fell to talking. By the time they were finished, they had decided to each write a story about an island…

So began Cousin Stories. The second round I was invited, and it has grown from there. Each story has its own set of rules and a deadline, when we get together and share what we each have created.

Do you wish to join? Accept the challenge of writing your own story following the current rules, or enjoy the stories shared by the writers.

Come join the Cousin Stories.

Current Story

Bingo Card

Incorporate 5-10 of these in your story:

First Person Present Tense
“Haunted” Castle
Very Uncommon Phobia
Secret Message
Stranded on an Island
Sword Fight
Blind Villain
On-Page Death
Off-Page Death
Completed Story
Reluctant Allies
Dumb and Dumber
Something Talks that Shouldn’t
Reckless Driving
This Thing is Too Big
Found Family
Dancing
Magical Illness
Unethical Prison
Plot Point Never Explained
The Clever Fool
The Old Professor
Strange Creature/Monster
Romance

A further word of explanation: The plan is for those actually meeting together to each have a Bingo card with the following things on them, and every time one of these criteria is met, they can mark it off on their sheets, and see who ends up with a Bingo first.

That being said, I will take the opportunity here to make my opinion known: Don’t pick ‘Unexplained Plot Point’ on purpose, please! Those come up on their own quite naturally, just let it be marked as it occurs without effort. Please?

As always, keep it clean!

Due Date: End of 2025

Sharing

Did you want to write and share a Cousin Story of your own? A group of us get together on the due date to read our stories to each other. We would enjoy hearing yours as well.

I would also consider posting it on my website as one of the ‘examples’ if you were willing to share it that way. Pen names are welcome.

You can e-mail your story to octopencil.christensen@gmail.com.