The Writing Battle

I found a new writing competition called The Writing Battle. It was much more affordable to enter than NYC Midnight, and also had an interesting concept the more I read about it. There’s still a set of prompts to write to and a time limit, but the similarities pretty much end there.

The prompts are genre, character, object. And we had about three days to write. Where NYC Midnight sends you the set prompts, the Writing Battle lets you try your luck on a redraw. NYC Midnight has all the broad genres – comedy, drama, mystery, horror, etc. Writing Battle had four specific genres. You could redraw your genre once. And you had six redraws for the character and object combined.

I debated entering, because the writing period was going to be while we were vacationing in Disney, but I thought I’d be able to squeeze some time out to write in the morning or evening. We went down to Disney World with another couple, and they were equally as supportive as my husband.

When I got the email, it listed the four genres: Culinary Disaster, Enemies to Lovers, Buddy Cop, and False Utopia. I hoped for Enemies to Lovers or Culinary Disaster, because I thought with the 1000 word limit, those would be the easiest. I didn’t want Buddy Cop – I don’t enjoy movies/books about it. And I definitely didn’t want False Utopia, because that, to me, is the most challenging. How do you world build in 1000 words?

My first draw was Buddy Cop/Widow/Ladder. As stated, I didn’t want Buddy Cop. The other two prompts weren’t as important, but the genre sucked for me. Thankfully, during a snack stop at Hollywood Studios, our friends – particularly Chad – started brainstorming ideas.

His initial idea involved a spider on the ladder helping a police officer and kind of snowballed from there. I didn’t want to do exactly that, but the idea kind of stuck in my head and morphed…eventually…into the story below. So thanks Chad!

I debated on the redraw for the genre. I could only draw once, and I was so worried about getting the False Utopia that I decided NOT to redraw and stick with Buddy Cop. I did redraw the other prompts, ending up with Magician and Cloak as my final two prompts.

The rest of the battle was interesting. Once you submit stories, every few days the participants in the battle receive two stories to read in another genre. We are supposed to read and give feedback, then pick the story we thought was the best. We do a total of five battles, reading ten stories.

That part was difficult. The first two pairs of stories I got were…awful. Not gonna lie, I had a hard time finding ANYTHING positive to say about them. The third pair was mediocre. The last two pairs, however, were fabulous.

When results came out, I found out my story ‘won’ five battles and ‘lost’ five battles. I fell in the middle and was nowhere near advancing to the final judging round (professional judges). Ah well, I tried. I thought my story was…good. Matt and our friends loved it, and I did get a lot of great feedback from my fellow competitors. So, I count that as a win.

So, enjoy…here’s my Writing Battle entry…a Buddy Cop story featuring a Magician and a Cloak.

We Make a Good Team

My partner is dense.  Don’t get me wrong.  He’s a great cop.  Anyone would be proud to partner with him.  Deadly accurate with his gun.  Have you ever seen movies where the bad guy is holding a hostage in front of them, and the good guy shoots them in the forehead saving the day?  My partner’s accuracy is better than that.  It’s a little scary.

He overlooks things sometimes, but that is what makes us a great team.  I don’t overlook anything.  I have a nose for sniffing out the most obscure clues and, since we’re in tune with each other now, my partner trusts me for that side of investigations.

This is not to say that everything is wine and roses between him and me.  We’re a great team, but there’s also arguments.  Inevitably I win them, but he is stubborn.  Until he remembers that I’m the smartest of the two of us and that he can trust me completely.

Another problem is that you can tell he’s a cop, even in plain clothes.  There’s a certain way cops carry themselves that sets them apart.  I can’t train it out of him, no matter what I do.  Fortunately, that’s where I excel.  I can blend in with any crowd.  No one notices me once I slip off my bulletproof vest.  Even if I’m noticed, I’m usually welcomed because I don’t look like a cop.  No one ever suspects me.

I’ve infiltrated some pretty heavy-duty gangs, drug pins, mafia rings – you name it.  I’ve even slept in the beds of mafia wives, daughters, and sons.  The things I do to bring criminals to justice.  

I’ll gather evidence, usually by way of a body cam/audio recorder I wear that is remotely powered by my partner so I don’t rouse suspicion.  We’ve brought down many high-profile crime syndicates and that’s a good notch to have in my belt.  I have a good life, a good job, and I love that I can make a difference.

The biggest bonus is the stories I have!

There was this one drug ring we broke that was completely bonkers.  You wouldn’t suspect someone performing illusionary arts to be involved in high-level crime, but one thing I’ve learned about this job is that nothing is surprising.  When Chief gave us the lowdown on the case, it made my ears twitch.  They suspected one of the major channels for drug trafficking was through a casino in Atlantic City.  That wasn’t the surprising part, though.  They believed it was being run through the performers at one of the most popular shows on the strip.

The casino itself was shady, like most of Atlantic City, but the variety act still drew a big crowd.  The suspicious part was that most of the crowd was young people.  Not the usual over-tanned and leathery-skinned old folks from Jersey with cigarette voices and dripping with gold.  Why would so many young people attend throwback variety shows in a shady venue on the notorious strip?

That’s where I came in.  I befriended a couple of the performers – a married duo that performed poorly as magicians.  He couldn’t do sleight of hand to save his life and she stood around with a painted-on smile and skimpy outfit pretending she cared about whatever he was doing.  Their tricks were half-assed and even I could see how they were done.  

They weren’t even subtle about doing something they shouldn’t have been, and when I sniffed out what it was, I honestly couldn’t believe this hadn’t been busted a long time ago.  Most idiots trafficking drugs handed packages to their dealers in closed-off rooms or warehouses, far from the prying eyes of authority.  These guys were doing it in plain sight on stage.

I get that the ‘magician’ should look the part, and he tried.  He always wore some sort of dog-eared-tunic-and-pants-from-a-Renaissance-costume-vault outfit that kind of gave off a mystical vibe, but it was the cloak he used that piqued my interest.  It was large and voluminous and certainly gave him that aura of either mystery or derangement.  It did not fit in with the rest of his get-up, so I knew he was hiding something.

It didn’t take me long to find drug packets in his cloak.  I’d moved in with the couple and while we were all sleeping together one night, I snuck out of bed and nosed around their stuff until I found it.  My partner saw it on my body cam and we arrested them the following evening during their performance.  The idiot was handing the packets to ‘volunteers’ he called up on stage to ‘help’ with tricks.  He’d slip the packages from his cloak pockets and either transfer them to the dealers or leave them in the disappearing box for the dealers to grab.  

It was so obvious it was pathetic.  My partner could see it from his spot in the back row where he awkwardly stood, nursing a drink and poorly acting the part of interested spectator.  We couldn’t figure out the purpose of the whole thing and we never learned, but that’s part of the gig, too.  Sometimes you just chalk it up to stupidity and leave it at that.

I was proud of my partner, though I had to give him some guff – fondly, of course.  A little roughhousing with him and soon we were rolling on the ground together, celebrating another successful takedown.  When I finally sat on my haunches and wagged my tail, sweeping the grass as he took off the collar with my body cam on it, he chuckled.   

“Good one today, Buddy,” he said in a voice full of fondness and affection and rubbing that sweet spot between my ears.  “The streets are safe once again because of you.”

It’s good to hear that kind of praise, of course, but I’m happier with the big steak dinner my partner gets me when we complete a case.