Playing It Safe: A Playing it Cool Fanfic

Motivations

Have you ever noticed how when you love something you can easily not think about it, but when you hate it it just fills your mind all the time?

I was repelled by her. Everything about her life was just repellent to me. Yet I couldn't stop thinking about her. I kept doing the things that I knew would put me in contact with her. I still sat out waiting for her to leave in the morning. I started bringing out coffee for her too. I'd make it in a travel mug. She'd grab it as she walked past, usually ruffling my hair as she went. She'd leave the washed mug on my fence when she got home from work.

Her kids. Where do I even start. I called them devil spawn before. If their father wasn't actually Lucifer ruler of Hell, lord of the underworld, I will eat my fucking hat. They were four fucking years old and they terrified me. They would stand holding hands and just stare at me while they sang songs in monotone. I don't know where they fucking heard it, maybe she taught it to them to mess with me, but they sang that nursery rhyme from Nightmare on Elm Street. All. The. Fucking. Time. You know the one. 'One, two, Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, you better lock the door.' You get the idea. When they were done, they'd run off back inside giggling. No wonder she smoked pot at night.

In the morning, just before she was ready to take them to day care, they'd come out and talk to me. It would start of innocent enough. For example:

Thing one: What do you do at day time?

Me: I write stories.

Thing two: What kind of stowies? Like faiwy stowies?

Me: More grown up stories.

Thing one and two: Maybe you can tell us stowies when you dead and a ghost.

Basically, they were creepy as hell is what I'm getting at here.

Work stuff was weird. I had a publishing company interested in 'A World Without' but they sent back feedback.

'We are excited for the opportunity to work with such a potentially brilliant up, and coming author. Especially one with their names on such popular screenplays as 'The Murder Games' and 'Total Annihilation'.

Regarding the purchase of 'A World Without' this publication house is very interested, however there is one brief issue we have with the manuscript. For a story solely centered around the concept of love, there is a serious lack of female characters. Besides the romantic interest there is only one to be found in the entire document, and she falls into the trope of 'bitter, cynical female friend'. The fact she also was in love with main protagonist was troublesome.

If you could include more female characters, perhaps some who aren't in love with main protagonist, we would be happy to go into contracts with you.'

So that was a thing. How could I not have included more than two female characters? I'm with women more than I am with men these days. Sure I don't talk to any of them much, but surely I would have included more than two.

I spent a week reading over the manuscript. Pawing over every single word I'd written. They were right. No women. Just 'Love Interest' and 'Cynical Friend'. What the hell was wrong with me?

The problem was, I wasn't sure how to change it. How do you write female characters? I know how to pick which women to hit on for an 80% likelihood of getting laid. I knew what to say to these women to get them to put out. Aside from that, what do women think about? What do they do?

Another thing to blame my mother for I guess.

I started asking the women I picked up about their motivation. I mean I wasn't an idiot, I'd ask afterwe did the deed. I'd ask them why they decided to come home with me. What did they think about on an average day? Where did they see their life going?