WANNA WRITE A STORY?

Hi there! Are you just dying to share your personal fattening fantasy with the rest of your fellow social malcontents? Are you tired of stories that don't quite fit the vision that you've mentally held and fondled all these years? Want to get the Real Thing out there for all to see? Then why not try your hand at writing your own Fanta-sizer Tale? It's fun, ever so cathartic, and while it may not impress those members of the Sex-You-Really-Like, you will be subject to the admiration of your peers. Provided you write a good story, of course.

With that in mind, the ever-helpful Weight Room drones have collected a few tips for all you would-be storywriters.

Tip # 1: Proofread - we're not just talking grammar here, but also ensuring that you've got all the right words and numbers in your story. Nuthin' confuses a reader, for instance, more than to read that a woman's gained a hundred pounds over the course of a year when you've actually meant a thousand pounds: it definitely undercuts all those descriptions of immobility that you've worked so hard to include in the latter part of your story.

On the grammar front, remember some basic rules.

Oh yes, and if you have a spell check feature on your word processing program, why not use it? If, by chance, some member of the Sex-You-Really-Like happens to read your story, how are you gonna convince 'em that you'll be diligent and attentive to their needs if you can't even muster up enough energy to click your spell checker?

Tip # 2: Observe - look at as many fat people as you can. It'll enhance your descriptive powers as a writer, and, besides, can you think of a better way to pass the time? If anyone approaches you upset over the fact that you've been ogling 'em for the last half hour in public, simply say that you're a writer and you're considering using 'em as the protagonist in a story. Who knows? It might even work!

Tip # 3: Don't forget the foreplay - as a Fanta-sizer, you may be eager to jump to the Good Stuff in your writing, but most stories require a degree of build-up. If it'll make things easier, start by writing the end of your story first then going back to the set-up. Some of the greatest works of literature in the Western World have been written inside out. (No, we’re not gonna say which ones - you'll just have to guess!) Work to insert some life-like information in your story: even the most out-there fantasy needs some small grounding.

Tip # 4: Listen - and remember that real people don't talk in multiple paragraph exposition. Unless they're a politician.

Tip # 5: Think visual - don't forget that you're writing for the web, so consider that big ol' monitor right in front of you. Nothing is more likely to induce glazed disinterest than text that doesn't take into the account the way it looks on a computer screen, that drones on and on without any consideration for the reader's eye (particularly those of us who are getting older and bi-focaled), featuring run-on sentences that include too many bits of information or story action for the reader to keep track of, particularly when you consider how short the average attention span of the average reader is in these days of quick-cut movies and ten-second sound bites and all the other detritus of the twenty-first century that we're all trying to escape in the first place with a simple fantasy about a woman who gains 476 pounds magically and instantaneously by accidentally ingesting a glass of seltzer mixed with pop rocks or a quasi-realistic story about another woman who gains an average of seventy-five pounds a week by eating more food than is humanly possible in one sitting - but, who cares, this is only fiction, right? - or yet another story about a sadist who is able to spontaneously make his fattened victims love the fact that they've been made mega-sized simply through the force of his oh-so-imposing personality, but - and let's not lose the point here - if your text is visually blocky, many of your readers won't even reach the good parts that we've already established you've spent a long time writing, and do you really want 'em to just skim over all that hard work?

White (or in this case: light purple) space increases readership.

That's it. Now all you need are a plot, some attractive characters and a good thesaurus with more than five synonyms for “fat.” When you're finished, why not send a copy of your story to The Weight Room? We promise to thoroughly mishandle it and get the pages out of order, post it with a humiliating childhood picture and then send a linking email out to every member of your family. Fame and fortune are just around the corner!

Send that story to:

Your Friends In the Weight Room.

And keep on fanta-sizing!

-Wilson Barbers -