A website for ServiceScape, “a global marketplace for service-related commerce. An expansion of the freelance directory systems of EditAvenue and LanguageScape.” includes an automated writing prompt generator.
PG gave it a couple of tries:
“Billionaires (Romance)” produced the following:
You’re a woman fleeing an abusive marriage and you meet your husband’s billionaire boss. You fall in love and your husband learns the hard way that abusers don’t win.
PG next pressed “Gothic (Romance) and received the following as his first option:
During the Victorian era, a man has been falsely accused of murdering his neighbor. His wife, desperate to prove his innocence, conducts her own investigation into the crime. Venturing into the castle ruins where the murder took place, she finds both clues and assistance from the long-dead residents of the castle.
PG then clicked through to additional options for “Gothic (Romance)” and received this one:
You’ve worked years to get to where you are as hairstylist to the stars. It’s good work that pays well and lets you help your family back home with their financial struggles. Plus, you love to the work. The only downside is that the patrons of your salon aren’t exactly easy to talk to. Their priorities are so different! Vanity plagues their every move, and their cavalier attitudes drive you crazy. No one is worse than your weekly customer: a billionaire obsessed with his aging appearance. He’s handsome and you know from overhearing a dozen phone calls that he’s pretty charming, so you can’t quite understand why he’s so insecure over a few wrinkles. You tell him as much, and he’s surprised to learn that you find him attractive. He asks you out and, despite the age difference, you find yourself saying yes. Over time, you help him find the confidence he needs. You discover that you share much in common, and love grows.
Obviously PG doesn’t have the technical chops to use the Writing Prompt Generator properly or he needs to update his knowledge of Gothic Romance.
However, PG didn’t give up. He tweaked the response and generated an entirely new genre – Gothic Billionaire Romance.
Here is PG’s Gothic Billionaire Romance writing prompt:
You’ve worked years to get to where you are as hairstylist to the stars in Victorian London. It’s good work that pays well and lets you help your family back home in Wales with their financial struggles and squalor. The only downside is that the patrons of your salon aren’t exactly easy to talk to because you only speak Welsh.
Vanity plagues their every move, and their cavalier attitudes drive you crazy. No one is worse than your weekly customer: a billionaire Duke obsessed with his aging appearance. (Besides, he sends an ox cart to pick you up and bring you to his mostly-ruined castle and then to take you home. His oxen pass gas during the entire journey.)
The Duke is handsome and you know from overhearing him give orders to his servants that he’s unusually charming toward the lower classes, so you can’t quite understand why he’s so insecure over a few wrinkles and a gray goatee. His belly barely shows under his perfectly-tailored velvet waistcoat. You tell him as much, and he’s surprised to learn that you only speak Welsh.
Fortunately, one of his servants, a wrinkled old woman who looks like she might have been cast off by a billionaire a long time ago is from Wales. The Duke commands her presence and she waddles in, still dreaming of her long-lost billionaire Earl. You speak. The old woman speaks. The Earl speaks. The old woman speaks.
From the old woman, you learn that the Earl wants to ask you out and, despite the age difference and the way he occasionally passes gas, you find yourself saying yes.
Over time, you help him find the confidence he needs with the help of a perfumed handkerchief. You discover that you share much in common, and love grows.
Thanks much for the laughs, PG!