The day my writing prompt flopped so hard I almost quit

It was a Tuesday at the library open mic night back in March. I read a prompt about a talking refrigerator that falls in love with a toaster. Nobody laughed, nobody clapped, just awkward silence for 10 seconds. My friend Dave said it felt like a bad sitcom pitch. Has anyone else had a prompt totally bomb in front of a live audience?

3 comments

3 Comments

thea_knight1d agoTop Commenter

Hold on, you said it was a Tuesday in March, but March of this year had the 12th on a Tuesday while March of last year had it on the 15th. My calendar's all messed up from work shifts, but I'm pretty sure open mic libraries usually schedule things for Thursdays or Fridays. Even if it was a Tuesday, a talking refrigerator falling for a toaster is a tough sell. Maybe the room was just dead that night, or people were still shook from someone's poem about their cat.

mark_nguyen951d ago

Whoa, I actually had a totally different take on this before. I used to think open mic nights were always a crap shoot no matter the day, but your calendar detective work kinda flipped a switch for me. If it really was a Tuesday, that explains a lot because nobody's brain is fully online for weird performance art on a Tuesday night. The whole talking fridge thing sounds like it could work, but maybe the timing was just off and the crowd was already checked out. You definitely got me reconsidering how much the day of the week actually matters for this stuff.

leeknight1d ago

Saw a blog post last week that said Tuesday open mics actually have 30% lower attendance on average than Thursday ones, so that tracks with what you found. The talking fridge thing might've landed better with a bigger crowd, but Tuesday night crowds are usually just the diehards and people who couldn't get out of working late. Plus that cat poem probably set the bar too high or too weird for anything else to follow it that night.