Triple Down

The analytics were disappointing again for Zahntastic’s last chapter. It seemed like such a fun idea when she started! A logical combination of popular themes with a playful element. A tooth fairy mafia romance! Maybe Inkitt was dealing with some kind of glitch and it wasn’t reflecting the numbers properly? Maybe she was reading the charts wrong? Maybe she just wasn’t hitting the right notes to maintain engagement.

She sighed, closed the browser, and returned to the word processor to skim the story so far. It started with a biker gang knocking some guy’s teeth out and trading them to the fairies for a cut of the denture profits and some fairy dust - if that didn’t snag a reader’s attention what would?! The tooth racket was just so perfect! Bribe the bikers, extort the dentists, pretend to be nice to kids.

The next chapter introduced the Queen, a ruthless but beautiful fairy who ran the mafia with no mercy. They ran a profitable racket with a chain of arcades for money laundering. They sold cheap candy and sodas to guarantee the kids lose teeth faster while having access to all the quarters they’d ever need, giving kids a tiny refund for each tooth.

Since powdered teeth were part of the recipe for fairy dust it was worth the trouble. The dust could be used in any number of spells or as an intoxicant. It for perfectly into the theme!

Then the Queen saw a toothpaste commercial and fell in love with the lead actor’s perfect smile. She immediately sent her most loyal people to kidnap him. There would be some personality clashes, of course, but that drama would be amazing! The Queen was a strong woman who knows what she wants and the actor is an egomaniac who just wants to be famous and loved by all. He’d have to give up on his dreams if he went with her plans since the Queen is all about keeping things quiet and he’d basically be in hiding with her. It’s a Mafia type story, after all. They can’t go around announcing their shady business or it would ruin everything.

In the third chapter the Queen did everything she could to shower him with gifts but as good as he looked in the luxurious silk clothes, the crown made of gold crowns harvested from teeth that marked him as the favored concubine freaked him out. He kept refusing food since it was the only leverage he had while he begged for freedom.

She was barely halfway through the next chapter where the Queen would successfully convince him to eat and consider the benefits of staying but the words weren’t flowing right. As much as she wanted to get to the spicy part, their conversations felt kind of stilted. Maybe the characters just needed a little more time to build depth? Would the readers have patience for that? As it was if she shoehorned in a sex scene this early the Queen would be closer to ‘molester’ than ‘seductress’ and that’s not what her usual audience was interested in.

Maybe she should make the actor a werewolf? That might bring in a wider reader base… but that genre was pretty saturated already.

Zahntastic was still staring at the end of the last paragraph and trying to figure out how to approach the problem when a notification popped up. A comment on the last chapter!

She eagerly pulled up the comment and felt a burst of excitement as she read.

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*Bennett_15

Hi Zahntastic, I just finished reading your story The Tooth Fairy Queen’s Consort and I loved it so much. Your writing is amazing, and I kept thinking how cool it would look as a comic. I really loved the opening scene where the Queen gave her love a fancy golden crown. The imagery of the fairies supporting their love by locking the doors is so vivid. I also loved the moment when the queen used fairy dust to calm her guest down. I’m a commissioned artist and I’d love to draw your story into a comic or manga. No pressure though, I just think your work would look awesome in comic form. You can check out some of my recent work on my DeviantArt under the username Ev3Spam. If you’re interested, please message me on Discord at bennett_troll so we can bring the story to life visually. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Regards, Bennett*

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It was a kinda weird way to look at what happened but still really flattering and she loved the idea of adding a visual element. After a look at the DeviantArt page, she pulled up Discord and sent a message request with her mind full of ideas on how to make an epic comic out of the story and maybe get some ideas on how to overcome the problems through conversation.