So I have this story...

So I have this story premise that has been plaguing my thoughts and haunting my dreams. I know I don't have the writing capability to bring it to life, however I would like to share what I have for it. The story was inspired by the song 'The Preacher - By Jamie N Commons' along with a comment I saw posted there years ago.

"The story takes place in a small town, with a man in his late thirties coming to town to be the new priest. The town had gone through some changes in the past couple years and the people where unsettled. It started with the death of their sheriff from a strange illness, murmurs of war, worsening crop yield, then finally the death of the old priest. Having lost two of the main pillars of their small town has left the town lost and on edge.

So when the replacement priest arrived to the town they clung to him in these uncertain times raising him up as the pillar of the town. The new priest had some quirks and a troubled past, nothing the townsfolk weren't willing to look past. He may be a little strange but his heart was always in the right place, frequently giving meals to those that might not have their own, even delivered meals to the widow and daughter of the old sheriff.

The priest and the widow were drawn to each other, having several flings over the months he had been to town. They kept their growing relationship a secret from the town, knowing the stigma and superstition around a widowed woman. Their relationship grew close, however there seemed to be something stopping the woman from fully falling in love with the priest, a secret perhaps? Wondered the priest.

He had shared a bit of his troubled past with the woman as they grew close, he was willing to jump head first into their life together. After a year from when their relationship started the priest wanted to propose to the woman, while the trysts they shared have been amazing. The priest wanted something permanent he had spent much of his early life wandering and he had finally found a place he could call home.

After an evening service the two lovers find themselves alone in the church. The priest proposes and the woman cries, she wants to say yes, but the secret she kept in her heart is a steady reminder that she isn't worthy of such a mans love.

She doesn't say yes, but she also doesn't say no. instead through sobs she says to give her time. Drying her eyes she quickly cleans herself up before heading home to her daughter. The priest could see the conflict in the woman, the way her eyes lit up in joy as a smile spread across her face, before a flicker of doubt and unease spread consuming her lithe frame.

Days pass in unease for the priest, waiting for her to come to a decision, praying for her to say yes. Then one day she stops by with resolve filling her gaze, she motions to the confession booths where they have previously had their secret chats.

Entering the booths the sit in silence for a couple minutes, before she parts her lips letting her secret be known to God and more importantly him. She had poisoned her previous husband, she is the reason for his death.

Ask anybody in town about her previous husband and they will tell you he was a great man, great sheriff, and dearly missed by them all. However what his wife has to say about him is much different then the stories the priest had heard around town.

The previous sheriff, was a cruel man. He would beat her, demean her, and tell her she was worthless in private. It was fine she said, she could take it. She knew that as bad as it was living with him, her fate could and most likely would have been much worse if she tried to take her daughter and skip town.

She would hide her husbands abuse from the town, putting on a cheerful face. Her daughter at the time was to young to remember and when she grew older she made sure her fathers abuse stayed away from her innocent gaze. Her daughter very much loves her father even to this day, her attempts at shielding her daughters eyes from the kind of man her father truly was proved to be successful or so she thought.

The man's attention had long ago shifted to his daughter and it wasn't the physical abuse that was directed at the girl either. One night she found him in their daughters room, her body froze, her blood ran cold, felt like ice in her veins, a glacier in her heart, yet her mind was on fire.

Thoughts swirling in her head, her mind racing. She probably stood by the door for minutes, before she eventually she quietly slipped back into her bed. She had fought an immense internal battle in that doorway, she thought of the years of abuse she suffered all for her daughter. She could have tried taking her daughter then but she knew their fates would be worse outside of the town.

However here, the worse has come to her doorstep. Yet the same problems remain, she can't take her daughter and flee, she can't tell the town about her husband they would never believe her word over their trusted town sheriff. She has to kill her husband, she came to realize.

So she set out to enact her plan poisoning her husband bit by bit making it look like an illness, she didn't want anybody to guess it was her, she wanted his death to seem like a strange illness to the rest of the townsfolk.

She played the worried wife part, as she visited the town clinic. Smearing the poison on her hands moments after letting her daughter free from her grasp, as she ran to her father. While their daughter was grabbing his attention she held her husbands hand, he probably thought her hand was clammy from holding their daughters all the way here, not knowing the truth.

His condition worsened over time leaving him bedridden, till the town doctor told her that he probably only had a few days left. On the day he died she was there, in his last moments she had filled her mouth with the poison offering her husband one last kiss as she forced him to swallow the liquid down his throat.

When she finished, she could see the shock in his eyes, she brought her lips close to his ears and whispered just two words to the dying man, 'I Know'. Finally the man had died, she was free, her daughter was safe. However she couldn't stop yet she had one more part to play the grieving widow.

It was surprisingly easy for her to play the part, over her months of poisoning her husband, along with her last action she partially poisoned her self. The sickness racked her body hard after he died, giving the town the image of a woman so heartbroken she fell ill.

Silence hung in the confession booth as the woman's story came to an end, the priest emotions have changed several times during the duration of her story. He can feel the weight of her sins enveloping his body, the weight of them has left her body granting her a moment of lightness as they transferred to him.

She may feel lightened now that the weight has been lifted from her, but replacing the heavy weight is a slightly smaller one. It's the worry and doubt about how the priest will take this information, not only as a servant of god but as the man she loves.

The priest sits in silence feeling the heavy weight of sin on his body. He had asked her hand in marriage just days prior and she had left him waiting for an answer. Now she has bared her past, her sins, her world to him and now she is left waiting for his answer. Could he still accept her love and take her hand in marriage or would this sin be something he couldn't bear.

While pondering this question the priest is reminded of a folklore from his travels, the story prompts him to open his mouth, breaking the silence as the woman waited patiently for his next words in tribulation.

His words where unexpected for the woman as he mentioned one of his travels where he came across the story of Sin-eaters, those who ate the sins of the deceased before burial. Their act of eating thus absolving the soul of the person. Sin-eaters, as a consequence, carried the sins of all people whose sins they had eaten; they were usually feared and shunned.

After years of being feared and shunned those Sin-eaters decided they would no longer offer their services to the deceased but rather they would take on the role of priests. They would absolve sins of the living through confession instead. No longer would they be shunned for their ability and their association with death, instead they became pillars of their communities and well loved priests.

I will eat your sins, the priest said. He accepted the woman's sins, absolving her and carrying it's weight in her place. The sin would no longer weigh her down, as with the weight gone she could allow her self to love him whole heartily.

He had accepted her and she had accepted him, they had agreed to marry and the marriage was announced to the town. However to the townsfolk when the marriage was announced they saw it as an affront to nature, and they grew restless. The townsfolk believed that the problems the town had been facing could be traced back to the sheriffs death.

So when the new priest was announcing his marriage to the widow of the sheriff, they couldn't see it as more then a bad omen. They tried to dissuade the priest as best as they could, but change his mind they can't. The townsfolk are on edge as the the marriage date draws closer.

Worry has clouded their minds, a small issue or rumor being inflated to be much larger then it truly is. But the town doesn't see it that way, no to them these are signs of worse things to come. The marriage between the priest and the widow couldn't be allowed to take place.

They couldn't allow the man who came to save their souls be corrupted by the woman and her daughter. They were nothing but temptations for the priest, a trap from the devil to ruin the priest. the priest was to lost in the devils trap to see it, he need them to help break the spell they has him under.

The night before the marriage, the priest sadly found his chapel nearly empty, but it wasn't for the reason he thought. A huge mob surrounded the hovel of the mother and daughter, blocked the doors, and set the place ablaze. The minister had saved the villagers' souls, they just wanted to return the favor.

When news of the fire reach his ears he sprinted to their house, when he got their he saw the mob surrounding the place, just watching as the woman and her daughters screams echoed in the nights air. springing into action he grabs a wood cutters axe and breaks down the front door, his actions sent fire spilling out burning his arms and forcing him back.

Moments after being forced back by the flames, the building collapses, the screams of the mother and daughter have stopped, ringing in the night no longer. Looking at the fire still raging in front of him on the collapsed building the priest is overcome with sadness and grief. What happened on the night before his wedding how did this happen, the priest wondered.

Oh but he wouldn't have his questions remain unanswered for long as the mob that gathered around the house is all to quick to explain just what they have done. They broke him free of the spell the woman and daughter had cast on him, they had saved his soul from the devil, like he had done for them, there was no need to feel grateful for what they had done for him.

Hearing the words of the mob, the priest is frozen in disbelief before something just snaps in him. Rage has consumed him, gripping tight on the axe in hand he swings it as the closes person in the mob. He is able to attack three members of the mob before he is quickly restrained to the ground.

The priest is thrown into the towns jail cell by the unruly mob and the towns new sheriff. The priest in his rage had killed the first man and injured two more. Over the following days many of the townsfolk had visited the priest in his cell. Some had come with rage after having the priest attack them, question how he could turn on them after they tried to help him.

Others had come hoping to open his eyes to the devils ways and that the woman and her daughter were but pawns in his plan for the fall of the priest. How they couldn't let him fall to the devils scheme and that what they did was for him to come to his senses.

The priest sits in silence during there talks never offering a word, however their words do make the priest realize something. In all their stories they all say they did it for him and how he should be grateful for what they did for him.

He just wanted to marry the woman he loved. He was the one who asked for marriage who wanted the town to celebrate and be happy with him. They could have continued their secret love without ever marrying or announcing it to the town, this wouldn't have happened if he wasn't so greedy. Was her hand in marriage really worth this outcome.

Grief plaguing his troubled mind he couldn't bear listening to the townsfolks words, their confessions, their sins. They didn't deserve absolution, they didn't deserve for him to eat their sins. So, the priest takes a his cutlery and jams them into his ears. No longer would he hear their sins, no longer would he hear anything at all.

A week goes by and the priest was brought to the town square where a gallows was raised just for him, the town under the lead of the new sheriff was hanging him for his crimes. The town gathered around to watch the old priest meet his end. They had found a new pillar to lean on in the sheriff and no longer needed the priest it seemed.

The priest could see the mouths of the mob moving as he was prepared for his hanging, he couldn't hear the words he guessed would be curses from the unruly crowd. Instead with his newfound silence he was pondering about the old folklore he had told his betrothed when she laid her secrets bare.

The Sin-eaters carry all the sins they have eaten with them throughout their life, but what happens to the sins they carry after they die. Do they advance to heaven with the Sin-eaters own sins, to be cleansed and truly forgiven? Or if the Sin-eaters own sins are too heavy do they travel to hell with him to be displayed to the devil.

If they truly fall to hell with him the devil better be ready to make a deal, there are a few I'm making sure go to heaven no matter what, the priest muses, as the noose is placed around his neck and the floor drops from underneath him.

That day the town had hung a priest for the crimes he committed without paying for their own, the Sin-eater had refused to eat their sins and grant absolution to them, instead choosing to deafen himself and meet his end in silence."

Now usually this is where it ends but the final thoughts of the priest wondering where the sins he eats goes after his death, got me thinking about the 1998 TV show 'Brimstone' about a dead cop, sentenced to Hell, who is returned to Earth by the Devil to recover 113 escaped evil spirits.

What if one of the spirts released/escaped is the deaf priest. Was he able to make a deal with the devil? If so what was its terms. How has his time in hell changed him, did he really escape or did the devil expel him out, hiding him in the escaped convicts for a much bigger plan. What is the truth of the folklore of the Sin-eaters, just ritual and superstition or a much more important thing forgotten to time and history.

If anybody has made it this far what are your thoughts about this story. I know it is more story then sexual stuff, which is not really the focus of this site. However I would love anybody's feedback to the premise.

 

Skill (of any kind) is not really skill. It is practice.

(Source)

Given the length and level of detail of your synopsis, I'd say you've already taken the first step on the writer path. Go forth and draft!

One piece of criticism: sex does not appear to be a focus of this story. That's fine, obviously but it means that CHYOA may not be the best place to publish it.