Non-threaded

Forums » Writing Workshop » Read Thread

Find proofreaders here, useful resources, and share opinions and advice on story crafting.

Writing Prompts #20

7 years ago

So I've been pretty underwhelmed by the response rate to these lately. If more people don't participate in this one, I'll probably stop running them. If there's a decent turnout, I'm thinking I'm still going to switch to a weekly schedule and see if that improves participation.

 

Rules:

0. Anyone can participate, not just the tagged people. If you participate or at least express interest, I'll start tagging you. Ask me if you want to be removed from the list.

1. Pick one of the prompts and write about it for no more than 20 minutes. You can write for longer if you want, but only words written during the 20 minutes count towards your total, so mark where you ran out of time.

2. You will be graded on wordcount and overall coherence. You will not be graded on quality, so write as fast as you can while still producing something that makes sense and would be salvageable with cleanup. It doesn't have to have an ending or form a complete story, but it should at least read like an excerpt from a longer work.

3. When you're done, post your wordcount. Posting your story is optional. We understand it will be terrible.

4. You may go back and work on previous days if you missed them.

5. You may write fanfiction if your heart desires.

 

Prompt #1: The world is ending in fifteen minutes, and everyone knows it.

Prompt #2: A thousand years after the apocalypse, a relic from before the war is uncovered that will change the lives of the survivors forever.

 

@WouldntItBeNice @Steve24833 @JJJ-thebanisher @Seto @bbshark @Bucky @mizal @FrankIevatus @TheNewIAP @Romulus @TacocaT @Crescentstar @Mayana @Zulutrader @MasonJarGuzzi @Ogre11 @malkalack @Charaxes @eshspoyeofdoom @RoyalGhost_007 @StillWatersRunDeep

Writing Prompts #20

7 years ago
532 words. I'm actually getting better! Or maybe not.

Writing Prompts #20

7 years ago
I'm up for a weekly prompt. I also like the pictures.

Writing Prompts #20

7 years ago

I like them too, but I couldn't find a good one today.

Writing Prompts #20

7 years ago

700

Drake sat in a rotting armchair, gazing out at the city around him. A few spare few skyscrapers stood above the sparse, dead lands. This was the wage of man's greed. Drake grabbed his flask, uncapping it and taking a long gulp of the precious, burning liquid held within. Moonshine was hard to come by in a time like this. The only factions capable of producing it were the Red Star, the larger bandit camps, the caravan wagons which were becoming rarer and rarer as the former two factions grew, as well a scarce few Nomads who brewed what they could for trading.

Drake looked at the scarce wastelands around him, and sighed, just as his watch bleeped. He grabbed his rifle, standing. Drake stared down at the streets several floors below him, a dark and dreary place. He pulled up his balaclava to cover his mouth, before climbing down to the streets. He had a mission to do.

Drake walked along the broken streets, staring around quickly for enemies. Whilst bandits rarely ventured this far into the city and Red Star was fairly far away, the mutants were about. Poor, wretched forms mutated badly by their sin. He glanced around, seeing a few shapes moving around. A tumor-riddled mutant with pink skin ran across the street with an excited gasp, and Drake raised his rifle, before the mutant disappeared into the wreckage of an ancient temple of sin. Drake swore, and sped up to a jog. That one was too weak to strike, but he'd alert the others. Whilst early on the cities were dens of chaos as mutants tore each other apart. Now, however, the mutants had made alliances, fallen into a sick mockery of order as they subverted God's natural order of things to create a race of monsters. The strong helped feed the weak, the mutant dogs helped their masters hunt, they struck as an army. The mutant terrors couldn't be underestimated.

Drake broke into a light run, watching the buildings. He heard a howl from the mutants and felt truly scared, grabbing at the rosary tied around his gun stock.

"Please, Father almighty, prot...!" he muttered.

He didn't even need to answer the prayer for God to answer. A half dozen men emerged from a destroyed building, wielding a mishmash of firearms. They opened fire, taking out a large, hulking mutant covered in a layer of misshapen bone. 

"Drake," the leader, Father Clement, said.

Drake and Father Clement embraced, hugging tightly. 

"The Ark is being transported now. We need to go," Father Clement said. "We open that, we bring back the life to this planet, get rid of the sin, the mutants, the wicked, and create a new life!"

"Amen!" the men shouted in response.

"Let's get out of here, then," Father Clement said.

The group quickly begun to make their way towards the long highway. After about half an hour of jogging, Drake reached the long stretch of tarmac. An old man and a young boy waited there, by a pile-up of destroyed cars. The cars had been pushed to the side to make way for Red Star supply lines, but they acted as perfect cover around the streets.

"Father," the old man said, pressing his forehead against the elderly leader. "James is ready."

The boy nodded, as Father Clement dropped to his knee.

"Boy, look at me. Here's what I need of you. Wait on the road until the trucks stop. Then when you hear gunfire, run. Get something safe. Understood?"

The boy nodded, as Father Clement hugged him. The group then quickly prepared the ambush. Drake found himself waiting behind a melted van, the rifle held tightly in his hands. He watched as the convoy, a mismatch of tracked and wheeled vehicles made from scrap approached, each emblazoned with a red star on the front. The boy, James, sat in the road, his clothes torn, weeping loudly. Drake took a deep breath, as the vehicles neared. They began to slow down, before stopping just in front of the boy. A woman climbed out, wearing a black shawl and holding a shotgun in her hands. 

"Boy!" she shouted. "What happened to you?"

James continued to cry.

"Ma'am! We need to go!" one of the drivers yelled. 

"We're not..." the commander said, before a gunshot went off.

The commander stood there, as a bullet tore out her throat. Drake raised his rifle and fired, hitting one of the gunners atop the truck. Instantly, chaos erupted. Gunfire erupted as bullets flew across the sky. James ran, ducking behind a rusted car and thankfully escaping the gunfire. 

"Drake! Carmine! Get to the Ark! Middle truck!"

Drake nodded, rising his head up. He moved along the wall of destroyed cars, to the opposite side of the caravan to where the others were fighting from. He moved forward, sprinting towards the middle truck, as did another brother. He grabbed the rear truck door as Carmine arrived, pulling it open. A pair of Red Star soldiers appeared brandishing pistols, as Carmine shot one through the chest. Carmine collapsed against the ground as a bullet blew out the back of his head, before Drake pressed the rifle against the second soldier's head and fired. He grabbed the truck, climbing into it as he heard the gunfire going on outside. Drake walked up to the massive metal container. It was blank, other than a single circle with three black and yellow strips on it. Drake heard the gunfire outside, as he began working on opening it. It took only a minute of fiddling with the various seals before a display appeared, showing four zeroes. A large, red button blinked behind a glass shield. He pulled it up, before pressing on the button.

Drake basked in the white light.

Writing Prompts #20

7 years ago
One thousand years after the Apocalypse, a relic from before the war was uncovered. This relic will change the lives of the survivors forever.

999 years after the Apocalypse...

"Lower yourself more!"
"Stop dozing off into space!"
"Spread yourself out closer to the ground. You're standing like a beanpole."
Everyday, Madia was drilled with endless hand-to-hand combat techniques, most she already knew. The only reason she continues to practice with Instructor Fera was because she wanted to keep her skills sharp. Madia has already advanced to the most advanced levels of martial arts, and if she were to begin spells next year, she needed to stay keen and fit.

1 year later...

They found a Star Shard, one of the most ancient pieces of the Heaven's Temple. It was said to contain the magic needed to banish the demons back to hell, but the first thing that the demons did when they escaped was destroy the Star Piece, which had shattered into thousands of pieces.
"Why can't I get this right?!" Madia growled at nobody in particular.
"Have you forgotten all your training last year? If you can't get this right, then you can't be trusted with the Shard," Instructor Fera reprimanded.

Words: 202 feelsbadman. Sorry, but my brain's been fried.

Writing Prompts #20

7 years ago

There's been some great prompts this past couple weeks, I've just been having a hard time focusing on any kind of writing, and have have very little time in front of a computer. Some of the ones I missed I'm planning to revisit since they did give me ideas.

First time I saw what Steve did with this one. I'm always impressed when people manage complete stories with these. (Note: Steves aren't people.)
 

Writing Prompts #20

7 years ago

323 words

"Amari! Come! Look at this!" Josu yelled, scrambling over the broken remains of what historians say was York New City. He was huffing, having troubles carrying his weight over the ruins. Technically they weren't supposed to be here. Technically they were supposed to be underground still. But the investigators and the explorers said that the surface was on the verge of being livable again, and that the poisonous magic that'd chased them underground in the first place was fading away. And they were tired of the same sights and the same tight and condensed tunnels. 
The sky was unnerving though. What was to stop them from just falling off the earth? They said the earth was round. So what if they stumble to the side of it and slipped off? They didn't like thinking about it, and carried around these things called umbrellas to block out the sky. Out of sight, out of mind. The historians said they were used to keep water falling from the sky off the people. Neither of them believed that happened though. How would it fall from the sky? And why would the people want it off them? Were it Josu and Amari there, they'd be trying to collect as much of it as possible. 
Josu picked up a skull. It was the shape of a human skull. 
And it had the beginning nubs of the horns of a warlord, the race of brute beasts that historians said fell from the sky too and wielded magic, something the world never had before. 
There were halfbreeds. 
Things clicked in their head.
They didn't win the war and barely survive it.
The warlords had decimated their population, and had their own half bred children masquerading as human.
That explained how there was light for a thousand years.
Explained how there was plentiful food.
Constantly clean water.
People going missing.
They weren't survivors.
They were penned livestock waiting to be slaughtered.