Prompt-of-the-Week Club

[Deleted]

(If this is on the wrong board, I’m sorry! I wasn’t quite sure how to categorize this as it’s part club/group, part forum event, part game, but ultimately mostly about writing. Mods, please move it if you think another board is more appropriate.)

I was thinking of ways to flex my creative muscle, inject more spontaneity and improvisation into my writing, and give myself an occasional break from the slow, lumbering process of writing novels, and I thought maybe an ongoing group activity like this would be fun. This is actually based on a warm-up exercise my eighth-grade English teacher had us do every other week, and which I greatly enjoyed and still remember after all these years.

Here’s the idea:

- Every Monday, someone posts a prompt, ideally about a sentence long. It could be anything from a snippet of dialogue to a brief description of a scene, but the idea is to try to be vague enough so there’s plenty of room for individual interpretation, while still giving the writers an interesting spark of an idea to work off of. (For example, something like “It didn’t have to be this way” is too vague, while “Someone sitting on a park bench on a cloudy day feeding pigeons and thinking about their sister’s birthday cake” is too specific.)
- The writers then spend the week writing a piece inspired by the prompt. I don’t want to limit creativity by having a minimum or maximum word count, but considering you only have seven days, writers may want to consider constructing their submissions in the form of a short story. (However, if you find yourself absolutely engrossed in a submission and want to expand it past what you could write in seven days, go for it! It would be awesome if this activity became a wellspring of writing ideas for people.) Something like poetry or a screenplay is okay too, but I’d like to keep this exercise focused on actual writing, so maybe not things like comics or videos which incorporate writing in a non-text-based medium and generally take longer to produce than pure words anyway. It can be on any subject in any genre so long as it utilizes the prompt in some way (whether literally or not).
- The next Monday, everyone posts their work in this thread (either via the spoiler tag if it’s short enough, or with a link to the hosting site of their choice) and gives feedback on others’ work. I would ask that you keep all writing in line with the rules of the forum, or at least provide the thread with an edited version.
- Someone gives a new prompt and the cycle starts all over again. (How should we go about deciding who gives the prompt every week? Taking volunteers seems like the best bet since the number of participants probably won’t be the same from week to week, so maybe whoever wants to volunteer for the next week’s prompt should let me know ahead of time so we don’t get multiple people providing prompts on the same day?)
- Do whatever you want with your submissions! Finish them, forget about them, submit them to the NT if they’re Neopets-themed.

So that’s about the gist of it! What do you all think? Above all else I want this to be fun and not a source of pressure or stress for anybody. You can participate as frequently or infrequently as you want, write as much or as little as you want (it doesn’t even have to be finished by the end of the week), and most of all don’t be afraid to let your imagination run wild with the prompts.

So with that, let’s kick things off with this week’s prompt:

Seeing a spider in an alleyway.

Have fun!

[Bianca <3]

This sounds awesome! I don't know if I can participate for a few weeks (I'm taking my MCAT Aug 15 agh!) but this sounds like a great idea and I'm definitely interested for when I don't have to work/study.

[Deleted]

Bianca <3 - Thanks! I look forward to your participation in the future, and good luck with your MCAT!

[Breakingchains]

This seems like a great idea! I'll definitely give it a shot.

I'd be open to helping with writing prompts, too. I enjoy coming up with them but then I can never use my own. x3

[Deleted]

Breakingchains - Awesome! Well, if you want to volunteer for next week's prompt, or the prompt for any week after that, I guess you can go ahead and stake your claim in the thread. I doubt you'd have much competition for a while anyway.

[Ginz ❤]

This sounds like fun! =D I enjoy writing prompts that give the freedom to do as little or as much as you want with them. I'll try whipping something up.

[Deleted]

Aug 3, 2013 18:41:18 GMT -5 Ginz ❤ said:

This sounds like fun! =D I enjoy writing prompts that give the freedom to do as little or as much as you want with them. I'll try whipping something up.

Awesome, glad to have you on board! I look forward to seeing what you'll come up with!

[Breakingchains]

Huh. I had a short (flash-fiction short) piece finished for the Spider prompt but my computer seems to have eated it. ?_? I have no idea what happened there but I'll try to dig it back up.

Will this work for today's prompt?:
A character gets caught in a location he was trying to keep secret.

[Deleted]

Aug 5, 2013 10:37:22 GMT -5 Breakingchains said:

Huh. I had a short (flash-fiction short) piece finished for the Spider prompt but my computer seems to have eated it. ?_? I have no idea what happened there but I'll try to dig it back up.

Will this work for today's prompt?:
A character gets caught in a location he was trying to keep secret.

Aww man! D: I'm really sorry to hear that, I hope you can find it! If you explain the problem in a little more detail, I may be able to help. Did you accidentally save it in a different location or something?

And yeah, that's awesome! Thanks so much for providing the prompt this week! Haha, I already have an interesting germ of an idea for that one. This should be fun!

Here's my submission for last week's prompt (arachnophobes may not want to read it):

SPOILER: Click to show

The emptiness was calling for Sami to fill it.

She stared down the alleyway from the wind-buffeted edge of the sidewalk, teetering on her sneakers. Her long black hair reached tendrils out around her as if it was trying to snag passersby. Her cell phone would offer no answers no matter how many times she clicked the screen off and on.

Alleys interested her. They were the gaps between places, never really a place in themselves. They were voids, abysses populated only by dumpsters and stray litter and back doors to warmer and busier worlds.

So groceries could wait. Snapping with her tongue at the inside of her cheek, she stepped out of the world and into the in-between. The next street over was visible at the end, cars peeling past on the rain-slick asphalt, but in here it was just her and her thoughts.

She kicked gently at a pile of newspapers wondering if they would crinkle like fallen leaves, and suddenly there was a skittering and a clicking. A shadow passed over her. She looked up and saw an immense, bulbous black body hovering above, suspended by eight spindly arms that were clawed into the old brick buildings on either side of the alley. It was paused, waiting, and she waited too.

Slowly, one leg moving with unconscious precision after the other, it maneuvered in front of Sami and down, placing itself gingerly on the ground. Its head was larger than hers and positioned above her, staring down at her with multiple sets of enormous eyes like orbs of black glass. Its mandibles waved slowly in and out, tipped with wicked curved spines.

“Hello,” Sami said.

“Hello, child,” it returned in a voice that was squeaky chittering layered with deep velvet. “What brings you to my domain?” It raised itself up higher on its legs with the air of an empress.

“I wanted to see what was there,” Sami replied. Evidently alleys were interesting for good reason.

“Mmm.” The Spider lowered herself back down, seemingly satisfied with this answer. “Not many are as brave as you. Nor do many stop to see. So many of my daughters, they have slaughtered.”

“I don’t kill spiders,” Sami noted.

The Spider tilted her head slightly, looking as pleased as her expressionless face would allow. “That is good.” With a mandible-spreading sigh, she gathered together a bed of newspapers and lowered herself onto them, motioning for Sami to sit next to her. The girl did so, reclining on the grimy newsprint amongst a tangle of legs.

“It is lonely here,” the Spider sighed. “I send my daughters out into the world and so few return to visit. The prey I catch does not speak.”

Sami rested against the Spider’s abdomen, which was hard and cool and covered in fine, soft hair like down. “I’ll visit you,” she offered.

“I would like that,” the Spider replied.

They sat in silence for a while, Sami gently petting her.

“Would you like some lunch?” the Spider asked.

“I’m all set, thanks.”

It's fairly short but I didn't really have much else to say.

[Breakingchains]

Thank you, I found it. It turns out I was confused about which device I had it on. xD; (I almost always write on the one but this time I had to write on the other and soooo... yes. xD;)

So here's my two-days-late spider story. Warning for... wanton (and poorly-researched) violence against giant bugs?

SPOILER: Click to show

  Relle prepares. Breathing in the damp air and gazing up at her target, she lets the sounds of the city fade away. One stone wall is damp against her back as she braces herself with her feet against the second in front, then reaches up for a handhold. This gap between the city walls and the buildings is so narrow that, sometimes—with balance and skill—you can crawl up between them and reach a window. The highest windows lead in to the nicest apartments, which are owned by the richest residents, who are the least likely to notice or care when something sparkly goes missing—unlike the peasants, some of whom will kill you with their own hands to defend a copper piece.

  Unfortunately, Relle is not much for balance and skill (especially for a burglar). She promptly goes crashing down on her backside, then stifles a curse as she scrambles back to her feet in the narrow passage, feeling a nice bruise setting up where her knees just got acquainted with her neck. Instinctively she checks the street to make sure no one is watching her, then relaxes and sighs, staring up the gray wall. She can see intricate lacy curtains up above through the shut window, handmade and promising treasure within—if she can just reach…

  A soft pitter-patter sound comes from behind her, pausing around the corner. She takes it to be a rat and ignores it, bracing herself on the wall again. She makes it up a step, then two, gripping the wall behind her with her arms. Her legs begin to waver, and she falls again, grunting in pain as she collides with unforgiving cobblestone.

  The patter comes closer, just a few feet away now, and she flings her arm out in frustration without looking, trying to scare the source away. She’s rewarded as the sound recedes, and now she steels herself. This time she turns toward the street and reaches out, making an X with her body to hold herself up between the walls. This works better, stabilizing her as she scoots upward one limb at a time, scraping her skin. She goes up, up, finding handholds and using the friction of her weight, muscles clenched tight—knowing the drop beneath her is a little more dangerous with each step of the way.

  But a few minutes later, she has made it to the top. She grips the windowsill with both hands, still supporting herself by her legs, and peers in. The room is floral and full of plants, painted cheerful shades of green, with perfumes and jewelry littering a vanity and drawers left half-open. Probably the room of the master’s daughter, full of expensive little novelties, and Relle is already pricing items in her head. She carefully seizes the edge of the window with her fingertips, sore against the paint, and begins to work it open…

  Then something dark catches the edge of her vision, the same patter of clicking footsteps that she heard next to her below. She looks up.

  Then her breath catches in her throat and she sways, almost falling down between the walls. The creature’s body is about the size of a bobcat, brown and smooth, with far more long legs than is natural, each as thick as her wrist and clinging somehow to the vertical wall beside her. She’s seen them outside before, in the trees, been told not to look too closely and not to surprise them and not to get close to the webs—but now she’s less than two feet away from one, and her mind begins to race. If it was just a wild animal, lost inside the city walls somehow, she could frighten it off—but it’s wearing a glimmering green collar around its neck, inches from its huge sheathed fangs, and that’s what freaks her out. It’s a pet. It's not scared of humans, and that means it is [expletive] dangerous.

  At least, dangerous to Relle. Probably not to the little girl whose favorite color it's wearing, whose room it’s guarding. It waves its small forelegs eerily at her face, rearing up and exposing the jeweled collar. She considers her options—try to climb down, slowly, an inch at a time? Try to get inside and risk running into more? She takes a deep breath, never quite taking her eyes off it, then makes a decision…

  And frees her arm, seizing the side of the collar. With the same smooth motion, she kicks out with the opposite leg, passing so low above her hand she feels the wind of her own attack and slamming her foot directly into the side of its face.

  The crack of exoskeleton rings out through the alley. Relle screams as her body pitches forward, pivoting on two limbs, and she juts her leg outward again, then reaches to grab the windowsill. A splash hits her shirt, a warm sensation rushing to her arm. She hangs there, sure she’s going to fall, eyes squeezed shut.

  Then she opens them, looking down. A great brown body lies cracked and broken in the alley below. It takes her several seconds more to spot the head. She looks up at her clenched hand and sees the collar still there, pressing into her palm against the stone. It is broken and bloodstained… but the emeralds shine with fire.

  She smiles, and makes the trip to the ground. Hands shaking, she straightens her shirt and hair, never taking her eyes off the dead arachnid. She shoves the collar into her pocket, then takes one last look at the window before slipping back onto the street, trying her best to look natural amid the throng despite the blood on her shirt.

  That’s a good enough haul for today.

Campy and popcorn, but that was intentional. I picked a pretty evil MC, too, so this was fun. :B

I liked your spider's character, Squid. :3 I think it's interesting that we both ended up in speculative-fiction territory, too, but yours went closer to urban fantasy and mine went closer to traditional fantasy.

[Deleted]

Haha, that'd do it. ^^;

Yours was awesome! Relle was a very entertaining character to read about (climbing walls is so much harder than everyone else makes it look) and, I want a guard spider, it sounds adorable. xD (Note: I have a very terrible sense of what is adorable.)

Thanks! Maybe it's because I grew up on Charlotte's Web, Shelob, and the Spider in James and the Giant Peach but spiders have always seemed motherly to me. xD And I'm glad we both went the speculative-fiction route! I was really hoping that participants would take the prompts in imaginative directions.

I'm really excited to see what you have for next Monday! I went all-out and wrote mine on Monday afternoon, haha. I had a ton of fun with it.

By the way, who wants to give next week's prompt?

[Breakingchains]

*creeps in with tail between legs* Um, I tried to get something done this week, I really did. ; Real life happened and yeah. Sorry, I'm lame.

If you don't have a prompt for today already, Squid, I'll supply another. (And hopefully get something done for it this time. xD)

[Deleted]

Aww, that's okay! Don't worry about it. Real life is vastly more important. I'll go over my submission one last time and post it in a little bit.

For now, though, I'll be happy to supply this week's prompt:

A child discovers something new about its world.

[Deleted]

Okay, here's my submission for last week's prompt! It's super corny, but I'd been having a rough few days and needed to just write something to cheer myself up.

SPOILER: Click to show

Morh excused himself from the campfire, ripping off the last piece of meat from the bone with his orc-fanged mouth. The band had a successful hunt for dinner, and they’d just been paid for a job so there was more than enough to go around of marketplace luxuries like hard cheeses and sweet milks from the southern mountains. Times had been good lately.

“Oy, lazyhide!” one of his brod shouted to him in jest as Morh turned to leave. “Retiring early again tonight? Soon you’ll be spending all your time in the world of dreams instead of earning your keep!” Several of the orcs around the fire snickered.

“Agh, at least I get enough sleep to work in the morning, Iramick,” Morh lobbed back, flashing a smirk at the other orc. “Don’t think I didn’t see you yawning in that battle today!”

Iramick rolled her eyes, wrenching off another rib to gnaw on as the sights of the others turned her way mirthfully to watch her response. She was tall and muscular, her coarse grey hair cornrowed across her ash-dark scalp. “You must be going deaf, brodda! That was a battle cry the likes of which froze my opponents in fear!” Wielding the meat like a knife, she spun the bone and pointed it at Morh. “Or maybe you’re just sneaking off somewhere, eh?”

Morh froze, his pointed ears twitching slightly, not turning fully around to face her. He was glad his skin was the color of pond mud and the firelight couldn’t quite reach his emotions, because his yellow eyes bugged for a moment at her words and he could feel his heart skip a beat.

The orc woman laughed, tearing off a bite of flesh. “Like that would happen. There’s nowhere interesting to go, anyway.”

“Aye,” another orc spoke up, “but we’re less than a fortnight’s march from Caed Dhraos. Jobs for the taking, there.”

Much to Morh’s relief, the conversation suddenly swung away from himself and onto the subject of what the band would do once they reached the ancient city. The nice thing about being part of a mercenary division was never being unemployed, especially with all of the political unrest lately. Stealthily he slunk away into the trees, toward where the verks slept. In the moonlight their long, low-slung, humpbacked bodies looked like hillsides that undulated with each long breath.

Their spade-shaped ears all pricked up at his heavy-footed approach, but only a few of them raised a lazy eyelid to see who was coming. Contrary to popular human belief, verks were intuitive and docile when not in battle, and with their pack mentality they quickly learned how to distinguish the footfalls of orcs belonging to their band. One of them in particular eased itself to its hooved feet and lumbered over to Morh, sticking its cold porcine nose in his ear as its stubby, tufted tail waved in delight.

He laughed and petted its snout. “Ready for another ride, Tislitch? That’s a good girl,” he whispered as the verk whuffed past her short tusks and into his face, her breath smelling like she’d had a far more varied dinner than he. Morh gave her the rib bone to crunch on while he led her back to his tent, taking the long way around the fire. He had her wait outside while he ducked in and grabbed the leather sack that held his cut of the pay for the job they’d finished that day, and then he ran back out and swung himself onto her back just behind the jutting cliff of her shoulders. “Go,” he said, squeezing lightly on her ribs.

Tislitch broke into a trot, going at a steady pace until they were far enough away from the camp and Morh urged her into a run, the gold on his back only jangling slightly as he clutched clumps of her thick mane. The chill night wind blew his heavy silver hair away from his face as he used the stars to guide her across streams and down shadowed valleys, over heath-covered hills and past the remains of crumbled fortresses. The direct route would have been easier, but he couldn’t possibly be direct about this.

The moon was high in the sky when the verk and rider snaked down from a hillside and toward a mid-sized, but aging manor, with holes in the roof and vines rapidly overtaking the ancient stone. All of the windows were shuttered against the night, and a small flock of sheep rested serenely in a paddock nearby. Tislitch noticed them and began to turn toward them hungrily, and Morh had to sharply push her thick neck to keep her focused. He had come around the back of the house, where there was also a small garden plot growing various fruits and vegetables.

He left Tislitch in the trees and stole across the stunted grass toward the building, aiming for the stone porch below the kitchen door. A ridiculously giddy grin on his face, he crouched down to place the bag of gold there quietly.

“Oy, brodda.”

Morh’s stomach dropped and he turned to see Iramick standing just a few feet away, her arms crossed as she regarded him in amusement. She gave him a snaggletoothed grin as though she was proud of having caught him in the act. “What are you doing all the way here this late at night?”

The male frowned and marched up to her, sticking his large nose in her face irately. She was taller than him by a good few inches. “Did you follow me here?!”

Iramick laughed and patted his broad shoulder. “You are too easy to track, my friend. And you make so much noise when you move, you cannot hear anyone following you.” She clasped her arms behind her back and strutted around, craning her neck up at the manor. “Strange place for you to be, brodda. And a strange place to be leaving your gold. Is it for ghosts to guard?”

A candle flickering to life in a second-floor window seemed to put to rest the idea that this place was a haunted repository of some sort. Morh swallowed hard as a small silhouette popped up behind the windowsill, and then the light moved away and disappeared entirely. He shoved Iramick toward the trees. “We have to leave, now!”

“Heh, why? This just got more interesting,” Iramick insisted, grabbing his arm and twisting him around, leading him back to the porch. “I want to see what you’ve been doing.”

Slowly the kitchen door clicked open and a candle poked through, followed by a small, pale human girl with straw-colored hair. Her feet were bare and pigeon-toed and she wore an oversized, patched-up tunic as a nightgown. The girl’s wide blue eyes grew even wider as she regarded the two huge orcs standing nearby.

Morh was at a loss for words and he choked as he struggled to get out some kind of explanation, or at least something that would keep her from screaming. “Uh… these… that’s for you,” he finally said lamely, pointing to the leather bag at her feet. Speaking to humans was hard. It wasn’t really a social skill he’d ever found necessary in his line of work. Their clan leader handled all of their business, and Morh preferred to keep to himself, taking care of Tislitch, hunting, or training rather than frequenting marketplaces like some of his comrades.

The girl looked down at it curiously, her brows pinching. She bent over to take the strap but it was far too heavy for her to lift. Seeming even more confused, she crouched down and lifted the flap, her jaw dropping as the candlelight sent the gleam of gold dancing across her face.

Iramick snorted and jabbed Morh in the ribs. “Didn’t know you were such a softie, brodda.”

“Well, I…” He looked at her and scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t doing anything with the money. I won’t need new weapons or armor for a while yet.”

He was caught off guard by something wrapping around his middle and he looked down to see the girl squeezing him with her thin arms. “Thank you, sir…”

Iramick smirked, but Morh just stood there for an awkward moment in utter surprise. He’d never been hugged by a human before. Intimidation, disgust, and fear were the only emotions he was used to eliciting from them. Speechless, he slowly reached down and patted her gently, his large hand engulfing her head. “Give that money to the matron,” he instructed her softly. “I think you could do with some new clothes. The weather’s going to be getting colder soon.”

When she finally pulled away, she had a huge, gap-toothed grin on her face. “I will! Thank you, sir, thank you so much!” Practically skipping back to the porch, she picked up the candle and began dragging the bag into the house.

As the two orcs turned to leave, Morh looked over his shoulder and saw the girl waving at him from inside the doorway. He smiled and waved back before retreating into the trees, his heart light.

***

“So that’s where you go,” Iramick mused as they rode their verk in tandem back to camp. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Since I replaced my broadsword a few months ago,” Morh elaborated. “I realized there wasn’t anything else I was using the money for, and I knew other people could use it more. I started checking maps and marking out orphanages on our path.” He licked his lips. “I hope… I hope maybe those kids back there will grow up to not hate orcs so much.”

“It’s not like back in the days of the Conquest,” Iramick sighed, looking almost wistful. “They just think we’re gross and ugly and barbaric, is all. Can’t say that I blame them.” She laughed coarsely.

“Yeah, it could be worse… but it could also be better,” Morh countered. He glanced over at her as they splashed through a brook and the glow of the camp started to come into view. “… You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Me? Nahh.” She pounded her chest in a gesture of loyalty. “We’re brod. I won’t say anything you don’t want me to.” Her yellow eyes lit up mischievously. “… But can I come with you next time?”

Morh rolled his eyes. “Sure, so long as you don’t make noise to wake the whole town again!”

“And here I was hoping to serenade them with a war ballad!” She opened her mouth wide as though she was going to belt one out, but Morh leaned over and clamped his hand over her face, and they both laughed.

This takes place in a world I'm developing for a loose duology of novels, the first taking place about four hundred years before the second; this particular short story is during the time of the second novel. A bit of trivia: the animals called verks here are called wargs in my preliminary notes and sketches, but while I was writing this I decided to actually look up the proper definition of a warg and realized that they're pretty much universally lupine (and the name itself is Old English/Norse for "wolf"), which simply didn't fit these boar-like creatures. So I cheated and named them the proto-Iranian word for "wolf", which is more obscure.

[Sheik]

I'd like to participate, if that's okay. =D I think I already have an idea for this week's prompt, so I'll be sure to get started right away!