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Young Writers Society


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Reviews: 50
Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:20 pm
Roaming Shadow says...



A little before the site went down temporarily, I got this notion in my head. I give you writters a couple characters and see what you do with them. Just to see how each person handles it. I thought it would be interesting to see what each person comes up with, with people thinking "Huh, I'd've never thought of that". Anyway, here goes.

Character 1 (Main Character)
Young male
Plays the flute
Orphan
Commoner
Has a job

Character 2
Man
Traveler
Edgy
New in town(Or whatever setting you have)

Character 3
Young female
Strong willed
Outgoing
Knows character 1

Character 4
Old man
Has great power
Wise
Mysterious

The specifics are a bit vague. For example: how young is young? Perhaps playing the flute is his self made job? Or maybe he works as a stable hand? Or works at a castle for some reason? Does edgy mean paranoid or untrusting? What relation does char. 3 have with char. 1? Maybe she's a princess, met character 1, hence why he works at a castle! Just who is the old man? You decide! Just don't insult my intelligence. If you say character 1 is 50 years old, that's not young, unless you make it clear that people live to be 300 or something. Anything not specifically stated, you can just add in, just make sure that the traits listed are in there somewhere. Now, you can have other characters, just make sure these four are the focal characters of the story. If you have any questions, just ask them here.

Okay, it's a fantasy setting, you make up the exact location. Just post the story (or opening to a novel) here. Have fun! I look forward to seeing what you people come up with. (And no, I'm not using this for story ideas, I've got plenty of those :), just thought it would be an interesting little activity. )
  





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Gender: Female
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Reviews: 459
Wed Aug 02, 2006 5:23 am
Poor Imp says...



Neat idea, Shadow...rather apt for me. I've been knocking my head against walls to write - and this was a well-needed break and fun. ^_^

---

Meandering melancholy, Gard thought, tapered fingers still against the carved flute in his lap. Nothing was romantic about wanderers and improvised melody, no, not even playing for the princess on the highway - she was only passing afterall. The gold florin tossed in the dust probably had never even touched her pale hand. Nothing romantic - ‘twas meandering, melancholic and the dust stuck in his throat. Though Trisla talked to the moon and back about soaring serenades and the like, she was not one to know what she was talking about.

Did Trisla wander from town to town and back again to make a few coppers? No, Gard sighed. She only told tales and thought he lived in one.

Well, meandering melancholy might just be bearable were it a tale. He knew those Drear Tarran told, and some silvered, silt-dusked stories brought in on caravans from the East. He would be a lost prince then, and Trisla the gold-hearted tailor’s daughter who found his home and memory - perhaps found his heart.

With a crooked grin, he fingered the worn angles of the flute. Beyond the farthest line of trees the sun was setting, gilding dark horizon and dying fading blue violet above, shadows weaving ebony into thatched roofs. Trisla with a heart - his least of all - that was for jest. She would crush it in a moment of temper and wonder at her finger-dents later as she found it bruised.

No, a tale with Trisla and a poor aimless flutist would be a mockery; she would be a blundering shield maiden from the North as he a slave to his melodies.

Who would want to live in a tale now? Always knew the end - he bent to his instrument, threading the first bleak notes into the evening. Happy ever more - or in the Easterner’s yarns, damned for ill-intent or ill-fate. Life had its fooleries and its darkness…but no such tragedies; he might, dulling Fate’s time for himself to a blunt blade and rust into obscurity. Death came with whimpers…after all the meandering melancholy of life.

Irritated with the thoughts and distracted by the hollow gasp of his flute, he dragged himself upright. Meandering philosophy, he cursed himself - that was Avelend’s work. Avelend blundering through thought like Trisla through tact, wise and foolish.

But the streets were empty now. Dusk cleared the towns people to the their homes and beds, and left Gard fluting for the wind. Back to the lord’s lovely stable then for him, and with a hat light enough in coppers to keep him up on an empty stomach. Perhaps Trisla then would help on that matter…she did, at times, when she recalled he hadn’t a father - or brother for that matter - to put food on a table for him.

Avelend in his cell would talk, or merely watch. ’Too young for melancholy, lad, too young.’ Just words then- he hadn’t the food for himself sometimes and seemed duly unbothered as if food were for lowlier minds than his own. Fool’s mystery, Gard had heard the taverner grumbling, mystery and too much talk as meant nothing.

Now, thoughts distracting and dejected, he hardly noticed the gate wide behind the stables. And so he stumbled to halt upon the threshold nearly tumbling over the spread-eagled length of tangled, patched rags in his path.

“Curses!…”

If the heap heard him - now more clearly a ragged cloak and patched boots - it didn’t make any sign. Dejected, half-blind in stable shadows, hungry for the night, he found a more wretched wanderer than himself - and he had stolen his bed.

“Light save me," he groaned, "Bloody, cursed drunks."
ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."
-Lloyd Alexander
  








Maybe what most people wanted wasn't immortality and fame, but the reassurance that their existence had meant something. No matter how long... or how brief. Maybe being eternal meant becoming a story worth telling.
— Roshani Chokshi, Aru Shah and the Nectar of Immortality