Welcome to Week 6 of the Friday Fiction Writing Challenge! Here’s a complete list of all the posts so far. Feel free to join in.
This week’s random word is: Cardigan.
Huh, as words go, cardigan is a wee bit of a doozy. The first word that sprang to mind was boring—think stroppy teenager. But, there’s something to be said about lackluster words, they really make your imagination work hard to get something juicy.
I set the timer for my five-minute sprint and crossed my fingers that I’d stumble upon something, anything, that I could work with.
Here’s my first sprint (meandering and unedited):
Nikka tucked her knees to her chest as she sat in the bay window. The dazzling sunlight mocked her. Reminding her that the world still ticked by without her. Without Trevor. He was gone; never coming back.
What did it matter? He was never hers to begin with, she’d been clear about that from the getgo…but somehow he’d felt like he was hers. She groaned and pulled the cardigan over her head so she didn’t have to see her reflection.
Why had she said all those things to him? He hadn’t abandoned her, she’d forced him out of her life. She made it so. If she just opened herself to him, trusted him, he might be with her right now.
She blew out a shaky breath and shook her head. Moping wasn’t going to do her any good, she wasn’t that woman. She needed to get away from this town. Start fresh. If she learned anything from Trevor, it was that running away wasn’t always running away.
Wow. It’s incredible how much rambling you can do when you don’t know where you’re going with something. That was a tough sprint. I had nothing other than a woman in a window. Normally, I get a sense of where I’m going with these, but not today.
With a ten-minutes away from the first sprint, I came back and re-read it. I grew a bit panicky, wondering if anything was going to spark some interest. It wasn’t until I hit the last line that something jumped out.
The part that caught my attention was, “[…] running away wasn’t always running away.” With my new prompt in hand, I set the timer for another five minutes.
Here’s my second sprint (basic editing):
“We need to go.” Trevor grabbed Nikka’s upper arm, stopping her from running headlong into whatever ambush awaited them.
A glimmer of something crossed her face, but it was gone before he could put a name to it. She twisted out of his grip. “I’m not running away. I won’t leave him.” There was something she wasn’t telling him. And he was fairly certain it had nothing to do with what was going on today.
“We’re not running, were regrouping. The man we’re up against won’t stop. He’s never going to let you live, not when you’ve seen his face.” He re-holstered his weapon and dragged her behind him. “We need to come up with a plan. Running around the forest isn’t giving us time to figure this out. We need to take this fucker down and stop him.”
She stumbled after him, then pulled him to a stop. “Do you think my dad’s still alive?”
“I think he needs a pet scientist, and your dad fits the bill.” Though Trevor was under no illusion that once the job was done, there would be no further use for her father.
This second sprint was a bit of a surprise. It ties in with one of my Deniable Unit stories where the heroine’s father is the bad guy’s pet scientist. I guess it could be that it’s floating around in my subconscious while I let the draft outline breath before I attack it again in a few weeks. Or not, who knows. But, it was fun playing around with what felt like a bland word and coming up with something a little more interesting.
Thanks for reading!
HOW IT WORKS
- Don’t think too hard on the noun; just write about it for five minutes.
- Once the five minutes are up, walk away for about five/ten minutes.
- Now, come back to the text and re-read it,
- Pick out something that piques your interest and write about that for five minutes.
- Be courageous and post your results to your blog. (Both sets of writing sessions or just the one, it’s up to you.)
RULES
- Complete the challenge on your blog before 1700 UTC of the following Friday.
- Link to the original prompt post and make sure to use the tag Genre Scribes so that we can see all the posts together in WP Reader.
- Your text must be fiction (preferably one you publish in (or plan to).
- No real-life stories.
- The text can be dialogue, an interior monologue, a scene, flash fiction, anything… so long as it’s fiction.
Full information is on the Genre Scribes: Friday Fiction Writing Challenge page.
