So I've just gotten in the habit of cranking out responses to writing prompts here and...
Responses to Writing Prompts
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So I've just gotten in the habit of cranking out responses to writing prompts here and there(mostly on reddit), and I wanted to put them up here to get some critique and insight(since reddit and co. aren't super conducive for that).
So here's my first go at it.
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Writing Prompt: Write a story that makes sense whether the main character is a human or an insect.
He stared at his work, as he had done so countless times before and would countless times from now. He gazed at his hardened appendages, so roughed up from the monotony of his work. Work defined his life. Among the infinite variables that he encountered from the moment his vision came to attention to the end when his mind entered a much appreciated restful lull, work was the single constant that dominated his meager existence. How many times now had he done this work?
A hundred? A thousand? A million?
It didn't matter. He would still work. Again and again, The same motions over and over. Rinse and repeat. Playback. Rewind. Start over. Work. Perhaps he would have wondered why. Why did he subject himself to such repetitive shackles? What was the point? It didn't matter. He would still work. Whether he toiled in the confines of an endless production line or gathered food for the greater community, the fact did not change that work would still continue. There was no possibility for questioning. There was no mind. There was only the hive mind. The greater community made up of countless constituent parts. Parts, not individuals. Society or hive - both drone the same song. There is no he. There is only an it. A part of a whole.
It stared at its work, as it had done so countless times before and would countless times from now. And it worked.
So here's my first go at it.
_______________
Writing Prompt: Write a story that makes sense whether the main character is a human or an insect.
He stared at his work, as he had done so countless times before and would countless times from now. He gazed at his hardened appendages, so roughed up from the monotony of his work. Work defined his life. Among the infinite variables that he encountered from the moment his vision came to attention to the end when his mind entered a much appreciated restful lull, work was the single constant that dominated his meager existence. How many times now had he done this work?
A hundred? A thousand? A million?
It didn't matter. He would still work. Again and again, The same motions over and over. Rinse and repeat. Playback. Rewind. Start over. Work. Perhaps he would have wondered why. Why did he subject himself to such repetitive shackles? What was the point? It didn't matter. He would still work. Whether he toiled in the confines of an endless production line or gathered food for the greater community, the fact did not change that work would still continue. There was no possibility for questioning. There was no mind. There was only the hive mind. The greater community made up of countless constituent parts. Parts, not individuals. Society or hive - both drone the same song. There is no he. There is only an it. A part of a whole.
It stared at its work, as it had done so countless times before and would countless times from now. And it worked.
Last edited:
- Location
- w e w
Writing Prompt 2: You found out you have the ability to stop time, but you don't know how to resume it. Stuck in the paused time, one day you noticed a book on the table was moved.
Dom sat despondently by the homely cider coffee table that he had bought a few hours ago. He ran his fingers down its polished surface, savoring the sensation of that ever so tickling friction unvarnished tables had. It was a pleasant sensation solely on account of how mundane it was. Dom had once thought that only older people ever sought solace in simplicity. Well, perhaps that was true. After all, Dom was now reaching fifty years of age, and yet his appearance hinted at no such progression.
He remained forever in the image of his youthful self. The concept of progression in physical terms had ceased to register to Dom. The only issue was that the same applied to the world around him. Everything was frozen in time. It had been like this for twenty agonizingly long years.
At first, Dom had been filled with wonder. That wonder deteriorated into panic. That panic free fell into hysteria. And that hysteria settled into a jaded boredom.
"Hm, isn't insanity supposed to come next?" wondered Dom, cocking his head while lazily propping it up with his arm, "Guess I'm already one step into it, cause I've been talking to myself way too much lately"
Releasing a defeated sigh that seemed to drag on for ages, Dom relaxed his body and slumped forward on the table. He stopped when he could reach no further. His body crumbled atop the table tiredly, mirroring his mental state quite well. Eventually, his forehead touched the surface of the table, and he closed his eyes.
All because of that one damn book he bought. He had thought it was suspicious the moment his eyes laid eyes on its nondescript, worn leather cover spattered with a dried, flaky liquid he couldn't identify. That, and because it was sold at the shadiest "fortunetelling" shop in town. All because of his stupid, intractable curiosity.
At this point, Dom wished curiosity would kill the cat. Instead, curiosity had shoved the cat into an eternity of solitary confinement. Frustration, a feeling that once made its home quite frequently in Dom but now was a sporadic visitor, knocked on Dom's head again. In a sudden burst of frustration fueled anger, Dom smacked his head over and over again. How and why had it come to this? Why?
The questions ended when Dom regained his composure, which took maybe three seconds. He was used to this procedure. He had gone through this exchange of emotions for twenty years, after all. Dom turned his head and glanced at the book he had bought so long ago. There it stood, affixed on a bookshelf, surrounded by other books of more regular natures.
Dom reminisced. Anything to keep his mind off unstable emotions. He'd read somewhere that keeping the mind active staved off insanity in isolation, so he might as well apply that here. Inevitably, he came back to the moment this all started.
When he placed that book in his bookshelf but made sure it jutted out a bit, which was what Dom did to mark books he was planning to read. As soon as he had done that, he'd heard a voice behind him. A nondescript, gender neutral voice that echoed in his head.
Even now, he remembered those words clearly. They were the last words that weren't his own he'd ever hear.
"You have been chosen as the new gatekeeper of time. This anchor determines the flow of time. Now that you have affixed it, you merely have to move it to set the anchor in motion."
He wished he'd reacted more calmly. Thinking that maybe he had gone insane after a few days of sleep depriving work, Dom had turned away from the bookshelf to face a voice, but couldn't find a speaker. In instinctive panic, he'd crashed into the bookshelf and fell flat on his face. When he gained his bearings again, he found the world frozen.
"Wait a second"
Dom stood up with a vigor that had slumbered for the past five years. He rushed to the bookshelf and looked closely at that book. It stood pressed against the wall, having been pushed back from Dom's clumsiness. Dom mashed his face on his palm as he reached out for the book and pulled it back ever so slightly.
Dom sat despondently by the homely cider coffee table that he had bought a few hours ago. He ran his fingers down its polished surface, savoring the sensation of that ever so tickling friction unvarnished tables had. It was a pleasant sensation solely on account of how mundane it was. Dom had once thought that only older people ever sought solace in simplicity. Well, perhaps that was true. After all, Dom was now reaching fifty years of age, and yet his appearance hinted at no such progression.
He remained forever in the image of his youthful self. The concept of progression in physical terms had ceased to register to Dom. The only issue was that the same applied to the world around him. Everything was frozen in time. It had been like this for twenty agonizingly long years.
At first, Dom had been filled with wonder. That wonder deteriorated into panic. That panic free fell into hysteria. And that hysteria settled into a jaded boredom.
"Hm, isn't insanity supposed to come next?" wondered Dom, cocking his head while lazily propping it up with his arm, "Guess I'm already one step into it, cause I've been talking to myself way too much lately"
Releasing a defeated sigh that seemed to drag on for ages, Dom relaxed his body and slumped forward on the table. He stopped when he could reach no further. His body crumbled atop the table tiredly, mirroring his mental state quite well. Eventually, his forehead touched the surface of the table, and he closed his eyes.
All because of that one damn book he bought. He had thought it was suspicious the moment his eyes laid eyes on its nondescript, worn leather cover spattered with a dried, flaky liquid he couldn't identify. That, and because it was sold at the shadiest "fortunetelling" shop in town. All because of his stupid, intractable curiosity.
At this point, Dom wished curiosity would kill the cat. Instead, curiosity had shoved the cat into an eternity of solitary confinement. Frustration, a feeling that once made its home quite frequently in Dom but now was a sporadic visitor, knocked on Dom's head again. In a sudden burst of frustration fueled anger, Dom smacked his head over and over again. How and why had it come to this? Why?
The questions ended when Dom regained his composure, which took maybe three seconds. He was used to this procedure. He had gone through this exchange of emotions for twenty years, after all. Dom turned his head and glanced at the book he had bought so long ago. There it stood, affixed on a bookshelf, surrounded by other books of more regular natures.
Dom reminisced. Anything to keep his mind off unstable emotions. He'd read somewhere that keeping the mind active staved off insanity in isolation, so he might as well apply that here. Inevitably, he came back to the moment this all started.
When he placed that book in his bookshelf but made sure it jutted out a bit, which was what Dom did to mark books he was planning to read. As soon as he had done that, he'd heard a voice behind him. A nondescript, gender neutral voice that echoed in his head.
Even now, he remembered those words clearly. They were the last words that weren't his own he'd ever hear.
"You have been chosen as the new gatekeeper of time. This anchor determines the flow of time. Now that you have affixed it, you merely have to move it to set the anchor in motion."
He wished he'd reacted more calmly. Thinking that maybe he had gone insane after a few days of sleep depriving work, Dom had turned away from the bookshelf to face a voice, but couldn't find a speaker. In instinctive panic, he'd crashed into the bookshelf and fell flat on his face. When he gained his bearings again, he found the world frozen.
"Wait a second"
Dom stood up with a vigor that had slumbered for the past five years. He rushed to the bookshelf and looked closely at that book. It stood pressed against the wall, having been pushed back from Dom's clumsiness. Dom mashed his face on his palm as he reached out for the book and pulled it back ever so slightly.
- Location
- w e w
Writing Prompt 3: Immortality is a naturally occurring medical condition, affecting 1 out of 1 million births. You are the oldest immortal.
He shook his head groggily. His senses played an elusive dance before he caught them. First his vision that found itself fond of a repeating step between blurriness and focus finally alighted to clarity. There was only darkness. Then his ears that hummed a ringing buzz settled down into silence. They only met a silent audience. His nose funneled in air, tasting a scent of oddity, as if he had entered an antiquated room packed with mildew. He swallowed, and felt the unpleasant sensation of a dry throat and mouth, which prompted his tongue to flit out and glaze over his lips to check for dehydration. He felt parched, cracked lips. A headache rang and rang in his head, echoing its dull pain relentlessly. With his senses in disrepair but still functioning, he realized he was lying down, staring straight up at an impregnable darkness.
"Where am I?" he questioned to nothing in particular. The voice that relayed this message had weak connection. It sputtered and croaked, worn down by dehydration and disuse. It was then that the flood of memories broke through the flimsy dam of his mind, swarming him in a horde of experiences ripened over several millennia. Sights, sounds, tastes, smells and feelings all streamed into a chaotic whole. Anger, sadness, joy, love, wonder - all of them swirled into a primordial soup of colossal proportions, pouring down on his comparatively meager existence.
He screamed. He couldn't handle it. The sheer magnitude of sensations. Of memories long since forgotten. The brain needs only a few tools of memory to keep the human alive, the rest it shelves away into locked boxes. Lifetime after lifetime. Generation through generation. His locked chests had piled up into an inconceivable mountain. Now this mountain crumbled, squashing the mortal receptacle of the brain in an immortal tide of experience.
He tried to move. He found he couldn't. Straps that tightly wound across his chest, arms, and legs pinned him down without remorse to a hard, cold surface. As his sight sprinted from darkness to mushroom cloud to computer screen to wedding ring to factory line to plow to sword to stone, a soothing, more welcoming darkness flitted in his peripheral vision. Slowly but surely, it consumed his sight in totality, leaving him blind. His consciousness followed suit.
A man of middling height wrapped around in so much white lab paraphernalia that none of his features were distinguishable stood behind a thick glass screen. Behind the glass lay a placid man firmly bound atop a stainless steel operating table, so still that it seemed he was dead. The man in white glanced to his side at a monitor, which showed a steady green line when just moments before it had been pulsing regularly.
He nodded understandingly. "The results have been amazing for this drug. Memory impairments could be cured just like that-" He snapped his fingers.
"That concludes test number four hundred and twenty two," droned the man to a recording device, "booting sample up for weapons testing number two hundred and forty four."
He shook his head groggily. His senses played an elusive dance before he caught them. First his vision that found itself fond of a repeating step between blurriness and focus finally alighted to clarity. There was only darkness. Then his ears that hummed a ringing buzz settled down into silence. They only met a silent audience. His nose funneled in air, tasting a scent of oddity, as if he had entered an antiquated room packed with mildew. He swallowed, and felt the unpleasant sensation of a dry throat and mouth, which prompted his tongue to flit out and glaze over his lips to check for dehydration. He felt parched, cracked lips. A headache rang and rang in his head, echoing its dull pain relentlessly. With his senses in disrepair but still functioning, he realized he was lying down, staring straight up at an impregnable darkness.
"Where am I?" he questioned to nothing in particular. The voice that relayed this message had weak connection. It sputtered and croaked, worn down by dehydration and disuse. It was then that the flood of memories broke through the flimsy dam of his mind, swarming him in a horde of experiences ripened over several millennia. Sights, sounds, tastes, smells and feelings all streamed into a chaotic whole. Anger, sadness, joy, love, wonder - all of them swirled into a primordial soup of colossal proportions, pouring down on his comparatively meager existence.
He screamed. He couldn't handle it. The sheer magnitude of sensations. Of memories long since forgotten. The brain needs only a few tools of memory to keep the human alive, the rest it shelves away into locked boxes. Lifetime after lifetime. Generation through generation. His locked chests had piled up into an inconceivable mountain. Now this mountain crumbled, squashing the mortal receptacle of the brain in an immortal tide of experience.
He tried to move. He found he couldn't. Straps that tightly wound across his chest, arms, and legs pinned him down without remorse to a hard, cold surface. As his sight sprinted from darkness to mushroom cloud to computer screen to wedding ring to factory line to plow to sword to stone, a soothing, more welcoming darkness flitted in his peripheral vision. Slowly but surely, it consumed his sight in totality, leaving him blind. His consciousness followed suit.
A man of middling height wrapped around in so much white lab paraphernalia that none of his features were distinguishable stood behind a thick glass screen. Behind the glass lay a placid man firmly bound atop a stainless steel operating table, so still that it seemed he was dead. The man in white glanced to his side at a monitor, which showed a steady green line when just moments before it had been pulsing regularly.
He nodded understandingly. "The results have been amazing for this drug. Memory impairments could be cured just like that-" He snapped his fingers.
"That concludes test number four hundred and twenty two," droned the man to a recording device, "booting sample up for weapons testing number two hundred and forty four."