Welcome to the first week of the Spring Writing Challenge!
We’re so excited to get started on these stories. It’s time to roll up your sleeves, set your fingers on your keyboard, and get writing. Will your story contain aliens? A prince in disguise? Maybe even a sweet summer romance? Whatever happens, we can’t wait to see what you come up with!
So, without further ado, here’s your very first prompt!
Week One Prompt – The Dialogue Prompt
“If you know something bad is going to happen, do you have to try and stop it?”
“I just got here.”
Wait…what’s a dialogue prompt?
A dialogue prompt is a conversation between two characters. It doesn’t matter who says it, or if it takes place in the beginning, middle, or end of your story. However, one character must say the first sentence, and the second character must respond with the second sentence.
Before you start writing, there are some important rules to follow.
Writing Rules
1. Please keep the content of the stories you post to a PG rating. Please avoid real curse words. Violence/fighting should be limited and purposeful. Please do not include any spice. Moderators may remove stories and comments for any reason at any time. Moderators may remove any member from the challenge at any time.
2. Your story must be 1,000 words or less, and must contain the prompt to be counted for the challenge. You’re not required to post it in order to “win” the challenge, but if you want it to count for your team, your story must be posted by Sunday at 11:59 PM ET, and you must include your team name.
It’s time to post your story as a comment down below! We can’t wait to see all the fun directions you guys take this dialogue prompt. If you have any questions, feel free to email us at info@writers.company!
Happy Writing!
Ava,
Your story was very well written! I enjoyed reading it! 👏
Melissa
Ooh, what a fun story, girl! Fantastic job!
Wow, this is beautifully written!
I love your writing style!
Wow, I’m very impressed. The worldbuilding here feels grounded and real, the characters fleshed out, and the prompt just flows so smoothly with the rest of the narrative. Great story here!
I hope this part of something larger. I was totally sucked in.
Thanks for sharing your work. 🙂 Enjoyable read.
great opening line!
Beautiful story! Great job!
Absolutely loved it
i NEED the rest of this asap! i would love this as a book series. its excellent! The world-building is so good. you did a great job. i especially love how the characters are already full of the knowledge of the world and there is no need for any one character to outright explain things. again, have i expressed how i literally want this in my life so much!
Great details! I was brought right into the world you built!
Such a fun story! Loved the comical banter between characters
The Taste of Salt
I still remember the taste of salt in the air that day. The storm hadn’t broken yet, but you could feel it, whispering deep beneath the sea, muttering under the skin of the world. The sky hung low and heavy, torn with jagged bruises of cloud, the shore lashed by winds that dragged the scent of seaweed and old stone from the cliffs. I sat alone, watching the sun sink into the eastern ocean, the last threads of light staining the water blood and gold.
It should have been beautiful.
It had once been beautiful.
But that day, it had been a warning.
The wind stilled without warning, a hush falling over the sea so sudden it made my skin crawl. The waves went glassy, catching the molten light, more crimson than gold. For a breathless moment, the horizon was a world of black and fire, like torchlight glancing off a dark mirror. Just like they said in the old stories. The sort of light that came before a dragon-battle. The sort of fire that conquered kingdoms.
I didn’t care.
I had been born beneath a storm. Cursed from my first breath. The crippled daughter of a fisherman, offered to the dragons as a sacrifice. They had accepted me, and the priests of the House of Dragons took me gladly because I was born during the Storm-Tide. What else would I have been good for — a daughter of Aelgar with a twisted foot? No, the robes of a priestess and the songs of the gods were all I was destined for. A harbinger. An omen. A living offering.
The old pain tugged dully, and I shifted, the ache of bones that had never sat right. The sting of muscles grown brittle with cold. Limbs misfashioned in the womb so that even the high craft of the priests could not set them right. It was a quiet, familiar thing now. A part of me, like the sea salt in my veins or the wind in my hair. As cool and unchangeable as the roughness of the cliffs beneath my hands.
I didn’t turn at the sound of footsteps behind me. I didn’t need to.
Lyra.
She came down the path behind me, her white robes heavy with gold thread, catching on the wind like wings. For a moment, in the last light, she looked like one of the old goddesses from the high towers that rim the world. Pale hair gilded by the fire of the sunset, blue eyes like a storm-hungry sky. A priestess of the House of Dragons. A voice of the gods.
But to me, she was just Lyra.
I swallowed hard, staring at the horizon, where distant shapes wheeled in the dying light. Dragons. Even this far out, you could see them sometimes. Their wings catching the sun. Their shadows flickering over the water.
“If you know something bad is going to happen,” I said, my voice quieter than I’d ever heard it, “do you have to try and stop it?”
Lyra didn’t answer at first. She knelt beside me, her robe pooling around her, arms wrapped around her knees. I could feel the heat of her beside me. It made me shiver. “I just got here,” she said, and I could tell she did not want to talk about it. “Is this really the time?”
My hands clenched without meaning to. “I don’t know.”
Her eyes found the horizon. Under her breath, she muttered a few of the lines from the hymn of the setting sun. Ancient. Beautiful. Sacred.
We sat in silence a long while, watching the sky burn. Listening to the sea murmur far below.
I breathed the words without meaning to. “The king’s son is returning.”
Her tone was very soft. “Yes.”
That made me angry. Like she didn’t care. Like she had served the dragons for so long now she had forgotten there was a world outside our chants and rites.
“The city’s going to fall.”
She looked at me this time. “Yes.”
Another silence. The kind of silence you only find at the end of things.
“I dreamt of fire last night,” I whispered, because I had to say it. “Of black wings over the High Hall. Of blood in the streets. The dragons are restless.”
“They always are,” Lyra said softly.
I looked at her, and for a moment, there was something unguarded in my face. Something raw. She could tell I was afraid.
“I want to leave,” I whispered.
She started slightly, her expression going hard. “And go where?” I heard the mockery in her voice already. “Go kneel before the king? You know we control him. Go bow to the men of the other islands? The dragons will destroy them the same as us.”
There were a hundred things I could have said back to her. A thousand arguments I could have made. I didn’t want any of them though.
“I was given to the House because I was broken,” I said, staring out at the horizon. The wind had picked up again, sharp little gusts that whipped my hair across my face and sent chills down my back. I could smell the storm now. It was coming. “It’s hard to destroy what was broken to begin with.”
She looked at me, her jaw tight.
I pushed myself to my feet with a wince, turning to look down towards the city. The path is slick with the first drops of rain, the rocks treacherous. “If we’re going to die either way, I’d rather die fighting for something than worshiping the monsters that devour our people.” My eyes locked on her face, a tiny smile on my lips. “I was born broken — maybe that means I have nothing left to lose.”
Team Herbert
This is incredibly beautiful and so well-written (and as a fantasy writer, I’m amazed at the depth of world-building you were able to incorporate)! If you don’t mind my asking, are you published or do you have other work available somewhere? I’d love to read more of your writing!
Hey! Thank you so much!
I am not published yet (though Lord-Willing I would love to be soon). I am actually looking for some beta readers right now. This was written as… I guess cannon to the eight part series I am currently working on. For lack of a better way of putting it, its actual events that happened during my book Crown of Fire, but not characters or stuff you really hear about in the real book itself. *Grins* Kind of looked at the prompt and was like “why not write fanfiction for my own book” *chuckles* that is why there is so much world building in it. I have a whole world already set up. *eyes sparkle* I love it so much. I am struggling not to go into a long speech about said world.
I do actually run a paper called Blotted Ink Conspiracies though I would have to give you the link so you could access it. Honestly, I’d love to connect via email or something if you’d be open to it. *happy grin*
Sorry, hopefully I didn’t just come across as wildly weird or a creep.
this is sooo good! I love the world you created!
I really enjoyed reading your “action-packed” story, and I mean to say that the “action” were all found in the vivid imagery and the well laid out dialogue. Really excellent work. I wish this was a novel!
Such a fun concept! Great job 🙂
Ooh, what a fun concept! And amazing descriptions!
Alias, I’d love to connect by email, but I don’t want to post my email here. Could you reach out to me through the contact form on my website? The link is authorgracemacpherson.com/contact. That will give me your email, and then when I reply you’ll have mine as well. And I’d definitely be interested in beta reading–I’m always looking for new reading material!
Great job! I look forward to your published work!
To Change the World, by Ava Murbarger
P.S.- sorry I missed the meeting, we were out of town. I hope to be at the next one!!
The sky was bleeding again.
Rust-colored clouds hung over the City like bruises, pulsing faintly. Rael kept her eyes fixed on them, one hand on the rail of the Watchers’ Tower. Her gloves were too thin. The steel was cold enough to bite.
Behind her, a door creaked open.
“You’re late,” she said without turning.
Boots scraped against the stone. A new recruit, probably. They sent one every week now. Fresh eyes, fresh loyalty.
“I got lost,” the boy said. He sounded too young to carry the badge. Too soft to hold a blade. “Sorry.”
She turned and looked at him.
Dust-colored coat, too long in the sleeves. Wide eyes. Not from the City, then. One of the Outer Rings. Maybe even farther. She sighed.
“If you know something bad is going to happen,” she said, “do you have to try and stop it?”
The boy blinked. “I just got here.”
“Well, obviously.” She crossed her arms.
He shifted nervously on his feet.
Rael turned back to the cityscape. “The answer is yes, by the way. At least, if you’re cursed with a conscience.”
He joined her at the rail. Together they watched the distant flicker of drones weaving patterns in the smog. A red warning rune glowed briefly on the horizon, then faded. Rael knew what it meant. The Reclamation Agents were moving again. Soon, another neighborhood would vanish.
“Why do you do this?” the boy asked.
She laughed without humor. “Because no one else will. Because the High Council stopped caring two winters ago. Because someone has to.”
A long pause. Then, “Is it true the Watchers can see the future?”
“We read the signs,” she said. “Patterns in weather. Seismic anomalies. Political shifts. The Council says it’s superstition.” She paused. “But when the streets burn exactly seven hours after the rats vanish, over and over again, you stop calling it chance.”
He was silent. Good. Maybe he was listening.
“You said you got lost. But you still came up here. Why?”
“I heard the bells.” He hesitated. “They said you can’t hear them unless you’re meant to.”
Rael glanced at him. The brass bell on the tower hadn’t rung in years. She narrowed her eyes.
“Name?”
“Wren.”
“That’s not your real name.”
“It is now.”
She smirked. “Fine, Wren. Welcome to Watcher’s Hill. Welcome to the losing side.”
Another alarm rune lit the smog. Closer this time.
Rael pulled her scope from her belt and scanned the eastern edge of the city. “Sector Four. They’re burning the food lines again.”
“That’s the second time this week,” Wren said quietly.
She lowered the scope. “Third.”
He didn’t speak for a long time. Then he said, “My sister was there.”
Rael’s fingers tightened around the rail. She didn’t ask if the girl had survived. That wasn’t the kind of world they lived in anymore.
Instead, she reached into her coat and handed Wren a folded map, inked with lines and red X’s.
“There’s a storm tunnel under the old trainyard,” she said. “It’s not on any schematics, and it’ll get you to Sector Four faster than any street. But it’s dark. And crawling.”
Wren took the map with trembling fingers. “Why are you helping me?”
Rael looked at him, really looked. The wide eyes weren’t wide with fear, not completely. It was fire. Just hidden under the ash.
“Because sometimes the only thing worse than seeing the future,” she said softly, “is doing nothing to change it.”
Wren nodded. His jaw set. “Then I’ll go.”
Rael watched as he turned, vanishing back into the tower’s dark. When the door slammed shut behind him, the bell gave a soft chime. Just once.
And far below, the wind began to shift.