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
Team A
Blackbird Flies the Coop, by AJ
It’s good she caught that fever four weeks ago. She would never have realized her father was about to die.
Alice is all nerves when she greets John in the foyer.
“Look like a million bucks,” he says, eyeing her cheongsam.
“Thanks,” she replies.
Dear John. A comfort since her stint at military academy.
“My colleagues are in position.” He gives her a pair of green earrings. “Double-checked the alert sensors?”
“Yes.” Alice removes her pearl studs and puts on his “gift”.
“Test ’em,” John says.
“Good evening?” she asks.
“Evening, Miss Alice,” a woman chirps through the earrings. “Name’s Mary. We’ll be your extra security tonight. Introduce yourself, Luke.”
Luke grunts over the feed. “Hello.”
“Nice working with you,” Alice answers.
John offers his arm, and they saunter into the ballroom. The chandeliers cast a warm glow on the dance floor, and the band’s playing a jazzy waltz. Alice always loved this room, ever since she was little. But tonight, it feels like a stage she hasn’t quite rehearsed for.
“Thought you were better at acting natural,” he teases. “Don’t forget to breathe.”
Alice huffs. “Not cut out for this.”
John leads her into a slow, swaying dance.
Over his shoulder, she sees her father glaring at them. He liked John very much. She’s wearing his present, an emerald and pearl necklace. She coaxed him into letting her open his birthday gift earlier. He won’t be heading up to the study to fetch it.
Her father…. one of more decent officials in the government. Doesn’t make him a saint, but family was family.
“John, can I ask you something?” She rests her chin on his shoulder. “If you know something bad is going to happen, do you have to try and stop it?”
He stiffens slightly. “I just got here. Is this the time to be talking philosophy?”
“Humor me.”
John sighs, his steps never faltering. “If you’ve got intel on something bad, you have a duty to act on it. That’s what people like me do. We protect, even if we don’t have all the answers.”
She expected such an answer. But it isn’t so simple. Not for her.
A shame she couldn’t tell him the full truth. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Four weeks ago, Alice came down with a fever so intense it seemed to melt the world around her. In that haze, she dreamt of a different life, in a different place. She’d been a plain office worker, sipping coffee in a dull office cubicle, watching a mundane world go by. And a certain memory stuck out: she’d also watched an animated dystopian web-drama called Blackbird with grotesque fascination.
The animation itself was gorgeous, but the plot had been so absurdly bad, it fueled Youtuber careers. She eagerly awaited each episode to see which direction the flimsy narrative would go, what illogical scheme the heroine and her “freedom fighters” would get up to next… and would Alice, that unhinged villainess, be in the next episode?
But when she woke, the dream didn’t end. It was reality.
She is Alice. She’s the villainess!
No. That comes after the “heroes” kill her father while stealing important documents from his study. Which was NOT happening. He’s here, downstairs, entertaining the guests. Safe.
But Alice presses against John and wonders: does she have to go this far? She’s getting in the heroine’s way. A heroine who fought against oppression.
Wasn’t she still being a villainess?
“We’ve got movement.” Mary alerts them. “Spotted four snakes up the wall. Study window.”
John answered robotically. “Roger.” He winks at Alice, and they leave the ballroom floor, a gentle hand on her back.
“I don’t know what’s turning those gears in your head,” he says, “but there’s no backing out of this. You knew this would happen when you told me.”
He’s right. The plot’s already changing.
“And you’ve obviously made up your mind,” he continues, chuckled. “You’re actually wearing flats tonight!”
Alice shudders. “Ugh! Don’t remind me!”
They climb the grand staircase, the music becoming a faint hum.
“Buckle up,” John tells her. “Time to put those academy days to use.”
The dim-lit second floor hall branches out in three directions. Alice veers right and stops in front of a chest, where she hid two firearms and a pair of goggles.
John nods approvingly. “Rubber bullets,” he says, handing her a cartridge and some ear plugs. “Wouldn’t want to stain Daddy’s rugs.”
She rolls her eyes and loads the gun. They put on the goggles, plug their ears, and push forward.
“Flash bang’s loaded,” Mary declares. “Take position.”
“Right behind you,” Luke announces.
They reach the study and take position, John on one side of the door, Alice on the other. Her heartbeat echoes in her ears.
“Standing by,” whispers John.
“Going hot…” Mary answers.
Alice keeps a firm grip on the gun. Her academy days flooded back with surprising ease.
A window shatters from inside the study. The flash bang booms, framing the door with light. The intruders’ howls fill the room. Alice throws the door open (the heroes never bothered locking it). John wastes no time, firing four rounds.
It ends swiftly; two figures are crumbled on the floor like paper.
A loud thump bangs from a connecting room. John chases it, and she follows his trail. The heroine is leaping out a window, another woman behind her. He shoots without hesitation, and she tumbles to the floor, wheezing.
By the time John knocks her out, the heroine has vanished into the night. Probably making her way to the getaway.
That sucked.
Luke arrives as promised and gets to work, binding wrists and ankles. Her housekeeper shows up because of the noise and nearly faints.
Alice is left standing over a terrorist leader, out like a light.
The old plot is officially off-course. She’s changed its direction irrevocably.
Does that make her the heroine now?
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.