Welcome to the final week of the Spring Writing Challenge!
It’s the final week! This has been such a fun challenge. You’ve all done so well with your stories. There are so many interesting and unique ways you have taken the prompt. It’s now time for the final week, so let’s do this one last time! We can’t wait to see what you come up with.
So, without further ado, here’s your final prompt!
Week Six Prompt – The Character Prompt
Write a story about a character that experiences a rebirth
Wait…what’s a character prompt?
A character prompt is a prompt that’s about a specific character. It doesn’t matter where your story takes place or what’s said. What matters is that your story must be about a character who experiences a rebirth.
Before you start writing, we have some important rules for you 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.
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.
Remember to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and post your story as an “answer” to this question, not a “comment”. 🙂 You’re all doing such a great job! I’m so proud of all the stories you’ve posted.
Happy Writing!
We’re so glad that you participated Juli! 🙂
Someone Please Cancel My Reincarnation Subscription – Team A
By A.T. Johnson
The first time Kate dies, she never sees it coming. One moment, she’s hunched over her desk, typing emails her boss dumped on her. The next, she’s expiring on the floor, considering all of her life choices.
That should have been the end.
But when she wakes up, she isn’t Kate the Office Worker. She doesn’t remember such a life. She has a new face—beautiful not plain. She has a new name—Alice, a wealthy and privileged daughter of a government official. And she’s a villainess in a badly written dystopian web-series called Blackbird.
She was supposed to become bitter and vengeful, spiraling from the allegedly justified death of her father. Doomed to be defeated by the righteous female protagonist and a ragtag group of freedom fighters. Never mind that the main characters wind up killing innocent civilians; it’s all for the greater good!
But when Alice overworks herself one day—ironic—she catches a fever so intense, it melts the barrier between her past life and the one she’s been living. That’s her theory, at least. And when she takes one hard look at the story dictating her destiny, she doesn’t just flip the script. She drop kicks it straight into oblivion.
“There’s no way I’m dying some crappy death for some crappy protagonist!”
So Alice saves her father, nipping her revenge arc in the bud. Then she helps keep those idiot terrorists at bay. She even takes pleasure in beating the so-called heroine and her misguided friends into the dirt.
By then, she has long gotten over the absurdity of her life. She turns to politics, and life becomes busy. She navigates the corruption of her government, helping to change it from the inside, slowly and steadily, as if remodeling a maze-like house no one believed could be salvaged. She marries, has children and grandchildren, and eventually, she dies once again from old age.
A life well lived.
—
Soo-ah thinks she has it all. Born with a golden spoon, parents who loved her and each other, a fiercely protective younger brother. Educated at one of the top universities in South Korea. Worked her way up to an executive manager at her father’s company. And best of all, a handsome and talented (albeit cold) fiance from one of her father’s partnerships.
She thinks she has it all. She truly does. Then she meets Hye-jin.
When Soo-ah first lays eyes on the young intern, her entire soul rebels.
Hye-jin. A wide-eyed, airbrush faced intern who carries herself with a self-important grace, reserved for female protagonists who bend reality with their mere existence.
This isn’t just déjà vu. It’s full-blown existential horror.
Memories crash around in Soo-ah’s brain. She excuses herself ASAP, stumbles towards the nearest polished bathroom, and slumps over the counter, waiting for her head to reshuffle and reorganize. Then she stares down her reflection, seeing a face both familiar and all too strange.
She’s Soo-ah. She’s that Soo-ah!? The main antagonist of a trashy, long-running K-drama called Love’s Twisted Seasons!? She hate-watched the entire show with her daughter, jeering at every stupid plot point… while she was still living her life as Alice.
“Why is this happening!? Again!?” Soo-ah groans into the abyss.
She’s in big trouble. Her brother Min-seok (already engaged) is the male lead, and her fiance Jin-hoo is the second male lead. They’ll both fall hopelessly in love with intern Hye-jin within weeks, causing both of their IQs to drop by at least fifty points. Along with their company stocks. Broken engagements and broken hearts will abound, corporate drama will ensue, her parents driven to the brink, and her to insane jealousy—
“Nah,” she decides. “Screw Jin-hoo.”
The moment Min-seok turns stupid, he’s eating her fist.
And as for his engagement to that powerful heiress?
“Ah, we’re practically sisters. I’ll think of something.”
She’d better.
—
So Soo-ah watches her brother like a hawk. He goes lovesick within two weeks. The fool.
After Jin-hoo has his “chance” encounter with the female lead—a cliché borrowed handkerchief, bleugh!—Soo-ah waits for him to follow.
But the handkerchief is returned without fanfare. Jin-hoo neither falls nor sighs nor steals a glance. He isn’t losing his mind over Hye-jin’s plucky charms.
But he has been increasing his dinner dates with Soo-ah.
He’s watching her.
So she watches him watching her.
He bites his thumb in a familiar, heartrending way when he’s annoyed. His rare smirks are… nostalgic.
Gifts start appearing on her office desk. Oddly specific gifts.
Jasmine-scented perfume. Black calla lilies. A new red cashmere scarf. Eighty-five percent dark chocolate with almonds.
But she’s never liked these things as Soo-ah.
She liked them… when she was still Alice.
—
On one of their scheduled dinners—an elegant, quiet night of expensive wine and seven courses—Soo-ah finally says something.
“You’ve changed your cologne,” she mused. “You listen to jazz now. And you’ve stopped eating pork.”
“And you’ve stopped drinking red wine,” he counters. “Always did prefer a Gewurtz, didn’t you?”
Soo-ah flinches. “What?”
Jin-hoo leans back, a knowing smirk. “You bob your left knee when you’re nervous. You hate orange, so you won’t wear it anymore. Our granddaughter’s name was Abby…”
Her heart swells. She bites her lip, refusing to cry (she refuses to ruin her makeup). She knew it. She wasn’t one hundred percent certain, but—
“…John?” she blurts out.
Jin-hoo—no, John—gives her a wink.
“Who else, sweetheart?”
—
“Someone please cancel my reincarnation subscription.”
Jin-hoo chuckles as they cuddle on his velvet couch. “Maybe stop hate-watching your entertainment while you’re at it?”
The blanket and soju are especially warm.
“Least we don’t have to deal with terrorists,” he muses. “Wanna crash another stupid narrative?”
Soo-ah thinks of poor Min-seok, who’s transformed into a pretentious brat. He’s composing poetry about Hye-jin’s “ethereal presence”.
Maybe she’ll blacklist poetic metaphors in company emails.
She sighs. “First, let’s get married again. Right now. City hall will do.”
He pecks her lips. “Understood.”
—
The adventures of Kate/Alice/Soo-ah will have to continue.
When the new prompt arrive, my first thought is, Oh no! What am I going to write to make that work? But the Holy Spirit ALWAYS shows up and I get an idea every time. It amazes me. Thanks for a thought provoking six weeks.