Welcome to Week Three! Can you believe we’re at the halfway mark for the challenge?
You all did so well with your stories last week! There were so many interesting and unique ways you interpreted the prompt. It’s now the third week, so it’s time to do it again! Will your story have aliens? Zombies? Maybe it’ll have a dragon in it! Whatever you decide, we can’t wait to see what you come up with.
So, without further ado, here’s your next prompt!
Week Three Prompt – The Starting Sentence Prompt
Write a story that starts with the
following sentence: So this is what drowning feels like.
Wait…what’s a “Starting Sentence” prompt?
A sentence prompt is a prompt that uses a particular sentence. It doesn’t matter where your story takes place, who’s in it, or what’s said. The only thing that matters is that your story must start with this sentence: So this is what drowning feels like.
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!
Will you notice if someone is like 1-25 words over the 1000 word limit (asking for a friend hahaha)
what if i accidently posted my story as a comment last week lol? does it still count?
Hey Izzy and Ava,
If you accidentally post your story as a comment instead of an answer, you should get an email to alert you! It will still count for points for your team, but no one will be able to vote for it.
And, to answer your question for your friend 😉 As far as word count, for your story to count for the challenge, it does need to be 1,000 words or under. Great questions!
by:morgan O-Team One
So this is what drowning feels like…
Well, I didn’t know yet, but I feared I was about to. I had watched the rain from the window for hours, the drops large and heavy as the storm raged on, the clouds seemingly stationary over the building. The sounds of the storm were loud-much louder than I had ever remembered before. It made me thankful that I was indoors.
Well, glad until a few minutes ago. The rain had shifted, blowing through the slightly opened window; the drops turning to mist as they blew inside the room. Any second now, the single drop of rain that threatened to drop from the windowsill, could, and if it did, it had the opportunity to find its way to me.
It had taken me hours to cross the room and make my way towards the window, and now a single drop of rain threatened my pretzel stick and hamburger wrapper shelter. There was a huge possibility that I could go down in history as both, the first shrunken person, and the first person to drown via a single raindrop.
If only I had listened to the sign on the door…if only I had left that cleaning add unanswered. I didn’t need the money. But no. I just haaad to look in the room labeled ‘Do Not Enter.’ I could have at least done myself a favor and listened to the ‘Trespassers waiver all right to legal repercussions’ part of the sign.
How was I supposed to know Professor Valinski wasn’t just the crazy old man that everyone said he was. What else out of his mouth was true? Could he really reverse the form of any frozen object from solid to liquid with press of one button? Could he really change the structure of DNA without it compromising the integrity of the object?
What was I saying? of course that part were true. I was living it! And desperately prayed he could undo it too. He had solved his life’s hypothesis, and yet, he was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t been for days. With my luck, the government probably found out he actually had a working invention and had him fake killed so they could hide him away like the world’s worst criminal, or at the very least like the rest of the world’s greatest inventors.
But hey, I’m no conspiracy theorist. Just some dumb post-college kid looking for enough money to feel comfortable splurging every now and then. But now all my dreams; the traveling, the friends, the husband, the children-all that was gone. Because Instead, the Lord had for me to be shrunken down to half the size of a ruler.
The mist from the rain shot through the small space of the window, causing a chilling air to enter my airspace, and with it, changing my attitude. I brought my eyes around the room, seeing it with a new lens. As I looked around me, I was enamored by the the vast array of it.
The room had been dissected into different four sections; office, bedroom, kitchenette, and somehow still mostly making up the experiment room. How the Dr. had managed to practically live here without anyone finding out was beyond me. But then again, everyone just thought and accepted him as the crazy old man of the ‘rent your own office’ building we had all shared; and we had loved him for his eccentricities.
There was plenty to explore, and plenty of things to do: books of varying material, a television, and my best bet: the laptop…I would just have to get to them first. Everything of interest and necessity lived all over the room in different areas. Each corner of the room would take several hours to get to, and once I arrived, I would be faced with the challenge of getting to the tops of the tables and chairs.
This whole experience gave Divine meaning to the rock climbing my parents made me learn as teenager. The adrenaline rush had done wonders in keeping me where I was supposed to be, while getting rid of all my excess energy. Despite pretending to despise it, I secretly loved it.
I tore my gaze from the impossibilities of the situation, and back to my bag by my side. It had shrunk with me, two thoughts echoing through my mind as I stared at it. Good for the food I had packed and the Bible inside, but bad for the reason I had it. My rented room at the bed and breakfast for the weekend would go unused, more than that, I had told everyone, extensively, not to call me the entire weekend, for some much needed time away. Looks like I was in for it. No one knew I was here; not my family, my friends, and certainly not Dr. Valinski-wherever he was.
It was more than easy to feel hopeless. More than easy to be angry at God. Why did I have to be the one He revealed the greater mystery of science too? I couldn’t stand science in school. The most I knew about it was how rain worked, how to keep my body from collapsing, and that food was either a fruit or a vegetable, and I still had no idea which one a tomeatoe was! I don’t even think I know how to spell tomato!
I closed my eyes, tears pouring from the edges as I fought the doom that desperately wanted to encase me. Interestingly still the same size; all encasing. A blur of memory passed my mind, as a Peace that could, and did, only come from God, fluttered within me. I had always wanted to be an explorer as a child.
I might as well enjoy this bizarre experience and play the part-maybe waiting for Professor Valinski wouldn’t be so bad…after all:how could we think God’s creation was as simple as we had made it out to be…
please comment anything about everything. 🙂
remember: Jesus loves you and wants you to come to Him and love you. He did all the Law, knowing we couldn’t. And knowing we could never deserve Him, and we cant. So go to Him. Let yourself fall in love with Him. you will not regret it. He makes it all possible.
Wait so if we like accidentally post our stories as a comment here, will it count or be ignored?