Writing practice: just write a story in an hour, any story with action and dialogue
[don’t worry about description, just write]
I’m a collection of atoms and I exist [just kidding, I’m taking a break from that today]
[just get started, just write]
Did you ever have a dream where you were trying to get away but your legs didn’t want to move? I mean, they did move, but it was as though you were trying to pull them through the thickness honey-molasses concoction there ever was? Like everything was in slow motion except for the danger approaching? I had one of those dreams, but like most dreams when I woke up I couldn’t quite remember what was the danger or why I thought it was one. I’d find out soon enough.
When I fell asleep, I was in my bed. In my house. On my street. When I woke up, I’d later come to realize that even though I thought I was in my bed, on my house, on my street, I wasn’t. Not even close.
[it’s ok if it’s terrible nonsense, just write. you need to break through that mental menace that critiques everything just before you try to write it]
When I pulled the front door shut as I went for my morning run, everything looked the same as it was every other morning. Except little things were not quite right. The mailbox was facing the wrong way. The letters on the license plate on a parked car were garbled. A neighbor’s cat was standing in her yard, but stationary and with one leg twitching. Little things like that. As though the scene were a near-exact AI replica of my neighborhood, but there were glitches, like lifelike images of people but with 6 fingers or oddly unnatural body twitches.
In the wooded park near my house there’s a paved trail. I’ve gone running on this trail so often that I only notice things that are out of the ordinary; everything else just blends into the too-familiar background of my observation. Well, this morning something was out of the ordinary. Big time. There was a path where there’d never been a trail before, and what was unusual about this path was that it wasn’t actually there. I first noticed it when I went jogging by. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned to look at it straight-on I couldn’t see it. As I turned to leave, thinking it was only my imagination or the product of some bending of light through a droplet of sweat that might have been on my eye at the time, I saw it again. And turning back, it again wasn’t there.
I rubbed my eyes. I rubbed my shirt against my forehead to prevent any more sweat from obstructing my view. I blinked a few time to wet my contacts. I looked harder and still couldn’t see it, but when I turned my head it was there again. It reminded me of what I think I heard in high school biology, where we have cones and rods in our eyes and one is for side vision and the other for straight, but I could never remember which was which.
So, I kept my head turned and walked sideways on the path that wasn’t there. When it turned, I followed it. And the weird thing was that when I’d look straight on it there’d be a tree right in the middle of the path, but when I’d look sideways it was gone, and when I’d walk sideways I didn’t hit a tree. As I continued on the path, I began to experiment. As I approached what I knew was a tree in the middle of the path, walk right up to the tree straight-on and press my nose against it. It was real. It was a collection of atoms and it was real [dude, enough of that for today]. But then I’d slowly rotate my head and it would slowly disappear, and I could walk sideways right through where it should have been! The next time, I walked sideways until I was in the middle of the tree I knew should have been there, and when I tried turning my head straight on I couldn’t budge it – I had to keep walking sideways and looking sideways. I think this was for the best, because I don’t know how it would have turned out had I found myself encased in the middle of a tall tree – would I even have been able to turn my head sideways again to keep going, I would I have been instantly crushed? Or perhaps suffocate? Good thing I wasn’t given the opportunity to find out.
[ok, speed this up, you have 30 min left and you’re not even in the middle of the story yet]
I came to the end of the path and found myself sideways against a kind of clear tube with a door. When I got close enough to touch it, the door opened. At this point my day was weird enough that weird became the new normal, so I decided I should go ahead and keep going. I walked sideways into the tub, the door closed, and before I could look around I was sucked down into the ground at a speed so great that once I got over the initial shock of acceleration, I realized I was going so quickly through the earth that everything was more blur than focus. I could tell when I’d go through soil, or rock, or underground rivers of water, or even clouds of underground pockets of gas, but I couldn’t look long enough to try to see any details because as soon as I identified what type of matter it was, I’d already be through it.
I had the presence of mind to fear going through the molten steel of the center of the earth (I didn’t know what the insulation capacity of the tube was), but before I knew it I was at the end. Heading feet first, I’d come out of the ground upside down, but quite thoughtfully the tube had an above-ground semicircle to it so that it deposited my right-side-up to be able to walk out of the door.
[you need dialogue, time is ticking. and some sort of plot. speed it up]
When I got out, there was a group of three people – they looked like warriors of some sort.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” one said. He was the youngest, and looked about sixteen. “We’re in a hurry; here’s your stuff. Change behind the rock and let’s go.” He spoke matter-of-factly, quite unlike the teenagers I knew on… well, the other side of the earth, back in my normal life. When he mentioned the rock, he tilted his head to another member of the group – a girl who might have been in her late twenties. She looked as stern as the boy, and turned her head to suggest the instruction was to offer me some privacy while changing. “How thoughtful,” I thought, while not yet questioning where I was or why.
As I went behind the rock, the third member of the group spoke up. He was more beast than man, like a scaly version of an elf. He was short, fierce looking, and had taught muscles that indicated his size wouldn’t have prevented him from mortally wounding even the largest foe. He however, seemed far friendlier than the others.
When I was changing behind the rock, he said “You’re probably a bit confused. Of course you would be. But it will start making sense once we explain to you all the why’s and who’s and what-for’s that you’re probably thinking right now. We’ll talk on the voyage to Candor.”
“Ah yes, Candor. Naturally.” I thought, trying to make light of a terribly unsettling diversion from my habitual morning run.
When I came out from behind the rock, there was a magnificent golden wing behind the three.
“This is our transport,” the teenager said. “Let’s go.”
Once in and strapped, we took off at what felt like an acceleration similar to what I felt in the tube. There were no windows, but on the video screen I could see that we were maybe ten thousand feet above the ground and going far faster than any airplane I’d been in – maybe five times as fast, maybe more.
[dude, you have about 10 minutes to go… hurry up]
During our trip, I found out the teenager was named Xylon, the girl was named Echthia, and the elfish man was named Bill. That wasn’t his real name – he told me I wouldn’t be able to pronounce his real name so I could just call him Bill. Fair enough. We had to defeat [of course, right] an evil threat [so cliche, just pick something else] I mean we had to sign a 1000-year pact with the Kingdom of Lollipop to defend them from all dangers in exchange for all sorts of treats and sweets and such. I thought of my limited life span and my set of adult teeth that probably would rot out after a few months of such treats and sweets and such. But whatever, the clock is ticking.
Upon reaching the kingdom, we saw they were under attack [of course, so cliche] by The Toothpaste Clan [unexpected, if not good].
We were knee deep in sugary carnage when Echthia had the bright idea to use her anti-toothpaste shield, which grew in size to twice the diameter of the planet upon which the Kingdom of Lollipop ruled.
[4 minutes]
Once defeated and banished to The Repentant Chamber, where the Toothpaste Clan was sentenced to fifty weeks of hard labor mining cheese, the Toothpaste Clan saw the error of their ways and vowed never to interfere with the lively and nonthreatening pursuits of the Kingdom of Lollipop.
[this story started off a bit better than it ended, but whatever. that’s not the point. 2 minutes]
The Lollipop Kingdown rejoiced. Xylon, Echthia, and Bill rejoiced. I was confused as I’d been since early this morning.
“Why exactly did you need me?” I asked. “I mean, I didn’t even do anything.”
Bill had a grave look when he said, “We didn’t need you for this quest – you were just on the way so it was easier picking you up before than after. We need you for the next quest. The most dangerous of all missions we’ve undertaken. So dangerous, in fact, that we’ve lost every fourth member of our team every time we’ve embarked.”
My heart sank, and the timer went off.
[ok, whatever, nonsense but good job just writing. After maybe 3 months you’ll kick the crap out of your disparaging pre-filter that critiques everything you want to write before you write it.]