Day 1
Description of today’s challenge from Matthew Everett:
Challenge #1 - Assorted Dialogue
I always like to start with something dialogue-related, just to loosen things up, get the writing muscles working, but not be too proscriptive. So here’s four random bits of dialogue:
“Don’t ever say that name again.”
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“I’m bleeding, you say? Gee, I hadn’t noticed.”
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“Am I… your lock screen?”
“You weren’t supposed to see that.”
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“I may or may not have summoned a demon, but don’t worry, he’s friendly.”
Take any of these lines and write something that includes it.
If you’re feeling ambitious, use more than one bit of dialogue.
If you’re feeling ridiculous, use all four somehow. (No, they don’t need to be in order, give yourself a break :)
These are all courtesy of the Instagram account SophieMPoraykoWrites, one of many, many writing-related accounts on the platform. Most are focused on prose writing, but hey, characters are characters, plot is plot, and dialogue is dialogue, so there’s a lot of useful crossover encouragement and tips. Once you get the algorithm going, it’ll offer up all kinds of fun things.
https://www.instagram.com/sophiemporaykowrites/
Scene
Amanda
Hey, so… remember how you told me that “the magicks are not to be trifled with “ and “the gods don’t take kindly to being mocked” and umm… “don’t read anything out loud unless you are positive you know the outcome of reading that thing out loud because you never know when something might be a summoning charm in disguise”?
Belinda
I don’t like where this is going…
Amanda
So… hypothetically if I say… didn’t listen to, specifically that last piece of advice and picked up one of your books, I don’t know for instance… The Demonolator’s Guide to Daemonic Magick… and picked a random page and started reading it out loud for fun, mostly to make fun of you if we want to be completely honest in this hypothetical, and maybe it got, a little… out of hand?
Belinda
What did you do?
Amanda
Hypothetically? I may or may not have summoned a demon. But don’t worry, he’s friendly. His name is Kostchtchie and he goes by Koshi. Hypothetically.
Belinda
Gods, I can’t believe you. Do you know how much trouble you could have been in!
Amanda
Hypothetically, no. I did not think anything would happen.
Belinda
Where is Koshi right now…. hypothetically.
Amanda
Well… he hypothetically is Russian… so I maybe ordered him some borscht and pierogis which he would hypothetically be enjoying in my bedroom… while I ask you for advice about this hypothetical situation that I am definitely not in and am only asking as a hypothetical…
Belinda
Can I see him?
Amanda
Do you mean is he transparent? No, he’s… he’s very opaque.
Belinda
I mean, let me in your bedroom so I can hypothetically help you get Koshi back to wherever he’s from —
Amanda
Russian hell! …hypothetically…
Belinda
….- Help you get him back from… “Russian hell” before his absence causes irreparable damage to the balance of the universe.
Amanda
The way you say that makes me think you are in fact worrying about the demon I may oray not have summoned, when I specifically said to not worry because he’s nice…
Belinda
Just let me in your room. And once we get this fixed, we are going to have a conversation about roommate boundaries. And using magick responsibly.
Amanda
Do we have to?
Belinda
Apparently we do, because we didn’t before and now your room is going to smell semi-permanently of brimstone and beets.
Amanda
I was wondering what that smell was.
Belinda
KOSHI! Come out… we have to talk… and clean all the fabric in Amanda’s room with tomato juice and borax…
END SCENE