rowansnotebook

[rowansnotebook]

Writing prompt attempt: 

He had only been with his regiment for a couple of hours before he felt his body give in. The day’s march to their campsite had worn him out more than usual. Sven was starting to feel claustrophobic in his cage of plated armour. His comrades were all jolly, the mead had warmed their belly and loosened their joints. Martir was creating songs of their previous victories, his words dancing up into the air in a drunken splurge. His off-tune notes jumping off of the quick embers of the dying campfire. 

Sven felt solid as he sat listening to the tipsy cracks of his surroundings. The slow movements of the flames hypnotising his exhaustion out of him. The fire moved lazily around the burnt logs, almost mimicking his drunken friends who stumbled about around him. The gentle movements lulled him, enticing the deep and weighty fuzz of sleep. 

But before he drifted off, something caught his eye. As he watched the flames perform their tepid dance, he thought he could see eyes in the burning coals although the orbs that were staring at him weren’t orange from the heat, instead they burned a cool silver colour. He blinked. The eyes were no more than orange specks again. He blinked a couple more times, trying to make sense of what he saw. Then he looked up from the pit, his eyes aching from the light of the fire. Towards the treeline surrounding the camp, the same light caught his eye, he saw the same glowing eyes piercing through the the dark. 

He froze, letting out a tight gasp as fear gripped him. His recognition seemed to make whatever it was in the forest vanish. He let out a shaky breath, his presence centering back to the campfire where he noticed his fellow soldiers staring at him with mild concern. 

“What’s wrong?” said one of the soldiers, who laughed as he asked. 

“I-” Sven stopped himself, trying to find the right words. He rubbed his face, his hands brushing his red beard. The two neat plates which had been done the night before had now become messy. He twisted the end of one as an attempt to calm his nerves. 

“I thought I saw the grey fox,” he muttered. Hearing his words out loud made him feel embarrassed, which wasn’t helped by his companions bursting out laughing at his claim. 

“I think you’ve had too much, Sven!” one of the soldiers said, chuckling as they patted their comrade on the back. 

“I’m serious, it was at the treeline staring at me!” he exclaimed pointing to wear the fox’s silver eyes had met his. 

This was only met with more laughter. The warrior thought about defending his claim, but held his tongue. It made sense for him to be seeing things. He let out a sigh of defeat, shaking the images from his head, and stood to leave for his tent. 

“Hey!” Martir called out to him as Sven turned away from the group. Sven stopped to hear what he had to say, meeting the bard’s cool blue eyes with an exasperated look. 

“If you did see it, the grey fox is supposed to bring luck. Apparently any warrior who manages makes eye contact with the beast will be granted a gift from the spirit.” He spoke almost in song, as if he was reciting a great fable. 

Sven smiled at this.

“Goodnight,” was all he said in response. 

When he made it back to his tent, he quickly unhooked his armour, untying the knots and buckles in a numb motion. He was ready to sleep off whatever it was that he had seen. However, when he got into his cot, something hard caused him to jerk back. A beautiful silver sword lay tucked into his bed. The handle had diamonds engraved into the two ends of the handle’s gard. When these gems caught the light, they looked exactly like the silver eyes which Sven had gazed into. 

--

[picture from Your Healthy Year, Pinterest]

[rowansnotebook]

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

E.A. Deverell - FREE worksheets (characters, world building, narrator, etc.) and paid courses;

Hiveword - Helps to research any topic to write about (has other resources, too);

BetaBooks - Share your draft with your beta reader (can be more than one), and see where they stopped reading, their comments, etc.;

Charlotte Dillon - Research links;

Writing realistic injuries - The title is pretty self-explanatory: while writing about an injury, take a look at this useful website;

One Stop for Writers - You guys... this website has literally everything we need: a) Description thesaurus collection, b) Character builder, c) Story maps, d) Scene maps & timelines, e) World building surveys, f) Worksheets, f) Tutorials, and much more! Although it has a paid plan ($90/year | $50/6 months | $9/month), you can still get a 2-week FREE trial;

One Stop for Writers Roadmap - It has many tips for you, divided into three different topics: a) How to plan a story, b) How to write a story, c) How to revise a story. The best thing about this? It's FREE!

Story Structure Database - The Story Structure Database is an archive of books and movies, recording all their major plot points;

National Centre for Writing - FREE worksheets and writing courses. Has also paid courses;

Penguin Random House - Has some writing contests and great opportunities;

Crime Reads - Get inspired before writing a crime scene;

The Creative Academy for Writers - "Writers helping writers along every step of the path to publication." It's FREE and has ZOOM writing rooms;

Reedsy - "A trusted place to learn how to successfully publish your book" It has many tips, and tools (generators), contests, prompts lists, etc. FREE;

QueryTracker - Find agents for your books (personally, I've never used this before, but I thought I should feature it here);

Pacemaker - Track your goals (example: Write 50K words - then, everytime you write, you track the number of the words, and it will make a graphic for you with your progress). It's FREE but has a paid plan;

Save the Cat! - The blog of the most known storytelling method. You can find posts, sheets, a software (student discount - 70%), and other things;

I hope this is helpful for you!

(Also, check my blog if you want to!)

[rowansnotebook]

“From the day we met, I knew I would hurt you eventually. I told you not to get close to me-” 

“No!” he yelled, slamming his hands on the desk. His eyes starting to ache from crying. 

“Fuck you, Anderson, that is no excuse! You don’t get to blame your shitty behaviour on me. I did everything I could to help you. I didn’t come to you wanting to change you or ‘fix’ you. I know that you were a cunt and I was your friend anyway. Your behaviour is your problem and I refuse to just sit here and let you blame me for your shitty actions.” Ryans outburst shocked Anderson. He seemed to recoil from his friend as he yelled. 

“Ryan, I’m not trying to put this on you-” he stuttered, shocked at the once mild mannered, timid boy’s outburst. 

“But you are! You are. And don’t try to say that you’re not because you know its not true.” Ryan now walked away from the desk, wiping his face with his hands. His frustration seeping through causing him to go red in the face as he turned back to look Anderson straight in the eye. 

“Before I couldn’t understand how you could live with yourself after what you did to Beth, I couldn’t make sense of it. Part of me had thought that you just didn’t care or that she must have been telling a lie for you to not show any kind of guilt. But now it makes sense. You’ve revealed yourself Anderson.” Ryan moved closer to the desk once again, staring his startled partner down. 

“You tell yourself that it’s just who you are, that everyone you hurt knew what they were getting themselves into, that it was their fault for trying to help you, that it was their fault for burning themselves on the flaming mess that is Max Anderson. But you are the problem Max. You control your actions and you decided to sell me out to the police and let me take the fall for a crime that you fucking committed. Telling me that you’re sorry, telling me this shit show of a sob story isn’t going to reverse the criminal record I have attached to my name. This sob story is not going to bring Beth back from the fucking dead.” Ryan took a breath, his fists balled tight. He recomposed himself, taking a couple of steps back from Max as to not get violent. There was a long pause between the two boys. Anderson looked away from his old friend and down to his lap. 

Ryans words hung heavy over him. He was used to being able to switch his guilt off, but for some reason he felt caught. 

“Ryan I didn’t mean for this to get so out of hand, I didn’t want to throw you under the bus! I did it because I had to-” 

“What you had to do Max, was tell the truth. If you didn’t want to throw me under you wouldn’t have. Nothing you can say now can make up for this. I bored of your pathetic excuses.” 

“Come on Ryan, you can’t be serious!” 

“I am serious! I’m as serious as the fucking prison sentence you’ve put on my head, Max!” 

“My hands were tied, you have to understand-” Anderson was now yelling, his angry comfortably deflecting his conscious from his guilt.

“I don’t want to hear any more of this, every time you open your mouth I get fucked. So get out Anderson. Go sell your pathetic sob story to someone else.” 

Max bit his tongue and stood from his seat. He straightened his grey suit jacket and slowly walked over to the coat rack. Ryan had let out an exasperated sigh and sat on one of the un-comfy leather sofas that decorated the small room. 

Just as Max opened the door, he turned to his scorned friend and muttered an apology. 

“I’m sorry, Ryan, I never meant for this to happen.” 

With a dangerous glare, Ryan met Max’s eyes. 

“You’re a selfish little boy, Max. Your apology is worthless to me.” 

Max Anderson shut the door after him as those words kicked him out of the room. He never thought that getting away with murder would make him feel so sick.

--

Picture taken from Pinterest

[rowansnotebook]

Story summaries for this prompt:

1. A group of kids break into an old factory, the thing they’re being chased by something but it turns out to be the building slowly collapsing on itself. a thunderstorm triggers this process and what they think is a ghost or a killer chasing them is actually the sound of old rotten metal beams slowly unbolting from the pressure of the storm. it ends with them trying to leave the way they came only to arrive too late and have the ceiling of this old metal working factory fall in on them. 

2. MC had been horse riding, it was how she knew she had gotten so deep into the forest. she falls of her horse, after it gets spooked by something, she hits her head and passes out. when she wakes up in the woods, her leg is broken or dislocated and she cannot move easily, she wakes up at dusk, completely surrounded by trees and no idea where her horse is. she calls out to the animal, she’s running out of light and hope. it ends up with her crawling back the way she think she came only to get caught in some kind of hunting trap.