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Post by Nessa Arandur on Oct 23, 2020 2:38:05 GMT -6
One Word to Rule Them All Hi everyone! Now here's a challenge that will require a little brain work! Not that the others don't, of course, but this one may require a little more research than most.  Step One
Your challenge is to find a word - the more uncommon the word or your usage of it, the better - and then find out what you can about its meaning or possible meanings. This word will be your new title. Having said this, there can be exceptions to this rule. For instance, if you choose a word that is very particular to the modern world (like a type of mineral or chemical compound, for example) and you are writing a fantasy plot. In such cases, if you must, you may change the word to something more fitting with the setting, but the meaning of it must still be taken from a word you have found and researched. If you have to do this, make sure you include both words in your post and explain why you made the change. Step Two
Using what you now know, write a short (100-word) thumbnail plot based on that word and the meaning you have found or ascribed to it. Step ThreeWrite a scene for this new plot you've created Step FourPost your word, it's definition, and your extract in this thread. Example: The word "sepulchre" is not super common, but interesting. The dictionary definition me be all one needs to get the ideas flowing. The noun means: "tomb, esp. cut in rock or built in stone or brick". That is the meaning most of us would have seen used in a novel somewhere. My plot could be about a society where the sepulchre is seen as loathsome form of burial, a punishment for the wicked only, not just another way to bury the dead. But there's also a verb form of the same word, meaning: "lay in sepulchre". Using that meaning, perhaps I could make my plot not about what a sepulchre is in this society, but rather who it is that sepulchres the bodies. Perhaps they're actually an evil sect of some kind, or maybe they're a disguised faction who uses the method to smuggle oppressed people out of the country. The usual use of a word is maybe not as interesting as finding a way to use another meaning, so be as creative as you can! This challenge will not only help you learn the meanings of new words, but help you learn how to use them creatively to form new stories and storylines (a.k.a. plots). Have fun! Reward: Earn a maximum of 10 Honor Points based on your excerpt's word count. 100 words or less = 10 Easy Points 101-300 words = 10 Medium Points 301-500 words = 10 Hard Points |
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Post by RAVENEYE on Nov 5, 2020 18:16:43 GMT -6
Oh, I love this prompt. Here goes, my very unedited rough excerpt. No judgments. I haven't checked for typos or crappy wording yet.
Pomander
MF: pome d’ambre = “apple/ball of amber”: A mixture of aromatic substances enclosed in a perforated bag or box and used to scent clothes and linens or formerly carried as a guard against infection. Also: a clover-studded orange or apple used for the same purposes.
Thumbnail Plot:
Every year, the villagers hang pomanders around their houses and upon their bodies to disguise their presence to the evil that emerges from the darkness at winter solstice. Both blind and deaf, the Sniffers, as the people call nicknamed them, hunt prey by smell and taste alone. The priests of holy Astras hold a lottery to determine which of the babes born during the past year will be delivered to appease the darkness. But this year, something else emerges with the Sniffers, and rendering the pomanders useless.
Story: Pomander
The valley was beautiful, once. Back when I was a little girl. So green and lush and bountiful with orchards and rye growing thick. The sight of it now, barren and black, is proof enough that the tale I have to tell is true.
I was eight years old when I saw it unfold. When I saw her.
Ma always said, “Hetti, you’re one of the lucky ones. The gods ignored you, so you got to live. Because of them others, the ones who weren’t so lucky, you’ll get to grow old, you wait and see.”
Every year on the longest night of winter, we paid our dues to Darégus. My mother ground herbs for a week leading up to that night, like all the mothers and grandmothers in the valley. She inspected our burlap robes for torn hems and stitched them up again. Once she found that a mouse had chewed a hole in mine, and she’d cried in a panic all morning till she managed to patch it.
That was the part that scared me. The frantic movement of her hands as she worked, b/c it wasn’t like smiling, song-filled work she did all the rest of the year; I could tell she was afraid, just by the movement of her hands.
When the robes had passed inspection, and the herbs were ground in soft piles on the chopping block, we got to do my favorite part. Mother would take me down in the root cellar beneath our kitchen and together we’d riffle through the apple barrel and separate the pretty wrinkly ones from the rotten ones. When I was big enough, I got to carry the bowl full of rotten fruit back up the stair to the kitchen, where we punched cloves through the soft skins of the apples, making funny spiky balls. They filled the house with a sweet sickly spicy perfume, and to this day I can’t smell apple and clove without getting a chill down my back.
I caught Ma smiling a sad smile on occasion, and once I asked her why the apples made her sad. When I was old enough, five or six, she told me:
“I named you after my sister. Your Aunt Hetti, she’da been, had she been luckier.” ...
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The story is developing quite nicely. I'm at 1130 words, and it's not finished yet. :woot:
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