PROMPT

Weekly Prompt: Character vs Character Update

A point clarified

After fielding a few questions, we thought it best to summarize this week’s Writing Prompt.

What this prompt is requesting is a story of one character in conflict with another character. A pretty universal theme:

• David vs Goliath.
• Sarah Connor vs the Terminator.
• Pat Garrett vs Billy the Kid.
• Westley vs Humperdinck.

The word length of the story (using Medium’s word count functionality) can be 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 and 1,000.

Some examples of stories:

• A family divided after the patriarch’s will leaves everything to the youngest sibling of three—the two oldest fight over whether this is fair.
• A family divided by religious war, brother against brother.
• A couple cannot decide on which restaurant to eat at. So they argue about it.
• Gladiators brawl in the arena.
• A coyote hunts a rabbit from either perspective.
• A Romulan meets a Betazoid in a bar. They have a drink. The Romulan thinks the wrong thing, and the Betazoid slaps him. He avenges his honour.
• Huckleberry Finn steals Genghis Khan’s pocket watch and gets caught.

Anything that your imagination can come up with, use it as a story. In the end, all conflicts are personal, even if it becomes one person deciding between a big mac and a quarter pounder.

Conflict. That’s the gist of the contest—the basis of all drama. Sometimes the conflict is on a vast, universal scale. Sometimes it’s simply a one-on-one conflict.

This week, we want to read about one-on-one conflict. Wow us. Wow yourself, but remember this is the first of four weeks that count towards our grand prize of $50. So don’t worry about the four-week arc yet. Concentrate on this first week, and the story will grow. One week can naturally lead to the next, unless the universe explodes/ But then, off to the next metaverse.

Stories need to be told. The writers at Microcosm are the best at telling them.

The generator apps we suggested in the prompt are only for your help. They can be a way to break out of writer’s block or a fun amuse-bouche. They can also be a rabbit hole that you never escape from. This is especially true of the Unreal Metahuman Creator. I spent an hour playing with it and generated these two characters. I had fun, but it killed an hour of productivity. On the other hand, who wants to be productive on a Saturday morning? Playing with the generator was definitely fun.

You know the drill. Follow us on Twitter at @MicrocosmPub. And who knows? We may follow you back.