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-BookDragon-
Scratcher
100+ posts

❧ The Dragon's Den: Skyler's SWC Writing Thread

❧ 03/22/24 ○ Pathetic Fallacy Daily ○ 260 words ○ 450 points
Writers use a lot of figurative language, and today we're focusing on just one type: pathetic fallacy. Similar to personification, pathetic fallacy is when a story utilizes the environment to convey emotions by using typically human actions (ex: weeping raindrops, dancing leaves, etc). For 300 points, write a story of at least 250 words using pathetic fallacy to convey an emotion. Then, post it in the comments for 150 more points and see if anyone can guess which emotion it is!

We drove down the empty street, looking out the windows of the car at the aftermath of the vicious snowstorm. The sun had come out and harshly melted most of it away, and the small drifts that remained were sad and doomed. The snow had done some damage—tree branches lay snapped and useless on the ground, some unfortunate power lines had suffered the same fate, and the grass that had been shyly turning green and poking towards the sky was now shriveled and brown.
The storm had been around a week ago, and it was a wild one—the wildest one we’d seen in years. They had said to expect anywhere from five to ten inches the first night. We got fifteen. By the second day of the storm, we had eighteen inches of snow. And it wasn’t fluffy powder—it was wet, heavy stuff that compacted and turned into slush when it warmed up. The snowblower couldn’t handle it by the time it started to get heavier.
We got off pretty okay. A lot of people lost power or got buried inside their houses. Or both, in some cases. Overall, we had around two broken tree branches and our garage roof’s gutter was bent so that the top faced outward because of the weight of the snow on it.
It wasn’t the worst snowstorm we’ve had. The snow melted off the streets quickly and some areas only got around two inches, and the temperatures weren’t that low.
I’m fairly certain it broke a couple records, though—it was a truly ambitious snowstorm.

✎ Skyler/Mouse(y) ⚘ any pronouns

Writer, singer, artist, actress, chaos dragon

❝ Happiness is a choice ❞
-BookDragon-
Scratcher
100+ posts

❧ The Dragon's Den: Skyler's SWC Writing Thread

❧ 03/24/24 ○ Hobbit-Hole Daily ○ 434 words ○ 500 points
“It was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort…” To honour Tolkien Reading Day tomorrow, let's take a breather to really fall into Middle Earth Hobbit-holes, our heroes' lovely underground homes, have come to be a fixture of Tolkien's cultural impact. Describe what your own personal hobbit hole might look like - the ambiance, the bookshelves, the secret passageways in your cellar; include details! 400 words for 400 points, and an extra 100 points for providing proof.

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This is SUPER rushed (did it in 14 minutes!), so please excuse all horrible spelling errors :sob:

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My hobbit hole is big and roomy, with not much furniture nd plenty of floorspace. You enter into a large room with tall ceilings and wooden floors, with carpets on the floor and lots of storage on the walls. The towering ceilings (it’s a big hill) have lots of lanters on them, and other lanterns hang around the space, giving it an overall bright and warm feel. After the first room there’s a hallway and lots of doors leading off of it, and the first of those doors leads to a sitting area. A fireplace burns merrily and there’s lots of comfy couches and chairs scattered around, and rugs on the floor. SHelves cover the walls, and it’s overall very cozy. The next room is the kitchen. It’s huge, with tons of cabinetry and countertops. The cabinets are wooden, dark red wood to be exact, and the counters are quartz. Lots of different cooking tools are scattered across the counters and in the cabinets, which are also stocked with foods. Most of the things are heavily used, and there’s a pile of dirty dishes waiting to be cleaned. A cookbook shelf is on the wall, and it contains lots of this cookbooks with lots of bookmarks sticking out of a ton of different pages. The pages themselves are stained and well-worn, and there’s quite a few scribbles in the margins with notes and addons. There’s a hidden staircase behind one of the cabinets that goes down to a celler, which is cool and dark. Here, cheese is being made and mushrooms are being grown, hte mushrooms hanging in large bags from the ceiling and the cheese sitting on delicately carved wooden shelves.
Next is a dining room, which has a huge wooden table and lots of chairs surrounding it. ANother fireplace is here, as well as some shelves with cool decorative knicknacks that are usually the subjects of many conversations. Among them are a candle, a scroll, a bag of gold coins, a polished key with some glowing purple substance on it, a picture of a goblin, a laser, and a ruined map.
The next room is a game room. Board games (traditional and handmade) fill the shelves on the wall, and there’s a huge table in the middle with lots of room to play games with large groups, and smaller tables are to the side for smaller groups. Several of these are covered with puzzles.
Deeper in the hobbit-hole is bedrooms, offices, and art rooms, and also many secret passageways, but I’m of course not going to give away all my secrets… ;D

✎ Skyler/Mouse(y) ⚘ any pronouns

Writer, singer, artist, actress, chaos dragon

❝ Happiness is a choice ❞
-BookDragon-
Scratcher
100+ posts

❧ The Dragon's Den: Skyler's SWC Writing Thread

❧ 03/26/24 ○ Weekly Three ○ 1576 words total ○ 2500 points

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❧ Part 1: Outline ○ 458 words total

  • The inciting incident is when April, my main character, finds that her best friend, Grey, has been kidnapped. Grey doesn’t show up at school and when April goes to their house to check on them she finds their house ransacked. A single clue is left behind–a note with mysterious instructions for some sort of project. And that project seems to include Grey. (62 words)

  • April does some internet searches with her two other friends, Max and Rhea, and finds that Grey has been kidnapped by BlueSuns, a giant, powerful company that is much more (and much eviller) than it seems… and also happens to be to corporation employing April’s dad and Rhea’s much older brother. They ask seemingly harmless questions to April’s dad and Rhea’s brother, gaining some information about the company. They make a breakthrough and discover a hidden dark side to the company, but that doesn’t go unnoticed. BlueSuns kidnaps April’s dad and Rhea’s brother and leaves a note asying they won’t make it out alive if the kids keep investigating. It scares them, but they don’t stop–they’re just much more careful. They keep making breakthroughs, and they devise a plan to rescue their family members and save Grey. But as everything’s coming together, one question remains: why did they kidnap Grey specifically? (151 words)

  • They break into the corporation hq and split up. Rhea and Max go off to free the prisoners, and April goes to the central database, because she had some questions she wants answered. She gets to the database and searches for Grey. And what she finds is shocking. Grey is a runaway experiment that the company was working on. They were never meant to get a consciousness or get out, but they did. The company had been trying to track them down for years, because they were unstable and dangerous. Now April has to make a choice… should she warn her friends, or should she pretend she doesn’t know anything? The things in the file about what Grey is capable of is terrifying. If they’re free, thousands could die. But Grey is her friend. She doesn’t know what to do. (140 words)

  • April texts her friends to let her handle Grey’s rescue and sprints off to find Grey. She finds them quickly and talks to them. Grey tells her the side of the story that the file didn’t tell, and she eventually decides to go with the original plan and frees them. (50 words)

  • They expose BlueSuns’ illegal activities and the company is shut down. The company was officially shut down, and April herself was allowed to oversee and make sure everything is taken care of. Grey is a lot more open about their past now, and April erases the files on them so they don’t get taken again. (55 words)

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❧ Part 2: Clues ○ 277 words total

Clue 1: A note is found in Grey’s trashed bedroom. It reads ‘Find E9437. Status- Alive. Very dangerous.’ additionally, in the bedroom there are scratches and blood. The scratches on the floor and walls are not really touched on because April is more intent on the note, but she can’t help but notice the blood. It’s fairly minimal, but it sparks tension and fear for Grey’s well-being. There’s a symbol on the note that belongs to BlueSuns. (77 words)

Clue 2: When she talks to her dad about BlueSun, he gets nervous and distracted when she presses for more information. He’s clearly hiding something. She goes through his office and finds some papers that imply some of the dark dealings the company really does. SHe takes it to the police, but it’s not enough to press charges. (58 words)

Clue 3: April, Rhea, and Max get Rhea’s older brother to tell them more about the company–and he tells almost everything thanks to some clever manipulation on Rhea’s part–including floor plan, master codes, and where Grey would be kept… but the company takes notice (Rhea’s brother was forced to tell them) and kidnap him and April’s dad. (57 words)

Clue 4: The company, in its haste to stomp out the trio’s efforts to get their friend back, makes a personal visit with them. They tell them that “It’s extremely important that you keep all you know about our operations under wraps for the sake of your family members… unless you want them to become experiments like your friend.” This seems like just a threat at the time, but it also reveals more about hte company’s real doings and imply’s Grey already being an experiment (85 words)

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❧ Part 3: Partner interview ○ 250 words

I am rushing this so much otherwise I would have fancied this but you can find the interview here

i am so sorry again hhh

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❧ Part 4: story part ○ 591 words


April sat at her computer in Grey’s trashed bedroom, furiously typing search after search. Max lay on the floor on his phone, and Rhea was peering over April’s shoulder, watching. All her searches were coming up with nothing.
“I don’t get it! I’m trying everything!”
Max sighed, flopping his head over so it was looking under the bed.
“Hey guys, there’s a camera under here, and I think it’s recording!”
“What?!”
April exclaimed, jumping up. Max pulls out the camera. It is indeed recording, and they carefully stop the recording and start it. Grey is standing there, and is silently holding up signs, making a video of some sort. They have to use signs because the microphone on their camera is broken. SUddenly the door flies open behind them and three people wearing turtle masks storm in. Grey dives out of the frame of the camera and there’s a struggle. Then the camera’s knocked under the bed, facing the wall.
“Who were those guys?”
April wondered,
“And why were they wearing turtle masks?”
“No idea,” Rhea sighs. “Can I try searching?”
“Go ahead,” April laughs, “I’m tired of not getting what I want in the search results anyway!”
They go back into silence, April watching Grey’s video over and over, trying to find a clue or…somehting. Anything! Suddenly, Rhea cries out,
“Got it!!”
“WHat?” APril exclaims, jumping up and rushing over. She looks at the screen.
“What?? BlueSuns?”
“Yes! Hear me out. We’ve been looking a thetis from teh wrong perspective. If you rotate this symbol, it’s a stamp of BlueSuns’ logo, except it’s a bit altered. I’ve seen this symbol on my brother’s ‘official’ paperwork. This one’s a little ruined, which is why I didn’t recognize it at first. It totally makes sense!”
“It makes no sense!” April protested, “Why would BlueSuns kidnap Grey?”
“I don’t know,” Rhea sighed, “But let’s find out.”
“But how?” Max asked. Rhea shrugged. “I don’t know! WHat do you think we should do?”
“I don’t even know what BlueSUns does! You guys are the ones with family in teh company!”
“OOOH YEAH!”
April yelled, and them flinched at how loud she’d been.
“Whoops. Sorry. But I had an idea!”
“I could tell,” Max deadpanned, “What is it?”
“Rhea and I have family in the company!” April exclaimed, “We could interview them subtly and they could maybe even help get Grey back!” Rhea clapped her hands. “It’s a plan. But first, we gotta agree on teh questions. I mean, we could go straight up to them an be like ‘hi is your company evil and why did they kidnap my bestie would you help us get them back’ but what if they’re on the evil side? What would we do then? We have to be more subtle, guys. We have to go up to them and ask questions like what they do, and why they do it, and is there anything especially interesting about it. Perthend we’re extra interested in it or something. April, you probe your dad first, then if that doesn’t work we can go after my brother. He’ll crack if I bug him enough. I don’t know what else to do, honestly. I don’t think we can just go up to the company and stop them.”
“Maybe we can,” APril said, “But I like that plan! I’ll pretend I’m interested in his job as a potential future career–because that’s what he’s always pressuring me to do; find a good future career. I’ll ask him tonight and get back to you guys tomorrow!”


✎ Skyler/Mouse(y) ⚘ any pronouns

Writer, singer, artist, actress, chaos dragon

❝ Happiness is a choice ❞

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