Writing in the Margins
Good morning, Patchworkers!
A Friday prompt:
The sky.
Take this as an opportunity for world-building, if you want, or as an opportunity for character development. If you’re focusing on character-building, consider what the sky might mean for them (is it a night sky? Are they alone?), or what their focus on the sky might be distracting them from (a conversation? A memory?), or what the sky might be doing to them and how they might be reacting (rain? snow? blistering or basking in the sun?).
If you feel up to it, push yourself outside your comfort zone in terms of genre or style. Don’t be afraid to write something silly or cliche, or to rely on existing sci fi or fantasy tropes if that’s what you’re leaning towards. Fiction writing is a less comfortable medium for some of us in this group, so let yourself be new to it!
There is no way to fail at this – if you write, you are a writer. If you write, you have succeeded. If you don’t write, you are still a writer! You know yourself. I trust your self-assessment, and I trust the self-knowledge that draws you to this group.
Here is some world-building sky from Geoffrey A. Landis’ story, “The Sultan of Clouds.”
“Clouds.
A hundred and fifty million square kilometers of clouds, a billion cubic kilometers of clouds. In the ocean of clouds the floating cities of Venus are not limited, like terrestrial cities, to two dimensions only, but can float up and down at the whim of the city maters, higher into the bright cold sunlight, downward to the edges of the hot murky depths.
Clouds. The barque sailed over cloud-cathedrals and over cloud-mountains, edges recomplicated with cauliflower fractals. We sailed past lairs filled with cloud-monsters a kilometer tall, with arched necks of cloud stretching forward, threatening and blustering with cloud-teeth, cloud-muscled bodies with clawed feet of flickering lightning.”
Set your timer for 20 minutes, and create the sky.
