August 2020 Writing Challenge Week 4

August 2020 Writing Challenge Week 4

Hosted by @ryan.ewing.writing on Instagram 

August 22nd, 2020

Your MCs see someone strike their misbehaving child in public. How do they respond?

Both of my characters might be slightly jealous of the misbehaving child for still having parents.  After that initial thought, Merrick would probably be relieved that he didn’t’ have a parent who was willing to hit a child. He’d had enough of that in his rough upbringing at the orphanage. 

But at the same time, he wouldn’t be willing to interfere in the quarrel.  He is an outsider, with no one to back him up should the parent be someone influential in the community.  As an orphan and as a mage who is hiding his element, Merrick lives by weighing the risks, and he decided that drawing attention to himself is not a good thing. 

At the same time, however, he also is willing to criticize the parent, making sure to use the power of gossip to lessen the parent’s reputation and influence in the community.

Cinderella cannot fathom how hitting a child is useful.  She has a stark contrast in the way that her biological parents and her stepfamily treats her.  Her biological parents never struck her, whereas her stepfamily is all to willing to.  So, in her mind, a parent who is willing to strike a child is not a real parent.

She will make a note of who the parent is, and if her trading company has any connections with them, she will get the older merchants to have a chat with the parent, giving them a warning.  However, she will also hire some of the street urchins to spy on the family, and if the parent continues to exhibit that kind of behavior, Cinderella will arrange for the child to be given an apprenticeship away from the parents.  And then the parents will mysteriously lose their jobs.

August 23rd, 2020

If your MCs each committed a crime, what would they do?

Merrick, the main character for my YA Fantasy novel, is committing a crime by wielding his dark and shadow magics.  The temple of the flame god rose in power of the years and were finally able to affect politics a few decades ago.  As a result, the dark mages were blamed for a plethora of crimes and then the use of their magic was banned within the country. So Merrick has to hide his main elemental affinity as he goes to the mage’s academy to learn how to control the huge amount of mana he is capable of wielding.

Cinderella will be committing assault, several times.  Once will be with her high heels (in combination with a long and winding set of stairs).  In addition to this, she will be blackmailing a hitman into giving evidence against her stepmother.  Cinderella could also be accused of business espionage and sabotage as she is going to, from the outside, run her father’s business into the ground in order to make her stepmother give up control over the business.

August 24th, 2020

What would your MCs first act be as President/King?

Merrick’s first order of business would be to ensure the dark mages were able to practice their magic openly.  His second order of business would be to order a complete investigation into the flame god’s temple by third parties, with a supervisory board of dark mages.  Since the dark mages are the only ones capable of breaking the brainwashing and hypnotism the light priests can cast on others, the dark mages would have to be a part of the investigation, despite the probably grudges the dark mages have against the temple who forced their exile.

Cinderella’s first act as Queen would be to order the intelligence officers to investigate the comings and goings of the delegates and merchants from a certain country that has been interfering in their trade routes.  She needs to collect evidence in order to blackmail and threaten the ambassadors of the country when they come to renegotiate their treaty.  The second order of business is to rearrange the allocation of resources to send more into the military and armed forces for when the negotiations fail.

August 25th, 2020

Write a scene: Your MCs’ wedding.

Those are spoilers!  Both for Merrick, in my YA fantasy, and in my Cinderella Retelling!  So you will have to wait to read these scenes!

August 26th, 2020

Your MCs are on a trans-continental flight. How do they keep themselves busy?

By looking out the window. 

Merrick would be intrigued by figuring out how the airplane works.  Since he has a minor wind affinity, he can’t fly using magic. His familiar would be flying loops around the airplane outside, since she can fly.  But Merrick would be interested in examining the inside of the plane and trying to capture the feeling of flying.  The idea that a giant tube of metal can hurtle through the air without any magic is surprising to him.  His friend who is an apprentice blacksmith would also be interested in the engine, controls, and fuel systems.

Merrick and his friend would start comparing notes and try to figure out the best way to create an enchantment that would mimic the power of the engines without needing the computers and the fuel consumption.

Cinderella might treat it as a fancy carriage. She has experienced the life of luxury prior to the death of her father, but it has been a while since then. Plus, none of the carriages she’s ridden could go as quickly as the plane.  She would enjoy looking out the window, just to see the difference in scale.  Cinderella would also enjoy the fact that although it is faster than a ship will sails full of wind, there is not as much motion to cause nausea. 

Eventually, Cinderella would calm down and enjoy a cup of tea and a nap.  She would also enjoy flirting with the prince if he was able to make the time to come with her.

August 27th, 2020

If your MCs could each have a superpower, what would they choose?

At the beginning of the novel, Merrick wants to have magic.  He wants any kind of magic at all.  He has been told for all his growing years that he has no spark of magic within him, meaning that he doesn’t have any elemental affinity.  No one wants to hire a young orphan who has no affinity for jobs that require some sort of elemental affinity.  Farmers hire those who have earth affinities, as it makes the crops grow faster.  Those with wind or water affinities are used by merchants and sailors because they can read the wind and water flows better, or find a source of fresh water in an unknown land. 

Merrick is about to become an adult in the eyes of society, which means he will no longer be able to stay at the orphanage. He needs to find a job.  The only one who wants to hire him is a shady merchant who deals with illegal slave trade. Merrick needs to have any kind of magic at all in order to change his life.  Or at least, he thinks any kind of magic will do.

Cinderella is determined to get what she wants, no matter what it takes.  She has a plan to get it, so she feels like she could make it through life without having a superpower. However, since having a superpower might make things more convenient, she would gladly accept having one. The particular power she would like to have would be to know for certain when someone is lying.  This would give her a greater advantage in business negotiations, as well as pointing her in the correct direction when she needs to interrogate and blackmail someone.

August 28th, 2020

Your MCs can each write a book. Who or what would they write about?

Merrick would write a history book. It would include information he found from the banned books, as well as events that happened to him which involved the temple priest and the higher officials playing political shenanigans.

He would also rewrite the myth of the fight between the twin gods, the god of death and the god of fire.  The way the temple portrayed the myth plays into the slander of the followers of the god of death, who is also the god of justice, and Merrick would like to correct the story to a more unbiased way of telling the events.

Cinderella would probably write a book about business and trade.  She can smell a money-making opportunity in the how-to book market, so she would be happy to give some basic advice in the form of a book and make a profit off of it.  Cinderella might also put together a book on makeup styles and looks for the ladies to buy. But she also wouldn’t spend a whole lot of time on either of the books, as she gets most of her money from selling other products and investments.

If you are interested in seeing more of these prompts, make sure to check out the September 2020 Writing Challenge Prompts Page as well.

August 2020 Writing Challenge Week 5 will be live 8/31/2020 at 6:00 PM Eastern.

September 2020 Writing Challenge Prompts will be live 8/31/2020 at 6:30 PM Eastern.