The Prompt
Work the words vermillion and musky somewhere in the next 250 words you write.
Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of the GLAMOURIST HISTORIES series of historical fantasy novels, and the 2011 Hugo Award-winning short story “For Want of a Nail.” Her short fiction appears in Clarkesworld, Cosmos and Asimov’s. Mary, a professional puppeteer, lives in Chicago. Visit her online at maryrobinettekowal.com.
I took a detour through a less than pleasing first draft, but rewrote and liked it much better. I used both the word count and guest prompts for my story “Vermilion Threads”. Moreover, I learned some things about vermilion, too! =D
I sense we have a bunch of real word-lovers here!
I poked a bit of fun at the combination of words… and furthered character development at the same time–yay! Here are the sentences… they’re supposed to be a bit ridiculous–my character describing a violin.
Its delicate curves framed a vermillion body, accented by intricate lines of grain…
Its voice rendered the music into something sublime—a passionate perfume of musky melody.
http://carriegreen.tumblr.com/post/84679638028/a-story-a-day-in-may-3-5-3-14
http://guptacarlsonshortstories.blogspot.com/2014/05/growing-stones.html
This one was fun. I hadn’t actually seen the word counts prior, but I like them. I would like to play with this one at some point when I’m not so tired and just trying to throw words down.
Great prompt. Love that vermillion.
Now I’m nervous …
This was wonderful. I didn’t get around to using the word musky, but I hopefully have the feeling of the word in my story, and “vermillion” was so powerful it drove the whole story anyways.
http://deesylvie.com/2014/05/03/cinnabar-cove/
I loved this!
I love challenges like this. I can already feel the tone of my story just from having those words in it…
wooo hoo that one was fun
The vermilion border is the normally sharp demarcation between the lip (red colored) and the adjacent normal skin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermilion_border
Hope that helps someone else as much as it helped me lol