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2019 Day 4 – Two Characters

How did you get on yesterday? Did you write a story?

Remember, set your own rules, and stick to them. If you miss a day, don’t try to catch up. Just keep moving forward!

The Prompt

WRITE A STORY WITH NO MORE THAN TWO CHARACTERS

Short stories are short. One of the ways to stop them from creeping out of control is to limit the number of characters.

Stick to two characters today (yes, your characters can refer to other people, but nobody else appears in the story.)

If you usually write in third person, try first.

If you usually write adult women, try a boy, or an alien, or a grown man.

Go!

Check back every day for more prompts, and don’t forget to come back and leave a comment to celebrate your writing successes, every day!

51 thoughts on “2019 Day 4 – Two Characters”

  1. Day 4 was actually one of the best writing days so far. I have yet to finish any story within 40 minutes but have decided to work further on them later (maybe Oct.?).

    I am amazed that so many of you are posting your stories. So brave. I’ve been writing for years, but sharing my work is very difficult for me. As I said, nothing is finished, so I’m quite hesitant to show to anyone.

    Anyway, my two characters are based on real people I knew as a child but the names and situations are fiction.
    The premise: Two black gay friends in the 1950s South, who live out and proud before it was acceptable, attend their high school reunion ten years later.

    It needs lots of work, but I can see it actually being finished at some point.

    Willi

  2. Today’s story was really rough. It’s not close to ready and barely even qualifies as a first draft, but I at least got the story from beginning to end. I couldn’t keep the POV consistent, kept trying to write in 1st person but realized I needed to tell parts of the story from another viewpoint, so I have to go back and clean that up, but overall it’s a good idea and something I can work with.

  3. I wrote a story today about communication between a husband and wife. I had trouble deciding where to go with it, so I went to the short story framework and it helped me bring it around to a good conclusion.

  4. Hooray! Just polished off a story for Day 4: A father comes to his daughter’s high school graduation and stops by to visit her mother from whom he’s been divorced for 15 (bitter) years. Actually, the scene comes from something else I’ve been working on, but I put a different spin on the circumstances. It’s tucked away in the StoryADay folder, and now I can go play cards at church and make my exercise group later with a clear conscience! Heh heh heh.

  5. I have just started my day 4 story but it is about 2 teenage boys in their Senior year of High school. They have been friends forever but facing their last year in school together before they go their separate ways for college.
    I am just writing all my stories on my tablet and not on a website. Do you think I should add them to my blog ? Or should I just keep adding them to my tablet and continue on the stories as I have time to make a great short story book?

    1. Yup, chiming in (a bit late) to say you might want to keep them to yourself for now, but feel free to ask around for readers when you feel you need feedback/encouragement.

  6. Day 4 September challenge. A story with just 2 characters.
    I am currently working on a story of a girl who has run away from home after failing to get approval for her plans from her parents .
    For today’s challenge I chose to write about the situation/relationships between her parents after she’d left.
    I think it may provide an interesting ending to the story as it’s turned out!
    I wrote 1404 words.

  7. I wrote day 4 just now, a conversation piece between 2 people . No particular reason for not writing y’day, i was just played out, and considered it too late in the evening. i decided to bookend today by doing day 4 in am then day 5 around dinnertime. i don’t have a website so i’m posting little snippets of my writing on my instagram site . kitty.blanchard

  8. Yeah! I’m really pleased with the rough first draft that has grown out of this challenge!
    I’m gaining so much from all your posts. Thank you so much everyone.

  9. Hello people! I am kind of new here. Can anyone tell me how do I actually post my story here?

    1. This worked fine. (You just landed in the moderation queue. That won’t happen again after I’ve approved a couple of comments from you. Trust me it’s worth it to avoid all the ‘comments’ offering to sell us weird and wonderful things!!)

  10. Tried first person as I did yesterday, not my usual POV, but wrote a 600 word story. Not one of my better days, but at least did a little something.

    1. “At least I did a little something” definitely feels good. Hope you’re still writing!

  11. I got started late today. I need to rearrange my weekends. I wrote a story today but did not start until 11:00 p.m. However, I still managed to write 842 words. It was in the first person pov which I don’t do often, and from the perspective of a dog. The dog spoke to his owner. Once she got over her confusion about talking dogs they communicated very well and he helped her with her problems. Looking forward to the day 5 prompt and the prospect of actually starting on it earlier.

  12. My shortest story of the month but my favorite so far! It sparks ideas for future stories in same universe so I’m pretty excited. It’s about twins in future and only one get accepted into space school.

  13. Another day, another story. None of my story sparks were resonating today, so I did a warm-up word association (based on Lynda Barry’s fantastic book on the creative process, What It Is). I ended up writing a monologue for a character who would not let go of a childhood slight, to comic effect. Great fun.

  14. How did a two character short story become my longest story so far this May? I have left it rough with only the dialogue sketched out, but I am actually pretty excited where it is going.

  15. I struggled to get started today, none of my story sparks were appealing to me today. So I just started writing in my comfort zone – a dialogue in script form. It explores communication or lack thereof – what is said versus what is meant and what is meant versus what is understood. I think I will return to this someday too, because It needs more work to convey exactly what I mean. (irony?). Anyway, it’s about 800 words and called Face to Facebook.

    1. I can associate with that, I started one, it did not gel, so I rolled the dice and off i went. sometimes it’s good to go to the save zone just to get hte momentum going.

  16. Hectic day. Today I skipped the official prompt because I attended a writer’s workshop and did the writing that was on their agenda, churning out over 5 pages.

    I’m really excited about the workshop. I may have found some people to interact with IRL, like-minded souls who are interested in writing, reading and commenting on each other’s work. About 25 people attended, over 1% of the town’s total population! A surprising number of the participants were English-speaking. Several were Norwegian, of course, Svalbard being part of Norway. But France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands were also represented. So many stories!

      1. No specific prompts; more like prompt prompters. The one that tickled me most was to go to this site https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family, where each color has its own name, many of them totally insane. We selected three colors that appealed to us (mine were called Pickle, Fresh Air and Memorable Rose), free-write a few associations about each, then tease out a story that would unite those associations somehow.

        I’m definitely going to use that trick again!

  17. Finished today’s story. Writing without even mentioning more than 2 characters was a little more challenging than I suspected. It was fun to think of various ways to frame the sentences to be able to get the same idea across. I liked this as writing practice for sure.
    Also, a writing friend had recommended a New Yorker podcast where they read and discussed “The Jockey” which influenced my story as well. I have been wanting to write a story with a character that travels and specifically about the hotel rooms stayed in. It finally came together this morning!

    Thanks to all involved in this process! HA!

    1. a quick note – I am writing from Australia, so interesting my calendar day 4 is your day 3 so it makes for an interesting scenario. What I am trying to say is that if I am early, it’s not that I’m super enthusiastic, just that when you are waking I am well caffinated already. Just sayin.

      1. Thank you, Marian! I read your comment and thanks for letting me know what you thought. There’s room for improvement but the encouragement always works😊

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