Writing Challenge - October

[Lumin]

Nickydude said I could do this so here you go:


Location: neighborhood street

Contains: jack-o-lanterns, gargoyle, motorcycle, costumed children, dead tree, old man


Remember to read the rules before posting. Challenge ends 1st Nov.



Edited By NickyDude on 1223845258

[NickyDude]

Yay, I get to have a go at the challenge.

> look

This street seems almost deserted, not surprising since Claybourne House stands here. Costumed children hurry by the end of the street, non dare come down. The house itself looks like it belongs in the late Victorian period, dead trees surround it's menacing demeanour and grotesque gargoyles stare at you from the roof corners while a jack-o-lantern flickers in one of the windows, it's evil grin sending chills through your body. A strange vintage motorcycle stands in the driveway, all black with what can only be described as a chrome devil perched between the handlebars, the old man said stay away from Claybourne House and it certainly doesn't look like a place you'd like to visit, even in daytime.

Edited By NickyDude on 1223845307

[NickyDude]

Surely I can't be the only one entering!

[Lumin]

Looks like you won...yay?

[NickyDude]

[brain in jar]

Ah. Sorry Nick.

[Duncan_B]

Less than three hours left to Hallowe'en, but it's only one room!
WHERE are our ECTOCompers?

For what it's worth, how about this...

Lost in the Neighbourhood Street

You shouldn't have stayed out this late. The jack-o-lanterns that could have lit your way have all burned dim, the pumpkins warped and sorry, rotty-looking, soft and ready to be smashed by angry children. Now the gray, plastic gargoyles stare emptily, making cheap festivity of your predicament and seeing through your cookie-cutter disguise. Here and there, costumed children stop to glimpse unhelpfully at you-- through the branches of dead trees-- from their behind their windows. In the distance a tired, old man sags over a bowl of candy (and yet he is always in the distance).

You repeat to yourself, "%mantra%"%motorcycle%

%motorcycle% is either a text variable ("The motorcycle screams mindlessly past again.") or the same message given echoed by an event.

%mantra% is a text variable whose message is controlled and escalated to using the numerical variable %mantra_num%. In a fully realised adventure, the two variables should be built to for proper dramatic effect. The escalation might look something like:


[%mantra_num%= 1], [%mantra= "Happy Halloween..."]
[%mantra_num%= 2], [%mantra= "Trick or treat..."]
[%mantra_num%= 3], [%mantra= "Behind the inside things..."]
[%mantra_num%= 4], [%mantra= "What did they mean, what did they mean?"]

Etc.

[Duncan_B]

Blast, typo! 2 points if you spot it.

[Duncan_B]

...7 minutes left...?

[twofingertypist]

The dead leaves rustle on the stiffened branches and crunch underfoot. The sidewalk stretches away in either direction, boringly suburban, brightly lit. Yet here, at the junction where the little path runs north toward the old house, sounds seem strangely muffled and the shadows more plentiful than they should be. You know the other children are close, yet they seem hugely distant; fancifully dressed dolls seen through the wrong end of a telescope.

The Jack-O-Lanterns bob on the slender tree branches, yellow light spilling from their grinning mouths and slitted eyes. Under the pattern of moving lights, it's difficult to say if the old man has actually moved or not. All you know is that he's watching you from beneath the brim of that shabby hat. The bark of the tree he leans against glistens oddly, gargoyle faces forming and dissolving in the shifting shadows.

From behind you comes the approaching snarl of over-revved motorcycle engines.

[twofingertypist]

Sure, I'm after the closing date. I just had the urge to write, y'know?
Just for fun.

[NickyDude]

Nothing wrong with going over the old challenges and giving it a go.

[twofingertypist]

Nothing wrong with going over the old challenges and giving it a go.

except that some of the older challenges are locked. Darn! Wasted 20 mins writing a description for an older challenge, and then couldn't post it in the thread.

(So I'm going to post it here.)

Office

Tchik, tchik, tchik.

The steel balls clack rhythmically, hypnotically, swinging to and fro under the white beam of the desk lamp. The desk itself, like the walls, the filing cabinet, and the chair beside it, is a plain institutional gray.

The telephone, the computer monitor and even the telephone notepad are precisely aligned with the edges of the desk. A silver-steel stylus lies at an angle across neatly handwritten papers, and the silver mirrors set into the walls on either side of the tiny office replicate neat pattern to infinity, together with that irritating flaw in the composition.

The man at the desk is neat and small: the back of the executive office chair rises almost a foot above his pale, glistening scalp, drawing your gaze up to the framed picture of an Edsel which hangs on the wall behind him, apparently the only nonfunctional object in the room.

He turns his head slightly to look at you, the round lenses of his spectacles momentarily blankly white in the harsh overhead lighting.

"So, Citizen," he says. "We begin."

[NickyDude]

I'll reopen them for you.

[twofingertypist]

I'll reopen them for you.

Thanks m8, much appreciated!