Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Story Chain!

Deanna Barnhart's Gearin' Up to Get an Agent Blogfest is in its second week, and this one is awesome! All participants are helping to write a story, brilliantly pre-structured by Deanna. To see the list of participants, together with their prompts (and words-to-include), go here. To start at the beginning of the story (participants include a link to the blog after theirs, so you can follow straight through), go here. To just see the part before mine, go see Tayler Roseberry. (Fiona didn't post on time--or at all--so I skipped her. Sorry Fiona!)

My prompt is: Start the climax of the story. Your words are: song, prejudice, string


Here's my piece:


Dio was so startled, she didn't think. "Tony!"


"Dio? Where are you? I've been looking for you all day!"


Dio paused. What if this was the wrong Tony? "Um, I'm safe, I just--"


"You're at home?" Dio cursed the inventor of caller ID. Whoever it was must have been prejudiced against safety. "Hold tight, I'll be right there."


"No! Wait!" "Tony" hung up and Dio stared at the phone. Great.


Just then, in a flash of light, Roddern appeared in front of her.


"Roddern!" She rushed to hug him, but he grabbed her arms. 


"There's no time, Dio. The Grandoolex are planning an invasion. They want to destroy the fairies once and for all and they'll take mankind out with them. We have to seal all the portals. Now!"


"Seal all of them? How?"


Roddern shook his head. "I have no idea, but we only have about five minutes. I think I know what will help, though." He snapped his fingers and her book appeared in his hand. The Wish Granter. She'd never been one to trust in book titles before, but she fervently wished that this one was accurate.


Dio grabbed the book and frantically leafed through it, the smell of rotten eggs wafting up from its pages. There had to be something in here to stop the Grandoolex invasion.


From the couch, her mother cried out "Dio! Your necklace!" 


Confused, Dio reached into her shirt and pulled the circle out. It was glowing, pulsing in time with the frantic beating of her heart. "What do I do with it, Mom?"


Mom was breathing heavily. "You have to make it sing."


"Sing?"


Still panting, Mom gasped out, "Flowers open in your sun, rocks sing with your heart."


"What?" Dio had no idea what that meant, but mom was unconscious again.


She looked at Roddern. "Did you understand any of that?"


Roddern was staring at her mother and thinking hard. "I guess we need to make your heart sing."


Then he took two steps across the room, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her. 


Dio had been kissed before, but man! Roddern poured his whole self into the kiss. Despite the panic she'd been feeling a moment before, she melted into his arms and eagerly kissed him back.


After a moment, she felt a burning on her chest and pulled back long enough to see her necklace flashing a bright white light. Then it let out a piercing 5-note song and jerked upward. The thin chain broke like a piece of string and her rock hung suspended in the air for a heartbeat before bursting into a million pieces.




To continue on the chain, visit Angie Cothran next. She's scheduled to post at 11:30 PM EDT. Which means she gets an hour, so you know it'll be good!

22 comments:

  1. Robin-great minds think alike. I was panicking thinking I might have to connect two broken chains. So I started writing and I had a lot of the same ideas :) Funny and awesome! Thanks for all the great hooks!

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  2. I'm singing because you made me so darn happy! I literally have a big ole' grin slapped on my face. Roddern lives, he kissed Dio. We got the necklace bit back into play and oooo, Tony...which one will it be???
    So good!

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  3. Oh and the necklace beating with the heart and all is almost exactly some of the words I use in my current wip...lol

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  4. Ha, and one more thing...Angie is posting at 11:30ET. You posted at 10:30:)

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  5. Sorry, Angie--I was a minute late because I went back to edit just a titch! But hey--you get an hour, so I'm not feelin' much guilt.

    Deana--I'm just happy I got to include kissing! :)

    I have never read your WIP. Nope. Not once. Didn't sneak into your house, break into your computer, or make a copy of it. Not me. Pure coincidence. Really.

    (And I fixed the time on my post--thanks!)

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  6. Oh yay! You brought him back! And the necklace part was a beautiful piece of imagery. And they kissed! :) Greatness all the way around... Now, I wonder if someone will tell us what happened between death and life??

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  7. Ooooh! It was so steamy I think my house is on fire. ;P

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  8. KP--thanks! I knew the necklace had to be in the climax! And, naturally, there had to be kissing!

    Alleged--DISCLAIMER: author assumes no responsibility for any structural damage done to the homes of readers. :)

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  9. Adore the idea of the Grandoolex planning an invasion, bent on destroying fairies once and for all, what a great start to the climax! Hmm...that came out sounding far stranger than I'd intended!

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  10. The kissing climax. A few threads left to be tied up. Good job.

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  11. Lindy--I'm trying not to point out how instrumental the kissing was to the climax point. I think I took a class on this in college....

    Angelina--thanks!

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  12. Haha! So delicious and I love Mom's part in all this with that half fever-induced riddle. Only thing I might've liked better is if Dio had pulled Roddern into the kiss. But then, I'm a big fan of heroines making the first (and last) move.

    Love this so much. Such a fun adventure! Now on to the next post.

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  13. Great way to tie things up...and I'm glad we got the romance in here.

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  14. I honest-to-god got chills. really, really nice. :)

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  15. A kiss! Woot! Wonderfully done, Robin.

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  16. Lora--I'm a fan of the hero taking control, too (obviously). If it makes you feel better, last night I changed my WIP to include a kiss initiated by the heroine. :)

    Andrea--no climax is complete w/o romance. :)

    Amber--Yay! Thanks!

    Donna--Thanks! Kissing makes the world go round.

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  17. Finally some long awaited kissy stuff. Great job!

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  18. What a great way to work in the neckalace and link it to earlier parts of the backstory. Nice job.

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  19. Really wonderful! You tied everything together so well and even included a bit of romance in the process ;-))

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  20. Siv, Stephanie, and Christina--thanks! So glad everyone was pleased. Everyone wrote such great details I had to try to include as much as I could!

    And there absolutely had to be kissing.

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  21. What an imagination you have and so fab that they kiss, nice one!

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