Today's Quick Write Challenge!
Today is all about continuing the narrative in the same style as the author. Use the skills you have learned this year (setting snapshot, character snapshot, zoom in moment etc.) as you write!
OPTION ONE
Excerpt From “The Run”
Readworks.org
Dennis and Mac had been driving for almost a week, and they hadn’t seen a single soul. They were worried. When they’d left the ranch, they’d thought maybe they’d run into someone, another survivor. But there was no one. The roads were almost empty. There was the occasional abandoned car, but that was it. They drove mostly on highways, to make better time. Mac wondered if they might not have better luck on the smaller country roads, but Dennis wouldn’t have it. Those roads had curves and were thick with trees. There was no way of seeing danger coming. If someone wanted to spring a surprise on you, you wouldn’t know it until it was too late.
“Look,” Mac said excitedly. “I think someone’s coming.”
Dennis squinted his eyes. The flicker of movement was becoming larger. What had been a dot of motion became a long line, stretching across the horizon. Mac and Dennis strained to see.
“I think it’s some people,” said Dennis. “Let me get my binoculars.”
He rustled in his backpack and pulled out his pair. Dennis put them to his eyes and looked through them. Mac heard him gasp. “My gosh,” whispered Dennis. What he saw was people. Thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands, maybe a million. A swarm of people like the world had never seen. And the people were all running. They were running as fast as they could go, like something was chasing them, or like they were chasing something. As they grew closer, Dennis could just make out the people’s faces. Their eyes were wild.
“Start the car,” said Dennis…
OPTION TWO
Excerpt from “Seeker”
By William Nicholson
On the island city of Anacrea, the All and Only is protected by a highly trained group of warrior monks who carry no weapons, yet wield great power. They are called the Nomana or the Noble Warriors.
Seeker woke earlier than usual, long before dawn, and lay in the darkness thinking about the day ahead. It was high summer, with less than a week to go before the longest day of the year. In school it was the day of the monthly test.
And it was his sixteenth birthday.
Unable to sleep, he rose and dressed quietly so as not to wake his parents, and went out into the silent street. By the light of the stars, he made his way to the steps that zigzagged up the steep hillside, and began to climb. As he did so he watched the eastern sky and saw there the first pale silver gleams on the horizon that heralded the coming dawn.
He had decided to watch the sun rise.
At the top of the steps the path flattened out and led into the stone-flagged Nom square. To his right rose the great dark mass of the Nom, the castle-monastery that dominated the island.
Those who wished to become Noble Warriors entered the Nom at the age of sixteen...
