[Final] Play time!
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Hi, I like to write stuff! Here's my submission for the contest, well the first draft atleast. Feedback much much appreciated!
She didn’t like the bed.
It was tall, had very warm and very pink pillows and covers, and the side where her head would be at night was filled with dolls as pink as the rest of the bed.
Still, she didn’t like it.
The room was big, had toys she had never seen until that afternoon, a wardrobe that touched both the floor and the ceiling, and a switch next to the locked door that could turn on all the lamps, which would fill the room in a mix of white and pink light.
Still, she didn’t like it.
She especially didn’t like the bracelets, even though they were silver and shiny, and sometimes even showed a rainbow when the white and pink light fell on it. She could have burned the dolls, disintegrated the door and run away from them, if it weren’t for these annoying shiny bracelets that were too hard for her to remove.
But there was something she liked even less than everything else, something she hated, and that something just opened the huge door and ducked to step into the room. He wore big brown boots, a big and brown coat, a big bow on his back and had a big brown beard that went over his coat and the string of his bow and almost touched his boots. As he stepped closer, she took a step back, but then remembered what her mother had taught her and put her foot back to where it was before. Even though the man crouched, he still had to look down and she still had to look up.
“Hi there, sweetheart.” He smiled, but she didn’t smile back, because you only smile when you’re having fun.
“Do you like your new room? I had it cleaned up just for you!”
“It’s not mine.”
“But of course it is!”, he said and laughed. “Everything here is! It used to belong to my daughter, but she was about your age, you two would have been great friends and she wouldn’t have minded even a tiny bit about giving all of this to you!” He still smiled, just a little bit less than before.
“Can you take these bracelets off?”, she asked him and held her arms up. He laughed and smiled more again.
“You too are very smart for your age, you know that? But those aren’t called bracelets, they are called Static Field Generators, and they are for your own good. I don’t want to see you hurt anything or anybody here, and especially not yourself, so we’ll keep them on for now, sweetie.” He wrapped his hands around hers, so that she couldn’t even see the tip of her fingers anymore. It felt very different from when her father held her hands.
“But if you want to, we can travel to Zaun tomorrow and pay a nice friend of mine a visit, he has these in all colors and shapes you can imagine and I promise you, we’ll find something you’ll like.”
“I don’t want to, I want to go home.”
“Oh sweetheart, you don’t have to worry about your old home anymore, this is your home now! Here I can get you everything you want, and you can do whatever you want! Did your old parents ever let you do whatever you wanted?”
She didn’t say anything, but he had to be able to read minds, because shortly after he nodded.
“That’s what I thought. Listen to me, once you see the whole mansion, and once we get to travel together to wherever you want, you’ll like it here way more than at your old home with your old parents.” He squeezed her hands a little.
“And I promise you, I’ll never let anything happen to you. Ever.”
His smile disappeared while he said that, and the new one wasn’t real.
“Do you want to tell me your name, sweetheart?”
She looked down and shook her head. Her father had taught her that knowing someone’s name can be very helpful, and she didn’t want to help this man at all.
“If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”
That seemed like a fair trade, she thought.
“Annie.” His smile turned real again.
“Well, hello Annie, it’s so nice to meet you. My name is Rasch, and I will take care of you.”
Another man entered the room through the open door. He didn’t have to duck at all.
“Milord, someone at the entrance”, the man said.
“I’ll be on my way”, Rasch replied and finally let go of Annie’s hands. She pulled them back as fast as she could, so that he wouldn't have a chance to grab them again.
“I will go and greet our visitor now, but don’t worry, I’ll be back again. Do you need anything, sweetie?”
“Yes, have you seen my bear?”, Annie asked and tried to look as sad as possible.
“Oh, actually, my friend here had told me they found a teddy in the forest next to you, it was in my room, I should have brought it with me, I’m sorry sweetheart, I’ll get back with it.” He stood up, followed his friend towards the door, but right as he started to duck he stopped and turned around.
“And does your bear have a name?”, he asked.
Annie told him, and somewhere outside this big room, far away from these annoying bracelets, she could hear her friend roar louder and louder, nearer and nearer. And while Rasch’s smile vanished, Annie’s smile grew, because now it was her turn to have fun.
Found him!
She didn’t like the bed.
It was tall, had very warm and very pink pillows and covers, and the side where her head would be at night was filled with dolls as pink as the rest of the bed.
Still, she didn’t like it.
The room was big, had toys she had never seen until that afternoon, a wardrobe that touched both the floor and the ceiling, and a switch next to the locked door that could turn on all the lamps, which would fill the room in a mix of white and pink light.
Still, she didn’t like it.
She especially didn’t like the bracelets, even though they were silver and shiny, and sometimes even showed a rainbow when the white and pink light fell on it. She could have burned the dolls, disintegrated the door and run away from them, if it weren’t for these annoying shiny bracelets that were too hard for her to remove.
But there was something she liked even less than everything else, something she hated, and that something just opened the huge door and ducked to step into the room. He wore big brown boots, a big and brown coat, a big bow on his back and had a big brown beard that went over his coat and the string of his bow and almost touched his boots. As he stepped closer, she took a step back, but then remembered what her mother had taught her and put her foot back to where it was before. Even though the man crouched, he still had to look down and she still had to look up.
“Hi there, sweetheart.” He smiled, but she didn’t smile back, because you only smile when you’re having fun.
“Do you like your new room? I had it cleaned up just for you!”
“It’s not mine.”
“But of course it is!”, he said and laughed. “Everything here is! It used to belong to my daughter, but she was about your age, you two would have been great friends and she wouldn’t have minded even a tiny bit about giving all of this to you!” He still smiled, just a little bit less than before.
“Can you take these bracelets off?”, she asked him and held her arms up. He laughed and smiled more again.
“You too are very smart for your age, you know that? But those aren’t called bracelets, they are called Static Field Generators, and they are for your own good. I don’t want to see you hurt anything or anybody here, and especially not yourself, so we’ll keep them on for now, sweetie.” He wrapped his hands around hers, so that she couldn’t even see the tip of her fingers anymore. It felt very different from when her father held her hands.
“But if you want to, we can travel to Zaun tomorrow and pay a nice friend of mine a visit, he has these in all colors and shapes you can imagine and I promise you, we’ll find something you’ll like.”
“I don’t want to, I want to go home.”
“Oh sweetheart, you don’t have to worry about your old home anymore, this is your home now! Here I can get you everything you want, and you can do whatever you want! Did your old parents ever let you do whatever you wanted?”
She didn’t say anything, but he had to be able to read minds, because shortly after he nodded.
“That’s what I thought. Listen to me, once you see the whole mansion, and once we get to travel together to wherever you want, you’ll like it here way more than at your old home with your old parents.” He squeezed her hands a little.
“And I promise you, I’ll never let anything happen to you. Ever.”
His smile disappeared while he said that, and the new one wasn’t real.
“Do you want to tell me your name, sweetheart?”
She looked down and shook her head. Her father had taught her that knowing someone’s name can be very helpful, and she didn’t want to help this man at all.
“If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”
That seemed like a fair trade, she thought.
“Annie.” His smile turned real again.
“Well, hello Annie, it’s so nice to meet you. My name is Rasch, and I will take care of you.”
Another man entered the room through the open door. He didn’t have to duck at all.
“Milord, someone at the entrance”, the man said.
“I’ll be on my way”, Rasch replied and finally let go of Annie’s hands. She pulled them back as fast as she could, so that he wouldn't have a chance to grab them again.
“I will go and greet our visitor now, but don’t worry, I’ll be back again. Do you need anything, sweetie?”
“Yes, have you seen my bear?”, Annie asked and tried to look as sad as possible.
“Oh, actually, my friend here had told me they found a teddy in the forest next to you, it was in my room, I should have brought it with me, I’m sorry sweetheart, I’ll get back with it.” He stood up, followed his friend towards the door, but right as he started to duck he stopped and turned around.
“And does your bear have a name?”, he asked.
Annie told him, and somewhere outside this big room, far away from these annoying bracelets, she could hear her friend roar louder and louder, nearer and nearer. And while Rasch’s smile vanished, Annie’s smile grew, because now it was her turn to have fun.
Replies
- The ending is a big one. I don't like that Annie is reactive, almost passive, through almost the whole story. Your Protagonist being reactive at the beginning? Sure. But at the end aswell, that just seems lame. The only action towards escaping the situation/ a resolution I see is when she raises her hands and asks Rasch to remove the Static Field Generators. That fails, and the escape only works basically out of luck, since Rasch decides to ask Annie if she needs anything, and she realises that that is her chance. It seems way too easy to me, so I'm gonna need to work on that first. I'll probably let Annie take the initiative and tell him she wants her bear, and see how I can let her be more actively trying to escape in the earlier sections.
- I also find it strange that they don't just let her have her bear if they don't know about Tibbers, which is strange aswell actually. They know about her powers enough that they get her the bracelets, but have no clue about the bear? I see this as a chance to keep the tension up for even longer, by letting Rasch deny Annies request for Tibbers, saying that they know about him and deliberately took him away from her, and then Annie, finally seeing a way out, continue with her plan that works because Tibbers is out of reach for the Static Field Generatos.
- And finally, I don't like that Rasch exits the room, or is about to do so. The tension continually rises from the start of the story, when it becomes clear that Annie is being held captive and can't use her powers, then the motives of Rasch becoming clear, him taking Annies hand, squeezing them, but then he stops. He stands up, is about to leave the room, and even though he says that hes coming back, I feel like the tension falls down before it's supposed to be, because Annie hasn't commited to her plan yet, making the ending fell hollow and too easy. What I wan't to try out instead is let Rasch stay in the room, show no indication that he plans to leave anytime soon, and get even closer to Annie, maybe touching her cheek, or even closer than that. I feel like that would make the ending feel way more statisfying, because the stakes constantly keep rising and are at a very high point when Annie finally knows what to do and goes on to escape the situation.
I'm gonna start working on this now, wish me luck!Found him!
She didn’t like the bed.
It was tall, had very warm and very pink pillows and covers, and the side where her head would be at night was filled with dolls as pink as the rest of the bed.
Yet, she didn’t like it.
The room was big, had toys she had never seen until that afternoon, a wardrobe that touched both the floor and the ceiling, and a switch next to the locked door that could turn on all the lamps, which would fill the room in a mix of white and pink light.
Yet, she didn’t like it.
She especially didn’t like the bracelets, even though they were silver and sparkling, and sometimes even showed a rainbow when the white and pink light fell on it. She could have burned the dolls, disintegrated the door and run back home, if it weren’t for these annoying shiny bracelets that were too tight for her to remove.
But there was something she liked even less than everything else, something she hated, and that something just opened the huge door and ducked to step into the room. He wore big brown boots, a big and brown coat, a big bow on his back and had a big brown beard that went over his coat and the string of his bow and almost touched his boots. As he stepped closer, she took a step back, but then remembered what her mother had taught her and put her foot back to where it was before. Even though the man crouched, he still had to look down and she still had to look up.
“Hi there, sweetheart.” He smiled, but she didn’t smile back, because you only do when you’re having fun.
“Do you like your new room? I had it cleaned up just for you!”
“It’s not mine.”
“But of course it is!”, he said and laughed. “Everything here is! It used to belong to my daughter, but she wouldn’t have minded giving all of this to you. She was about your age, you two would have been great friends.” He still smiled, just a little bit less than before.
“Can you take these bracelets off?”, she asked him and held her arms up. She tried to give him The Look, it always worked with her father, but it didn’t seem to work with this man, because he laughed and smiled more again.
“You too are very smart for your age, you know that? But those aren’t called bracelets, they are called Static Field Generators, and they are for your own good. I don’t want to see you hurt anything or anybody here, and especially not yourself, so we’ll keep them on for now, sweetie.” He wrapped his hands around hers, so that she couldn’t even see the tip of her fingers anymore. It felt very different from when her father held her hands.
“But if you want to, we can travel to Zaun tomorrow and pay a nice friend of mine a visit, he has these in all colors and shapes you can imagine and I promise you, we’ll find something you’ll like.”
“I don’t want to, I want to go home”, she replied, trying extra, extra hard with The Look now.
“Oh sweetheart, you don’t have to worry about your old home anymore, this is your home now! Here I can get you everything you want, and you can do whatever you want! Did your old parents ever let you do whatever you wanted?”
She didn’t say anything, but he had to be able to read minds, because shortly after he nodded.
“That’s what I thought. Listen to me, once you see the whole mansion, and once we get to travel together to wherever you want, you’ll like it here way more than at your old home with your old parents.” He squeezed her hands a little.
“And I promise you, I’ll never let anything happen to you. Ever.”
His smile disappeared while he said that, and the new one wasn’t real.
“Do you want to tell me your name, sweetheart?”
She looked down and shook her head. Her father had taught her that knowing someone’s name can be very helpful, and she didn’t want to help this man at all.
“If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”
That seemed like a fair trade, she thought.
“Annie.” His smile turned real again.
“Well, hello Annie, it’s so nice to meet you. My name is Rasch, and I am your new best friend!”
“You’re too old to be my friend.”
Rasch laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But I think I’m just the right age to be your new father, don’t you think, sweetie?”
At first Annie was happy that he let go of her left hand, but then he touched her cheek instead, which felt wrong. Not warm and nice, like whenever her parents did that, just wrong.
“I will always be your loving father.” Rasch closed his eyes and kissed Annie on her forehead, which felt even worse, and definitely not like whenever her parents did that. “Always.”
Annie didn’t like it here. She wanted to get out, but how? These annoying bracelets ruined everything, and her friend was probably far away from her.
Her friend was probably far away from her.
Suddenly, Annie had an idea. She waited for Rasch to stop kissing her.
“Have you seen my bear?”, Annie asked and gave him The Look so strong that it might have even worked on her mother.
“Sweetie, you know I can’t let you have it. Your bear will stay in my room upstairs.”
Upstairs sounded far away, Annie thought.
“But he’s my best friend!”, she replied.
Then she told him his name, and somewhere outside this big room, where these annoying bracelets couldn’t see, she could hear him roar louder and louder, nearer and nearer. And while Rasch’s smile vanished, Annie’s smile grew, for now it was her turn to have fun.
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Ok, so what did I change, and why?- Besides some minor changes to choice of words and some small cutting out, a big change I did was the addition of "The Look", that Annie usally uses on her parents, on her father with constant success, though not so much on her mother. This is something probably most of us are familiar with, be it a younger sibling, your own child or even your pet. This doesn't just make Annie (hopefully) appear more human, and thus more real, to the reader, but it also acts as Annie early on in the story starting to act towards escape, trying harder everytime, and thus turning from reactive to active and, most importantly, not falling back to being reactive.
- I also had Annie be the one who creates the chance to escape, instead of Rasch being the one who did that, although accidentally. That way the ending doesn't just "happen", but instead Annie has to realise that she has to act now, and does so. But the tension doesn't fall down just yet, because it seems that even this one will be a setback, because in this draft Rasch now knows about Tibbers and won't let Annie have him. But it turns out, that's exactly what she wanted, turning into a (hopefully) satisfying and enjoyable resolution to the conflict.
- In order for the tension to feel more consistent and keep rising until the very end, I let Rasch stay in the room as announced. By having him come uncomfortably close to Annie, I got the chance to not only solidify Rasch's character and his motives, but also show Annies feelings about the situation and her voice. But most importantly, this change seems to smooth out the tension curve, that now consistently keeps climbing and turns into a relieving ending, and I'm very happy that I managed to get this right. I might think "Wow, this is terrible" tomorrow, but right now I really like this draft.
Im gonna sleep on this again, write notes about ideas if I get some, but this might aswell be the final draft, I'll have to see what my future self thinks of this- I still don't like the ending 100%. Sure, Annie is the one to initiate it, and it's not just "happening" to her like in the first draft, but it still feels too easy. She asks him about her bear, he says no, she wins. It just doesn't feel like a real accomplishment on Annies part. I want to fix this, so I had the idea of Annie having Tibbers in her room from the beginning, unable to let him "transform" because of the "bracelets", and later realise that the Static Field Generators have a limited range. This will also give me the chance to describe the "transformation" of Tibbers in detail, to help the ending feel more satisfying and awesome.
- Related to the point above, the title "Found him!" doesn't really fit anymore if that change applies, will have to think of a new one.
Gonna give these changes a try now, let's see how it turns out.Play time!
She didn’t like the room.
It was big, had toys she had never seen until that afternoon, a wardrobe that touched both the floor and the ceiling, and a switch next to the locked door that could turn on all the lamps, which would fill the room in a mix of white and pink light.
Yet, she didn’t like it.
She didn’t like the bracelets, even though they were silver and sparkling, and sometimes even showed a rainbow when the white and pink light fell on it. She could have burned the toys, disintegrated the door and run back home, if it weren’t for these annoying sparkling bracelets that were too tight for her to remove. She couldn’t even wake up her friend, who was laying on the floor next to her.
But there was someone she liked even less than that, someone she hated, and that someone just opened the huge door and ducked to step into the room. As he got closer, she took a step back, but then remembered what her mother had taught her and put her foot back to where it was before. Even though the man crouched, he still had to look down and she still had to look up.
“Hi there, sweetheart.” He smiled, but she didn’t smile back, because you only do when you’re having fun.
“Do you like your new room? “
“It’s not mine.”
“But of course it is!”, he said and laughed. “Everything here is! It used to belong to my daughter, but she wouldn’t have minded giving all of this to you. The two of you would have been great friends.” He still smiled, just a little bit less than before.
“Can you take these bracelets off?”, she asked him and held her arms up. She tried to give him The Look, it always worked with her father, but it didn’t seem to work with this man, because he laughed and smiled more again.
“You too are very smart for your age, you know that? But those aren’t called bracelets, they are called Static Field Generators, and they are for your own good. I don’t want to see you hurt yourself, so we’ll keep them on for now, sweetie.” He wrapped his hands around hers, so that she couldn’t even see the tip of her fingers anymore. It felt very different from when her father held her hands.
“But if you want to, we can travel to Zaun tomorrow and pay a nice friend of mine a visit, he has these in all colors and shapes you can imagine and I promise you, we’ll find something you’ll like.”
“I don’t want to, I want to go home”, she replied, trying extra, extra hard with The Look now.
“Oh sweetheart, you don’t have to worry about your old home anymore, this is your home now! Here you can do whatever you want! Did your old parents ever let you do whatever you wanted?”
She didn’t say anything, but he had to be able to read minds, because shortly after he nodded.
“That’s what I thought. Listen to me, once you see the whole mansion, and once we get to travel together to wherever you want, you’ll like it here way more than at your old home with your old parents.” He squeezed her hands a little.
“And I promise you, I’ll never let anything happen to you. Ever.”
His smile disappeared while he said that, and the new one wasn’t real.
“Do you want to tell me your name, sweetheart?”
She looked down and shook her head. Her father had taught her that knowing someone’s name can be very helpful, and she didn’t want to help this man at all.
“If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”
That seemed like a fair trade, she thought.
“Annie.” His smile turned real again.
“Well, hello Annie, it’s so nice to meet you. My name is Rasch, and I am your new best friend!”
“You’re too old to be my friend.”
Rasch laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But I think I’m just the right age to be your new father, don’t you think, sweetie?”
At first Annie was happy that he let go of her right hand, but then he touched her cheek instead, which felt wrong. Not warm and nice, like when her parents did that, just wrong.
“I will always be your loving father.” Rasch gave Annie a kiss on her forehead, which felt even worse, and definitely not like when her parents did that. “Always.”
Annie hated him. She hated him, the room, the bed and especially the bracelets. But she couldn’t get them off, and Annie wouldn’t have gotten very far through the open door behind him before Rasch would have catched her.
Looking into the hallway, Annie suddenly noticed something. The walls on the side were filled with lit torches, but the ones near this room were off. Maybe they were magic, Annie thought, and the bracelets didn’t let them burn. And if they only worked against magic close to them…
Her right hand was still free, so she used that to grab her friend and started running around Rasch. He was holding her left hand, and he stopped Annie before she had taken her third step, but that was enough for her to throw past Rasch’s shoulder, through the door and next to the first lit torches.
Before he even touched the floor, he blew up in a bright fireball. Rasch had to look away, but Annie kept watching Tibbers land on his paws and spill fire against the walls as he turned around and showed his burning eyes. And while he started bellowing and rushing closer, while the flames from his stitches tried to keep up, and Rasch’s smile disappeared, Annie’s grew bigger and brighter, for now it was her turn to have fun.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok, so what changed?
- Tibbers is in the room with Annie. Because of the bracelets Annie can't get him to "transform", but later she realises (by the torches) that the Static Field Generators have a limited range. This means that Annie now has to actually do something to achieve her goal of escape, rather than just asking a question. This also meant that I got the chance to describe Tibbers and kind of use him and his rage to make the ending feel more satisfying and especially more alive.
- Since Annie has Tibbers with her from the beginning on now, the old title "Found him!" doesn't fit anymore, so I changed it to "Play time!", which is an ingame qoute aswell.
- I did some changes on choice of words again, but you'll notices that a lot of stuff suddenly went missing. That's because the changed ending brought alot more words with it, and bumped the counter up to a wooping 1100+ words. I had to throw quiet a lot of stuff out, but that in turn made the story kick in earlier before. For example, Annie doesn't mention the bed anymore, doesn't describe Rasch when he enters the room (I never mentioned his appearence after that again, so why was that necessary again?), and many sentences have been shortened overall and distilled down to their essential part. I'm now at 983 words and glad about that, because cutting down even further would have been tough.
I think this is the draft that I'm going to print out and do a last look through with a pen in my hand, before calling it final and submitting. Working on a draft a day, with sleep inbetween, seems to work wonders, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow before sealing the deal. If you got any criticism about mistakes or weakpoints I'm not seeing, please feel free to tell me about them. And no sugarcoating, be harsch and honest, I can take itMay the best story win!