Years later, the calm
Finish what's given · 25 minutes · Published
Read this first
Seven years had passed. The storm-tossed sea of European history had subsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. But the mysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws of their motion are unknown to us) continued to operate.
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (1869). Translated by Aylmer Maude, 1923. Project Gutenberg #2600
The prompt
Your first line is fixed: a number of years have passed. Write the epilogue of a story you have not written, for people we meet only now, so that the reader believes a whole book lies behind the calm. Every sentence should imply an event you never narrate.
Set a timer for 25 minutes.
Short version · 10 minutes
In ten minutes, write one paragraph after the fixed first line, each sentence implying a storm now over.
The move
Finish what's given. One piece is imposed, often the ending or a single line, and you write what leads to it.
Tags: structure, constraint and rhythm.
In a group
A way to run it with a writing group:
Only what works. Anyone reads who wants to. In this format, responses name only what works in the first draft, and every text is treated as fiction.
Where the page goes next
Scrin is a home where pages grow into books: you keep writing, from an untitled line to a chapter, and Scrin keeps the rest.