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Constraint creates invention

Write the story you would not have invented by yourself.

Every challenge combines unrelated ingredients on purpose. Your job is not to mention them mechanically—it is to make them feel as though they always belonged in the same story.

New challenge
Challenge 156463

Your brief

  • Main character: A dog walker entrusted with a dog that refuses to pass one particular house.
  • Setting: A suburban garden during a neighbourhood party.
  • Relationship: They are strangers who both believe the other works there.
  • Weather must change: A rainbow appears after an argument, but nobody is in the mood to admire it.
  • Amusing incident: Someone's ringtone perfectly answers a question asked in the room.
  • Complication: A message arrives containing accurate information from an untrustworthy source.
  • Opening rule: Open with dialogue, but do not identify the speaker until the second paragraph.
  • Structure: Use the Story Spine shape without writing the sentence starters.
  • Dialogue: Include an apology without using the word sorry.
  • Ending rule: End on a line of dialogue of six words or fewer.
  • Tone: Write it as dry, understated comedy.
  • Wildcard: Nobody may use a mobile phone to solve the problem.

Use all five words

clumsysquintumbrellaflickerlopsided

Maximum length: 1,000 characters, including spaces.

Write here

Draft

0 / 1000 characters

Useful test: if a required word feels pasted in, change the story so the word causes something. The constraint should alter the plot, not decorate it.