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Writer's pictureEdna Pellen

Bulletin #4 - A Bump in the Night - NoQu 2024

November 11th

Total Words: 18,326


“I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; — just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.”

-The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe



You've settled into a rhythm this past week. Writing at odd hours of the night, eating with the other writers, gazing on the foggy graveyard and watching the ravens call from the trees. You've been amazed as, slowly but surely, your inspiration has started to flow again.


Tonight you feel a little more tired than usual, and despite everyone else continuing to write by the dim light of half-lit gas lamps, you head to bed early (if one can call 10:30 early). The quarters provided at the house are quite nice– dark wood paneling on the walls, thick velvet curtains about the bed and windows, deer skins thrown on the hardwood floors. And the bed is strangely even more comfortable than the one at home.


Prompt: Use curtains in a scene– once to reveal something, and once to hide something.


You fall asleep gradually, head still swimming in thoughts of your characters and settings and plots you've been refining. It's a dark sleep, where you barely even dream. All the more jarring when a great crash thunders through the house, jerking you awake.


Panic grips your body for a moment– chest tight, barely able to breathe, frozen in your bed. Your mouth is dry and sticky, and you slowly work to clench your fingers, until finally you manage to sit up. You feel hot and nauseous with nerves, and somehow you know it simply won't do to hide alone in the dark of your bedroom.


Challenge: For the next 15 minutes, every time you use the word “the,” either do one sit-up or take one sip of water.


Question: What event sparked the conflict in your story? How do the events that thicken the conflict mirror or contrast that initial event?




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