Writing Exercise – Short Story Start

So, after reading some blogs by other aspiring writers, I’ve noticed a trend to post up snippets of stuff in progress and I thought to myself  ”self, you should do that too.”  So here we go.  This is a story start I wrote up at 35,000 feet while flying home.  I wrote it without pausing over about 15 minutes.  No edits, no rewrites, no touch-ups.  This is what my storytelling drafts look like:

The city was huge beyond any reasonable way to describe it.  As far as she could see in any direction there were palaces and tenements, guildhalls and gardens, roads and parks, squares and plazas.  In the far distance she could just see the boundary wall of her home duchy, and on every side there were duchies as large as hers.  From on top of the temple bell-tower she could just see the edge of the next layer above her own, and on a perfectly clear day, you could see the floating islands that spiraled up the column of the Sun Tower where the light of day was lit each morning in its crystal lantern, and where every night the day’s white embers were banked and tended in the glass cauldron of the moon.

With her back to the Sun Tower, at the moment that morning was lit, out beyond the furthest glimpses of the furthest boundary walls, she could just make out the pink and rosy reflections on the face of the outer wall itself.  At least, that’s what she told herself.

She wondered how long it would take to walk there.  If she could see it, surely she could get there in a matter of days on nothing more extravagant than her own two feet. As children, they’d played and pretended to be great explorers like Tumblejack the wandering mechanical jester, or Brecka Bright the phoenix girl who saved the city when the dayfire wouldn’t light.  So many stories and songs about the city, she could barely remember them all.  In fact, what was odd was that she could barely remember any.

Across the City we shall go,
Travel high and travel low,
Never shall we find an end,
Where we left we come again.

That was all she could remember hearing children sing.  She couldn’t even remember singing it herself, just hearing it chanted by the little ones running between vendor stalls in the market square.

What was funny, was when I scrolled back up on my netbook, the lady sitting next to me said “I’d rather hear the story about Tumblejack or the phoenix girl” so I guess there’s just no chance I’ll write something that someone wants to read on the first try.