STORY STARTER
Submitted by Celaid Degante
Leaving
Write about a character leaving something, or someone, they love.
Love Not Lost
“Can we talk?” I ask in a calm tone. My boyfriend nods and I walk forward, sitting on the couch beside him. I look into his perfect brown eyes and grab his hands in both of mine.
“I got a call today about a job interview.” He smiles and his eyes light up.
“That’s amazing!” He smiles bigger.
“But, It’s in California.” I admit and as soon as I say this, his smile fades and his eyebrows raise. “It’s the best acting program there is. You know how much I want to be an actor.” I say-trying to back up my story.
He lets go of my hands and scoots away. He runs his fingers through his hair and we sit in silence for about a minute.
“So your leaving?” His voice is low and sad. I scoot closer.
“I was wondering if you wanted to move with me to California.” When I say this he turns and looks at me in my eyes.
“My family is here Kate. I can’t just leave my mom and dad. You know how important family is to me.” His eyes water and he looks away.
“This is important to me and I haven’t been focused on my career enough. You have an amazing job and I feel stuck. I finally found something that I want. I understand if you need to stay here with your family because family is important, but could you think about it?” I place my hand on his soft cheek and give him a genuine smile.
“I’ll think about it, okay?” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me closer. I wrap my arms around his neck and we stay there for a couple minutes.
“Can we go to bed?” He says into my neck. I nod and he picks me up and walks me to our bedroom.
He lays me down and he slides in next to me, but spooning me. I love this man so much.
“I’ll go, but I need to talk to my family and let them know.” He whispers in my ear.
I turn towards him quickly and kiss him.
“I love you so much.” I say in between kisses.
“I love you too.” He says back and my heart flutters.
This is absolutely perfect.
(I’m just getting started writing myself, so dash in a couple grains of salt.)
Lots of improvement on how you are using the bodies reactions to describe emotions such as “his eyes light up” or “his eyebrows raise” and “my heart flutters.”
Since you’re writing in first person, you may want to look more into some deep pov techniques, such as including the other senses, smell, touch, etc. A couple ways you could work this in is describing the texture of his hands, and maybe the temperature of the room. Is it cold? Are his hands warmer then your characters? Does the smell of a meal just eaten linger, or a particular shampoo?