Para-3

A compilation of short stories limited to 3 paragraphs.

[writing-prompt-s]

You turn on your PC to keep working on your novel, but to your surprise, when you open the file, it is writing itself. You read some of what has already been written and it seems your characters have created free will, and the plot is progressing without you.

[writing-prompt-s]

Your father was given a prophecy that stated you would be the one to kill him. His best friend had a similar prophecy about his child. Your father loves you unconditionally, his best friend kills/sends his child far away. Tell the stories of these two children and how they killed their fathers.

[ivyblossom]

[casey-jane-lewis]

Fanfic authors: READ THE WHOLE FUCKING PAGE

[cthonical]

THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE LESSONS YOU CAN LEARN AS A WRITER. I SAY THIS AS A READER AND A PROFESSIONAL GENRE EDITOR.

[calamitycons]

THIS COMES FROM THE BOOK STORY BY TOBERT MCKEE. READ IT IF YOU WANNA WRITE GOOD!!!!

[spiritsonic]

Since we seem to be on a “how to make story good” kick today…

[writing-prompt-s]

In a world, where everyone is assigned a instrument at birth and taught to play. You are the only person to ever be given an electric triangle.

[writing-prompt-s]

Like Dora, a mysterious backpack appears every day by your bed with tools needed to get through the obstacles of that particular day. This morning, however, you find the backpack stuffed with a loaded handgun, a ski mask, and a shovel.

[para3]

Cake Testing

"Look, can we get this shit done already? I'm only here because Henry asked me to fill in for his flakey ass." Lies. All lies. Of course I wasn't sacrificing my only day off to go wedding cake testing with my best friend's fiancée just because he couldn't make it. Sure I was doing it partly for the free cake but truth be told, mostly it was to spend time with her. I confess I'm guilty of violating the "bro code." Usually all women who my bros' date automatically transform into the sister types to me. Never again can I see them as anything but. But Susan was the exception. No matter how hard I tried, I could not escape this insurmountable pit known as unrequited love. I've tried everything to get over her but it can't be done. I always get hooked back in. "Oh fuck you!" I laughed as she jestfully stuck her tongue out while obscenely gesturing for me to fuck myself. A smirk escaped her lips, the subtle upward curve seduced my gaze towards clear emerald green eyes. Eyes that pierced your soul while hiding the darkest secrets of her heart. Her face framed with curly locks colored with the warm red of the last goodbye kiss of the evening sun. Vibrations of her laughter filled the air, enticing you to follow suit. She was my greatest happiness that could never be. As my laughter died, I unwillingly and unsuccessfully try to persuade my heart to follow suit.

[para3]

My Paradise

A blanket of darkness drowns me in a sea of perpetual thought. Brainstorms thunder around me, propelling my thoughts from one subject to another, violently changing without warning. But I always inadvertently drift back to the familiarity of the island that is you.

I used to believe this place was paradise. My refuge. I’d enter this land with a smile, heart bursting with bliss. This small island used to be grander; a whole continent that covered my world with rose colored gardens. We built our home, each brick laid down with tender loving care. We built our safe haven. The fruits of our experiences together used to satisfy my ceaseless gluttony of you. If only I knew that desire came with a price.

I never took care of the land as much as I should have. I consumed our past without planning for our future, causing the land to become barren. Cracks grew without my notice; our fights caused tremors, splitting us further apart. Traversing our paradise became an endeavor, as I had to scramble through canyons of despair just to unearth solid ground of happiness. Before I knew it, my world fell apart, leaving behind only a minuscule chunk of our story. This used to be my paradise. This used to be my refuge. Now it’s the desolate prison I’m furiously failing to escape.

[para3]

A Love Letter to the Girl Who Never Knew

They say your eyes dilate when you look at the person your heart desires. So I wonder if that’s what you see when you catch me staring. I know I do it too much, but have you seen YOU? You have eyes that make the clearest summer sky pale in comparison. A blue hue so bewildering, I’m pretty sure Eiffel65 made a song about it. Your smile. Oh god, don’t even get me started. How many languages would it take me to fully describe how the simple upward curve of your lips provokes euphoria? God, that’d take forever. No one has time for that!

Except, maybe…me. You don’t know how I could go on and on about you. Or at least, I hope you don’t. I could write sonnets that would make Shakespeare green with envy. TV networks would assault my door, craving the romantic comedies my fingers could base off us. My mind groans at the whispers my heart speaks when you’re near. I disgust myself with the cheesiness that oozes from my soul. Like who am I anymore?

But a love sick puppy, quietly but not subtly seeking your presence. My life has become so much better with you in it. But I’m too scared to tell you. Too scared to lose you. To push you away with my annoying desire to always hang. So please don’t be a mind reader; let me keep my secret locked away.

[para3]

The Controversy of Christmas

It's Christmas Eve. It's the season for love and hope. For giving to others for the sake of happiness and appreciation. So why is it on this blissful eve, I'm stuck deciding on what may very well be a horrendous decision? I know why, it's rhetorical of course. I do it because I am a fool. A fool for love, even when I know it's poisonous. Do I text her Merry Christmas or do I pretend she no longer exists. That all past memories deserve to be just that, the past. My heart skips with the anxiety of a jittery teenager asking his first crush to a date. The eerie blue glow of the phone haunting me with my predicament. On one hand it's only common courtesy. After all we shared so many memories. The ringing of laughter echoes thru my mind, as visions of past Christmas's together float from the dark dismal depths of my brain that tried so hard to forget. On the other hand it's the stagnant awkwardness of becoming strangers that have to hide when they talk. Clueless on how to act when someone who used to be so important has become so removed from my life. My heart aches deeply for my desire to once again converse with the heart that always knew how to brighten my day. To converse with the soul that was supposed to forever connect with my own. But this year, I am awake to my persuasive self deception. I know now that I should preserve my heart and unburden my soul from this pain. That acting on hope is foolish because she chose to leave. So I choose to silently wish her Merry Christmas, without the help of inappreciable black letters on a white screen. But with whispers of love, carried by the frosty winds of Christmas.

[para3]

People Pleaser

"You know what you are? You're a people pleaser. Don't you know that this will bring you problems? The world tramples over people like you." His sudden proclamation throws me off guard. The intensity of his genuine curiosity and concern squash any of my rising anger of such insinuations. How do I tell him that I reflect on this fact every day. That I've been beaten into my darkest corners after foolishly seeking to help everyone around me. Spreading myself thin and vulnerable. How I've been betrayed by those I've trusted with my very being. Forcing me to constrain my heart behind walls of apprehension. How does one put into words the revelation that what others do to stumble your path should not change who you are. That the only true way to really live a fulfilled life is to always stay true to your own beliefs. Words can not describe the struggle it is to fight the opinions society has pushed us to perceive about being kind. So I tell him the only way I know how. "There are too many evils in the world. Kindness can not be expected from others if we can not look upon ourselves first to instill hope in everyone around us. Even the smallest acts of altruism can significantly change a life. And that's all I really want to do. Is help people be better. Because they deserve to be."

[para3]

My Nightmare

I'm afraid of the dark. Not because of the creatures watching me just outside the corner of my eyes. Not because of the boogeyman that lurks in the closet. Nor is it because of the unnerving presence under my bed. It's the monster that creeps thru the labyrinth of my mind that frightens me. It swallows the light my heart struggles to create, leaving me caged behind crippling thoughts. I feel my ego slowly being torn apart as my self hate builds. A demonic flame of rage burns my happiness to its core. This is the monster I fear. This is the darkness in my life. I'm afraid of me.

[vasilinaorlova]

Polite

I’m too polite And that’s the plight.

[para3]

They walk all over me And I don't know how to fight

[para3]

(Artwork cred: @ambivertamby)

1000 Words

They say a true artist can transcend you anywhere. With just a glance, the soul etched onto the blank slate gravitates your very being to another place. It destroys all sense of reality. The canvas speaks to you the story woven into its very fabric.

Crackling campfire deafens your eyes. You can smell the fresh pines enveloping you with their very breath. The mist of the mighty river greeting your face with its kiss. The beautiful laughter of the one who fills your heart with gladness.

It leaves you breathless. The work of a true artist who bares their soul to the world. It leaves you smiling. The work of a true person, so genuine with their strokes. It leaves you…pure.

[para3]

Starlight

"So I like to call it 'looking at fallen stars,'" I whispered as we flopped down onto the cold kiss of the grassy hill that overlooked the city. I could see the confusion clouding her eyes and I braced myself to share one of my most cherished secrets. Letting out a sigh, I begin. "So on my darkest of days. When I can't stand who I am anymore, I come up here. I cry and I wheep and I just vomit out whatever I feel is weighing down my heart. After I let myself cry, I'll stare and look at all these streetlights. When you squint, they look like the stars in the sky, freshly fallen to light us when we need guidance." I pause, quickly distracted by the rapt snare of attention her eyes gave me. Her breath lost, forgotten in the trance of my story. "I'll imagine the people under each of those stars. The problems they deal with. A struggling mom slaving away at two jobs to feed her child. A homeless man shivering in the dark corner of an alley, forgotten by the society that forced him to war. And then I imagine those moments that should be cherished. A pair of twins snuggled together to stay warm under the wary gaze of newly made parents. An ecstatic girl welcoming her new kitten home. It puts everything in my life in perspective and fills my heart with hope again. There's more to live for and people I can still somehow help."

[para3]

A Moment of Happiness

I can see the slow upward creep of the smile she's trying so desperately to hide, but failing. Failing has never been so beautiful to witness. The failure to hide how happy she was blooming from her soft lips; spreading past her mouth to the corner of her eyes. They say the sincerest smile is seen in the eyes. Her eyes were more brilliant than the last tinge of blue that kisses away the day to hide into the night. This calming blue ebbed and flowed with bliss. She mumbled, "shut up" into her arm, hiding away from my amused gaze. I laughed at how she could tell what I was thinking; about how cute I thought she was. I wondered if she knew how being there with her was something I looked forward to all week. How the seconds slowed to minutes and into hours as I counted down to when I could hear her voice again. How I knew that it didn't matter what the future brought, but that every cherished moment with her was worth it.

[para3]

Night Terrors

I feel a tug on my shirt. Ever so slight, the urgency could still be felt through, gravitating me back to the bed. "Can...can you just stay here for a minute." I turn back and see her shivering. Eyes as green as the full blossom of spring reflect her need. Her lips quivering from fear. She must have had a nightmare and woke up from me getting ready for work. I quickly hold her, trying to envelop her in the warmth that I know will give her the sense of safety she desires. She slowly melts into my arms, each breath getting deeper and deeper. I kiss the top of head hoping that this small action can portray even the fraction of the endless amount of love I have for her.

[para3]

Opia

(Opia - the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable ) The day was already starting off great. Walking into work, an unexpected surprise hit me in the face. My crush was sitting there, brightening the room with her smile. It's usually her day off so she must be picking up a shift for someone else. Her brown hair, made from the stuff of sunshine, was tied up in the messiest bun in a controlled chaos kind of way. It made no sense but she always pulled it off. I couldn't help but stare at her. Her eyes were what always got me. When people always describe eyes that shone like stars and caused people to get lost in, I'm sure they were describing hers. The same set of eyes that seemed to be staring right back at me! Holy crap! She just caught me staring. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, betraying my intentions to the world. I wanted to scream, to run, to flip the table over and cry bloody murder. Anything to distract her away from my thoughts of affection for her. Never have I felt so vulnerable.