Tone | Young Writers Project

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The writer's voice is the tone, mood, or personality of a story, poem, essay. Choose a tone – happiness, guilt, surprise, panic, shame, curiosity, empathy, regret, envy, relief, loneliness, gratitude, etc. – and write a mini-story (5-10 lines is enough) that showcases that tone or mood. [Photo credit: Rasmus Smedstrup-Mortensen, Unsplash]

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Responses to this Challenge

Feb 19

fiction challenge: Tone

bronwyn.allabastro

That Room

It's been weeks since Madeline passed on and I still have yet to enter the room where we could always just be. It was the room where we started and ended each day, content in the fact that for a few moments every morning and night it was just us and nothing else mattered. In every room I see her joyful smile, in every mirror I see her bright eyes, in every dream I hear her sweet laughter. I know that this room will contain it all. I push open the door. As I glance around the room I see her. My beautiful Madeline, brushing her hair in front of the mirror, sitting in front of the fireplace wrapped in a shawl, picking out a book from the top shelf, lying in the bed, sound asleep. I walk over to the bedside table and pick up the photo that has rested there for the past half century. I stare at her lively face looking at me like I am the world. Her dark hair flowing past her waist creating a stunning contrast with her white dress.

Posted: 02.19.21

Feb 19

poem challenge: Tone

ella149

A Lost Moment

Summer days stretch on and on
Like the sun drifting across the blue sky.
They are filled with laugher and boat trips
Blue lakes and campfires.
But these days also pass by quickly
And the sun must sink below the craggy, pine tree rimmed mountains
Part of a beautiful sunset
Yet gone before we know it.

Sometimes I find myself in a moment
A small one in the ticking clock of time
But I'll remember it.
I stop
And think
How sweet it is, as my Gamp always says.
When I am bored from the monotonous repetition of life
Enveloped in a dark winter with a silencing blanket of snow
I'll wish to be here.
This moment is so precious
I want to stay here forever
Yet know I'll never return to it again
No matter how many summers lie ahead of me.

It's somewhat melancholy
When I dive into the cool water
And in my blue underwater world
Everything slows down.

Posted: 02.19.21

Feb 19

poem challenge: Tone

molly.sargent

Alone While With A Hundred People

Shes in a room with a hundred people, yet she feels like shes the only one.
There is jokes, laughs, happiness, and joy all around her, yet she feels nothing.
She is smiling and saying she is having fun but guess how she feels.
Alone.
There are a hundred people around her, but she still feels alone.
All she can do is talk, say shes fine, tell them that shes having a grand time,
but shes not. Instead she feels like there is nothing she can do.
No one she can talk to, and nowhere to go.
Wherever she is and whoever she is with, all she can do is feel alone.
The feeling she has inside is not normal. Its empty.
She just feels alone and like in a room of a hundred people...
Shes the only one.
Her smile is hard to force and its even harder to laugh.
She tries.
Yet in a room with a hundred people.
She feels nothing but alone.

Posted: 02.19.21

Feb 19

poem challenge: Tone

mkeys

Engulfed in Dreams

Her eyes dart around the sparkling golden cave. She stands, her feet drenched in warm almost ethereal golden liquid that drips down her skin in small streams. Her eyes widen in fascination, her brown eyes perfectly reflecting off of the gold. She bends over and runs a finger through a pool of the golden substance. The gold drips and dances down her fingers, falling into the golden pool as if it had never been disturbed. A smile finds its way onto her lips, widening in utter fascination at the heavenly golden fantasy world that she was in. She falls smoothly onto her back, her dark locks quickly engulfed by the gold and shaping her face. It was like a bath, but magical and beautiful.

Posted: 02.19.21

Feb 19

poem challenge: Tone

mbuckingham2028

Joy

Joy

It means courageous

It means love

It might be being with people you love

But the most important thing is you are happy

With what you're doing

With what you have become

With your past

And with your present

And most importantly about the person that you can be

Don’t be stuck on the bad things that you do be focused on all the great, impactful things that you have done to people that you love and care about

The strangers at the grocery store who can’t find what they need and you help them

That it is going to make their day, it is going to make them JOYful

Then that sparks the joy

That joy is YOU

Posted: 02.19.21

Feb 19

poem challenge: Tone

smauro2028

Joy

Posted: 02.19.21

Feb 18

poem challenge: Tone

hfahey11

Without You

You were here, now you’re not

You left a hole, for someone else to fill

You said you would never leave, never say never they say

I needed you, you wanted me

You’re there not here, I should have known I would’ve liked it more without you

That hole is filled by someone better

You left, I’m glad

Now you want me, I don’t need you

Posted: 02.18.21

Feb 18

nonfiction, opinion challenge: Tone

mm2005

SNOW DAY!

My eyes flutter open and dart to the windowsill, my lucky wooden spoon is still there from last night. I leap out of bed and nearly fall sprinting to the window, I feel the excitement start to rise as the snowflakes begin to fall. I watch each individual snowflake dance through the spirling winter air. I shoot down the stairs and rip open the door to be greeted by a gust of wind that carries the delicate snowflakes inside. I don’t even notice the freezing air and feel only the humming warmth of excitement inside me. It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. There is nothing that could smother my feeling of adventure in fresh powder and the euphoric feeling of the illusive SNOW DAY!

Posted: 02.18.21

Feb 14

poem challenge: Tone

GreyBean

What makes us human

She asked what makes us hurt,
and so I gestured to my tears,
I gestured to my chest—
the beating, breaking heart inside.

She asked what makes us happy,
and so I gave her a hug,
I gave her a bundle of flowers—
picked, fresh, the morning before.

She asked what makes us cry,
and so I pointed to a grave,
I pointed to the sunrise—
the happy light spilling upward.

She asked what makes us smile,
and so I told her a joke,
I told her that I loved her—
three words that are simply not enough.

She asked what makes us love,
and so I took her hand in mine,
I took her gentle words and beautiful lies—
lies can be beautiful.

She asked what makes us human,
and so I gave her the world,
I gave her my hurt,
my happiness,
my tears,
my smiles,
and my love.

Posted: 02.14.21

Feb 13

poem challenge: Tone

TreePupWriter

On empathy

Swallow your pride
(but don't let it scorch your tongue)
the best cook knows how to be tiny
curl up and trade secrets with a peppercorn

sometimes the key is
shrinking your judgment while
growing your heart

become a liquid
take the shape of someone else's container
learn to love the nooks and crannies
of their soul

as for icebreakers:
rapping small talk against the surface
makes a nice-sounding crackle
but sometimes you have to
dive deep into freezing water
and shiver through another's worries

polar bears have feelings too

and pass notes
(when no one's looking)
(and also when the whole world stares)
be proud about it
fold love into
paper cranes and
love into fortune tellers

open your mind so you can
open every flap:

you will make
a friend.

Posted: 02.13.21

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