50 Random Character Questions by Realmwright, literature
Literature
50 Random Character Questions
What is their morning routine? What is the first thing they do? How do they take their coffee? Do they drink coffee throughout the day, or just in the morning? If not coffee, what gets them going in the morning? What kind of clothes do they wear around the house? Is there something ratty and comfy (like an old sweater or pair of jeans) that they'd be embarrassed to wear out and about? What time do they wake up on weekends/days off? What do they do if they wake up and can't get back to sleep? How do they pass the time when bored? What did they do the last time the power was out? What time of day was it? What was the weather like outside? With 300+ TV channels, what do they watch absentmindedly? What is a show/movie they will stop on whenever they see it in the channel guide? Why that particular title? When was the last time they were in a library? How do they read: ebook, audiobook, physical copy? Are they more likely to buy a book at bookstore or online or check one
All my life "outside" simply meant "more gray walls" or "taller gray walls."
Why would I want even more walls?
Why would I want to feel even smaller? Even more powerless?
"Outside" didn't mean blue sky.
It meant a dull gray, ethereal blotch.
Inside was a firm, gray ceiling.
"Outside" didn't mean fresh air. It meant even less fresh air. Inside the air was recirculated and scrubbed for toxins and contaminants. It was never fresh.
Outside the air could just as easily choke you as two hands clutching at your throat.
"Outside" meant a slow strangulation - as opposed to inside, which meant a prolonged strangulation.
Again, powerlessness.
I could
Bobby Baker's rural life often felt as flat as a two dimensional game board.
Even his hometown, Quaker Flats, had a bland, boring name.
He'd tried to escape in every way he could think of: books, tabletop RPGs, MMORPGs (when the wi-fi worked, which wasn't always), and video games.
His quaint little town still had a legit arcade, but rarely could he scrape up more than a handful of quarters, which hardly justified riding four miles into town to blow five dollars on stand up arcades.
His older cousin was in the army and had sent Bobby his used PS3 when he'd upgraded to a PS4.
That's when Bobby get into Skyrim.
It was years after the game's
Don't Trouble the Water by Realmwright, literature
Literature
Don't Trouble the Water
Dew dripped from the ferns hanging low over the dark water.
The mist was lifting and fading as the late morning sun broke through the clouds and fell across the shoulders of three young men standing on the bridge.
Ronan bent and picked up a handful of pebbles and began pitching them into the river.
Teddy leaned his butt against the railing as Mikhail heaved a sigh and slumped his elbows and forearms on the edge.
"I'm telling you, Mik. Just ask her out. It's obvious you want to."
"I don't know, Teddy." Mikhail Kovacz's Russian accent was still very noticeable, but his English had improved tenfold since he'd moved to Meriwether, Oregon six
Common issues employees face:
Interpersonal conflict
Communication problems
Gossip
Bullying
Harassment
Discrimination
Low motivation
Low job satisfaction
Performance issues
How to handle conflict:
Talk with the other person
Listen carefully
Focus on behavior and events, not on personalities
Identify points of agreement and disagreement
Prioritize the areas of conflict
Develop a plan to work through each conflict
Follow through on the plan
Build upon successes
Top 10 problems (LinkedIn)
Communication or lack thereof
Staying engaged and motivated
Project management and organization
Staff attitudes and hierarchy/bureaucracy
Dealing with chan
The red dice tumbled and bounced down the green felt and rebounded off the bumper. I held my breath. My head swam. My heart pounded.
The dice wobbled, spun, and settled. Two fours, a hard eight, again.
Cheers exploded from the other players around me. They all had money riding on my throw and it just payed off. Big time!
A few hundred for an old chain smoker to my far right. An even two thousand for a too-tanned gin swiller to my left.
For me, ten thousand dollars. I couldn't believe it.
I had already won five thousand on a wild throw. Then for some reason, something told me to let it stand and do it again. Go for double.
For a fleeting mo
Jessica swiped the card again.
Card declined.
She tried rubbing it on her jeans - she'd heard somewhere that the static helps.
Still declined.
"Oh come on already," the middle aged woman behind her snapped. "I have ice cream melting in my cart."
"I'm sorry," Jessica said more to the cashier than the grumpy lady. "I swear, I just made a payment yesterday. They said it would be processed as of midnight."
"Here, let me try," the cashier said politely.
Jessica handed her the card.
The cashier tried typing in the numbers. "Sometimes the magnetic strip on these just goes bad."
Card declined.
The lady behind Jessica huffed and began backing her
She eased the ship down within the spaceport's dusty courtyard.
"2 meters starboard clearance," the auto-drone, landing system announced. "2 meters port clearance. 8 meters to touchdown, 7, 6, 5..."
She didn't even hear the monotonous, cautious voice anymore. When she first acquired this worn out tub she'd spent months trying to figure out how to bypass the docking announcements. When she couldn't, she hired a splicer to cut around the droning sequence. That had been time and money down the drain. Now she just accepted and dismissed it.
"...touchdown in 3, 2, 1..."
A soft, thudding bounce and she was clear.
"Landing successful, " the voice
Not on a Train, Not in the Rain by Realmwright, literature
Literature
Not on a Train, Not in the Rain
Time slowed to bare shreds of seconds. I wasn't me anymore. I was someone else watching my life from behind my eyes. Each raindrop fell at forty thousand frames per second, leaving faint, silver trails behind them. The neon lights did their usual, maddening flicker dance, but now they were like a slow strobe with a lifetime between pulses of light.
She was surrounded in a blur of rain misting and splattering from her jacket. The water cascading over the black leather threw reflections in every shade of the rainbow, but it also appeared as though the wet shell was trying to drink in the colors.
She turned her head towards me. The ink of the t