Writing Prompts, Build a World Using Just One Object

Writing Prompt

Build a World Using Just One Object

So, in our bi-weekly writer's meeting, we discussed building worlds. This is an important aspect of writing for authors using secondary worlds (ie: fantasy, scifi etc) and we thought it deserved a deeper look. At the start of the meeting we were met with a challenge:

Build a world using your description of an object from the point of view of three different characters.

Wow! Tough, right? So we set our timer to 15 minutes and began our task. I'd like to share with you the world I built below. Read it over, and then I'd love to hear how you think I did in the comments below!

THE WORLD

A simple thing, really. Dionysus stared up at the glint of the metal in the night sky. These strange and primitive beings seemed to worship the light cast down from its surface, but he was far too intelligent to believe in gods. It was a satellite, orbiting this planet and capturing the rays of the twin suns, throwing them down to the surface in brilliant pillars of light. How long it had been up there was anyone’s guess, but if it had come from this planet it had been sent into its orbit thousands of years before the cataclysm that had cast these people back to the stone age. He tapped his ocular implant and honed in on the object of fascination for so many. Perhaps it was something useful after all.

The man-god on the cliff watched the sky in wonder. Or was it fear? Shayba only knew the stories that Ya-Ya told him. The thing in the sky was the eye of a lost starfarer, watching over them and punishing those who got too close to its light. He crouched low to the ground, his spear clutched tightly in his fist as he watched the man-god’s eyes glow eerily red. Ya-Ya said he was to guard the man-god, but guard him from what? Nothing in this world or the next could harm a god. Unless… Shayba looked up at the Eye. Would it turn its gaze on the man-god and burn him to cinders for daring to look so closely?

Ah. The planet had a visitor. Verayne tapped her lip with her finger as she studied the man on the surface as intently as he studied her ship. What did he think of her vessel? Did he find it as lovely as she did? Her mission to this planet was nearly over, her catalog of its inhabitants and terrain was almost complete. It had been her profound pleasure to watch these people as they evolved under the watchful eye of her telescope for so many millennia. Never before had she encountered another advanced species in this galaxy. So, then, where had this stranger come from? Her computer beeped, signaling that he was attempting to scan her ship with some type of tech. A smile curved her lips as she took a seat and directed her teleportation module to his coordinates. Perhaps it was time to meet this traveler.