Let's write!

Today is a focused challenge.

Write a few paragraphs of a scene where two or more characters are conversing but then they're interrupted by bad news. A couple of ideas: Two friends are chatting in a coffee shop and one of them gets a phone call. A queen is discussing a matter of state with an advisor and a messenger arrives with an urgent letter. Two people are talking and one of them remembers something, spurred by something that the other said.

Try to keep the narrator out of the heads of the characters, and instead convey the reaction to the news through dialogue, expressions, and actions.