KamWri #3 [Results!]

[† Emotional Outlet]

Happy Sunday! Welcome to the third iteration of the KamWri challenge! KamWri is a two-week long challenge to get people writing and nudge them out of their comfort zones.

The challenge set before you this fortnight comes in two parts:

Head on over to Seventh Sanctum and pull up the Disease Generator. [Link here.] Generate 25 options and pick your favourite. This disease, the details of which are left to your discretion, will be what your story is about. This is the first part.

The second part has to do with characters. You have three options to choose from, and it must be a trait that has a significant effect on the story. You need only pick one and it need only apply to one character.

Gravedigger

Rider of elevators

Department store Santa

Bonuses:

Each bonus condition is worth one point and you can only earn one! Achieving extra bonus conditions won’t gain you extra points, but take the challenge if you want!

Write a poem

Write a complete short story

Include a plot relevant haircut

Deadlines

Writing: 0001 EST 23 April Monday

Voting: 0001 EST 28 April Friday

Good luck!

Edited September 22, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[† Shazi]

hmm, i got Blood Fever, i like it. lets see what i can do with that

[† Emotional Outlet]

Ancestral Destruction

Blood Womb

Valley Heart

Wasted Eyes

Wasting Sweat

I am torn between these five for some reason, haha. I will sleep on it. Although I'm certain I'm going to pick gravedigger, but I might be able to do something with department store Santa. Maybe even the haircut one.

[† Mute point]

I don't like this one

[† Emotional Outlet]

What do you not like about it? Is there a certain part of it that you don't like or just the set up in general? It's still early enough to shift things around or pare it down if you think there's too much to it.

I didn't want to do another word count challenge because I've heard enough complaints for either end of it--the first one was too big and the second one was too small. So, I chose to do something that left length to the writer's discretion and wouldn't serve as a disqualifier when it came to voting. I actually didn't want people to disqualify Shazi's story in the last one for being incomplete. The topic is not something I myself write about frequently (or ever, in that case--I'm not medically inclined in the least), and I went through a couple different options for character choices before settling on the three. The gravedigger one is kind of a gimme, and I can think of a couple different ways that even the Santa one can be applied.

When it came to the disease portion of it, I thought about picking that myself for the challenge, but I figured it would put more power into the writer's hands if I left it open-ended and would make it less likely that people would come up with the same disease. If you don't like the options your first roll give you, I'm not going to know if you just keep rolling new ones (or even make up your own without the generator). It's definitely not something I'm going to ask about either, haha.

I don't think it's so narrow that everyone would be compelled to write the same story in order to meet the requirements, and the bonuses, while perhaps difficult with the topic at hand, are not impossible. If you have any changes you want to see made, just let me know and I can shift things around!

(On the topic of my story, I think I'm going to go with "wasted eyes". "Valley heart" and "blood womb" were close seconds.)

[† Mute point]

Mostly the second part. At first the whole guided thing was a big "Icky!" to me, but Mal gave me some good ideas for the main part, and I got a disease that I can make work. But those three traits are kindof limiting.. Although every outbreak story probably would have a gravedigger, with the type of story I want to do, it couldn't be a major character.. I supposed an elevator could be important, but I find elevators boring. And other than having a mall santa driven crazy by my chosen illness... I can't see how that could play a major factor.

As for my diseases, the first that caught my eye was "Dragon's cramps" but then I was like. "That sounds like a story about PMS..." So I would go with my second choice. Blood Frenzy.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Dragon's cramps does sound like it's about PMS, haha.

As for the Santa thing, there's a lot of things that could go wrong and be traced back to his job or the Santa in general. Something could have been wrong with the glue on his beard, or something could have been stuck in his beard and a kid started chewing on it. Any number of things could have gone wrong with his costume, really, or the multitude of children and people he has to see. Maybe something happens to the huge group of people waiting to see him and he ends up the impromptu leader of a ragtag group of survivors. The padding he has to wear somehow protects him from the disease. Or maybe he's just fat and doesn't require padding, and somehow his weight is a factor in how the disease affects him.

Significant doesn't have to mean "main"--it could be the focal point of one scene and never mentioned again, but that scene has to drive the plot forward and be relevant is all. Your protagonist or antagonist don't have to be a gravedigger or mall Santa if you don't want to, haha. The whole story doesn't have to take place in an elevator.

I don't want to leave the challenge too open-ended because the first one was very open-ended and a lot of people said, "Well, what's the point?" and "I don't have time to write that many words." The second one didn't suffer that particular fate, but it made the word count concerns more evident, which was specifically limited because of prior complaints that the word count goals for the first one were too high.

I ran the challenge draft by Shazi first, and it's always been my intention that people who win the challenges get to set up the next one (a la SOTW), so the next challenge will be set up by someone else!

[† Mute point]

Oh! Okay And I think I know how I will do it... and it actually makes sense given how nasty those mall santa costumes must get by the end of the day... Now to get writing!

[boink666]

Well... I just finished my story in one day. I can't say it's one of my best, though.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Haha, don't worry about it. You can always go back and edit it later. I don't mind drafts being posted in these challenges, and rather expect it since they take place over a two week period.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Pardon the delay in opening the polls in this area! I'll add bonus points after I get some sleep. I just got back from mission and remembered what today was!

[† Shazi]

votedededed, good luck to all

[~=>Dark<=~]

i don't no the others just don't sit right with me so i voted for something i know i well like Blood Fury for the win muhahah but ya i getting around to writing more on my story now

[† Emotional Outlet]

Bonus points awarded to Shazi and boink, but not me because I'm a derp and failed to fulfill one of the requisites! Yay me, haha. Here's a million excuses. Anyway.

Good luck to everyone! I'll vote as soon as I read over the stories again. Where is time going?

ETA: For those of you curious as to my thought process:

I was going to deduct a vote from myself, so it zeros out.

Here's some more garbage out of my brain:

As stated, the primary purpose of the challenge is to get people to write and get them out of their comfort zones. I don't want anyone to be disqualified on any grounds except for cheating and plagiarism, which has always been my intention. Even if you don't complete it doesn't mean you didn't create something worthwhile.

The challenge was inspired by NaNoWriMo--for those unfamiliar, it's a writing challenge done every November wherein people must write 50,000 words in the span of 30 days. It's a personal challenge, and while some people easily crank out thousands of words like that in short amounts of time, for others, it's a greater struggle to silence the inner editor and move past the first few words. I'm one of those people who edit and reread and edit again because I'm never satisfied with my work--as a result of this, I rarely finish things.

The addition of the poll is something I did to mimick SOTM/BOTM--after the initial offer of a writing programme in the first iteration of this challenge, winners get nothing but warm fuzzies. Thus, I don't feel comfortable with disqualifying people for not completing the challenge. I didn't want to disqualify Shazi from the second one just because she didn't complete her story--she rose to the challenge and what she could. To me, that's the most important thing--getting some activity in here and urging people to do what they can for the joys of warm fuzzies.

So yeah. After a few more of these, I'd like to round up a hall of fame or something, haha.

[† Shazi]

Bonus points awarded to Shazi and boink, but not me because I'm a derp and failed to fulfill one of the requisites! Yay me, haha. Here's a million excuses. Anyway.

Good luck to everyone! I'll vote as soon as I read over the stories again. Where is time going?

ETA: For those of you curious as to my thought process:

I was going to deduct a vote from myself, so it zeros out.

Here's some more garbage out of my brain:

As stated, the primary purpose of the challenge is to get people to write and get them out of their comfort zones. I don't want anyone to be disqualified on any grounds except for cheating and plagiarism, which has always been my intention. Even if you don't complete it doesn't mean you didn't create something worthwhile.

The challenge was inspired by NaNoWriMo--for those unfamiliar, it's a writing challenge done every November wherein people must write 50,000 words in the span of 30 days. It's a personal challenge, and while some people easily crank out thousands of words like that in short amounts of time, for others, it's a greater struggle to silence the inner editor and move past the first few words. I'm one of those people who edit and reread and edit again because I'm never satisfied with my work--as a result of this, I rarely finish things.

The addition of the poll is something I did to mimick SOTM/BOTM--after the initial offer of a writing programme in the first iteration of this challenge, winners get nothing but warm fuzzies. Thus, I don't feel comfortable with disqualifying people for not completing the challenge. I didn't want to disqualify Shazi from the second one just because she didn't complete her story--she rose to the challenge and what she could. To me, that's the most important thing--getting some activity in here and urging people to do what they can for the joys of warm fuzzies.

So yeah. After a few more of these, I'd like to round up a hall of fame or something, haha.

oooh a hall of fame sounds like fun! nothing wrong with not finishing the story, it give you a break from other works to pursue possibly something else that's be itching to come out, or come up with something completely different. there's no need to get irky just because you can't finish something like this is a 2 week period. let's be honest, no one expects you to either, which is why you got a bonus point for completing your work!