Story of The Month Competition

[The Welsh Paddy]

So, here's another attempt at getting such a competition in the works. The rules are simple: You have one month to complete a story. A minimum of 500 words is required, but beyond that it can be as long as you like. No recycling old written pieces!! Whether written by yourself, or someone else, this is not allowed. There will be several requirements of entry that should prevent this, I hope.

For our first competition, our writers will be required to write a peice following on from this paragraph.

"It's time to wake up!" my mum called as she hammered on my bedroom door. I looked at the clock on my bedside table. It was six in the morning, and I was still very tired. I stayed up late last night finishing a college project and didn't go to sleep until past midnight.

"Okay, I'll be up in a minute," I said. I got out of bed and had a quick shower. I got dressed and packed all my books.

"You're going to be late!" Mum yelled up the stairs.

"I'm coming!" I yelled back. I hurried downstairs, grabbed my packed lunch and left the house.

On my way to the bus stop, I spotted a green piece of paper on the pavement. Curious, I went to see what it was.

From here onwards it can pretty much be whatever you want, but you must include the following characters:

1. A best friend

2. A shady individual

Deadline will be the 25th of November. Winner will chose how the next story starts off and what sorts of characters that are to be in it. Good luck!

Edited October 24, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Pinkie Pie]

ack does it have to be in first person? u wu I'm going to be in this for sure, but I'm just curious.

[The Welsh Paddy]

I guess for this one you can alter it to be either in first or third person. But I think it would be a good idea in future to keep things a little out of everyone's comfort zone. Well, I mean some people are more comfortable writing in first person than third person, and vice versa, so it'll be good to mix things up a bit. But as well as that, it will be a great way for refining our writing skills, and maybe we can have some sort of archive for all our entries so we can look back and see how much we've improved... if at all.

[† Mute point]

Does it have to be that exact paragraph, or can I re-write it to fit my style, while still keeping the theme of being late, grabbing lunch, and finding something?

[† Anras Rune]

Huh, interesting concept. Smaller than normal by the look of things. Kinda bad timing though, what with the NaNoWriMo coming up in a couple of days... lol

I suppose I'll give it a try, not making promises though. I might wait til the next competition though, let fresher heads prevail!

[The Welsh Paddy]

Does it have to be that exact paragraph, or can I re-write it to fit my style, while still keeping the theme of being late, grabbing lunch, and finding something?

Well that paragraph really hasn't been developed enough to actually have a 'style'. :S You can alter it to write it in third person, but that's it. The winner will write up the starting paragraph for the next competition, so we're all gonna have to adapt to different styles anyway.

[Pinkie Pie]

That paragraph leaves no room for adding any kind of description though, and I can only speak for myself, but the character I intend to use doesn't have that kind of voice.

[The Welsh Paddy]

Well you could always come up with a fresh, new character to fit that. The whole point behind this is so that everyone has to work from the exact same point. It's only six lines, with four sentences of dialogue. It's not like your character has been planned out already and forced on you. From using this, you can branch out and and do whatever the hell you like.

If we were to allow for so many changes to this, it would kinda elimnate the point in giving everyone an opening paragraph to start from.

Besides, I really don't see what's so difficult about working from such a paragraph.

[Malyssa Rahl]

The difficulty in writing from that paragraph lies in the very fact that you think makes it easy to work from. That is has no style. Which makes it more difficult to work with, especially for those of us, like myself, that prefer to give a lot of detail for each "scene."

I also have a problem with the traits already established for the character. Adult age (unless he or she is a child prodigy, they would have to be since it's a college project that kept them awake the previous night) Still living with mom (who still packs their lunches?), obedient, curious. May seem like small things to you, but as any experienced or knowledgeable writer can tell you, characterization starts with the first word written about the character.

I realize that I don't speak for everyone, but while I understand setting up guided writing for the constests, I don't see any reason that you need to go as far as forcing the same intro paragraph onto every entry. Even if it were a well written and exciting battle scene or something, it would be boring to read it over and over as people go through the entries.

To contrast, why not simply set up a general outline for that intro? In this case, the POV character stayed up late the night before, is woken up later than they were supposed to be, and has to rush out, only to have something catch their eye as they're leaving. Setting up characters to be included is good too. An outline like that, and needing to have a best friend and a shady character involved? Nice and easy to work with. It lets people fill in details, while still giving everyone mostly the same starting point.

In closing, I'm sorry to have to hijack the conset thread for this, but it needed to be said.

[† Emotional Outlet]

I don't think it's unusual for a person to still be living with their parents even if college aged--at their youngest they could be 18 or 19--or to have a mother that packs them lunches. It can be cheaper to stay at home and they might be having financial issues. Maybe the person isn't comfortable with living alone yet or with leaving home. Perhaps even their parents are making them stay at home, at least for a few years, until they feel comfortable with their child leaving the nest.

[Pinkie Pie]

Well you could always come up with a fresh, new character to fit that.

Honey, I don't think you understand how hard it can be for people to create new characters. What if I prefer not to spend my creative energy on a throwaway character I'll never use again and would instead like to use one of my own established characters?

Mal articulated the rest of what I wanted to say better than I would be able to at the moment u wu I hope that you understand that we're not trying to get dramatic. There are just some flaws that are cramping our style so hard it's hard to try to create something for this. Once those are ironed out, things will be better for everyone involved, both competition host and competitor.

[The Welsh Paddy]

In the UK you start college at the age of 16 and over. Also, I didn't say that the character's mum packed his/her lunch for him/her. And, I specifically avoided inputting more of a personality for the character because I wanted people to have their own individual take on the character.

I understand that you guys aren't trying to come off as being dramatic. I actually appreciate your input here. (I also don't want to come off as being all dramatic! )

As for recycling characters you've written up already, however, I don't really think it's very fair for those who need to come up with entirely new characters for this story. Besides, if you can come up with a really decent peice of writing with completely new characters (even if they're used only once), it really isn't a waste. Take Treasure Planet, for example. For me, that had some of the most memorable characters ever. It went on to inspire several film adaptions and... who hasn't heard of Treasure Island?

So...

I am kinda out-voted here.

Why don't we stick with the general outline for the opening? You can write it in any way you want, provided it sticks to the whole "kid getting up and ready for college, but finds an unusual sheet of paper that he/she finds suspicious and decides to investigate."

The main character should mostly represent one main aspect of your own personality. (For example, if you're a bit shy, or got a big ego, or are generally just polite and friendly to everyone, then this would be the main characteristic for the main character.) And the other characters will still consist of a best friend, and a shady individual.

[Pinkie Pie]

I'm going to have to pass after all, oops. Good luck to everyone that does decide to participate though u wu

[† Anras Rune]

Wow. This has gone pretty side ways. In my opinion, what Paddy has done is good and I feel you shouldn't change it. If you change it too much then it'll end up like the previous writing competitions, one or two weeks interest; dead contest. The fact you wanted to keep it short and sweet, with everyone starting from the same point is good. Tis funny, the complaints want to make it more like waht the KamWri was like, and still people complained about that.

I was wondering why there was a problem with that opening as well. It uses completely character neutral language, has a simple, non descriptive base and is easy as hell to adapt. I, being one who is an real stickler for adding details and descriptive text, feel that that sort of opening basically gives me the same freedom as starting with a completely blank canvas. The character has no voice or style and its a most basic narrative. Action, Reason, Finish. Don't see the problem with it.

Also, using an established character in this sorta competition kinda seems a bit useless. I've always felt it has. Its the same reason I don't like fan fiction, as if you only develop something already established it gets stagnant. It isn't difficult to make new characters, and its not like we're going to be winning anything in particular. Tis, as all comps on here should be, a bit of fun.

I'm defo going to try and join this. Tis going to be something pretty short however...lol

Edited October 26, 2012 by Anras Rune

[The Welsh Paddy]

Afterall, it's not like we're needing epics for this. (The 'i' key on this laptop is a bit naff, so excuse any errors here. >_> ) Some of my favourite stories are rather short. Like Edgar Alan Poe's work. The majority of hs stories are rather short, yet they capture everything needed to peice together a good story. Ever read his Tales of Mystery and Imagnation? Charles Dickens, The Brothers Grimm, Sir Walter Scott, H.G. Wells, Roal Dahl... I could list many more, but these are among my favourites. The majority of their stories don't go nto so much detail, and they are fantastic.

[† Mute point]

The only problem I have with the opening given, is the fact that we're not allowed to add details to it, or give the character a little attitude during it (What college kid is going to be that nice after being up most of the night and being woken up at 6 am? Certainly not any of the ones around here.) Or change anything other than what perspective it's in.. makes it hard for me to work with. Bland intros are not my style, and never will be.

With the outline version, are you shooting for a 16-18 age group, or are you looking only for college. You said in the UK they start at 16, in America, that's still high school (question applies to both ways really.) I plan on writing something either way, but there are things that I need to know before I start.

The problem with the Kamwri competition in my opinion, was that restrictions were just thrown in without warning, and it was only a small group discussing things for it. It should have had an open forum discussion at first, before being moved to a private room.

[The Welsh Paddy]

The character's behavior isn't necessarily 'nice'. The way he/she acted could have been a form of resignation (as in not seeing the point in putting in an argument), a sort of "yeah whatever" attitude, it could be that the character is a bit of a mamma's boy, or as you put it, nice. It's the sort of thing you could touch on as the story progresses. For example, a lot of people tend to act differently around ther parents than they do around friends. It's simple to progress this six-lined paragraph into something you can call your own as well as going as in-depth as you like.

The more of these that happen (I'm hoping this will last a good while), the more of a difference there will be with opening paragraphs because everyone has a different style of writing. Should you win this competition, you will get to write up the opening paragraph for the next one.

You could write it any way you want and everyone who choses to enter will have to accomodate for that.

Edited October 26, 2012 by The Welsh Paddy

[Malyssa Rahl]

In a story where the writer uses a lot of detail in every scene other than that one, that paragraph would look horribly out of place. The same as one of mine would look out of place in a story you wrote if that paragraph is any indication of the amount of detail you put in. Not saying that's good or bad, too much detail can be just as bad as too little. But the fact is, forcing the story to fit that paragraph is simply not possible as it is unless we cut out enough detail from every scene to make it seem like that fits in. I'm sorry you don't seem to understand that, but I don't know how to explain it any better than I already have.

You also didn't answer her question... are you looking for a certain age group? Or just "college"? If you're expecting a UK college setting, you're not going to have many entries, because the only people who will be able to write that believably are those who have been to a UK college.

[† Anras Rune]

Again, I really do not see your points. It will look out of place, maybe. But it is in the title, this is a competition. People reading will know that its due to the opening paragraph being "mandatory". It is basic, as I emphasized before. But I can guarantee that if it was much more detailed, or didn't play to the styles of others then we would still have complaints. How it is hard to work with do not understand. It isn't "bland", tis basic. If it bothers you guys that much, why just not put it in the story itself? I mean, I doubt Paddy is going to say it actually has to be in your part of the story. Just continue on from it and acknowledge the events that happened and you're golden.

As to the college thing. Another problem with Americanized language! Do away with it, I say! Uncivilised, I say! I kid, I kid. But, digression aside, college is used in both contexts in the UK (and considering we started it, you are the folks in the wrong! ). College is a word applied to any higher education past secondary school. One context (16-18 range) is for Highers, A levels and trade related courses. Then the other usage is to refer to the different buildings in a University and its different faculties. For instance, I study at QUTIC which stands for Queensland University of Technology International College, which is one of many different colleges connected to QUT in general. In general anything linked to a degree is when people say university. So again, it is very open guys...

[Malyssa Rahl]

If we were allowed to add to the paragraph, it would be perfect. I can think of a dozen ways to go on from a scene where someone wakes up and then rushes off to school, only to find something interesting on the ground, including one that I started from a similar premise, and will most likely be using the concept from.

I truly don't care where the word comes from, here, college/university is where you go after high school, at age 18 or higher in most cases. In the UK, it's 16. What does that mean for the story? Do you want a story about an adult who lives at home and goes to college? Or a 16 year old who lives at home and goes to whatever school is appropriate for the setting? Specifics, not rants about where words come from, or why one country is right another is wrong please.