Doper Writers - presenting the SDMB 'Weekend Flash Fiction' Contest, May 14 - 16, 2010!

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

(I have asked the Mods’ permission to post this thread, and it has been granted.)

I have an idea that I hope will be of interest to some of the writers on the SDMB. I’m proposing that we have a ‘Weekend Flash Fiction’ contest on the weekend of Friday, May 14th, starting at 9 AM EDT and closing Sunday, May 16th at 9 PM EDT. Maximum word count is 2,000 words, to be strictly observed. (Shorter than a regular short story, longer than the 1,000 word limit for most flash fiction.) All genres of fiction welcome, all styles appreciated. To ensure that entries have been written within the time limit, a paragraph of 100 words will be assigned. This paragraph must be incorporated somewhere in the story - opening, middle, conclusion; as the author wishes - but it must be in there somewhere. The contest is open to all Dopers (Members, Guests, Moderators, Administrators - anyone who is allowed to post here.) who wish to participate. Sorry, lurkers.

Pending further discussion, I propose that I will start an Anthology thread on Fri., May 14th with the test paragraph, and at the close of the contest, I’ll establish a poll in that Anthology thread to select the readers’ favourite story. After a poll of about a week, the author of that story will be awarded the PoeHenryParkerSaki prize.

As with the Poetry Sweatshops, there are some logistics to be ironed out, and I’d like to suggest that anyone interested in participating use this thread to discuss such matters. I’m open to suggestion on questions such as whether or not to ‘spoiler box’ the authors’ names, etc. In particular, one of the sticking points for me is where to get the ‘test paragraph’ - I could write something myself, but other participants may think that would give me an advantage, and I’d like to submit something myself. Please, let me know what you think.

And I’m hoping many of our writers can find some spare time and inspiration in ten days.

Best wishes,

Le Ministre de l’au-delà

[The_Hamster_King]

I’d be interested in participating, but I admit I’d have a really hard time incorporating a paragraph written in an entirely different style into some of my own writing.

Is there a different way to create the “seed”? Maybe a list of words that have to be used, or a particular topic, or situation that has to be incorporated?

Something like “Write a story about a break-up involving an age difference that takes place near a body of water.”

or

“Write a story involving a grandfather clock, a cheese ball, and a pelican.”

[Yllaria]

Just give one of your characters a writing assignment - he/she writes the paragraph. Done.

[The_Hamster_King]

@Yllaria

Just give one of your characters a writing assignment - he/she writes the paragraph. Done.

Yeah, that kind of defeats the purpose of having a seed to work from. A participant could write his entire story in advance then just paste in the required paragraph as an afterthought. However the seed is handled, it needs to be something that shapes the texture of the whole story.

[Spice_Weasel]

@The_Hamster_King

Something like “Write a story about a break-up involving an age difference that takes place near a body of water.”

or

“Write a story involving a grandfather clock, a cheese ball, and a pelican.”

This is the best idea. I dunno about everyone else, but having to incorporate an entire paragraph would seriously cramp my style. I think we should all write on the same theme but with total freedom in terms of style, tone, and genre.

I am totally psyched about this activity.

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

Just so you know where I’m starting from. It was a friend and fellow student of Second City improv classes in Toronto who first passed this idea on to me. He had a creative writing prof. who would do this to anyone who said they were stuck and couldn’t write - he’d give them a paragraph and they’d have to finish the story from there. My friend talked about getting something like this -

“I can take being a hundred feet away from safety”, I bellowed “but not when it’s a hundred feet up!”. The wind had died down somewhat, but the temperature was dropping and there was only an hour left until sunset. It was curious - from the ground I’d never noticed how much transmission towers swayed with the wind. Precarious, slippery, cold, I had expected but unsteady was something I hadn’t thought of. Another gust of wind threatened to blow me off my perch, and as I gripped the railing even tighter, I thought again about what I was doing here.

• and having to fill in the rest of it as being a good way to get out of being blocked.

All that being said, I’m also quite open to other suggestions. The Poetry Sweatshops have turned out well with an hour time limit and three words - maybe this would work with a theme as suggested, or a set of ten words that have to be worked in. In improv, we frequently had to work from a setting and a relationship and develop things from there. (“A priest and a nurse in a penis enlargement clinic. Go!”) Keep the ideas coming, folks!

[DrFidelius]

“I can take being a hundred feet away from safety”, I bellowed “but not when it’s a hundred feet up!”. The wind had died down somewhat, but the temperature was dropping and there was only an hour left until sunset. It was curious - from the ground I’d never noticed how much transmission towers swayed with the wind. Precarious, slippery, cold, I had expected but unsteady was something I hadn’t thought of. Another gust of wind threatened to blow me off my perch, and as I gripped the railing even tighter, I thought again about what I was doing here. "

And I cursed the day that pelican dropped the cheese ball into my grandfather clock…

[Stealth_Potato]

Ooh, I’m totally down for this!

The “seed paragraph” is an interesting idea, but it does seem awfully limiting: I think it would be difficult to come up with such a paragraph that was capable of meeting its purpose without constraining the author to use a particular tone, voice, and point of view. Even the genre, style, and structure of the story would be heavily influenced. With fewer than 2,000 words it’s especially important that not a single one be wasted, so the burden of using every bit of that paragraph would be substantial.

On the other hand, creativity flourishes when put under constraints, so maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all.

Also, am I the only one who initially read the thread title as “weekend slash fiction?” Please tell me I’m not the only one. :o

[elfkin477]

You had me until you said we’d have to incorporate an entire paragraph into our stories. Now I’m not sure that I’ll bother.

I’ve designed a number of (X-files) fanfic challenges, and I’ll tell you, a paragraph does not inspire people to write - they work so poorly I’ve never offered one as a challenge. Even a single line is often too constricting for many people. Know what works much better? A short list of random words or a photo.

[Spoons]

The term “flash fiction” is puzzling me. Let me make sure I understand: It’s just a short story, no more than 2000 words, and written over a weekend? And there will be elements–given paragraph or certain words, nobody is quite sure yet–that must be included?

If I’ve got things right, it might be fun.

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

@Spoons

The term “flash fiction” is puzzling me. Let me make sure I understand: It’s just a short story, no more than 2000 words, and written over a weekend? And there will be elements–given paragraph or certain words, nobody is quite sure yet–that must be included?

If I’ve got things right, it might be fun.

Yes, you’ve got that right. “Short story” is usually defined as 7,500 words or less. (Link goes to the Wiki article on Word Count.) Flash fiction is a term for extremely short fiction - sometimes defined as little as 300 words, sometimes as much as 1,000 words. So, I’m stretching things a little to call 2,000 words ‘flash fiction’…

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

@Stealth_Potato

Also, am I the only one who initially read the thread title as “weekend slash fiction?” Please tell me I’m not the only one. :o

Are you using that Elizabethan font on your browser again?

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

@elfkin477

You had me until you said we’d have to incorporate an entire paragraph into our stories. Now I’m not sure that I’ll bother.

I’ve designed a number of (X-files) fanfic challenges, and I’ll tell you, a paragraph does not inspire people to write - they work so poorly I’ve never offered one as a challenge. Even a single line is often too constricting for many people. Know what works much better? A short list of random words or a photo.

The paragraph is one of many ideas that could be used, and I’m open to other people’s ideas over the next ten days.

That being said, I looked over the TNF site that you linked to. As someone who has never seen an episode of X-Files, I wouldn’t be able to take on any of your challenges without a lot of remedial research. Even then, I would have to adapt my own work to characters already established by someone else; that aspect of fan fiction is hard.

Compared to which, I would find it easier to take a paragraph written by someone else and expand on it.

[Sampiro]

@DrFidelius

And I cursed the day that pelican dropped the cheese ball into my grandfather clock…

I had not cursed any day as much since the day when I had broken up with Little Peggy Castleberry by the shores of Lake Erie just after her 15th birthday party, which was also the same week my divorce from my wife of 29 years became final.

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

@Sampiro

I had not cursed any day as much since the day when I had broken up with Little Peggy Castleberry by the shores of Lake Erie just after her 15th birthday party, which was also the same week my divorce from my wife of 29 years became final.

Can’t wait to hear how you tie all that together in the next 1937 words…

[Chickie]

Sounds hella fun! Count me in!

If we’re taking a vote, I’d rather work with a specific plot point than a pre-written paragraph.

[Rala]

@Stealth_Potato

Also, am I the only one who initially read the thread title as “weekend slash fiction?” Please tell me I’m not the only one. :o

You’re not the only one. I got all excited about it.

Now that I realise my mistake, I’m still pretty excited. It sounds fun, though I also think a prompt would be better than a paragraph. What if the paragraph was written in third person but you wanted to write the rest of the story in first or second person? Or it was incompatible with your style in some other way? That could be a real pain.

[PapSett]

Sounds like fun! I used to run a writer’s workshop Yahoo group and had writing challenges similar to this; we’d have themes like posting a generic story title and everyone had to write a flash fiction with that title, or I’d post a picture and we all wrote a story about it. My favorite was taking the lyrics to a song and we all wrote the WHOLE story as we saw it.

I miss that group; it was a lot of fun and did a lot to keep my muse on his toes.

And, Stealth Potato…? No, you’re not the only one. I saw ‘slash’ at first, too…

[Woeg]

I’m definitely interested, though my pending nuptials have had me fairly busy so I can’t guarantee participation. I also think that a full paragraph is limiting, and would like to second the idea of instead having plot elements as the seed. Some ideas might be to take, say, a scene from a movie in which multiple people are present besides the main character, and write a story from one of their points of view. Or the song idea from above - choose a song, and have each story be an interpretation of how that song came into being. Or similar to the poetry entries, having a number of words that must be used, and as an additional challenge, must be substantial to the plot (no “Did you just see that priest and nurse walk into the penis enlargement clinic? Weird…so anyways…”).

Just my two bits!

[Baker]

I’d be interested in participating.

But that required paragraph thing would be a drag. It would be extremely difficult to fit it into all the stories, especially when they are likely to be of widely differing genres.

But it’s your idea and I’ll go with whatever you decide.

I guess it’s kind of foolish to ask us to swear/promise/avow that we wrote all of the story inside the time frame.