I’ve heard from a couple of literary agents that that’s true of my story (excerpted in full above). One reviewer gushed that it has “a promising seed paragraph, then explodes into mediocrity, a state that is effortlessly maintained for the rest of the tale.” – Bill Keller of The Times
That would be a really depressing review for an autobiography.
So what is the final verdict about the photo/random words/seed ideas? Are we being assigned a specific photo/word combo for everyone to work from, or each person getting unique combos or what?
At 9 AM EDT, Friday, May 14th, 2010, I will post a link to a photo (found by random means) both in this thread and in a new ‘Anthology’ thread to be created Friday morning. I will also generate three words, again by random means, and post those three words in both threads. Writers will then have until 9 PM EDT, Sunday, May 16th, 2010 to write an original piece of short fiction, no more than 2,000 words in length, based in some way on that photo and those three words. All interested participants will be working from the same compulsory material.
Writers - please post your stories in the Anthology thread. May I please request that we try to reserve the Anthology thread for stories only, at least until the contest closes? We can continue to use this thread for any side issues, concerns, problems, jokes, etc.
At 9 PM EDT, Sunday, May 16th, 2010 a multiple choice poll will be established to determine the readers favourite story. I would also ask voters to choose those stories that have incorporated the compulsory material in the most interesting manner. At the end of a week, the poll will close and we will declare a winner of the PoeHenryParkerSaki award.
Thanks! I’m continually impressed by the time people put in for free here, just to help others*.
*Or, in the Pit, to annoy others.
Awesome; can’t wait to get started. I do like the photo idea a bit better than the seed paragraph. It will be fun to see where this goes. 
I love this idea. I must remember to check back here to get the details.
To clarify: our stories must be “based in some way on that photo and those three words,” but the three words themselves need not explicitly appear in the story?
And are you sure you don’t want the stories emailed to you, Ministre, so that you can put in spoiler tags as to the authors and everyone can vote “blind,” as we’ve done in the deadline poetry threads?
Two interesting questions. The easiest, most obvious way to ‘incorporate’ the three words would be to use them in the story. However, if you can figure out a way to base the story on them without actually using them, that intrigues me greatly. Bear in mind that if the indirect allusion to them is too obscure for a reader to pick up on, it will cost that author in the voting. (“I would also ask voters to choose those stories that have incorporated the compulsory material in the most interesting manner.”) I’m rather prepared to leave that one to the writers’ discretion.
Spoiler tagging the authors’ names - I had indeed missed that.
Advantages - if everyone were to send me an e-mail with a Word .doc file, it would be easy to verify the word count. I’ve checked, and I think my gmail account could handle the strain. It makes it easier to vote based solely on the quality of the story.
Disadvantages - It restricts people to sending things in a Word .doc format. (I have a Mac, and other than Microsoft Word, I don’t have any other word processing software on this thing.)
I have to run and pretend to get some work done - I’ll see what the board says in the next 8 hours or so, and take it from there. From my standpoint, I’m game either way…
Word docs work for me, quite frankly.
I could send a word doc, or just cut-and-paste the text into an email. 2000 words isn’t too much for that.
Well, if anyone doesn’t have Word, there’s always the excellent alternative OpenOffice, which is free and can write documents in Word format. Or they could just send a plain text document which you could paste into Word to check the word count.
Or you could open the file as a Google Document and do a word count there. (I just checked–it has one.)
And everyone on any OS should be able to produce a .txt text file.
So, one last change to make - send your completed work to me (preferably in a .doc format) at sdmbpoetrysweatshop at gmail dot com before 9 PM EDT on Sunday, May 16th. I will verify that it is 2,000 words or less, and I will post it in the (as yet uncreated) Anthology Thread. I will post the stories with the authors’ names in spoiler boxes. I will start the Anthology thread sometime over the weekend, after I’ve received a few stories.
We start in less than twelve hours - best of luck to all.
Here is the obligatory material for the ‘Weekend Flash Fiction’ contest.
and the three words -
Pandemic
Sanctuary
Spy
Your challenge is now to create an original story, no longer than 2,000 words, which incorporates that photo and those three words. You have until 9 PM Sunday May 16th.
Please submit your completed stories to sdmbpoetrysweatshop at gmail dot com , preferably in a .doc format. I will start the Anthology Thread once I’ve received a few stories.
Wishing you all happy writing,
Le Ministre de l’au-delà
Great photo! Can’t wait to read what y’all come up with.
This is so cool!
Is that 9:00 PM PST?
9 PM EDT, Sunday, May 16th. I mentioned in the other posts, but missed it that time.