Hello, everyone. As of the posting of this thread, Doper authors will have 60 hours to write a story of 2,000 words (or less) based on the following three words -
Please send your completed stories (preferrably in a .doc compatible format) to sdmbpoetrysweatshop at gmail dot com. Please include your SDMB username. (You may receive an out-of-office auto-reply with the above information; having said I’d do that earlier in this thread, I had to set that up.) I will start an Anthology Thread sometime tomorrow, when I’ve received a few submissions. At the close of the contest, Sunday, Sept. 12th at 9 PM EDT, I will establish a poll to determine the favourite story.
Wishing all writers great inspiration this weekend,
I guess this is a stupid question, but in general terms, how do you tell if a story is “about” the 3 words and the picture? Do they have to be central themes? I assume you have to do a bit more than mention them.
dzero - Not a stupid question at all, just not one with a single definitive answer - everybody is going to have a different approach to this. What works for me (and therefore, what I’d suggest that you try) is to take each word and think about it for a few minutes. Remember, you won’t necessarily have to use each word in the form that it appears in. In other words, ‘cherish’ could become ‘cherished’, ‘cherishing’; ‘habitually’ could become ‘out of habit’, ‘habitual’, "Auroras’ wouldn’t necessarily have to remain in the plural (though that’s a fascinating challenge.)
So what can you think of that involves those three words and the photo?
I don’t want to go into much more depth on the specifics of this month’s contest because everyone is busy forming their own ideas. If you do look at the Logistics Thread from the last one, I had proposed a photo and three words as example (post #22) and then in post #45, I gave some advice as to how I’d go about using those elements to inspire a story. I hope it might give you some ideas that will get you started.
Well, gee, maybe I should have gone with “suck it newbie, wing it like we did last time when there were no examples” rather than give you a link to a page that showed what other people did with the same sort of stimuluses. :dubious:
And then it was argued with and disagreed with for two more pages in that thread. But hey, if you find that easier to wade through than seeing what people ultimately did…
I was proceeding under the assumption that our poet laureate wouldn’t mislead me, but now that I think about it, he does have a shifty sounding French name.
dzero -
Never let a poet give you directions
unless you want to waste your time
searching for the luminous in the mundane.
Shouldn’t you guys be writing?
I’ve just got too much on my plate too My only time to sit down and do it is between now and the deadline, and there’s just too much other stuff to do. I will be reading though!
On the other hand, there is a certain ‘warts and all’ charm to these, so I’d encourage you to submit whatever you’ve got, even if the central character’s name changes every couple of paragraphs. That’s part of what makes time-limited contests and improv fun!
Of course, I should talk - I have yet to finish my first draft. Later.
My only time to sit down and do it is between now and the deadline, and there’s just too much other stuff to do. I will be reading though!