Sweetcherrie Posted November 16, 2005 Report Posted November 16, 2005 Right! You sorry excuses for writers….. But seriously the writing side of us seems to lack attention lately, and even though the social side is very important (it’s what keeps us together) We (the judges) crave to read some good writing again. Therefore I give to you “Challenge of Five Elements” Those who think they can do this can sign up by sending Gwaihir or me a PM, and by posting in this thread (yes, both please). You will be given five elements that will have to be present in your story. You will post your story in the assembly room and at the end the organization will publicize the 5 elements that each participant had to weave into their story. There is no limit of words, and there are no limits as to how your story has to be written. There is however a time limit, all stories need to be in before the new year starts. The judges (Gwaihir, Lord Panther, and myself) will than see who has woven the elements best in their story and will reward the three best with shinies (50 geld for best, 30 for 2nd, and 15 for 3rd). We will of course not only look at how well you managed to use the five elements (are we writers or not ), and to make sure that you know on what criteria you will be judged otherwise we will hereby give you a nice overview: (We will be using the SWG criteria, seeing that the Katz and Mynx have done an excellent job of defining them, so for those who can access this forum, they can be found here) Gwaihir will judge for character and setting Lord Panther will be judging grammar and descriptive Sweetcherrie will do planning and dialogue Good Luck, you’ll need it!
Wyvern Posted November 16, 2005 Report Posted November 16, 2005 Wyvern's beady eyes widen with glee as he traces a claw down the wide and fancifully-inscribed letters of the challenge poster. The reference to "sorry excuses" had immediately caught the lizard's attention, paralleling the critical reviews of his last guidebook to cheating: Almost Dragonic Brand Collected Homework Excuses ("Waterlily Ate my Dog, who Ate my Homework"). He grins at the thought of the Five Elements and juggles them through his mind. Earth, Wind, Fire... Drought, and Greed! The overgrown lizard rubs his scaly claws together and cackles at the simplicity of it all, only to have his jaw drop as he notices the geld at stake. "Yessssssss," hisses Wyvern, his claws at the edges of the poster, his tail trembling with excitement. The lizard's eyes widen further upon noticing the word "publicize," which immediately equates to "publicity" in his greedy mind. "Yesssssssss...! Almost too good to be-" Wyvern seems to freeze up as he reaches the final sentence of the poster. His grin remains plastered in place for a moment before disintigrating to a frown. His claws let go of the poster, and he slaps his forehead and kicks at the ground in disappointment. "Dang it all!" The overgrown lizard heaves out a sigh and lets his shoulders hunch down. "Go figure, Good Luck is needed. Jussst when everything seemed to be rolling my way too..." Wyvern grumbles curses to himself, and shakes his head sadly as he departs from the area.
Katzaniel Posted November 16, 2005 Report Posted November 16, 2005 Sweetcherrie, very few people can view that thread. The rubric is still a work-in-progress and has thus not been publicized yet, but if you want to use one of the versions for this event, and post it, that's okay by me. (I recommend clicking "quote" and copying the text, so that you can keep the table formatting - or you can get me to do it, if you're not sure how). Also, which version do you mean? * August 2004 * May 2005 * June 2005 * September 2005 If you want the most recent version, I may as well just post it for you since we probably ought to have a current version posted in the guild.
Sweetcherrie Posted November 16, 2005 Author Report Posted November 16, 2005 erm...ok am being a bit blond here apparently and yeah, if you can post the most recent version that would be great my apologies to all that have clicked on that link and found nothing.
Katzaniel Posted November 16, 2005 Report Posted November 16, 2005 Don't worry about it. Like I said, it's about time we showed people what we're working on. It's much updated (and, I think, improved) from what we had the last time we posted part of it. Link! Appendum: Note that Honoured Guests and Intiates still can't view that. PM me if you want a version sent to you.
Patrick Posted November 16, 2005 Report Posted November 16, 2005 Count me in. I'm not sure whether I'll have time to write a longish story, it shall all depend on my university workload, but I'll try.
Leolanar Posted November 27, 2005 Report Posted November 27, 2005 I'll be in. Sounds kind of like fun.
Katzaniel Posted November 30, 2005 Report Posted November 30, 2005 Okie, after much deliberation I am going to attempt this. Please don't shoot me if I fail!
Katzaniel Posted December 1, 2005 Report Posted December 1, 2005 Hehe, that inspired me. I'm done already. Yikes! Warning: This story required a lot of swearing. It's hard even for me to write swears, so I hope y'all appreciate it! Heh, anyway, swearing, open discussion of sexuality, and violence. Don't click on this link unless you can handle it. (If one of the judges can't handle it, I'll see what I can do, maybe make some temporary edits.)
Sweetcherrie Posted December 1, 2005 Author Report Posted December 1, 2005 it inspired someone, I mean really inspired someone.....just what I was hoping for
Tavarilyn Posted December 3, 2005 Report Posted December 3, 2005 I'm completely new here... but completely interested in the challenge as well. Hope you'll have me!
Gwaihir Posted December 4, 2005 Report Posted December 4, 2005 We'd be glad to. (Though I'll have to let Sweet give you your assignment since she's doing that part.)
Patrick Posted December 4, 2005 Report Posted December 4, 2005 Here is the story I came up with: http://www.patrickdurham.net/themightypen/index.php?showtopic=14228
Quincunx Posted December 12, 2005 Report Posted December 12, 2005 I own characters who are in search of a plot. Send me the details, if you please.
Sweetcherrie Posted December 21, 2005 Author Report Posted December 21, 2005 *bump* The end of the month is getting nearer.... just wanted to let you know
Sweetcherrie Posted December 27, 2005 Author Report Posted December 27, 2005 I think with christmas and all we should probably extend this one a bit.... Plus that there are only 2 stories up so far. So I think if we say by the 15th of january that should do nicely
Orlan Posted January 15, 2006 Report Posted January 15, 2006 Screaming Shaman F34r m3 and my finishing on the last day! (I swear I actually had it at 80% back at new years, really! ;P)
Tavarilyn Posted January 15, 2006 Report Posted January 15, 2006 (edited) *sigh* Ok, well I have my story completely finished, even if somewhat uneditted. A Moment's Peace EDITTED ABOVE: Thanks to Kat, I managed to get the full story uploaded. See the above link for the story. Edited January 18, 2006 by Tavarilyn
Katzaniel Posted January 15, 2006 Report Posted January 15, 2006 A "feature" of the new version of the boards is that if you reply within some time frame (about 10 minutes, I think), and no one else has posted, it appends it to your original post. Wait a bit and post again, and you should be fine. (Scary that the character limit is that easily reached, though.. I thought it was higher.) As for not deleting... I *think* that only mods can delete the first post in a thread, because it deletes the thread. I think. PS. I'm not sure if Quincunx meant her story to count (she mentioned it being just a skeleton of the story, I think) but she did post something, just so you know.
Sweetcherrie Posted January 16, 2006 Author Report Posted January 16, 2006 It's all closed now, and I think I can safely say we will need some time to write out our feedback, and to discuss who has actually won that amazing fabtastic...errr...yeah More news later
Sweetcherrie Posted January 26, 2006 Author Report Posted January 26, 2006 Just wanted to let everybody know that the people writing up the feedback for these stories are working hard on this, and that it's not forgotten
Sweetcherrie Posted March 5, 2006 Author Report Posted March 5, 2006 We’ve stuck to the first 6 criteria mentioned in the first post. To use all the quality criteria the way the SWG has described on a specific level as we wanted to give feedback would be a job that would take up more time than we are able to give. Then we would like to apologize for the long wait. We know how hard you have all worked on your stories, and we really wanted to get this done sooner, but it has been a bit hectic for the three of us. Also the fact that 5 great stories came out of this activity makes me smile, this was entirely the whole goal of this exercise and the fact that we succeeded makes us feel proud of the writers. In the end this is one of the most important things around this place, the ways people can inspire other people. And sometimes this happens through a challenge, and other times this is done by an activity without the pressure to write something to certain criteria. The fact that we did manage to inspire five people to write such great stories makes it worth the effort and the time. We would like to thank all the contestants and readers of these stories for making the activity a success. The winner of this activity will be announced as soon as Panther has had the time to also write in his responses (I will edit those in), but really… you’re all winners
Gwaihir Posted March 5, 2006 Report Posted March 5, 2006 (edited) Sweet Dreams The five elements were: 1. A character eavesdrops, but the action is misinterpreted. 2. A character becomes sad during the story. 3. The story must have a gerbil in it. 4. The story must involve some medicine in it. 5. During the story, an organization begins recruiting. Sweetcherrie: A nice story; sensitive, and reaching out more into the emotional parts then your normal work. I think in this part you’ve been improving greatly lately. Planning: I think you worked out the elements nicely, and incorporated them nicely in this story. The plotline has a few jumps and holes in it however. Firstly, why tell a child that her gerbil has died right before the child will die? In my head it would be more logical if you kept the child in the dark, unless there are good reasons to tell. The end is heartbreaking, and well written, but also a bit sudden. I think if you would have worked slower towards this, you would’ve given yourself and the reader the possibility to work up tension, and if done right the reader already starts thinking, “No way she is going to die! is she?” This way it’s a bit too abrupt and the reader has not been given enough time to get in the right set of mind. Lastly, be careful with trying to force things a story. I know here you had to of course work with the elements given to you, but to talk about her dad’s day without a clear reason sort of felt strange to me. Dialogue: There are places where the dialogue comes across as completely natural and other places where it’s very forced. Also be very careful with long pieces of dialogue, people speak a lot less than you would normally think, and leave an enormous amount up to interpretation. More often than not they even say nothing at all with the few words they are saying, and the words are empty and hollow. Gwaihir Great story and a fun read! Comments: I like that you don't tell us she's in the hospital or mortally ill. In fact, I like that you start us off with just a girl who's bored in bed though perhaps t he counting goes a bit too long. Also, I sort of wish I got more characterization of Dr. Brien. She mentions that now she likes him even less--has he been a bastard before? The mother is a nervous type one gathers since she is so transparently nervous that even the young child could tell. However, we don't really get much really about the father. Of course, sick people are often distracted by their own pain but still I wish I had more about the parents. Don't they have something they want to say to their daughter when she's about to die? Setting: I like it a lot. The hospital setting is practical but not in our faces. I like that you didn't make it interesting or important in and of itself. I'm not sure I like the hamster part but I did find the ending touching. Panther Sweet Dreams: I think that this story was quite well written. As far as grammar goes, there may have been one or two stumbling blocks, but all in all, they did not disrupt the flow of this writing. The description in this piece was definatley top notch. It was smooth and had enough details in it for me, without drowing the flow of the piece with too many details. I felt as if I could have been in the hospital room watching all this unfold before my eyes. The descriptions also did a very effective pull on the emotions, especially at the end of the piece. Overall, I enjoyed this piece very much, and would recommend it to anyone who would be even a bit interested. Very well done, Patrick. [edited to insert Panther's comments] Edited March 14, 2006 by Gwaihir
Sweetcherrie Posted March 5, 2006 Author Report Posted March 5, 2006 Seeing Red The five elements were: 1. A character becomes optomistic during the story. 2. During the story, a character has to pay a fine. 3. The story must have a bull at the end. 4. The story must have a scythe appear in the middle. 5. The story is set during a police action. Sweetcherrie In general I liked the way the story built up towards a surprising end, and I think it’s once again an excellent example of how good you write. Planning: I really liked the fact that it was all written from someone who in the end turned out to be dead already, but what I found somewhat confusing in this is the parts of the police agent. Somehow it didn’t entirely fit in with the rest, and somehow it came across as less…hmm…involving as the rest of the story. Almost as if you put less effort in that and added it in later. I really like the way you wrote this in first person and still didn’t make a mess of it. Third person is so much easier to write without going into repetition, but you did a pretty good job with that. Dialogue: Well used, fitting with the character, and in my head it all made sense what they were saying. In this I would definitely say you’re a level 3. Gwaihir Extremely interesting and not like what I have come to think of as 'your usual style.' Setting: Well, it's a house at a hostage site and it's a very reasonable setting considering the topic but I could wish for a bit more detail to make the setting live. I really like the characterization we get of Alex. However, this is mostly in his mind so we don't really get as much of Jeoffrey. We don't really know enough about him for my taste. I like that Alex keeps rationalizing this even though now he knows that his ex never had even slept with anyone else. Still, he says that anyone else would have done the same and how could he have known etc. I really like that you give different people's points of view. I wish you could expand this though, maybe. I would like to hear more of other participants in this, particularly if you can make them as believable as you did Alex. Jeff in tears is well done. Interesting that Alex didn't want to fall off the top of the building by accident--only on purpose would do. Good story. I want more. Panther Powerful images. Power created by good use of description. The frustration and anger between the two lovers, the emotions of the officers involved, the sense of panic near the end, when the shot was fired. The description was very good at keeping things moving, keeping the reader intersted, and keeping the sense of "real", well, real. This could have very easily been a report of a real incident from the different people involved, and not just a piece of fiction. The language and structure for this piece was very good. I did not find any stumbling blocks when reading through the piece, nor were there any parts that did not seem to fit. This piece did use stronger language than the other pieces involved in this event, but I believe that the language was used correctly, and within context. Another well written piece for the challenge.
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