Hatrack River Writers Workshop: It was a dark and stormy night...

This is topic It was a dark and stormy night... in forum Writing Challenges at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by axeminister (Member # 8991) on :

I'm totally copying and pasting Skadder's rules - they seem to work so hopefully he doesn't mind the plagiarism.

...It was a dark and stormy night. Snoopy's immortal story starter that was primed to be the next best thing.

So now I challenge you, fellow Snoopys (Snoopies?) to create a 13 line opening using this theme. It must contain something to do with, but not necessarily the words: DARK - STORMY - and NIGHT.
Make it new, make it interesting, make us want to read on.

A helpful link to wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night

The link to the 13 that started Brother Odd. It hit me the other day... that's really what he was getting at.
http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum30/HTML/000303.html

Usual 13 line rules apply:

1) 13 lines only--KDW will snip 'em shorter otherwise.

2) Send to me if you want anonymity. I will post your story as you send it--you must put in any formatting you want (italics, etc.). I will not change anything afterwords so make sure it is correct before you send it. Format as on the entries thread:

http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum7/HTML/000170.html

3) Contest starts now, Thursday 3rd June at Noon EST (-5 GMT) You have until NOON of Thursday 10th June EST to post or send to me.

4) Judging will be open from Noon of the 10th to the following Thursday 17th noon EST. (-5 GMT) Non-voters will be disqualified and any votes they get will knock down.

5) If you send me your entry and don't see it posted, query me, but give me 12 hours or so to do it.

Comments on this thread...entries on the other (or to me).

Axe (pseudo Skadder)

[This message has been edited by axeminister (edited June 03, 2010).]

Posted by Dark Warrior (Member # 8822) on :

thanks for putting together another contest Axe, these always seem to bring out such good entries. I am working on mine now.

Posted by genevive42 (Member # 8714) on :

I was working on a few ideas for this and ended up with a piece of micro fiction that I will be submitting for publication. Thanks for setting this up. It's a fun one.

Posted by Dark Warrior (Member # 8822) on :

Thanks for putting this together Axe...I think it was another Hatrack success. I really look forward to them for an interesting reason. Each entry of mine has been a different style--I right it directly into the reply box on the fly with little editing, but really use the contests as a venue to experiment. Ive never written humor, dark fiction, etc, but this has given me the opportunity to play around with them.

Good job all...one of these days im going to win the damn best title award! lol, I think that is so fun.

Posted by axeminister (Member # 8991) on :

Here's where I'd like to lay out some details of my 13. I don't believe this is standard, but here goes.

The Sacrosanctity of Myrddin Wyllt:
Sacrosanctity definition: The quality or condition of being safe from assault, trespass, or violation.
Myrddin Wyllt: the birth name of Merlin the Wizard.

The 13 isn't about the above, however, the full novel is. I used this title as a tryout for actually naming the novel that. I would say I got mixed reviews and I'm still not sure if I should adopt it or find another...

It was politely brought to my attention that my scoring was not the traditional method. 1 should be 5 pts, 2nd should be 4 pts, and 3rd should be 3 pts.

This doesn't change the top three, but does change the others. I'm keeping it for now because there's no change in top 3, but I'll adopt this scoring system if I come up with another idea worthy of a contest.

Shimiqua: This originally started with her waking hearing a voice. After visiting this forum I learned that was pretty much a no-no, so I changed it to diary. I'm not certain it will stay that way as the diary doesn't come into play again in the story.

Tiergan: Brightness is irrelevant in today's world. Remember, Google is the great equalizer.

Genevive: Would you quit catching my passive characters? I know, I know, I should stop writing them, but still... maybe you could just miss that once in a while?

Owasm: The next line she says to herself that she needs a Papermate. Thus putting her in modern times. I fiddled with the 13 for the contest so that got bumped for the hook to land on the 13th line.

Snapper: Purplish huh? Did you see the link I provided to Wiki?

quote:
The original opening sentence of Paul Clifford is an example of purple prose:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents...

Of course my entry was purple!

Dark Warrior: Thanks for the first place vote! My first first.

This entry is a tweaked version of the start of my novel I've been keeping track of in NSG. I'm almost finished with it and thanks to Tamison posting a link to a blog that explained in more detail how Nathan Bransford defines YA, I know how to edit this to make it fit a genre. Yeah, I named dropped.

Thanks to all who entered - again I'm glad everyone got at least one vote of confidence!

Axe

[This message has been edited by axeminister (edited June 16, 2010).]