What Happened Next Writing Contest (WHNWC), page 1


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ATS Members have flagged this thread 5 times
Topic started on 14-12-2006 @ 05:42 PM by masqua
This contest is open to the Entire Membership of ATS. That would be members, mods, supermods and admin (hint hint). You do not need writer status to enter.

Judging will commence on March 2nd and run for 2 weeks. It will be voted on by the entire membership whether you submitted a story or not. 1 post with 3 votes for the best stories per member. You can even vote for yourself, if you dare. (nudge nudge wink wink) After 2 weeks is up, I'll tally the votes and announce the winner. And, if you don't trust my math, you'll be able to do the count yourselves.

Note, use of a sock puppet for duplicate voting will cause the immediate disqualification for your entry (if you made one) as well as deletion of all your vote posts.


This contest will run until March 1 after which all submissions will have to be accompanied by wheelbarrows full of points to be split between worldwatcher and myself. (no guarantees of entry though)


The Plot

The story needs to be based on a factual bit of information which is linked in the 1rst paragraph. This could take the form of a recent news story or any other 'bit of reality'.

The story needs to be peppered with real-life places and events, to augment the 'believability' of the fiction. The best would be to research Google Earth for a place, find street names and build an adventure knowing at least some facts about that place.

Build an adventure around the link in the 1rst paragraph and play it out on the field of the location of your choice...anywhere on this planet.

Examples

1- A news link about a ship going to the South Pole to search for the hole which leads to the strange landscape of the Hollow Earth theorists, using lots of googled information such as real Antarctic Bases, etc

2- A report of an archaological finding in the Middle East which leads the hero on an expedition there to find that it is the Seventh Seal which was discovered and that you broke it when you dropped it, which ,of course, leads to a whole apocalyptic episode which Mel Gibson will likely want to do a movie about.

Character/s

It can contain 1 main character who is either written in the 1rst or 2nd person. In other words, write it like you are the main character, or you are writing about the main character.

There can be other characters in your story, but none of them should be continuously present...it's mostly about 1 persons journey and anyone else only makes appearances.

The adventure should go from place to place (in a city or globally), but never have 'the crew' with the hero (or klutz)

Length

I'd like to see 10,000 characters at least. Any story less than 5000 characters will be disqualified.

I'm looking for length here. Take the time to build a good story and remember this bit:

Tragedy...things start badly, get progressively beter and better, but things then start to go wrong after which everyone dies.

Comedy...Things start out great, but then some things start to go wrong, which slowly work themselves out and everybody lives happily ever after.

Pick one of these and build a plot to reflect those templates.

The Winnings

1rst Prize 15,000 points
2nd prize 10,000 points
3rd prize 5,000 points

There will be additional awards for 'runners up'

Notes...
Use the following in your title; (WHNWC)

Post it in the Short Stories found here

ALL entrants will receive 'Write Status'

Please keep the censor circumvention to a minimum, but use mild vulgarities where needed for artistic effect. The 'F' bomb will disqualify you, but 'crap' or 'bloody hell' will not.

Since the story is about a loner having an adventure, a sexual laisson would be distracting and likely steal our heroes 'vital fluids' ala Dr Strangelove.

Please post any questions to this thread


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spelling edits (allowed)



[edit on 16/12/06 by masqua]


reply posted on 14-12-2006 @ 07:20 PM by masqua
For ideas on news stories which could be used, it might be as easy as a visit to ATSNN

Or it could be something from another website such as NASA or APOD for those space enthusiasts.

The best thing is to use something very real, from a good reliable source, and then weave as fantastic a story around it as possible.

No-ones going to criticize a crazy story based on a few hard facts in a fiction...that's the fun of it. You can 'go wild' without the resultant flaming.

Look how well Dan Brown did with the same idea

The wilder the story, the better...
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