RtM #3: Writing Contest

[Terry]

Relive the Magic:
Charmed
2x13 Animal Pragmatism

Writing Contests

Valentine’s Day is that time of the year when, more so than any other day, you want to show your feelings to your special someone. For witches, it’s not always so easy…

Task: Pick one of the two following subjects:

1. Pick a character and have him/her pick a present for their loved one. Either the one to give the present, or the one who recieves it, must be one of the sisters -- Paige is not excluded: it does not have to be set within the timeline of Season 2. That present can in no way be random, it has to be meaningful to the one it is chosen for.
2. One of the sisters ends up having a V-D dinner with one of the Animen. You can choose which sister and which Animan. The scene(s) do not have to be canon to the episode.

Objective: The objective is first and foremost for you to have fun. Each of the two tasks also has its own objective:

1. We as the readers, must sense the length to which the character goes to choose what present would best suit his/her lover.
2. Show us how they came to be on a date and how the date itself turns out.

Valentine’s Day is about feelings and so we want to FEEL. We want to feel something while reading your entry, whether it is bursting into laughter, or being brought to the brink of tears.


Length: Min. 2000 words, Max. 5000 words.


Format: Script. Oh, I just heard your gasp all the way to here. We are well aware that a lot of you cringe away from this format. That is why we decided to have this contest with it: for you to try it for yourself. Screenplays, as such, must not be filled with all-out detailed feelings. You should not constantly write in an action, “Prue is deeply hurt/in love/thinking about that time when she broke her leg.” That’s the thing with script: if you want to make an emotion or an element of the story known to the reader, you must try to either bring it in dialog, or in the way the characters look or behave.

Also, we’re not asking you to send us real scripts written in programs that cost hundreds of dollars: if you don’t have either Final Draft or whatever other program there is, you can send in a Word document written in “pseudo”-script – i.e.:

INT. HALLIWELL MANOR - FOYER - NIGHT

Piper puts down her umbrella and shrugs out of her coat.

Piper: (calling out) Prue?

You won’t lose points because you can’t afford a script program
Also, script entails present tenses most of the times.

This format is the second reason I provided you with a screenplay of the episode: to know what is expected of you.


Note: The votes will be anonymous. This means that, should they decide they want to, an Elder can participate: because none of you will now which entry is theirs and so won't feel bound to vote for them.
Also, this means that for those who intend to use an actual scriptwriting program: if you make a Title Page, please leave your name or pseudonym out. And please send me a PDF file, not the actual script's file. To know the actual number of words you have written, you can save your script into .RTF format and open that file in Word...

Time Given: You will be given ten days to complete your entry. You can ask any questions you have relating to this contest in the General Discussion thread. After 24 hours have passed, that is once Valentine’s Day is over, questions will no longer be answered, and you will then have ten days to complete the task. To be safe with time differences be sure to send the entries in a day beforehand. The due date for this task will thus be 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday 24th February, 2010.

Please note: I am working on my time for the deadline for this task -- so the date given is in relation to my time (UTC/GMT+1). You will need to take this into account. Consult this Time Zone Listing if you need to.

Entries are to be e-mailed to Terry -- you received my e-mail address if you registered for the contest via PM.


RULES:

1. You are not to discuss this contest with any members or fellow writers.
2. If you upload the entry to any site before all entries are sent in, it's counted as a past piece which automatically disqualifies you from the task, and competition.
3. No past writings may be sent in.
4. Keep the entries respectable and clean, meaning no vulgar language or actions or extreme degrading of the characters.

[Temporal Death]

Feb 12, 2010 21:55:24 GMT Terry said:

4. Keep the entries respectable and clean, meaning no vulgar language or actions or extreme degrading of the characters.

SPOILER: Click to show

Damn, and I was going to have Paige give Henry a blowjob at the end of it.

That was a joke, and although it might leave a bitter taste in the mouths of some, I implore you to not flood my inbox with gasps and "this is a family site". If you're below 13, you shouldn't even be here, kid.

Jokes aside, do you really feel that this challenge would be suitable for script writing? I mean, I accept it, it hasn't been done as much as prose, but if I find the time, I'd like to explore emotion/description in a challenge such as this. Let's see though.

[Terry]

Well, it's the thing. We wanted to take the writers out of their familiar elements. It's not so much that we thought this particular challenge was more suited for script-writing than for prose. We just wanted you to try script in a contest, and this contest happens to be love-related.

You can try exploring those emotions and descriptions with script, and who knows, you might even manage to. That is the challenge: exploring emotions in an element that doesn't really put the writers at ease.

P.S. And although you've clarified it as a joke, maybe you might have put it along with the rest inside the spoiler tags?

[Temporal Death]

Done, let's see how this works. Might probably help me break down those Torn blocks created by dialogue issues I'm having.

[Nerf]

Yeah, I wasn't too sure about having this contest be done with script writing, as it's a Valentine's one and those things tend to be full of emotion and thoughts. Script writing, in the strictest sense, doesn't really allow you to write like that. So it is quite the challenge, being able to portray those emotions in dialogue and description of the characters' actions. It is a tough one, but we'll just have to see how it goes.

Good luck, everyone.

[Astral Martin]

Oy...oh my.

Well, this challenge is certainly bringing me outside my comfort zone. well, alright, I'll give it a try. Although I'm pretty nervous on the final outcome of it. but it shouldn't be too bad. Good luck to the other writers!