Argh, had a bit of trouble with the internet the past few days, and moving house hasn't been easy on the old bones, but here it is!
Teh house r00lz.
- Participants will write a story not limited by length unless specified by the month's rules;
- It's impossible for a judge to be impartial in this kind of competition where, for instance, great writing can save a meager plot. So the voting will be public, and go on for at least a week after the deadline, when the winner will be announced.
- The competition should last a month. Therefore, this particular one will run until the 15th of April. Definitely not the 15th of March. 15th of April. Though some slack may given. Don't abuse it, though. Five days after the "official" deadline no further entries are allowed and voting begins, but this tolerance is not mandatory, rather left to the thread-starter's descression.
- The actual posts must NOT contain the story, but a link to it. The story MUST be hosted somewhere, even if temporarily.
- The object of this is to write a story. It can be a short story with 10 lines, it can be a whooper with 20 pages. It can have no characters, or a myriad of them. It can be in first person, or third; present or past of future tense. Your ONLY limitations are the ones the rules state, if any.
- The winner provides the theme and rules for the next comp.
- The comp-starter may participate. It's happened already, and this voting system should elliminate unfairness. Of course, out of fairness, the comp starter should start it without already forming an idea of the story he may write.
Well, after that almost lawyerese introduction, here's the theme for this month's writing competition.
'Film Noir'
Film Noir is one of my favourite themes - or settings - or atmospheres - or whatever. Go with whatever you feel is Film Noir, and you can google for inspiration quite easily, as it's well-documented ;)
Get cracking, people! (oh, and please do participate - it's amazingly fun to read stories written by other users of this forum).
Quote from: voh on Wed 15/03/2006 18:40:40
- The competition should last a month. Therefore, this particular one will run until the 15th of March - though some slack may given.
So eh, how much slack are you willing to give because my entry might take a bit longer... ;)
You've been cancelled due to wrong!
(fixed ;))
I have never done one of these, but I am so doing this. I started tonight and am already up near 1300 words... Hopefully it doesn't get too long.
It's never too long ;)
C'mon people, don't make me look bad :P
http://koti.mbnet.fi/el_tonic/new/blackcinema.txt
Sorry, n00b error.
First off, good to see someone enter, but second, I would like to call your attention to the following:
Quote- The actual posts must NOT contain the story, but a link to it. The story MUST be hosted somewhere, even if temporarily.
:)
Don't give up mate, I've been doing mine for a while now, it's going to be very long 8) ;D, but these last weeks have been a rush so I haven't yet finished it, but hey, we've got time don't we :)
Biothlebop NOOOOO!!! Don't say your main character's name is Jack too! Now I've got to change mine and the name of my story :( :P
His name might be Jack, or it might just be a general thing bartenders say.
Highschool noir. And very short.
http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Jordon.doc
If I were more computer literate (sad, really, my skill with computers) I'd submit something, but I don't know how to do the "link to a page where your story is" thing. It might already be a topic somewhere else or something (Although I didn't see it), could someone maybe post a sticky with a tutorial for how to do this for all us noobs? Much appreciated :)
You go to the uploading website, then it gives you a link and you paste it into your post.
I don't even know any uploading websites; I don't usually do that sort of thing (uploading) :(
And the thing is, the story's looking pretty good, despite my general modest-ness about anything I do
http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Far_from_the_sky.zip
There we go! :D
It might not be true film noir, but that's alright. I've never seen a film noir flick, so makes my knowledge pretty small... however, I've seen some parodies of the style, played max payne, and read the stories posted above, so it seems pretty close. Even if it isn't on-topic, I enjoyed writing it.
P.S. Thanks to taffytom for helping me with the uploading situation. And sorry it's in notepad; I don't usually write on this computer.
eh I killed teh contest... :(
Voh, you didnt leave a end date and its past march so I think we should wrap this up as a three way competition.
QuoteTherefore, this particular one will run until the 15th of April. Definitely not the 15th of March. 15th of April.
There is SO an end date :)
Oops. I'm retarded.
Thank god there's an end date. I just realized I won't be home for a while and my text is there and I'm going to have real trouble with getting it done. This means shortening it a lot! But if I won't make it, I will leave a half done entry, just because I wouldn't like my work to go waste.
http://www.magintz.com/upload/JackDrake.doc
Note that the main character is not Jack, it's Richard Drake. This is a sad story. I was too eager and started too long a story, which I never finished (yet). I like it though, I might finish it some day.
Ã, Ã, Yet I thought I'd enter this with it, just to show some respect for a great theme, and for my work not to be in vain. If you wish to know how it's supposed to end, ask me. I won't give spoilers here.
Ã, Ã, You can see that the first chapter is much longer by ways of telling than the others, I was away a lot and it turned out a busy task. So I'm leaving this today, I will be away until monday, so delaying this wouldn't help at all.
Ã, Ã, Special thanks to Babar & Obi for being my everyday muses when I was in a dead end, and to Magintz who let me upload it to his server. :D
And I am double posting on purpose so that this thread would come back on top of the list and we'd get people to read this stuff, my stuff at least.
Voting has now started, and will run until the 20th!
I will chime in with my votes when it's not time to go out and have fun on a saturday evening :)
Interesting takes on the theme of Film Noir... when I first started reading, I didn't expect that I would see such a wide range of storiesÃ, :)
My vote goes to Biothlebop for evoking the atmosphere of Noir while taking it into an unexpected direction.
I'll have to go with Biothlebop as well, sorry guys, but he sticked to the topic or at least how I saw it, the best. And he finished his story :) Congrats on getting my vote.
I'm going for Biothlebop as well, as his story was the most coherent and noir.
Though all the stories were a treat to read! :)
Biothebop gets my vote. He wrote in the original noir sense. When I visualized it, I actually saw everything in black and white. lol
Taffytom: I liked your story. Although it seemed a little naive, you chose an enviroment that you clearly knew and could bring to life.
cookieswithmilk: This was very nice as well. It certainly set me into that grim Max-payneish version of film noir.
I would have liked a little more variation or a downtoning of the style, now the gritty three word sentences fragmented and eclipsed the story.
Tuomas: This one was my favourite and also gets my vote. Although it was over-ambitious and I didn't always understand where it was going or if it was going anywhere, after a reread I got it to hold together and the natural writing style charmed me.
Sorry if I come off a bit pessimistic, it's just what I do :)
Taffytom's was good, but the high-school setting just doesn't seem right to me... never been able to take high schoolers seriously, despite me being 18 heh
Tuomas' was kinda confusing and long without an ending proper, but fit together very well!
Biothlebop's was the best, it reminded me of film noir more than any of the others. The ending confused me a little, seemed out of line... But it still gets the vote from me. Great job!
I like to criticize my stuff too; of course it was very cheesy. Cliches all over the place. Was fun to put the hell/devil references in, though.
Well, since all but biothlebop's votes went to biothlebop, it seems biothlebop has won!
You can go create a new challenge! (make it a good one, I want to compete ;))
I'd like to thank everyone who read it even if it made them sick. Although this is done on an amateur level, getting votes and positive comments is still very motivating, especially since I had not written much fiction earlier and was unsure if everything I'd write would be utter shit.
New competition soon.