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Problem Attic · Sep 20, 2016

Theme: Oblivion

Word Limit: 2100 words

Submission Deadline: Friday September 30th

Voting Deadline: Monday October 3rd

Secondary Objective: Liminality

Liminality is one of the most important (and one of my favorite) concepts in writing. Roughly translating as "Through a threshold", liminality is the transition period, both literally and figuratively, in a story.

For this objective, focus on the turning point(s) in your story and make note of the steps you take to get there. Pay extra close attention to how everything gets from one stage to the next and sell it to the reader.

Submission Guidelines:

- One entry per poster.
- All submissions must be written during the time of the challenge.
- Using the topic as the title of your piece is discouraged.
- Keep to the word count!

Voting Guidelines:

- Three votes per voter. Please denote in your voting your 1st (3 pts), 2nd (2 pts), and 3rd (1 pt) place votes.
- Please read all submissions before voting.
- You must vote in order to be eligible to win the challenge.
- When voting ends, the winner gets a collective pat on the back, and starts the new challenge.

Important side note: A lot of our regulars like to write out short critiques/comments for the stories, but you can always opt out by simply adding a note like "I'd prefer no critiques" in the post where you submit your story. We're an understanding group and respect that not everyone wants comments on their work. Above all, we just want to read your story.

NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge FAQ
Previous Challenge Threads and Themes

Nezumi · Sep 20, 2016

Good theme! Secondary sounds interesting as well and I think I might already have something for this.

FlowersisBritish · Sep 20, 2016

Man, I'm always excited about the secondary when i don't know what it means!

Neeener · Sep 20, 2016

ah... this is the place my last story (umm year of stories?) was sucked into.

Red · Sep 20, 2016

Congrats on the win.

mu cephei · Sep 20, 2016

Congratulations Problem Attic.

Also, that's a really good secondary.

Cyan · Sep 20, 2016

I will totally listen to this while writing.

Ashes · Sep 20, 2016

Congrats Ap. This must be your first win. Surely. O.∆

Cowlick · Sep 20, 2016

Hmm.

Hmmmm.

Um. I have nothing for this.

Parmadillo Marshmallow · Sep 21, 2016

I'm gonna jump in on this one. I've been wanting to start writing and this is the perfect excuse. I wrote about 1200 words today and I'm just at the beginning of the first chapter. Is it feasible to submit a "Chapter 1" for consideration? Does it need to be a self contained story?

Freeza Under The Shower · Sep 21, 2016

From last thread:

Problem Attic said:
I'm going to look through the archives to make sure I don't double dip on a topic, hug my writing degree for finally finding a purpose for it, and then I'll post something in here shortly.

"....! That cheating bastard! "

/jelly

What kind though? Full bachelor or shorter course(s)?

Not · Sep 21, 2016

I always thought I was a better fiction writer than my average peers and now I think that everything I write is absolute embarrassing shit and I shouldn't even try so I guess I'm improving

It'll be a while before I participate in one of these, though

Cyan · Sep 21, 2016

Parmadillo Marshmallow said:
I'm gonna jump in on this one. I've been wanting to start writing and this is the perfect excuse. I wrote about 1200 words today and I'm just at the beginning of the first chapter. Is it feasible to submit a "Chapter 1" for consideration? Does it need to be a self contained story?

Nope, it's ok to do a chapter one. We've had "to be continued" stories a couple times. Just be aware that people may be less likely to vote for a "to be continued" than a self-contained, and that if you do future chapters, some readers may not have read the earlier ones.

Problem Attic · Sep 21, 2016

Freeza Under The Shower said:
From last thread:

"....! That cheating bastard! "

/jelly

What kind though? Full bachelor or shorter course(s)?

BA in Professional Writing from Baylor University. To be fair, it's a fancy English degree with no emphasis whatsoever on anything remotely creative. Unless you want to start following Chicago style, I think it's safe to say we are all on an equal playing field.

Ashes · Sep 21, 2016

Groan. Thought it'd be a half decent idea to create a script to rustle up all the entries into a nice neat format. So it takes seconds rather than ten minutes or whatever to create the entry list.
Just about managed to differentiate posts with dropbox links as the ones we need.
How do I get the script to recognise 'poems'? Or long texts without dropbox links?
I think I'll just reserve the first line as the title. But what about untitled posts?
meh. If I didn't have spare time, I'd give up.

Elfforkusu · Sep 21, 2016

Ashes said:
Groan. Thought it'd be a half decent idea to create a script to rustle up all the entries into a nice neat format. So it takes seconds rather than ten minutes or whatever to create the entry list.
Just about managed to differentiate posts with dropbox links as the ones we need.
How do I get the script to recognise 'poems'? Or long texts without dropbox links?
I think I'll just reserve the first line as the title. But what about untitled posts?
meh. If I didn't have spare time, I'd give up.

Have everyone flag their posts as entries with a string?

Alternatively, the flag could be anything that matches (.+\nd+ words\n) ...

Cyan · Sep 21, 2016

Elfforkusu said:
Have everyone flag their posts as entries with a string?

Yeah, this is what I do for NaNoWriMo. Much easier to have a sort of opt-in thing where people have to do something in order to get pulled in by the script than to try to account for every edge case.

Parmadillo Marshmallow · Sep 21, 2016

Well, I managed to wrap up what I started yesterday in 1880 words. Would a password-protected PDF do the same job as the Dropbox password trick to preserve publishing rights? It appears that Dropbox now requires Dropbox Pro to use their password feature.

FlowersisBritish · Sep 21, 2016

Parmadillo Marshmallow said:
Well, I managed to wrap up what I started yesterday in 1880 words. Would a password-protected PDF do the same job as the Dropbox password trick to preserve publishing rights? It appears that Dropbox now requires Dropbox Pro to use their password feature.

You can password protect the pdf ahead of time then upload it to dropbox. That way people still need to use the password to access it without paying them money

Parmadillo Marshmallow · Sep 21, 2016

FlowersisBritish said:
You can password protect the pdf ahead of time then upload it to dropbox. That way people still need to use the password to access it without paying them money

That's what I thought, thank you.

Here goes.

1880 words, including title.

#entry

Dropbox link to PDF.

Password is 198

I welcome feedback, criticism, brutal honesty, etc. This is the first time I've done any creative writing, and I really want to know your opinions on how to improve. I plan to continue working on it until the deadline. I can already think of a couple places to add details and clarifications, but I want to get this out there now so that I can start getting feedback as soon as possible. Thank you!

Ashes · Sep 22, 2016

Elfforkusu said:
Have everyone flag their posts as entries with a string?

Alternatively, the flag could be anything that matches (.+\nd+ words\n) ...

Cyan said:
Yeah, this is what I do for NaNoWriMo. Much easier to have a sort of opt-in thing where people have to do something in order to get pulled in by the script than to try to account for every edge case.

Pretty much will have to do it that way. Oh well. It was a nice idea in theory to just check if a post has a dropbox link and spit out the first line of the post as the preview/title.

FlowersisBritish · Sep 22, 2016

Parmadillo Marshmallow said:
I welcome feedback, criticism, brutal honesty, etc. This is the first time I've done any creative writing, and I really want to know your opinions on how to improve. I plan to continue working on it until the deadline. I can already think of a couple places to add details and clarifications, but I want to get this out there now so that I can start getting feedback as soon as possible. Thank you!

Just as a heads up, we normally don't do critiques until the reading period after all the stories have been collected.

Parmadillo Marshmallow · Sep 22, 2016

FlowersisBritish said:
Just as a heads up, we normally don't do critiques until the reading period after all the stories have been collected.

Ah gotcha. I haven't done this before. I was hoping to make revisions based on criticism before the deadline. No worries. I am playing in your playground so I will defer to your conventions. When in Rome...

Thanks for the heads up. I look forward to being part of the voting process.

Red · Sep 22, 2016

Parmadillo Marshmallow said:
Ah gotcha. I haven't done this before. I was hoping to make revisions based on criticism before the deadline. No worries. I am playing in your playground so I will defer to your conventions. When in Rome...

Thanks for the heads up. I look forward to being part of the voting process.

You are free to revise submissions before the deadline.

Cyan · Sep 23, 2016

Hey folks, gonna be out of town this weekend and likely will not make it for the hangout.

Ashes · Sep 23, 2016

Parmadillo Marshmallow said:
Ah gotcha. I haven't done this before. I was hoping to make revisions based on criticism before the deadline. No worries. I am playing in your playground so I will defer to your conventions. When in Rome...

Thanks for the heads up. I look forward to being part of the voting process.

Could you do me a favour and tag your post as your entry post? Don't know what we're going to go with in the end, but something like "#entry" or "#storypost" for now?

Cyan · Sep 23, 2016

Also, happy birthday Tangent!

Nezumi · Sep 23, 2016

Happy Birthday, Tangent!

I'll probably make it to the Hangout so I can take care of posting the details etc.

Ashes · Sep 23, 2016

Happy Birthday Tangent!

It feels like only yesterday we were speculating whether you were only a figment of Cyan's imagination...

And now we ponder whether it's the other way. That Cyan is a figment of your imagination!

How things change eh?

FlowersisBritish · Sep 23, 2016

Happy (alleged?) birthday Tangent???

Mike M · Sep 23, 2016

2014-03-30_191354_happy_birthday__love_batman_by_joeyisspiderman-d4m6a2o.jpg

Nezumi · Sep 25, 2016

Just a reminder that our biweekly writing hangout starts in about 2 hours. We'll be doing 10 minutes of talking and then write for 30 minutes and repeat that until two hours are up. Everyone is welcome and cameras or even microphones are not mandatory (though the later do make things a tad more easy).
Will post the link shortly before the start.

Nezumi · Sep 25, 2016

Hangout link quote to see:

Tangent · Sep 26, 2016

Hey guys! Wow, thanks a bunch for the birthday wishes! That put a smile on my face. Haha, Ashes, I'm glad the conversation is finally turning around. Because, really, how doe REALLY know that Cyan really exists?

Parmadillo Marshmallow · Sep 28, 2016

Ashes said:
Could you do me a favour and tag your post as your entry post? Don't know what we're going to go with in the end, but something like "#entry" or "#storypost" for now?

I added the #entry tag to the title and body of my post.

Ashes · Sep 28, 2016

Parmadillo Marshmallow said:
I added the #entry tag to the title and body of my post.

Cheers.

I hadn't thought of the possibility that a story title could be the reserved tag.

The script will pick whatever is in the title box as your official title.

Good luck with your story.

Spacejaws · Sep 30, 2016

Ok got something cooked up. Always wanted to do creative writing and have a notebook full of ideas but I'm always incredibly harsh on myself and give up. Alot of this was a bit rushed as I've been working 12 hour days but the first step is getting something out there to be critqued. Please be as brutal as you want.

I've did a reread and updated it once after completion but I don't think I'll be able to go back and adjust it. It's a little rough please forgive me. Hope the link works!

2084 words.

#entry

Dropbox link.

@Freeza Under The Shower

Link should be good now. I'm on mobile exclusively without the dropbox app. The whole link wouldn't show itself so I thought sending a share via email would give me the link, but I guess it wasn't. Should be a direct link now let me know if it's still weird.

Freeza Under The Shower · Sep 30, 2016

Your dropbox link goes to a 'this person wants to share' page, not a direct link. It also shows your email address directly, which you may not have wanted it to.

You can just use the direct link from having the file open in your browser and copying the address link, so you don't have to use the share feature.

edit: it's fixed now.

Ashes · Sep 30, 2016

So I am heading out the country at the last minute. Probably not going to collect the list this week, but it will be a good first go test even if I don't get to round up the entries.

#pythonscriptlinkifanyonewantsit:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fksc8drn2fhg1h8/main.txt?dl=0
<< not even formatted right, but the basic functions are there... More for me so I have access to it away from my desk.

"Tag your post with #entry anywhere in the post"

Freeza Under The Shower · Oct 1, 2016

well, fuck it, looks I've got another 'winner' on my hands, by which I mean dud. Also, the password feature of Word is not compatible with dropbox. Meh.

Anywho, this is not an entry as much it's just me wanting feedback on something. It's only until the line that counts, the other half is a different take on it I wrote before for comparison, if that is even relevant.

x

The reason there is a 'he' and 'they' is because at the time of its narration, 'he' is all that's left, with more having been present before, but gone now. There is no time left for this challenge to actually write it in full to make that obvious, for which I apologize. But that's what a deadline -ha!- is.
Also, my head feels 'swimmy'. Booze? Booze. The booze revooze! The Katering Show is great btw.

I would have actually gone for a different thing though, because of the 'style' that came up with Problem Attic earlier. The first hit on Google gave me the 'how to reference' page of Chicago Style, and I had to use APA in sociology, so combined with the prompt I figured "if it's Armageddon, and scientists know it's coming, in what style would the last article explaining the expected event be written? Would they even be able to agree on the style at all?", but that would require doing research on citation norms and that seemed a bit daunting for me. At least the title would be obvious: Citation Needed.
Eh, another time. Oh wait, Armag-

Mike M · Oct 1, 2016

Didn't have the time, motivation, or energy to whip this #entry into proper shape this week. Oh well.

The Distance Between

Parmadillo Marshmallow · Oct 1, 2016

Well, life happened and I didn't revise my entry. What time is the deadline? Are we done now? We just have a few entries. I'm going to start reading now.

Parmadillo Marshmallow · Oct 1, 2016

Mike M said:
Didn't have the time, motivation, or energy to whip this #entry into proper shape this week. Oh well.

The Distance Between

Password?

Edit:

Curious that neither of the first 2 entries used any proper nouns or names for characters other than the one capitalized "Wall". Also, little to no dialog. Curious indeed. Mine was mostly dialog and almost every character was named.

I will submit my vote after Mike updates us with his file password.

Freeza Under The Shower · Oct 1, 2016

password is the usual one. Quote to see

As for the challenge itself, there is usually a six hour grace period. If you feel like having a go, do it. It's not that strict a deadline really.

Problem Attic · Oct 1, 2016

Parmadillo Marshmallow said:
Well, life happened and I didn't revise my entry. What time is the deadline? Are we done now? We just have a few entries. I'm going to start reading now.

I'll collect the entries tomorrow morning (American time), but I'll give a courtesy last call before then.

Freeza Under The Shower said:
well, fuck it, looks I've got another 'winner' on my hands, by which I mean dud. Also, the password feature of Word is not compatible with dropbox. Meh.

Anywho, this is not an entry as much it's just me wanting feedback on something. It's only until the line that counts, the other half is a different take on it I wrote before for comparison, if that is even relevant.

The Living

The reason there is a 'he' and 'they' is because at the time of its narration, 'he' is all that's left, with more having been present before, but gone now. There is no time left for this challenge to actually write it in full to make that obvious, for which I apologize. But that's what a deadline -ha!- is.
Also, my head feels 'swimmy'. Booze? Booze. The booze revooze! The Katering Show is great btw.

I would have actually gone for a different thing though, because of the 'style' that came up with Problem Attic earlier. The first hit on Google gave me the 'how to reference' page of Chicago Style, and I had to use APA in sociology, so combined with the prompt I figured "if it's Armageddon, and scientists know it's coming, in what style would the last article explaining the expected event be written? Would they even be able to agree on the style at all?", but that would require doing research on citation norms and that seemed a bit daunting for me. At least the title would be obvious: Citation Needed.
Eh, another time. Oh wait, Armag-

Hooray, does this make me a trend setter?

Parmadillo Marshmallow · Oct 1, 2016

Freeza Under The Shower said:
password is the usual one. Quote to see

As for the challenge itself, there is usually a six hour grace period. If you feel like having a go, do it. It's not that strict a deadline really.

Thanks, that worked. Wow, Mike, I like yours a lot! Great job!

Mike M · Oct 1, 2016

Parmadillo Marshmallow said:
Thanks, that worked. Wow, Mike, I like yours a lot! Great job!

These are both recurring characters of mine if you want to check out the rest of their stories (though they've never been on the same page before).

Tangent · Oct 1, 2016

#entry

The Power of Suggestion

Ugh, IDK what just happened but it's Friday night and I'd rather be out or asleep. Where is my writing motivation?!?! Oh man.... I really liked Cyan's unspoken rule of not whining about writing but it sure is hard to follow that at times!

RoyaleDuke · Oct 1, 2016

The Cost of Normality

I didn't see this until late. xD

Genre: Horror, Science Fiction

Problem Attic · Oct 1, 2016

What bad could come from an #entry written and edited at 3 in the morning?

Transition

same password as everyone else...

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