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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #189 - "Neighbors"

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F

FlowersisBritish

fleurs n'est pas britannique
Theme: Neighbors

Word Limit: 2,500 words.

Submission Deadline: Friday AprilMay 27th 11:59pm pacific

Voting Deadline: Monday AprilMay 30th 11:59pm pacific

Secondary: Impropriety

A noun as defined by google, "a failure to observe standards or show due honesty or modesty; improper language, behavior, or character."

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.

NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge FAQ
Previous Challenge Threads and Themes
 
N

Nezumi

Member
Mike M said:
Too late for that.
Click to expand...

Pah, who says I don't already have a draft as well...

...

...

OK, I haven't. But I do have half an outline. So I still might be able to post my story before you!

FlowersisBritish said:
Yeah, you all red it right. Laugh all you want, at the end of this chalenge though, we're goning to have the best stories ever seen.
Click to expand...

I love that even after being called out you didn't change it 😂
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Bit of post-mortem for the last challenge since everyone else was doing them: Mike's working style was more different from mine than I was expecting. Both in terms of his general approach and his speed. After we brainstormed the basic structure of the story and worked out which scenes we were each interested in writing, Mike banged out 3000+ words really quickly. I was substantially slower, but still a good bit faster than I usually am, since I didn't want to keep him waiting too long. So even though we were well over the word limit, we had plenty of time to cut and to smooth things out. I could get used to that. Though I probably won't. :p

I had a good time with it in any case. And part of the fun, which wouldn't have worked if I'd matched his speed, was seeing some of the minor story elements that he came up with on the fly, which fit nicely into the bits I was working on and helped make the whole thing jell. That was cool.

I am curious, Mike, about your personal idea list. Do you just have a giant text file with a bunch of ideas one after another? Are they organized somehow? Do you drop stuff in there any time something crosses your mind that seems cool?
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
I have a notebook in my satchel, or, barring that, I maintain a notepad list on my phone until such time I can transfer it. There's no order besides that with which they occur to me.
 
R

Red

Member
I don't think it's unusual to have a list of concepts for stories or ideas for scenes. How's your list look, Mike? I have a Google Docs folder full of stories that might work for GAF challenges (I'm at 86 story concepts right now), and an Evernote folder with story concepts, short scenes, phrases I've overheard, and so on. That's at 200 notes, but some of those notes diverge into several possibilities, or contain multiple distinct thoughts. Sometimes I just think of a very particular thing, or experience a moment that seems unique in some way, and I write it down to include in a story down the line. Little, fine, particular details that might bring a scene to life.
 
F

FlowersisBritish

fleurs n'est pas britannique
I've never really understood how people can just keep a list of ideas. For me, I lose interest in some so quickly. If an idea comes to me, I'll write it down, but I make a focused effort to try and do some significant work on it within the week, otherwise I know I won't care afterward. How can you muster the same excitement a month later?
 
R

Red

Member
Mike M said:
Someone didn't see my hidden message : P
Click to expand...
I'm going to assume you added that afterward.

I used to do notebooks almost exclusively, but they became overwhelming. I never wrote anything. Just filled pages and pages with notes and references and ideas. God, years wasted doing that. Somehow keeping an online record, easily searchable, always on, available anywhere, gets me writing more.
FlowersisBritish said:
I've never really understood how people can just keep a list of ideas. For me, I lose interest in some so quickly. If an idea comes to me, I'll write it down, but I make a focused effort to try and do some significant work on it within the week, otherwise I know I won't care afterward. How can you muster the same excitement a month later?
Click to expand...
I have notes from eighth grade, a good fifteen years ago, and I'm still excited about some of those ideas. My problem is more too much excitement, too many little involved details for every story. I have to keep reminding myself to pull back. For a long time that's the reason I got nothing done.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
FlowersisBritish said:
I've never really understood how people can just keep a list of ideas. For me, I lose interest in some so quickly. If an idea comes to me, I'll write it down, but I make a focused effort to try and do some significant work on it within the week, otherwise I know I won't care afterward. How can you muster the same excitement a month later?
Click to expand...
My excitement for ideas tend to be rather low-key to begin with, and I don't really expend any of it until I write the thing.

The hard thing for me is coming up with an idea on the spot when none of my banked ones seem suitable.
 
N

Nezumi

Member
Ah, to be organized like that.

Surprisingly my story idea for this challenge is one I had written down in my notebook sometime ago as well. The trouble is that my notebooks are filled with walls of text that are a weird mixture of freestyle brainstorming, diary entries and general observations without any indicators as to when what was written... Combined with my ridiculously small handwriting I doubt that I could ever use them to actively look for story ideas. I'd basically had to read through everything. So I usually just come up with something entirely new for every challenge. Way easier. It's only different this week because I happened to remember that I had this particular idea a while back.
 
Z

zulux21

Member
huh...
I actually have a partially done story that would work for this one.

It's about a guy who seems to be a wonderful neighbor but actually sneaks around causing trouble for others (and eventually discovers a horrible secret and turns it into a scifi story but still)

I am tired (and quite out of it), but that idea might work for neighbors and Impropriety assuming I am comprehending Impropriety correctly, and his misconduct/corruption could fall under that :p

I already wrote nearly 2.5k words tonight in my main novel, but I am at a good pause. Maybe i will do this one for the heck of it. who knows, I likely should just stay focused on my main thing as I am not even 20% done with that yet :p
 
C

Cyan

Banned
So I finally read that "Where's Iago" article Red suggested ages ago. Really interesting stuff. Find the hairline crack in the characters or their situation, let someone or something seep into it and start prying apart. Now I'm thinking about how it applies to my real life...

From the same collection (Bringing the Devil to His Knees), I also really liked the essay on inflection in writing. It uses the metaphor of a teenage tour guide at a decrepit tourist attraction who describes the site with a canned speech that includes no inflection. The tourists are of course not remotely buying into it. The writer argues that a similar principle applies to storytelling, that the author needs to feel what they're saying, to inflect it, in order to get buy-in from the reader. I'm not sure I entirely understood what shape that inflection is meant to take, but I enjoyed it anyway.
 
R

Red

Member
Glad you got something out of it 👍

I find it useful to remember that whatever story we're telling, it's important to choose a moment in time that is particularly interesting for the characters in play. Iago is emblematic of that. If you have an Iago force, whatever form it might take, you'll have a conflict that's worth telling. Your pieces will have a reason to move, your characters a reason to make choices, and their lives a reason to change.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Oh I forgot to post the details. Starting in five minutes. We'll see if we still get a turnout with no Nez. :p

Standard quick recap: it's on Google Hangouts, and the format is ten minutes of chat, then thirty minutes of writing with mics muted, repeated until we've gone for two hours. Webcams aren't required, though several of us will have them. Mics are recommended but also not required, as you can use the text chat.

The hangout link is (quote to see):

Note that Google Hangouts recently moved to a new format, which doesn't include the text chat. If you want to switch back, hit the three dots in the upper right corner and choose the option to switch to the old version.
 
A

Ashes

Banned
Morning/evening folks. My eyes are still a bit hazy. So I might not enter this week. Still, I will try my best. And I hope to read your entries regardless of whether I enter. Though I might have to enlarge the font size to 16 or 18. :p

Good luck. :)
 
T

Tangent

Member
Cyan said:
Bit of post-mortem for the last challenge since everyone else was doing them: Mike's working style was more different from mine than I was expecting. Both in terms of his general approach and his speed. After we brainstormed the basic structure of the story and worked out which scenes we were each interested in writing, Mike banged out 3000+ words really quickly. I was substantially slower, but still a good bit faster than I usually am, since I didn't want to keep him waiting too long. So even though we were well over the word limit, we had plenty of time to cut and to smooth things out. I could get used to that. Though I probably won't. :p

I had a good time with it in any case. And part of the fun, which wouldn't have worked if I'd matched his speed, was seeing some of the minor story elements that he came up with on the fly, which fit nicely into the bits I was working on and helped make the whole thing jell. That was cool.
Click to expand...

Wow that's interesting. I just find it so hard to start early because I hate the idea of digging deep into something to only think, "Oh wait, we shouldn't build the well here." I get so commitment-phobic with an idea, and like to exhaust all possibilities before I start writing. But I know that at some level, I'm just postponing the writing process unnecessarily.

Cyan said:
So I finally read that "Where's Iago" article Red suggested ages ago. Really interesting stuff. Find the hairline crack in the characters or their situation, let someone or something seep into it and start prying apart. Now I'm thinking about how it applies to my real life...

From the same collection (Bringing the Devil to His Knees), I also really liked the essay on inflection in writing. It uses the metaphor of a teenage tour guide at a decrepit tourist attraction who describes the site with a canned speech that includes no inflection. The tourists are of course not remotely buying into it. The writer argues that a similar principle applies to storytelling, that the author needs to feel what they're saying, to inflect it, in order to get buy-in from the reader. I'm not sure I entirely understood what shape that inflection is meant to take, but I enjoyed it anyway.
Click to expand...

Wow that's really interesting! Now I want to read it. I really liked Stephen King's book, On Writing. It's short and sweet, but the main idea was to be honest. It's harder than you'd think. I'm reading some Dave Eggers and I think it's pretty gutsy to be that brutally honest. Funny how you the book made you think about how it applies to your real life. Nooooo!

Red said:
I don't think it's unusual to have a list of concepts for stories or ideas for scenes. ....Little, fine, particular details that might bring a scene to life.
Click to expand...
That's awesome! I have a bare-bones version of this, but I want to hash it out more. But yes, I could see how it could be REALLY hard to organize. I guess it might help to file away an idea or a vignette into multiple folders or categories.

Ashes said:
Morning/evening folks. My eyes are still a bit hazy. So I might not enter this week. Still, I will try my best. And I hope to read your entries regardless of whether I enter. Though I might have to enlarge the font size to 16 or 18. :p
Click to expand...
What happened to your eyes?

Nezumi said:
I'm busy with Mary's Workshop but might drop by a little later.
Click to expand...
How was the workshop? How was the workshop?!
 
F

FlowersisBritish

fleurs n'est pas britannique
Blasian Persuasion said:
A month and some change? I should be able to do this shit. Already got some kind of an idea for a story with that theme.
Click to expand...

Ah sorry. If you're referring to the deadlines, the ones(at the moment) are wrong. I got them mixed up when I made the thread and upon being called out, I pouted my face and said "no they're right!" Then forgot to actually change them back. We're usually pretty consistent in the times we allot for these challenges. Now that I notice, gonna change them now to avoid confusions.

Edit: now they're right.
 
R

Red

Member
Tangent said:
That's awesome! I have a bare-bones version of this, but I want to hash it out more. But yes, I could see how it could be REALLY hard to organize. I guess it might help to file away an idea or a vignette into multiple folders or categories.
Click to expand...
I have them sort of organized (except for one bulging folder titled SCRAPS), but there are so damn many... I have concepts dating back to when I was in sixth grade. I still revisit these sometimes. I like to think I was ahead of the curve (even though now I'm too far behind to see it).
 
T

Tangent

Member
Ashes said:
A spider bit me. Now every time I lift my sunglasses, lasers shoot out of my eyes.
Click to expand...
I should have known.

Red said:
I have them sort of organized (except for one bulging folder titled SCRAPS), but there are so damn many... I have concepts dating back to when I was in sixth grade. I still revisit these sometimes. I like to think I was ahead of the curve (even though now I'm too far behind to see it).
Click to expand...
That's great that you sift through the 6th grade stuff. Esp cuz it's probably a nice, refreshing perspective. And cool that you wanted to write for so long. *If* I had kept stuff from that point, I think I'd puke on it if I read it again. I don't even like looking at stuff from about five yrs ago. I think, "What is this crap?!"
 
R

RoyaleDuke

Banned
So, didn't finish my last story on time but it is almost done... or was before I had to wipe my computer and my backups failed last week.

Anyway, I've had an idea for a short story for awhile, it's basically American Psycho except it is actually from the perspective of a Hitman.

The Man Next Door

Synopsis
Harry Mason is a nobody, he lives alone and goes to work on a clockwork schedule. He's mild mannered, and he keeps to himself, living a normal modern life. To his neighbors, he might as well not exist.
To most that would seem like a depressing life, but looking at Harry you wouldn't think he was probably the most dangerous man in the world.
Click to expand...
 
R

Red

Member
I'm out this week. Not quite finished and want to spend the weekend with my family. I look forward to reading your stories.
 
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