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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #24 - "Madness"

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D

DumbNameD

Member
Theme - "Madness"

Word Limit: 1750

Submission Deadline: Wednesday, 3/25 by 11:59 PM Pacific.

Voting begins Thursday, 3/26, and goes until Saturday, 3/28 at 11:59 PM Pacific.

Optional Secondary Objective: Personal Touch
Something easy: give a character in your story a trait that you both share. Whether it's something major or minor. Maybe a fear, opinion, or quirk. Feel free to change it up a bit (if you have a fear of heights, make it a fear of clowns).

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

Entries:
Aaron - "Mashmellow"
AlternativeUlster - "initals: d-o-q-t-m-n-c-k stands for warsaw / none compis mentis / the creator's seven short days & 8th long one"
Timedog - "Of Death and Trash"
ronito - "Mammon"
I Push Fat Kids - "Untitled"
Mengy - "A Beautiful Horror"
Ward - "Beta and Psi"
ZephyrFate - "In and Out"
Zamorro - "Mirrors of the mind"
Cyan - "What the Hell"
crowphoenix - "The Radish"
dragonlife29 - "Jump the Dirge"
DumbNameD - "Down at the Front"
 
C

crowphoenix

Banned
Beaten by Cyan. I'll at least go find the image.

thisisneogafdude.gif
 
R

ronito

Member
lol, I've got a great idea, but the main character and I share nothing in common and the style/subject matter is way beyond me. Let's try it!
 
R

ronito

Member
AlternativeUlster said:
Should be fun. I think I am going to write a tragedy which is far less accessible than anything I have submitted so far.
Click to expand...
and we all know your writing style is nothing if not accessible.
 
C

crowphoenix

Banned
Scribble said:
I don't know what to write. But it'll be fun.
Click to expand...
I fully expect something comical with a dark edge, playing off and pulling from fables, nursery rhymes, folk tales, or childhood stories.

Edit: And I think I have an idea. It's a total cop out if you catch the reference, but it's always been one of those things I wonder about from time to time.
 
A

AlternativeUlster

Absolutely pathetic part deux
Aaron said:
I have an idea, but with the lack of free time of late I'm not sure if I'll get to finish it.
Click to expand...

You have a full week man. If you wrote this as a stream of conscienceness at 60 words per minute for the full 1750, it would only take a half hour. You can do it sir.
 
H

hey_monkey

Banned
crowphoenix said:
I fully expect a lot of downer entries this time. I also expect Spartans. And spatulas, but I'm not sure why on that last one.
Click to expand...

I've got a spatula in this thing I've got going. You called that one.
 
S

Scribble

Member
crowphoenix said:
I'm sensing a sever lack of conversation this time.
Click to expand...

The next few months are going to be veeery hectic for me =X

Will still try to submit stories, though! I might need to do the stream of consciousness thing (Which may not be too inappropriate considering this challenge and the secondary objective!)
 
C

crowphoenix

Banned
hey_monkey said:
I've got a spatula in this thing I've got going. You called that one.
Click to expand...
Yes!

Scribble said:
The next few months are going to be veeery hectic for me =X

Will still try to submit stories, though! I might need to do the stream of consciousness thing (Which may not be too inappropriate considering this challenge and the secondary objective!)
Click to expand...
You can do it Scribble. By the way, have you ever worked off the jabberwocky? It'd be interesting to see your take on Carroll.

Cyan said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XbCWmY0eqY
Click to expand...
Man, I haven't seen that move in years. I wonder if I'd still find it as funny.
 
2

2DMention

Banned
I should easily be able to come up with something like this being that I'm bipolar and have had psychotic breaks in the past, but my muse is not speaking to me. My time is limited next week, too.
 
W

Ward

Member
I'm having a lot of fun with my idea, even though it's really rough. My writing feels remedial.

I'm wondering how much of a gimmick it would be if some of the challenge regulars show up in my story?

I've gotten a few in with little trouble, though no Spartans or spatulas =)
 
T

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
2DMention said:
I should easily be able to come up with something like this being that I'm bipolar and have had psychotic breaks in the past, but my muse is not speaking to me. My time is limited next week, too.
Click to expand...

Whoa cool me too. I remember that time when I killed a guy. This topic should be some good shit, eh?
 
A

AlternativeUlster

Absolutely pathetic part deux
Timedog said:
Whoa cool me too. I remember that time when I killed a guy. This topic should be some good shit, eh?
Click to expand...

:lol

I am going to award bonus points for people who use madness and don't involve mental instutions or being throw into a straight jacket. As a person who had a mom locked up in one for 6 months, all the movies and TV show well overplay it. They are mostly boring people who crap themselves and they ask questions like when will the Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman is going to be on even though the show had been cancelled for years.
 
S

Scribble

Member
crowphoenix said:
Yes!


You can do it Scribble. By the way, have you ever worked off the jabberwocky? It'd be interesting to see your take on Carroll.


Man, I haven't seen that move in years. I wonder if I'd still find it as funny.
Click to expand...

Alice in Wonderland is my favourite book! I would very much like to write a good Carroll-style story. I've tried a few times and failed, but his writing style clicks with me in every way.

I'm looking forward to reading Timedog and AlternativeUlster's takes on madness ;)

AlternativeUlster said:
As a person who had a mom locked up in one for 6 months, all the movies and TV show well overplay it. They are mostly boring people who crap themselves and they ask questions like when will the Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman is going to be on even though the show had been cancelled for years.
Click to expand...

My mum too. They most certainly aren't filled with colourful eccentric Willy Wonka tortured genius type patients. Just drained people sitting in front of the tv all day, only getting up when it's time for food or medication.
 
T

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
we should have votings start ending on sunday night. i'm always doing shit on the weekend. i'm gonna fucking vote earlier this time, but the voting time is always way shorter than the writing time. also i don't see the point in changing the personal touch, then it's not personal anymore. like changing a fear of heights into a fear of clowns is so different that it's completely impersonal.

i just thought of something really cool, which means no ones going to like it. Have fun in the sun, GAF, it's fucking hammer time.

most of my work i would describe as post-postmodern anti-art. I think this is how i described the first piece that i made in one of these challenges and i think it fits for most of my pieces including the one i'm writing now.
 
D

dragonlife

Member
Damn! This is serious! :eek: I've actually written down something! :D I'm pleased where the story's going.

Hopefully I can finish up before the weekend.
 
A

Aaron

Member
Mashmellow
word count: 1,122

The alarm blared like an air raid siren as former Sgt. Ralf McCommick staggered out of bed, shaking off dark memories of Vietnam to realize he was a half hour late for his new position as an aide to the UN Secretary.

Splash of water, quick shave, all trying to shake the feeling of eyes watching him from the withering undergrowth of his tiny one bedroom apartment. There was a blur of white at the corner of his eye as he flew from the front door still adjusting the tie around his thick neck, but he ignored it as he piled into his 1975 Cadillac, with the leather still awash in that new car smell.

Traffic was thick in Manhattan, leaving Ralf loosening his collar and tapping on the steering wheel, resisting the urge to shout when his new job required a kinder and gentler jarhead. A horn honked and he glanced up to his rear-view mirror, only to spy a pair of black eyes, flat and dead, staring back at him. The gaze of a GI riddled with gunfire and left for dead, body already growing cold... Ralf's head whipped around, but there was no one and nothing in his back seat but gleaming new upholstery.

The UN Building rising above him brought his legs to tremble, but he rushed through the glass doors, and headed for his new office with all the determination of a man who knew he would need a good, strong cup of coffee to make it through the day. Though sitting at his desk with nothing significant to do yet, the old feeling of being watched returned with the added awareness of the caffeine running rampant through his system. Ralf tried his best to ignore it, but it gnawed away at the back of his mind until he sprung from his seat in search of fresh air.

A little water might calm his nerves. He had passed a cooler in the hall on the way to his office. There had been men in their suits gathered around it earlier, but now it stood alone among a few tasteful plants. Ralf's hand shook a bit as he filled the cup, raising his head to discover a stark white face and black eyes peering back at him from the other side of the distorted glass.

Ralf shrieked and hurled the half-filled cup like a grenade, watching it strike the innocent wall with no sign of whatever it was that he had seen. People rushed out of their offices in the midst of the commotion, but he assured them he had only slipped as he picked himself up off the floor, and returned to work.

His job was little more than looking professional, taking notes, and keeping a gun concealed in case of emergencies. Around him, officials debated about the state of the world after the end of the Vietnam war, while his eyes wandered over this crowd of dignified men from all points on the globe, only to spy a bright red bow mixed among the self important ambassadors. He watched it bob in the background while the people around him were too caught up in the discussion to notice, until he realized it rested on a stark white head.

Quickly excusing himself, Ralf rushed to the nearest restroom to splash cold water on his face over and over, knowing it had to be a combination of lingering drowsiness, caffeine, and post war traumatic something that was making him see things that obviously couldn't be there. Slowly, he raised his eyes to the bathroom mirror, expecting that chalk white face to be leering back at him, yet there was no one but a ragged looking man.

Though as Ralf was about to leave there came a creak of a stall door opening. He didn't know what drove him to turn back, but there the thing was finally revealed in its full horror.

It couldn't have been more than four foot tall, but its head was massive and round, with tiny black eyes and a small nose that seemed no more than drops of color. It was clad in a disturbingly human fashion with its simple one piece jumper, yet it bore the ears and even long whiskers of a cat. The hideous beast made squeaking sounds as it slowly lumbered towards him like some pale zombie out of the late night double features.

Ralf screamed and bolted from the restroom, deciding this had to be some vengeful god of the Vietnamese that he had killed and kept killing until his government told him to stop. The people around him became a blur as he ran panicked through the halls, heading further and further up to the highest reaches of the building, but always catching a fleeting glimpse of a red bow when he dared turned his eyes back. Eventually to gasp and stagger upon the wide roof of the UN Building.

The creature was there, waiting for him. Waving its short and stubby paws to gain his attention as it stared with the same blank look upon its wide face, ready to devour his soul.

"No! Keep away!" Ralf shouted in a shrill voice as he stumbled back, raising his sidearm with shaking hands as the rapid beat of his heart nearly drowned out the squeak of the thing's feet.

Everything fell silent as three shots rang out, striking the monster in the head with small plinks that left not a mark behind. So the creature resumed its slow advance step by step, holding out its paws to the former sergeant who was left to take this thing's hand or leap into the abyss.

He chose the abyss.

"Shazbut!" the weathered Captain Saniro cursed in his native tongue as he tossed aside his stark white helmet, allowing it to roll around the now empty roof, revealing his true reptilian visage. "Our scientists spent years abducting and developing the most non-threatening guise to approach these humans in, but they all run away! What is wrong with this species?"

His first mate popped into existence beside him, clad in froggy green as he peered over the edge of the building to the long drop and the crowd gathered around the corpse below. "Pity they couldn't get the speech translation module to work. Maybe we should try Japan again. We almost made first contact there... at least it wasn't as bad as this."

"No. Two strikes, and you're plorked," the experienced captain declared as he picked up the fallen helmet and started to walk away. "We went through all this expense and effort to be treated like monsters. Regarded as hostile invaders when all we wanted to do was say hello."
 
B

BlueMagic

Member
Madness? Cool, the other day I was thinking about a story with that theme.
Also, I'll try not to forget to vote this time..
 
2

2DMention

Banned
Timedog said:
most of my work i would describe as post-postmodern anti-art. I think this is how i described the first piece that i made in one of these challenges and i think it fits for most of my pieces including the one i'm writing now.
Click to expand...

Sounds like Dadaism is your thing. I've very interested in it myself, and have studied it, but it's harder than it seems to write stories with it and about it. The best example of a dadaist film I can think of is the Big Labowski.

My mum too. They most certainly aren't filled with colourful eccentric Willy Wonka tortured genius type patients. Just drained people sitting in front of the tv all day, only getting up when it's time for food or medication.
Click to expand...

You haven't inherited it too? Don't front - there's no shame in it. People don't stay in catatonic states forever. It's not the snake pits of the 50s anymore. While it may not be curable, it's certainly treatable, although the degree to which it is varies. Some people like me can live relatively normal lives with therapy and medication, other people struggle and have trouble functioning in society. There's a severe lack of accurate portrayals of the mentally ill in the media. What you see in TV and movies is usually the worst of symptoms at their worst peak. It's possible to have mental illness and only exhibit symptoms temporarily for only a week at a time and be "normal" the rest.

I was actually in two places that discouraged TV watching. They limited it to 1 hour a day, which is good, because if you're really paranoid, watching TV is an exercise in terror, because you think it is speaking directly to everything you do, will do, and think.

Watching people experience it is one thing, and experiencing it yourself is quite another.
It certainly makes you question even the most ordinary things. It also made me wonder if the Buddists were right, that "reality" is just a veil over our eyes.

I predict this challenge will have lots of journal entry type stories, shell-shocked war vets, and 12 monkeys style stuff in it.
 
A

AlternativeUlster

Absolutely pathetic part deux
Timedog said:
we should have votings start ending on sunday night. i'm always doing shit on the weekend. i'm gonna fucking vote earlier this time, but the voting time is always way shorter than the writing time. also i don't see the point in changing the personal touch, then it's not personal anymore. like changing a fear of heights into a fear of clowns is so different that it's completely impersonal.

i just thought of something really cool, which means no ones going to like it. Have fun in the sun, GAF, it's fucking hammer time.

most of my work i would describe as post-postmodern anti-art. I think this is how i described the first piece that i made in one of these challenges and i think it fits for most of my pieces including the one i'm writing now.
Click to expand...

What do you read? You should read David Ohle's Motorman and Ezra Pound's Cantos.
 
D

dragonlife

Member
2DMention said:
Shame on you. I would be too if online worked on that game. Instead, I sold it to some dude on CL.
Click to expand...
Shame on you! :D Online works near flawlessly for me most of the time :D Just gotta find the right people to play with, which isn't too hard [on GAF].
 
C

crowphoenix

Banned
DumbNameD said:
Anyone partaking in Script Frenzy (Write a 100-page movie, play, graphic novel, or series of TV scripts in the month of April.) or Blizzard Entertainment's First Global Writing Contest (Submit a 3,000 to 10,000 word story written in English and set in the Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo universe by April 12.)?
Click to expand...
I had no idea either of those were occurring. It'd be fun to work on a script, but I don't have any experience with formatting for such a task.
 
A

AlternativeUlster

Absolutely pathetic part deux
firstday.jpg

1 - "Keniota through manatiy insiderent juncture
offXXXoff THE priggish steadfest heavysettlers,"
SAID, yellowed, THOMAS'ED((oo)), Jerome's hood.
SAD another fellow, , , , , ,
"Careninite aphrodestiantion ulope, allope, allope against,
steadfest in eight," SAID another fellow.........
"no
oh feint with LIGHT
ten-winners-teh"
SH-i-NE, flicker flash
"keniota through many many manatiy
insurgent insiderent
junction onXXXon THE boarish steadfest lighters"
right corner
left corner
backright
leftright-back
left-back corner
"with caution -
demur with celerity"
gourmand, so much ((678)) excess
the light grows
desolate &&&&&&
determi-nation

secondday.jpg

2 - OUT of unnecassaries,
necassaries form and form and form
without form
Content without th ecareninite
allope for steadfeast zero. yelled,
said,
heard,
yellow'ed,
above above a bombard
END SPACE is brought out'
of unnecassaries

thirdday.jpg

3 - IN engine warz
-0-9-9-2-1-9-19-10901-
Five times over-over-over, twenty-uopenian
posed a ThREAT,
proto the art, of, bakery goods
a forecast: oceania/waters/drowning
a precast: content without th ecareninte
"None now none ever-ever-ever
This paris-MONIOUS paraphernalia willllll
fucund spurios aphrodestiantion ulope!"
None now
none NEW
noneknew

fourthday.jpg

4 - Oh DEAR-rest woods
Over the witchWOOD (above), through the winter
Over the fablized carmelized autumn,
through the aphrodestiantion ulope
Billingsgate derogatory
-0-0-9-9-2-1-9-19-10901
The moon - not that high
The SUN - much much higher

fifthday.jpg

5 - NEW
NEW APHRODESTIANTION
u-l-o-p-e, applope, marriage
for flighters
and "swimmers" (&THOMAS'D)
new new new
Spite out of spit
RibboniNATION built-x-x-x-x-x-
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-2
heterogeneous quiver
"I shiver."

sixthday.jpg

6 - Goad of life , vigerous
preponderating perquisite purpose
people
animadversion'd, "Annotation
of nights of animal backs
and animal fronts, heads.
tails, (then some or form)
stomachs for all applope
aphro-destination
-0000-0000-00000-10901
morality spins /
rapscallion progresses

seventhday.jpg

7 - Sleep sleep sleep
Go to sleep, sleep sleep
Go to sleep, sleep, sleep
(precurdescence) - none
compis mentis
sleep, slumber slumber,
Go to sleep, sleep, sleep
To sleep, sleep - on &
recrudescence

eighthday.jpg

8 - Steadfest in eight, was not
STEADed or stead, not prim
nor prop,
destination of drop
Less care, no more, for the night
Oh feint for DARKNESS
Jerome's hood, faints
"THOMAS-exed, priggish heavy settlers
aren't settled."
Keniota, plus
manatiy, plus
insiderent, plus
offXoff, is
a very very very
lofty foundation to thrive upon
language birthed and
linguistics nursed
letters, symbols, punctuate
, and, said, yellowed, yelled,
keniota, minus
menatiy, minus
insiderent, minus
onXon, is
bane, forego leavings
savories focus
unnecessaries deSOLVE
peers turn foul
8 days of pasquinade
THOMAS'ED and the heavy settlers,
Jerome's hood, son of ob-SOUL-ete none
"WHERE WERE YOU?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? WERE YOU WHERE?!?
SUCH INTERDICTION! To inveigle us but to turn-in, and,
T-O-R-P-ID."
initals: d-o-q-t-m-n-c-k stands
for warsaw
and forget else

firstday.jpg


title: "initals: d-o-q-t-m-n-c-k stands for warsaw / none compis mentis / the creator's seven short days & 8th long one"
 
T

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
Of Death and Trash
Word count: 1,163

Fuck him. Bixly was, incessantly, a work of fiction. Always speaking symphonically. Excited. I didn’t care for his hornblowing, most of the time, but I dealt. As far as I’m concerned: horseradish. Anyways, this Bixly guy helps me out sometimes or whatever. I almost live with him as much as he’s intermittently dancing in and out of my apartment like Fred Astaire on a coke binge, but anyways it’s just fucking trash. Think about it, isn’t it all, everything, just garbage? If it ain’t dog shit it’s absolutely mind-numbingly breathtakingly cum-guzzlingly beautiful. I for one find it funny that if I talk about someone guzzling my cum like a dying man in a desert excitedly drinking down his own piss to stay alive, somehow that’s considered trash. Garbage and cum-guzzling—I really have no use for anything in between those two extremes. Something like swallowing sperm can’t be beautiful, right? In that case, before I say anything else, just know that you are garbage. You’re reading this and you are garbage you beautiful, human, piece of shit.

I met Bixly three years ago. Curiously, he moved into my apartment complex after my mother had fallen ill. My wonderful, perfect mother. He appeared when I was at my weakest point. At the time I didn’t see the connection, but it soon became clear to me that this was no coincidence. He practically invited himself over one night, the same night my mother lay infantile in a hospital bed. We talked, and he left, and from that point on Bixly was a part of my life. We would go places together, hang out, and everyday he’d call and ask how I was doing. Over time it became clear that he was testing me. Talking and talking and prodding for a reaction. He had seen my earlier weakness and was trying to find the hole that he could gouge deeper with his knife. I made sure to respond perfectly, poetically, lest I give him a chance to annihilate me.

My telephone rang. Bixly’s whisper muscled into my ear with powerful important words. He was checking up on me like usual. He was always checking up. Always checking my performance at any given moment. Checking to see that my performance was nominal. As long as I said that I was doing okay, he would pretend that everything was normal. Once these formal gestures were out of the way we would usually talk about the banal, insipid on goings of the shell that masked Bixly’s true intentions. This time his tone hinted at something important, but he and I both knew that there was more there than the conversation implied. A delicate game being played on both fronts. It’s unknown what his reaction would be to a malfunction on my part, so I guess you could say he was winning the game. Bixly scared the shit out of me.

Next thing I know he’s barging into my apartment like always, holding a letter and balling his eyes out. Bixly’s mother had died after the mysterious accident. I pretended to empathize with him and cried too, holding his blubbery, stinking mass close to me. His tears soaked my hair and skin and it burned like acid rain. Thinking about his flesh on my flesh made me tense up. I felt like I was holding a trembling turd, comforting it the way a woman comforts her helpless child. Not only a turd, but a turd whose sole purpose was to destroy me—to take my manhood. I resented the touch of his sick body on my own, and thought what a terrible way to die, in the arms of this dirty, fictitious mound of clay, as if I was some whore; human refuse. Fuck him.

I believed his story though, Bixly never ever told a lie, despite the secret intentions he harbored. Still, I didn’t give a fuck about his stupid mother dying. I hoped that every mother on earth would die so I wouldn’t have to deal with talking to or about anyone’s mother ever again, feigning interest in docile and trivial conversation. Everyone was at war and we no longer had need for mothers. Men, killing and dying like pawns on a chessboard; we are the gears that turned the machine. We are the vaguely phallic-shaped rubble that decorates a tattered landscape. The cancer infecting the entire planet. In this day and age, women had lost out to evolution. You don’t fuck on the battlefield, my dad always ingrained in me. The time for prettiness had ended, I knew this was something Bixly could innately appreciate, even if he would never admit it openly. You couldn’t trust a man too excited about life in these times.

He was waiting for me to fuck up so he could have at me. Up to that point, I was waiting for the eventual time when I fucked up and Bixly would take me, but luckily it hadn’t happened yet. I was a well oiled machine, void of error. Tested and certified from the time I met him—always at peak performance. Shiny, new, and clean like the moment I was born; born a man, I might add. My body and mind were sharp. Until this day I had never come up with any sort of concrete plan to counter Bixly’s onslaught, but if his mother had really died it would afford me some sort of opening. Some sort of latitude from whence I could attack him. Even the most evil in our ranks has some attachment to his mother. His stone, chiseled resolve had been fissured. This was my one shot at him.

After it happened, he picked up the letter, put his clothes on, and left without a word. Emasculated in a world of men, he no longer had purpose. He could no longer check up on me. He could no longer visit my apartment. He could no longer accompany me to the movies. He could no longer plot against me. He couldn’t engage in the trivial meanderings that permeated our correspondence over the last several years. In one fell swoop I changed everything about him. I changed Bixly’s life. I changed how the world works.

I fucked him. I fucked Bixly. When his stinking hulk was in my embrace, I threw Bixly to the floor where he collapsed in a pile of snotty, saline mess. In his weakened state he did not protest as I held the knife to his neck, he continued to lay motionless. Bixly was ill, he should have been in the hospital. I pulled down his trousers, revealing his soft, angelic buttocks. I removed his shirt, revealing a statuesque back that I ran my fingernails down until it bled, illuminating his weakness. I wounded him. I fucked him. I fucked him for 45 minutes. I made his body the unwilling receptacle for my filth. I cleansed him in blood and fluids. I made Bixly beautiful.
 
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