I'd like to see the entirety of R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'urden set turned into a series of feature films, provided they keep relatively close to the actual plot in the texts. Although not particularly deep, it's still a very entertaining series, and up to Spine of the World, contains numerous life lessons concerning racism, responsibility, etc. Flowers for Algernon was already tranformed into the movie Charly, which I have yet to see. Can't think of any others at the moment that I would like to see as movies... Any of the texts I read, that I think have actual substance to them, would probably make horrible movies.
Welcome Max. I've got my buttered bread with chocolate sprinkles, and if you've any specific questions, please post them in a topic (or maybe you already have, I just go from the top-down when looking for fresh posts). Don't be afraid that your first bit of writing will be bad, I guarantee, even if you were an award winning author, your first draft will be. Don't let this discourage you! Revision is the key to turning your crap covered kernel of gold into a solid gold bar. Follow it up with some editing, and you'll have yourself a decent piece of work. Best of luck in your endeavours.
Working my way through Erik Davis' Techgnosis. So far it's been a fantastic read. Not a piece of fiction, so much as philosophy in regards to myth, mysticism and technology. Definitely worth the read if you can translate the jargon.
Seen Through A Window Outside in the cold a young boy, no older than 10, faces the chill of a winter’s night. He has no home to run off to, no parents to urge him out of the cold, no one who cares. The boy rubs his hands in a pair of Salvation Army mitts and grudgingly walks over to a window and looks in on a family settling down for their evening meal. Through the window he watches the family. The father is dressed in a grey business suit with a blue tie. He must have returned from the office only a couple hours earlier, or so the boy surmises. The frumpish mother had dark brown hair and was carrying a roast to the table where her son and daughter playfully shoved each other. The pork roast looked like it had been cooked to perfection. Bowls of vegetables and potatoes were on either side of the table. The child’s mouth watered as he looked on, as though just looking at the sumptuous meal would feed him. The mother served out large healthy portions on to each of the four glass plates that laid in front of each member of the family. Hunger gnawed at the child’s stomach, reminding him that he had not eaten a decent meal for a couple days. The family left the food untouched for a moment as the child watched, salivating. They bowed their heads and gave thanks for the bounty they had received. The boy’s heart ached as he watched the family’s nightly ritual. They all looked up in unison and began eating. The little girl separated her broccoli from the other vegetables. Her brother cut the fat from his piece of roast. The father covered his potatoes in steaming gravy. And the mother ate like a machine, steadily pumping food into her mouth. As the boy watched, the food disappeared from their plates, leaving only a small pile of broccoli on the girl’s and some fat on her brother’s plate. He licked his lips, hoping that it would all be thrown out in the trash tonight, providing him with some decent food. There was movement from the kitchen. A dog came scurrying into the dining room. Both children put their plates on the floor, leaving their feed to the dog. The child’s hope was struck down. Suddenly, the mother noticed him through the window. At first, shock flowed across her face. Then, with a look of disgust, she shut the blinds. Without the view of a happier life to sustain his interest, the child stumbled off, leaving the gorged family to their privacy. It was a very cold night, and with any luck a shelter might still have room for him.
Wasn't yesterday's challenge fun? Well today we have another exercise for you.
Your character, whomever he or she may be, is looking out or in a window. Describe what he/she is seeing and construct a mini-story around it.
Don't think it sounds too hard? Try it and find out what you may come up with. I've done this one twice, and ended up with completely different stories. One of them I extended to a full-length story.
I did NaNoWriMo during November. For university students, November is crunch time, and my first year entering NaNoWriMo, I had over 100k words of essays to write on top of the 50k for the novel, plus all the other work (including a 20hr per week job) that I normally do in a month. I only managed 35k words that year, but even with that, it was a major achievement for me. 100k, with the minor workload of high school students, over two months, really isn't that difficult, especially if you have your research and outline prepared ahead of time... In my second year, I completed NaNoWriMo with over a week to spare.
The reason for posting the research/outline part was not so much as a part of the contest, as to help us get through it (and get more posts on this board to help us get up those levels) ;) The actual competition is the novel-writing part.
As promised, every day (or so) over the March Break (today - 19th), I will be posting a series of mini-challenges on the board. I may repeat a challenge on occasion, though altered slightly, but I promise a fresh post on here every day. And now, I present to you:
Daily Challenge #1
Today, I challenge you to write a paragraph using "I anxiously waited by the phone, impatiently waiting for ..." as the opening statement. You can change it into third person or second person (yuck!) if you wish, but that must be the first statement of your paragraph. The paragraph must contain a full thought or idea, and reveal something about your main character.
That's it! A pretty simple exercise, but it may cause a few people to stretch a little out of their usual genre. This activity is good for practicing description and quick character development (very important for short stories). Have some fun with this. I don't expect any two posts to be alike, so I'm looking forward to seeing what comes up. I'll post a paragraph of my own after a couple people have submitted.
We could have a review contest. But seeing as how everyone's views on how reviews should be written are quite different, that might be a little hard.
-The-G-Man-
The other problem with a review contest stems from how people's opinions of the game being reviewed will affect their grading of the piece.
As for contests, more will come next week. I just need more ideas ...
Sparky-O5
One competition, probably a little more complicated and definitely more time intensive, could be a novel writing competition (similar to NaNoWriMo). Basically, we give a time line to do all our rough work. To perform our research, brainstorming, mind maps, outlines, character sketches, whatever, and post them in our own threads (named Username's Novel Storm - Contest #x). I'd suggest two weeks of amassing our information. Then, it's a matter of setting word goals. I'd say, 13209 words per week. Run it over the course of 8 weeks, tracking the leading writers in a Contest Info thread. If you're a little low on words one week, it doesn't matter so long as you break catch up before the end. By the end of 8 weeks, a novel's length of 105672 words will have been, theoretically, written by each winning contestant. Winners and runners up get to glory in their victory with a special tag for their siggy's perhaps? Understandably, this draft is going to be pure crap. But that could then lead into an editing competition of about the same length (or maybe a little shorter). In the end, competitors will have completed novels that have undergone two drafts, that they can continue to edit and fix on their own time for possible submission to a publisher (if they wish). It's an idea, and would definitely be a major project for people to take up on the forums. But it'll help build post count a bit eh.
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