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Gahks
Tsar of the Subjunctive
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 Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 1:54 pm Post subject: Powerful Prose: Descriptive Writing Contest |
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THE CHALLENGE:
Write a descriptive piece of 300-400 words. You may use only ONE adjective!
RULES & GUIDELINES:
1. You may only include ONE adjective in your piece, excluding the title. The best way to approach this is to write out the passage first, using no adjectives. Then, go back and insert one that you feel adds a touch of class to your entry.
2. Participles (e.g. I saw the cat running past the shop window) and adverbs are exempt from the above rule, but these should also be kept to a minimum.
3. The theme is entirely open-ended. Just keep to the remit above.
4. Please include a word count at the bottom of the piece.
5. Closing Date: 31st June 2008. Results will be published shortly afterwards.
PRIZES!
1st Place: 300 Points + 3 Critiques of choice
2nd Place: 150 Points + 2 Critiques of choice
3rd Place: 75 Points + 1 Critique of choice
Honourable Mention: 25 Points
Good luck!
Gahks
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_________________
"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself." William Faulkner.
Check out my music site: www.finetune.com/user/gahks
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PenguinAttack
I'm just a pigment of your infatuation.
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:42 am Post subject: |
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You've got me. I absolutely must attempt this. ^^ You'll have an entry as soon as I can think of one - and I don't have an assessment due.
*Hearts* Le Penguin. |
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Insomnia: He was a wonderful writer. It is perhaps unfortunate he should have met me and become my 3rd husband. I will miss him. And the printer. |
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Fireweed
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| Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 12:52 am Post subject: |
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| Wow, I should so do this. I've always fancied myself good at description, but that only because of my expansive adjective vocabulary. >_< |
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No blinding light
No tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark... |
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Suzanne
won NaNoWriMo!
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| Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:11 am Post subject: |
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Oooh. This will be interesting. Writing vividly will be interesting. ^_^ Open-ended topic though, I'll have to hunt for something. Thanks for giving me the chance to stretch myself!
Edit: Question! So we are to be judged only on how vivid our writing is? Because 300-400 words isn't much room to make a detailed plot...So should I only focus on my imagery and writing? |
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you put my heart back in my hand,
and wipe it clean from the mess you made of me. |
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Gahks
Tsar of the Subjunctive
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 10:31 am Post subject: |
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Vividness, originality and a good dose of IMAGINATION!
Will submit my own attempt soon as an example.
Thanks guys! Keep the entries coming!
Gahks
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_________________
"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself." William Faulkner.
Check out my music site: www.finetune.com/user/gahks
My site: www.freewebs.com/bethywriters |
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Gahks
Tsar of the Subjunctive
Speaker of the Forum
Gender:
Age: 16
Joined: 25 Jan 2008
Posts: 802
Reviews: 126
Country: Wherever I happen to be.
299 Points
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Gahks
Tsar of the Subjunctive
Speaker of the Forum
Gender:
Age: 16
Joined: 25 Jan 2008
Posts: 802
Reviews: 126
Country: Wherever I happen to be.
299 Points
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| Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:47 am Post subject: |
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No one has handed in anything!
This is sad... Please reply within a week or THIS CONTEST WILL BE DISMANTLED. |
_________________
"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself." William Faulkner.
Check out my music site: www.finetune.com/user/gahks
My site: www.freewebs.com/bethywriters |
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Medusa
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| Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:02 am Post subject: |
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now, now...hold yer horses. My entry is coming.
--Medusa. |
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Alice: If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? |
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Gadi.
O FOR VICTORY!
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:06 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm in! Please don't dismantle the contest, I need to edit the thing a bit, as I've finished it. I'll post it tomorrow, okay? Just remind me! |
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my world isn't only beautiful
it is so far away |
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PenguinAttack
I'm just a pigment of your infatuation.
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| Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:02 am Post subject: |
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*no idea if she's done this right*
Silent Stars
I want to dismantle the sky so that I can see what the world is made from. I have fingers that always tremble. Fingers that want to break open the stars to find the dust of dreams and the whispers of wishes. I want to take back the time I had with you and use it to forge new time where you and I are together once more.
Under the clouds, they say, the morning which calls from trumpets and the crush of the day has no love but the love of a friend. We can find ourselves lost in the crowds and feel both close and alone; a feeling that’s more than we've ever thought. What is silent is so often spoken; a fear of what is not present which coats the surface of speech until what is tied is untied, and the world is bubbled. In those silences that are more speech than air, I wonder if it were meant to be; you and me.
You remember, how wonderful we could be, as we dance the night away? We kept a recollection of what we knew and what we wanted to know, and when those wants and memories feel salty, like silt in our rice, we'd curl up together in mutual understanding.
Now, I wonder whether it is the dance you have forgotten, or if it is the music. You dream of a world where music is less, because your emotion lacks the beauty of the soul, but can you see the consequence? Such a failure it would be; a dance with the strings no longer attached.
I speak without the words which make this a reality, let alone the words to make this a dream. Yet, my silence is more air than sound. I’ve lost your construction of wants and needs; desires that cannot be defined, and now left am I, with the box you put them in. What is it you wish me to do, then? Shall I dance the dance of the free-falling strings? Or make for myself a nook in the cranny of a corner of the Dead Seas in the world? Maybe, in a time that is past and present in the future, I shall make that which your presence owes.
Even then, I doubt it would fill the silence.
387 words
*Hearts* Le Penguin. |
_________________
Insomnia: He was a wonderful writer. It is perhaps unfortunate he should have met me and become my 3rd husband. I will miss him. And the printer.
Last edited by PenguinAttack on Mon Jul 07, 2008 7:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Gadi.
O FOR VICTORY!
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190 Points
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:05 am Post subject: |
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My entry:
P-A-T-A-T-O-E-S
Mother recapitulates dinner.
“We have: vegetables, beef, potatoes.”
“Potatoes?”
“Potatoes.”
Mother writes the menu on the blackboard.
“Vegetables, beef, patatoes.”
Mother smiles and places the chalk on table, wiping her palms on her shirt.
“Mother, you don’t know how to spell ‘patatoes’.”
Frustration sets in the cracks and wrinkles of Mother’s face. With one hand on the table, another on her head, she turns around. She flips her hair and with a smile, she reprimands: “Baby, I practice orthography daily. Don’t correct me on mistakes which I have not made.”
“Mother, you don’t spell potatoes like p, a, t, a, t, o, e, s.”
She turns around to look at me again. “Look here child. Your attempts to enervate me are not succeeding. Now,” she says, grabbing a plate of vegetables, beef, potatoes from the counter and laying them in front me, “munch on this.”
“P, o, t, a, t, o, e, s!”
“Don’t talk back to me! I’m calling your father. George! George!” Mother said. “George! Come downstairs here this second to chastise your daughter. She is not listening to me!”
Father: suit, beard, belly, running to help.
“What is the problem?”
“Your daughter suggests that I do not know how to spell.”
George: “Why?”
Me: “Look at the way she spelled potatoes!”
George’s head snaps to blackboard. Two seconds later, there is a look on his face. The beard falls, fainting on his chin, and his cheeks pale. Then, with a swig of his hand:
“Honey. You spelled potatoes with an a.”
“Look George,” Mother said, with a finger sticking out of her fist, pointing at him. “I take pride in my spelling. You and your daughter conspiring against me, is, is... chicanery! I learn these words for days and days! You can’t wake up today and say I don’t spell potatoes like I should!” Then, without regaining sangfroid, she yells, “I spell potatoes just fine! So don’t tell me what to do! I don’t even know what you’re thinking! What you’re even thinking!”
“I’m thinking, you’re a housewife who doesn’t care about her daughter.”
Yes!
“Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.”
Yes! Yes, yes, yes!
“What? WHAT?”
“You are a dictator.”
George is having an epiphany.
Mother: blushes, hair freezes on top of head, slaps the table and starts sobbing. Her palm lands on top of vegetable, beef and potato stew.
I say, “P-O-T-A-T-O-E-S!”
I’m free!
word count: precisely 400 |
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my world isn't only beautiful
it is so far away |
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Gahks
Tsar of the Subjunctive
Speaker of the Forum
Gender:
Age: 16
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Country: Wherever I happen to be.
299 Points
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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*applauds Le Penguin and Gadi for two wonderful entries*
Excellent start! Way to go! Keep 'em entries coming! |
_________________
"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself." William Faulkner.
Check out my music site: www.finetune.com/user/gahks
My site: www.freewebs.com/bethywriters |
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