The Fourth Annual YWSTival: Shakespeare Edition Writing Contest
December 14th-December 21st
Shakespeare, known as one of the most successful playwrights and poets in history, has had an immensely large and incredible reputation for excellence that has stretched well beyond his death. Even today, many films, books, and poems applaud and celebrate the literary masterpieces that Shakespeare has composed, interpret particular Shakespeare plays by adapting them to a wide variety of environments and situations, and otherwise continue the legacy of the man who continues to draw admiration from generation after generation of people.
And that brings us to the topic of this contest. You see, Shakespeare certainly has crafted poems and plays with themes and concepts that have withstood the tests of time – this being part of the reason that so many people connect to his plays or otherwise admire his work even today, some four hundred years after his death – but his settings, well…not precisely. That’s what this contest is for; we want to see you take your favorite poem/play by the distinguished author and playwright and adapt it to a modern-day setting, situation, and the like. For instance, you could create a Romeo and Juliet-esque story in a bus station, a Macbeth styled murder mystery in a lonesome house in the woods, and even a modern-day story set in two towns based on A Comedy of Errors. Of course, these ideas are completely for the purpose of illustrating the opportunities associated with the contest, and you can choose whether or not you want to write something like this, but I’m sure you get the point by now.
So, what the rules for the contest? They are, as follows:
1. You can write either a poem, a story, or a play
For this contest, it doesn’t matter whether or not you compose a lengthy poem or a short story or perhaps even something longer; so as long as you adapt one of Shakespeare’s works in a modern-day setting, that’s perfectly fine!
2. You don’t have to write a story based on an entire play if you don’t want to
Quite obviously, given the short amount of time in which the contest takes place, it certainly wouldn’t be practical to expect you to have to write your story based on an entire play in the space of a week. Feel free to choose a particular act, or maybe a scene, or even base a story on a few lines of dialogue as you wish. Once again, this contest is going to be rather loose when it comes to what you can write, so as long as it follows the general theme of a modern-day interpretation of a Shakespeare work.
3. There are going to be two separate sub-contests
First and foremost, the main contest will involve submitting your stories and having them judged by our impressive group of judges (which so far comprises of two moderators.
). However, we will also allow people to post their stories in the contest’s thread topic, and have those who want to vote on which one is their favorite. Of course, it is your decision on whether or not you want to participate in both of these contests or only one (the latter being the main contest), and whether or not you want to vote.4: There are two different ways you can submit your entry to this contest
When you’re finished with your story, you can feel free to either send a PM with a manuscript of your story to either of us judges (me and @LadySpark) for judging, or, if you also want others to vote on your story, you can post it in this contest thread. It’s all up to you; this contest affords its participants a wide variety of opportunities and freedom, as we want you to have a lot of freedom to allowing your creativity and writing abilities to shine.
5. Prizes!!!
For this contest, the prizes aren’t too significant, and it’s mostly just to highlight the exemplary writers in this site and their writing contributions. 1st place in the main contest receives 200 points from yours truly, 2nd place in the same contest receives 100 points, and 3rd receives 50. The same is true of the popularity contest. And no, I don’t mind about losing a lot of points; I already have a ton anyway, and I’m more than happy to give some to others.
And that’s about all. Have fun, everybody!
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