What do i mean? Simple. Write something, given a certain task, using a given plot as a guideline for one scene. This type of exercise will focus on certain parts of writing, from voice to action scenes. This way, you can see how well you fare in all writing aspects, and where you could improve. Some people might say this is counter productive, considering that the end product is unusable outside these forums, but i disgress: it would be like a practice run, before you go to a marathon. You get the juices flowing. One particular example of a focused writing exercise could be (what else) beginnings. Basically, someone (namely moi, for starters, but other people are more than welcome to share a scene plot) will give a plot for a scene, which would be something like this: a mother and a daughter are in a abandoned building, into the center of a desolate city, after a meteor strike destroyed most of the human civilisation. They have to gather resources and watch out for bandits and at the same time, get out of the city, which has become a death trap. They were caught in it when the meteor hit. It was a biiig meteor. Or maybe there were more than one. The purpose of this scene would be to introduce the reader as good as possible into the theme of the proposed plot, to make the characters interesting and the upcoming story promising. Each user would anonymously submit a scene. The creator of that scene will remain anonymous, but there will be a list of people who submited. Only people who didn't submit should comment. Or we can make it that submitters can crit other submissions, if there aren't enough people to comment. This would not be a contest. It would be a way to determine your strengths and weaknesses given a certain task. Writing challenges have been done before, but this one would share a common plot among all the entries, which would make picking out the differences easier. What do you think?
[This message has been edited by Lionhunter (edited July 19, 2010).]
Posted by geronl (Member # 9156) on :
I think the idea has potential, sort of a high-powered writing challenge.
Posted by Owasm (Member # 8501) on :
I usually participate in a flash challenge every week on another writers site. Lately, I've done some flashes with a purpose other than merely finishing in 90 minutes. Since it's a contest, those don't get much in the way of votes, but they do help build up my writing muscles.
Posted by geronl (Member # 9156) on :
I have a scenario I could toss out.
Posted by walexander (Member # 9151) on :
sounds interesting. W.
Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :
We used to post a synopsis and then people wrote intros. In fact we used to do one every week.
Then there would be another thread with the actual entries.
We didn't do it anonymously for intro competitions--although usually flash challenges were handled anonymously.
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited July 20, 2010).]
Posted by Lionhunter (Member # 8766) on :
All right, geronl, please do. I will make a post on writing challenges after you give it to me.
Posted by geronl (Member # 9156) on :
um.
Well, I was going to use it as a basis of a story. Then I thought, what kind of society or civilization do you think would have arisen from this?
Where you start a story> from Day One? A hundred years later? Two hundred?
...........................
The satellite had been built to carry human DNA and to regenerate the human species elsewhere using the latest cloning technologies. It would all be automated. The humans would be produced not as infants but as fourteen or fifteen year olds with the knowledge needed to survive and with enough genetic diversity for the resulting colony to survive.
It had been a small private program that was quickly forgotten once closed. The probe wandered through space for decades warping from solar system to system. Somewhere along the way it received enough radiation to slightly damage the DNA samples it carried. It had initiated a program to protect the samples but the damage had been done.
The Allegra Probe finally detected a world and scans showed it to be enough like Earth to be a good prospect for colonization. Other scans detected no artificial satellites in orbit, no artificial light when the world below was dark and no radio waves or other signals that intelligent life already existed.
The probe found a suitable location near the equator where there were lakes and rivers, where life should have a chance. The probe changed its orbit and set a descent path into the data stream and then finally disconnected from the warp drive that would burn up in the atmosphere later.
The next two minutes of entry were the most dangerous for the probe and its payload. The friction from re-entry burned the ablative shielding. Had the probe misjudged the planets’ gravity? Was the descent path going to cause it to crash into a mountain or an ocean? A million things could have gone wrong.
Everything went perfectly, even better than the long-dead designer could have hoped. The probe came to rest on the bank of a small river. Thus it was able to use the soil and water as well as the air to extract the matter that was required to fulfill its mission. It ordered the two birthing chambers into action and over the next 24 hours it grew two humans. The computer activated the device that imparted knowledge loaded directly into the brain.
These humans would be born with the knowledge and even skills to survive and the ability to learn and adapt. Above all the humans would have an unquenchable imperative to procreate and to settle all the lands of the world. Thus the planet was seeded with humanity, or at least a version of it.
The damage done to the Allegra Probe was slight but it was enough. The humans it created were sterile and the part of the intelligence given to the new humans was incomplete. These humans would have to invent their own moral code and their own version of civilization.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Is this the beginning of a story, or a prologue?
geronl, I believe Lionhunter meant for you to email it to him, so he could post it in the challenges area.
That much text is making me nervous.
Posted by geronl (Member # 9156) on :
lol it's an orphan prologue I suppose.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
