++ ENTRY THREAD ++
DO NOT DISCUSS THE CONTEST IN THIS THREAD. ALL QUESTIONS, CONCERNS AND COMMENTS GO IN THE DISCUSSION THREAD: TO BE POSTED BELOW
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Welcome June's 2013's Monthly Writing Contest: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MWC13 - June - You Are Blind - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This is a theme I've been excited about for a while, and I hope you'll be just as excited about it as I am.
Limitation is often the spark that ignites creativity, and what better way to handicap your writing than to abjure all (or most) visual description. I've always found the stories told through a blind man's perspective to be most enticing. Many of our mundane and daily tasks are often scary or frightening challenges for the blind, and there are many aspects which none of us ever really stop to think about. For example, have you ever thought about , when a blind person pours a cup of tea, how they know when the cup is full?
(Special note on the prizes for this contest: Newgrounds has always been built on collaboration. Any website allows you to submit your work, but the reason why Newgrounds is what it is, is because of the constant collaboration of people in all these diverse fields that allows us to grow and form unique partnerships.
There was a "writing jam" a year or so ago, where writers submitted short scripts, that coincided with a "movie jam" where animators chose from one of the scripts and animated it in 72 hours. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of such events in the future!)
THEME
The theme is "You Are Blind". You must write a story where the protagonist is a blind person. The whole aim of this is to force you to focus on your descriptions, and attempt to paint a scene with almost no use of visual description. (I say almost because the blind person can try to infer shapes by touching and whatnot, or mentally picture the surroundings)
Now this could be the story about an introspective blind old man who struggles to do the things that we take for granted, or a miraculous tale about a blind spy or sky-diver, or something else you'd imagine would be impossible for someone with impaired vision, yet he finds ways and methods to overcome his disability.
Tip
Good writers write from experience. If you're not blind yourself, or know someone who is, it would probably be really hard to imagine exactly what they would be going through in a given situation. The best way to go about this would be to research the subject. Perhaps try to find first person accounts of blindness, or go about your day and conciously think about how you would do each activity without using your eyes. Try to find real events or examples to inspire you.
RULES
Please read the rules carefully, and make sure your submission abides by them, otherwise you might be disqualified!
1) Your story must NOT exceed 4500 words.
2) Story must be your original work. Plagirism will not be tolerated.
3) Story must be submitted by the deadline below
4) You must follow the "Submitting" roles posted below
DEADLINE: July 2nd, 2013; MIDNIGHT STD, EST (ie midnight between July 2nd and July 3rd)
PRIZES
As always, 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners will each be awarded $25 in NG store credit. The special prize this time around, is that winners will also be getting their stories narrated and voice acted by the talented voice actors of Newgrounds!
Imagine your short story being an audiobook! Maybe even with sound effects throughout the narration. (With that said, please do NOT write your story in script form, with things like [glass breaking sfx here] )
Current list of voice actors who volunteered: (I'm still getting some offers by PM, the more voice actors we have the more people can get their stories narrated!)
SkuhPlew
Butsaay
PiperAnn
ForNoReason
SUBMITTING
1) Post your stories in this thread.
2) Do NOT post a link to your story on your userpage, or anywhere else. The story must be submitted in this thread.
3) If your story is too long to fit in one post, split it up into multiple posts.
4) PLEASE post a title to your story, along with the word count. You don't want have your story referred to as "untitled" when you win, do you?
JUDGING
Judges have yet to be announced.
Good luck! I look foward to reading your stories
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