Challenge Nyax's "Hollywood Inspiration" Challenge Thread

Hello.

Nyax here.

This is my challenge thread for anyone who wishes to accept the bat'leth, er, wrong universe, accept the lightsaber.

The challenges I will be offering will be fan fic stories (sometimes drabbles) that will have a specific setting ,scene, theme, plot, etc inspired by a famous film. Some will obviously be more obscure then others, but nothing Wikipedia can't solve.

This is how it will read

The Challenge:
Time Limit:
Era:
Genre:
Type (Multi-Chapter, Drabble, etc).
Required Characters:

I will also be starting an index thread if this takes off.


Hope you all have fun!

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Challenge for the Week of Oct 19, 2007

The Challenge: Write a man vs. nature thriller ala... *drum roll* Jurassic Park! The story doesn't have to involve dinosaurs or something exactly similar, but that'd be cool. Make sure to pay homage to the film's theme, namely that you should not interfere with nature and just becuase you can do something with science, The Force, etc., doesn't mean you should.

Time Limit: Three weeks

Time Era: Any

Type: Multi-chapter short story. The duration should fit your plot.

Required Characters: None. It can be Jedi, Sith, Twi-Lek, Gotal, male, female.

Get to it.

 

Hmm, no takers?

 

It may just be a bad time right now, especially for writing a multi-chapter fic in one week. Otherwise, it's not a bad challenge.

 

NOt to mention a lot of authors are getting geared up for National Novel Writing Month which starts in November and we're pretty heavily involved with that.

 

Well, technically this could involve Wookiees...

 

Hmm...ok. I;ll change the limit to three weeks.

 

It's an interesting idea, but I think there are more things than the time limit getting in the way of widespread participation. I hope you don't mind if I offer some advice. I confess I haven't run a lot of challenges, but I've seen a fair number from the participant's (or potential participant's) side of things.

The obstacles here mostly boil down to being a bit too specific. I suspect, what with not specifying the characters or timeframe, that you think you're leaving a lot of room open -- and, to be fair, there would be a lot of room for different people to write different stories within the parameters you suggest. But you've also introduced a lot of restrictions.

There are a few very specific challenges that catch the imagination of a lot of different people. There was at least one in the Harry Potter fandom that prescribed several very specific plot points and resulted in... well... a whole lot of fics that seemed awfully similar. In most cases, however, when you're issuing a single challenge to all comers, it helps to leave more room for variation so that each person has a lot of flexibility and so that you don't get a lot of very similar stories. Sometimes this is to the degree of merely providing a single word for inspiration. When you're issuing individual challenges to individual people, you can get much more specific -- though it's still advisable to bear in mind that the writer might have different ideas from the challenger's.

Here, you've specified the source of inspiration, the general framework of the plot, the attitude and message of the story, the length of the story, and a relatively short time limit. A one-week limit is something people would usually do for a vignette-length challenge at most, and even those often get more time. Even three weeks is kind of short when you're specifying that many factors (and thereby putting pressure on the author to come up with something that will stand out, despite having those factors in common).

I also personally think that it's probably a little unwise to insist that challenge responses address (and agree with) the way you describe the message of the movie. Even assuming someone agrees, it can be offputting to be told what lesson your story ought to teach, you know? It can certainly work sometimes -- I can certainly imagine "theme challenges" -- but I think those would probably have to loosen up on the specific scenario.

To sum up, I think you'd probably attract more writers if you specified a bit less. And, yeah, I'm afraid with November coming up you'd almost have to present challenges as a kind of alternative to NaNoWriMo, or perhaps a refreshing break.

 

Thnaks for the advice.

Hmmm...Well, I can understand the pat about the theme being subjective. However I think the author has expressed the same sentiments about the novel and the subsequent film adaptation.

But I will broaden the parameters, and add another week to the time limit.