[Writing Contest] - THE ARENA

21-06-2011 6:17pm

okay thank you all for your patience, but i am going to have to step back from this for a while. it's been fun!

p.s. i promise the box novel will be started some time :pac:

FewFew · 21-06-2011 6:25pm

Spintendo is champion on his 10th post!

Unless... another is brave enough to step up as challenger to the challenger... ?

The Mad Hatter · 21-06-2011 6:51pm

I'll challenge Spintendo. So - New Beginnings, or do I pick another theme for us?

Antilles · 21-06-2011 6:59pm

If one competitor doesn't post their story and the other does then the theme should stay the same for the next poster.

spintendo · 21-06-2011 7:15pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

I'll challenge Spintendo. So - New Beginnings, or do I pick another theme for us?

Work away with A New Beginning

The Mad Hatter · 21-06-2011 8:10pm

Grand, will write something in the morning. (Some day I'll challenge on here and get to pick my own theme

)

pickarooney · 22-06-2011 12:01am

Technically I would say there is no champion but spintendo is first challenger and the theme should stay. Spintendo vs. TMH for the open belt.

The Mad Hatter · 22-06-2011 5:23pm

Bethany had not contacted her agent in eight years, and he hadn't tried to call her in five. Glory day tabloids littered her floor, and since she'd given up trying to clean them she would just kick her way through them to and from the gym, to and from the make-shift surgical theatre, a dusty trench. From time to time one of them would collapse to a new page or a new front cover and she would see her past smiling up from the gloss. She understood now how pretty she had been. Then she'd been just a stupid kid.

Bethany had shown her determination. She had been unsatisfied with the diets she'd been recommended by dietitians and nutritionists, so had developed her own. She worked out in the gym for three hours a day, to tone her muscles, not to develop them. Frail and vulnerable is sexy, but skinny and emaciated is repulsive. She had had her breasts augmented, her chin chiselled, her ears pulled back, her nose straightened, her tummy pulled in, her cheekbones raised and tightened, her lips enhanced, her buttocks and upper arms lifted. She was due her first botox injection.

Bethany had tried at first to avoid the tabloids, but she could not give them up, so every day she received newspapers and magazines through the mail. She saw the new girls on the scene, every one of them beautiful. She read over and over any story about herself, though they were rare these days. Most of them were unspeakably nasty, and those that were generous were preening and sarcastic. She'd show them, though. When she was ready she would show them all how great, how beautiful she could be. And she would have her new beginning soon. Soon. As soon as she was perfect.

spintendo · 22-06-2011 7:34pm

Let the voting commence!:pac:

spintendo · 22-06-2011 11:50pm

The Mad Hatter · 22-06-2011 11:55pm

spintendo wrote: »

It's not over yet:)

pickarooney · 22-06-2011 11:56pm

What's with this voting for one another crap? This isn't The View!

The Mad Hatter · 23-06-2011 12:08am

pickarooney wrote: »

What's with this voting for one another crap? This isn't The View!

Seemed polite:) I suppose this is the Arena - maybe instead we should lunge at each other with pikes.

pickarooney · 23-06-2011 12:33am

Or at the very least, remove your thanks at the last second

The Mad Hatter · 23-06-2011 1:33pm

btw, if anyone has the time I'd love some feedback on my story. There are some things about it that I just don't like, but I can't put my finger on them...

pickarooney · 23-06-2011 1:58pm

The first line, you construct the sentence in such a way that it seems to contradict itself, as Bethany is actively contacting her agent and then trying to contact her. It would make more sense if you said that she hadn't heard from her in 8 years and then given up on calling her three years later.

"She'd given up trying to clean them" - this might make sense with a stubborn stain or maybe if each time she removed some more came through her letterbox but it really shouldn't require much effort to pick up a few newspapers - it's not the kind of Herculean/Sysiphean task you'd associate with the above. It's not as though she's too clinically depressed to bother either - she goes to the gym daily and is meticulous about her appearance; one would expect it to extend at least partially to her home.

I'm not sure what the 'dusty trench' refers to?

'From time to time one of them would collapse to a new page or a new front cover'
What could collapse? A pile of newspapers? It's not really clear and 'collapse to' sounds strange.

'Then she'd just been a stupid kid' -a comma after 'then' or 'back then' would make this clearer.

'skinny and emaciated' - bit of a tautology. I have trouble reconciling toned muscles with frailty (and frailty with sexy, for that matter).

Earthhorse · 23-06-2011 4:42pm

The first sentence reads perfectly fine to me.

pickarooney · 23-06-2011 5:27pm

Whoops, so it does, I completely missed the 'he'. Sorry, I think it's the absinthe.

spintendo · 23-06-2011 8:09pm

Congratulations on a most comprehensive victory Hatter!

Schwarzenegger style, I'll be back :cool:

:pac:

Slow Show · 23-06-2011 8:49pm

I have nothing to do tomorrow, so I'll give this a try, if that's okay.

Heh, it's actually really hard to pick a theme so I resorted to shuffling through iTunes (Hans Zimmer

).

Theme: Time

The Mad Hatter · 23-06-2011 9:00pm

Slow Show wrote: »

I have nothing to do tomorrow, so I'll give this a try, if that's okay.

Heh, it's actually really hard to pick a theme so I resorted to shuffling through iTunes (Hans Zimmer ).

Theme: Time

Interesting. See you in 24 hours, then.

The Mad Hatter · 23-06-2011 9:29pm

btw, thanks very much for the votes folks

Oryx · 23-06-2011 10:21pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

btw, thanks very much for the votes folks

Brown envelope. Usual place. Roight?

The Mad Hatter · 24-06-2011 10:24am

The first time Dad ever flipped out at me was when I took apart the watch he'd been given for his retirement. I swiped it from his bedroom while he was golfing – must have been about, God, twenty years ago now. And it was, I never told him, but it was the reason I went into watchmaking. It was a gold pocket watch, and part of the plating was glass, so you could actually see the workings inside of it while the hands ticked away. I just had to take it apart. I mean, I took everything apart, but this was like nothing I'd ever seen.

So I'd been about three or four hours tinkering, and the parts just kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and I knew I couldn't go much further when suddenly I hear his car coming back up the drive. Well I just froze. It felt like I was sitting there stock still for a hundred years just hearing his footsteps coming up the stairs. No surprise, he opens my door and looks in, I guess to see if I was doing my homework or to ask what I wanted for dinner or something and he sees me there, his watch open on my desk, and all its parts spread out on some tissues and I swear, there was this moment where he looked like he couldn't figure out which of us was his son, me or the watch. And for a second we just stare at each other.

Well, he yelled at me so long I thought he'd never stop. I'd never seen him lose control before. For a long time I thought he'd never forgive me – he didn't speak to me for days, and it was weeks before we could joke with each other – but the look in his eyes when I put it back together for his birthday. That's the thing I'll never forget. I just wish he'd had more time to cherish it. Time heals all, I guess. Time heals all. Here's to Dad.

Slow Show · 24-06-2011 1:40pm

Can I just clarify that the word limit is 600, or I may have some cutting to do >.>

The Mad Hatter · 24-06-2011 1:58pm

The guidelines originally said "around 300", but we've had a couple that have passed the 600-word mark.

24-06-2011 1:59pm

The new guidelines were confirmed at 600. A few words over might be okay but...

The Mad Hatter · 24-06-2011 2:02pm

bluewolf wrote: »

The new guidelines were confirmed at 600.

Oh, didn't know that…I just assumed since it's pretty informal that people weren't too bothered. I like the challenge of writing in around 300 words, though, but maybe that's just me.

24-06-2011 2:12pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Oh, didn't know that…I just assumed since it's pretty informal that people weren't too bothered. I like the challenge of writing in around 300 words, though, but maybe that's just me.

Go back a bit and you'll see that's why pick forced me to join in :pac:

The Mad Hatter · 24-06-2011 2:12pm

bluewolf wrote: »

Go back a bit and you'll see that's why pick forced me to join in :pac:

Yup, just read the whole conversation now

The Mad Hatter · 24-06-2011 2:45pm

Uh-oh, I hope she hasn't gone to cut 300 words out of her story now...:(

Slow Show · 24-06-2011 2:53pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Uh-oh, I hope she hasn't gone to cut 300 words out of her story now...:(

I actually started a new story from scratch, because I kind of hated the other one I was working on last night. It also bore some frightening similarities to yours.

Edit: Oh wait that could be construed wrong, that doesn't mean I hate yours!

Slow Show · 24-06-2011 2:54pm

It only took five seconds.

In those five seconds Tom looked at the clock as he peeled the potatoes. His wife would soon be due back from her first day of work, as he had stayed home looking after their children. He felt a twinge of jealousy as he thought about this; it went against everything he had known as a child, but in these times someone needed to pay the bills and there just happened to be more jobs out there for an accountant than an electrician. He wondered if she had enjoyed her first day. A small part of him hoped it had been as horrible as his day spent trying to control their children. He loved them, but was not used to spending all day with them and was not relishing the prospect of repeating the process tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. Wires were easier and more predictable than children. Tom shrugged off his malevolent thoughts and looked up at the clock again. Five seconds had passed.

In those five seconds Tom’s three children were in the study. The children were aged two, four and five. They were gathered around their father’s mobile phone, which they had slyly snatched when his back was turned. According to the screen, they were calling ‘Sarah’. Their day had been awful too, and they wanted their mother to come and not shout at them for every little thing and to give them a treat in the middle of the day.

In those five seconds Sarah was smiling to herself after having a successful first day at work. She had not worked for more than five years, and hadn’t realised how much she missed it until today. She was interrupted from her reverie by the sound of her ringtone from her mobile phone on the passenger seat of the car. She saw that Tom was calling her, and immediately feared the worst. She reached out for the phone, taking her eyes off the road for two small seconds. Two small seconds was enough. Her hand frozen on the ‘receive button’, her gaze returned to the road to see an out-of-control car coming straight for her, having run a red light. There was nothing she could do. When those five seconds were over, Sarah knew no more.

A family was torn apart in the space of five seconds. They were delivered a serious blow, from which none of them were sure they could recover. Those five seconds had passed quickly, insignificantly. From there on, every second seemed to last longer and every day was more of a battle. Tom’s worst fears had been confirmed and realised. Instead of no one to devote himself to constantly, he now had four to look after, and the hardest part for him was to look into his wife’s eyes and realise that she wasn’t really there anymore. He never knew whether she had enjoyed her first day at work. She wasn’t able to tell him, she wasn’t even able to tell herself.

The Mad Hatter · 24-06-2011 2:55pm

And it's on:)

pickarooney · 24-06-2011 3:23pm

Watch smash beats car crash for me this time. Nothing wrong with Slow Show's effort but between the telegraphing and the doom and gloom it was hard to enjoy. MH's time piece was sweet and unusual, like a mangosteen.

24-06-2011 3:32pm

I was torn but I liked what SS was doing

The Mad Hatter · 24-06-2011 3:36pm

pickarooney wrote: »

MH's time piece was sweet and unusual, like a mangosteen.

This is possibly the most wonderful compliment I have ever been given for anything:D

alchemist33 · 24-06-2011 11:54pm

Both were well-written, but I felt the pacing of TMH's was better. Good job folks.

Edit: had to look up mangosteen. What. A. Vocabulary.

The Mad Hatter · 25-06-2011 4:37pm

Slow Show: Well done on your story - it was an excellent concept, well-executed in the short space, and I liked the filmic technique of showing the same few seconds from different perspectives.

Thanks again for the votes, folks. Are we gonna go another round? The competition's popularity seems to be drying up…

25-06-2011 4:53pm

i nominate oryx for the next round :pac:

Oryx · 25-06-2011 7:45pm

bluewolf wrote: »

i nominate oryx for the next round :pac:

Wha?

The reason I havent challenged is that my only computer access is at work. And time to write is unpredictable. I'm damned if I'm typing 600 words into my phone

It's not that I'm scared.. Honest

partnership · 25-06-2011 10:50pm

I liked the Madhatters story best. I have been reading through the thread but haven't worked out how the voting works? Do we just post which one we vote for? This is my first time to post here so want to know the rules and not make an idiot of myself.

Kinski · 25-06-2011 11:03pm

partnership wrote: »

I liked the Madhatters story best. I have been reading through the thread but haven't worked out how the voting works? Do we just post which one we vote for? This is my first time to post here so want to know the rules and not make an idiot of myself.

You have to 'thank' the post which contains the story you like best. But your post count is too low; you will not have access to this feature yet.

partnership · 25-06-2011 11:06pm

Kinski wrote: »

You have to 'thank' the post which contains the story you like best. But your post count is too low; you will not have access to this feature yet.

Thanks for letting me know - how many posts do I need to do in order to participate or where are the rules outlined?

pickarooney · 26-06-2011 12:12am

It's a sitewide feture. I can't remember if it's 10 or 25 posts but soon you should see a Thumbs Up icon appear under every post and you can use this to vote for stories.

Mr E · 26-06-2011 7:27am

Yup its 10 posts for "Thanks", 25 for Signatures.

Slow Show · 28-06-2011 11:42am

I've had no internet access for a few days so I probably seem like a sore loser but well done to The Mad Hatter, excellent story.

Six of One · 28-06-2011 3:36pm

I've been enjoying reading this thread and would be willing to challenge, if The Mad Hatter will take a chance on my low post count? I'm no writer but am excited to see what I can come up with in 24 hours!

The Mad Hatter · 28-06-2011 3:51pm

Six of One wrote: »

I've been enjoying reading this thread and would be willing to challenge, if The Mad Hatter will take a chance on my low post count? I'm no writer but am excited to see what I can come up with in 24 hours!

Excellent - choose your theme, sir or madam:)

Six of One · 28-06-2011 4:02pm

Okay, I've an idea for my story so the theme is 'making art'! Oooh.. butterflies! See you tomorrow

[Writing Contest] - THE ARENA

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