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Interpreting "A Note"

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aurora68 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 25 Sep 2006 at 5:31am
I'm curious to know how other people interpreted the topic.  The first thing we did when we got the assignment was to look up "note" in the dictionary.  Then we made lists of the different kinds of notes.  Even then, with a methodical approach, there were lots of ideas I didn't think of.  After we submitted, I looked at my husband and said, "Ransom note!" which hadn't occurred to us at the time.
 
We did come up with: musical note, love note, promissory note, bank note, suicide note...
 
How did you approach brainstorming?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote durden7 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Sep 2006 at 6:51am

I had a whole idea for the story and a basic outline before I went to bed after getting the assignment.

The first thing I thought about when I woke up that morning was, "is this going to be a story about a note?" or "is this going to be a story that happens to have a note in it?".
 
That is, am I able to make the note a recurring idea in the story? I had a feeling that if there was just a note in one scene, that it wouldn't make the guidelines. So I thought about a note that would have a meaning that could continually pop up.
 
So I scrapped my first idea and got a new one.
 
Fun assignment. I'm psyched it wasn't "Political Satire". Blaargh!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote aurora68 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Sep 2006 at 7:25am
Originally posted by durden7 durden7 wrote:

 
Fun assignment. I'm psyched it wasn't "Political Satire". Blaargh!
 
Oh, you said it!  I had nightmares about it being political satire.
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durden7 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote durden7 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Sep 2006 at 8:46am
I wouldn't so much classify my fears of Political Satire as "nightmare". I would consider them "Night-Terrors" with a change of sheets.
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote sck5000 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Sep 2006 at 8:54pm
I wasn't in the final round but at some point before then I realized it doesn't matter what the final round topic is. All you have to do is take their assigned topic, such as "A Note" and assume it is an anagram.
 
Then you run it through an Internet anagram-descrambler and come up with any number of convenient words and presto: your topic becomes whatever you want it to be as long as you include a mysterious explanation at the very end about why your topic can be de-anagramed into whatever the actual topic was.
 
So you see how easy "A Note" for Horror becomes Horror: Atone!
 
Atone, goddamn it! What's more horrific than that? Dead priests, creepy exorcists, demonic possession, the whole f**kin' enchilada just spread out before you. And then at the end of your horror about atonement... well... someone holds some letters to a mirror and it didn't say Atone at all. It turns out, after all, it was just... a note: Phone Betty, she wants to know about the car repairs.
 
There you go, everybody should do this for next year's competition -- the judges will go nuts.
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote durden7 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Sep 2006 at 4:14am

Hahahaha. What could they do? Disqualify everyone at once?

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote johnnyd Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Sep 2006 at 4:37am
Next year I'm going to try titling my script identically to the topic ("A Note", by Johnny D, for example), then write whatever the hell I want and let the judges assume there's some deep subtextual message they're missing.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Chris Messineo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Sep 2006 at 4:56am
sck5000 and johnnyd,
 
Both of your ideas are just evil enough to work. Smile

Chris


Edited by Chris Messineo - 26 Sep 2006 at 4:56am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote durden7 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Sep 2006 at 3:54am
Would be an interesting situation.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote johnnyd Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Sep 2006 at 4:24pm
Originally posted by johnnyd johnnyd wrote:

Next year I'm going to try titling my script identically to the topic ("A Note", by Johnny D, for example), then write whatever the hell I want and let the judges assume there's some deep subtextual message they're missing.
 
PS: If you think this very tactic didn't get me through a dramatic history writing assignment in college, you'd be mistaken.
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