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Interim Challenge

Printed From: NYC Midnight : Creative Writing & Screenwriting
Category: GENERAL DISCUSSION
Forum Name: Creative Writing Corner
Forum Description: Discuss NYC Midnight Creative Writing Competitions or Creative Writing in general.
URL: https://forums.nycmidnight.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=48820
Printed Date: 28 Mar 2024 at 11:40am
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Topic: Interim Challenge
Posted By: Zero11
Subject: Interim Challenge
Date Posted: 27 Jul 2022 at 4:28pm
I would like to read your creative ideas into why the results come in so late or delayed. 100 Words

Genre: Open
Action: Judging
Word:  break


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https://forums.nycmidnight.com/topic58099_post627682.html#627682" rel="nofollow - 2023 R2 250



Replies:
Posted By: scurvy_seadog
Date Posted: 27 Jul 2022 at 4:38pm
It's always Judge 1629's Fault

“Goddamn it Judge 1629, you’re always breaking something!”

Judge 1629 looked behind him, meowing as he jumped from the coffee-soaked keyboard to the ottoman. The laptop began smoking and Harold watched in horror as all the NYCMidnight Round 2 Entries he had finally just judged that morning went up in flames. To be fair, he’d had five weeks to get to it but, as always, he decided to wait until the Wednesday morning the results were due.

***************

Upon receiving the dreaded delay email, the 100-word MF participants picked up their pitchforks and began the march towards New York City.



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Posted By: Zero11
Date Posted: 27 Jul 2022 at 5:28pm
1936 beats 1629, Hands Down

1936, bald and overweight, hung up the phone with a smirk. He had done it again.

He reread his “Needs Work” feedback… the Day Late feedback. Ha!

“Was that supposed to be a period? I would think an exclamation point would convey more emotion”.

Giggle.

“Did you mean to say “pickle” there?  Was that innuendo or a typo?”

Snort.

“I don’t really get it. Why didn’t he grab his hat?  We all know hats retain body heat”.

Ha!

Perfectly useless. Mess with the system in every way. Go Trump.

From upstairs, "BARRY! BREAKFAST!”

“Coming mom!”




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https://forums.nycmidnight.com/topic58099_post627682.html#627682" rel="nofollow - 2023 R2 250


Posted By: scurvy_seadog
Date Posted: 27 Jul 2022 at 5:36pm
Originally posted by Zero11 Zero11 wrote:

1936 beats 1629, Hands Down



Bahahahahahaha!! "Perfectly useless." "Go Trump."

I LOVED IT!! LOLLOLLOL

ClapClapClapClapClap


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Posted By: mysteryship
Date Posted: 27 Jul 2022 at 5:40pm
Midnight Noir

The light screams in my eyes, forcing a squint. Smoke hangs in the room’s dark corners. 


I’m supposed to be intimidated, but I’ve been here too many times before. Doesn’t phase me.


My interlocutor hands me a single sheet of paper. It holds a few typed words, maybe a hundred. “Judge,” they say.


I don’t feel like fighting, so I read the story, then break the news that it’s not gonna make the cut. Defeated, they let me go.


I walk out whistling in relief until I remember: the deadline. sh*t. Everyone else’s results are gonna be late.



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MF100 R2 https://forums.nycmidnight.com/r2-g14-far-from-perfect_topic48436.html" rel="nofollow - Far From Perfect


Posted By: Zero11
Date Posted: 27 Jul 2022 at 7:15pm
Isn’t it crazy how easy it is to whip out 100 words for fun?  And then the pressure of the contest means I probably overthink!

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https://forums.nycmidnight.com/topic58099_post627682.html#627682" rel="nofollow - 2023 R2 250


Posted By: jhenn
Date Posted: 27 Jul 2022 at 8:48pm

NEEDS WORK

Atlantic Monthly: No Thanks.

Vox: No thank you.

Huff Post: Nice try. Maybe next time.

McSweeny’s: We’re going in a different direction…

Judge #### pounds the dregs of their last bottle of twelve-dollar merlot and claps the Cheeto dust from their hands. MF100 R2 files sit patiently, waiting to be unzipped and judged.

Fingers poised over the keyboard, Judge #### instead reach for the mouse to click on thesaurus.com.

“WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY” mocks them from the otherwise empty Word doc.

The countdown widget on their iphone clicks towards 0:00.

A single tear hits the space bar. 



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Posted By: CamsynClair
Date Posted: 27 Jul 2022 at 11:11pm
Omg, this thread is brilliant! I had wayyy too much fun with this silly story and think I would've gotten myself DQ'd in the actual competition as it's arguable whether any actual "judging" happened, but hey, I enjoyed myself LOL

THE TOWER

"Do they know you do it this way?" Judge ####'s daughter asks as she watches her father shuffle his cards.

He shrugs. "I doubt I'm breaking any rules." He spreads the deck across the table and nods toward her. "Choose."

"Me?!" she squeals. "Don't you have to choose? You're the judge." 

"It's time you try. Use your intuition."

With a trembling hand, the girl picks from the deck. She cocks her head. "Why's the tower burning?"

Judge #### stares, pale-faced. "It has been decided," he declares. "The judging cannot proceed."

"But aren't the results due tonight?"

"It doesn't matter. We're doomed."


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Posted By: haole
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2022 at 6:57pm

YAHTZEE!

With a cackle, I throw the bones. Snake eyes.

I squeal with delight and slam my hand on the desk: "You shall not pass!"

I scan the story, searching for some obvious plot point I can misinterpret. Aha! There it is!

"You don't go ON a plane. You go IN a plane." I giggle.

My email notification pops up. NYC again. God, they just won’t let this go.

“ALMOST DONE” I pound out in all caps. I look at the clock. After midnight. Break time! I put away the Yahtzee game and go lay down.

Only 63 more stories left.



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Read my 1st Round 250-word story https://forums.nycmidnight.com/topic50826_post535184.html" rel="nofollow - Emergency Meeting


Posted By: CamsynClair
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2022 at 7:28pm
Originally posted by haole haole wrote:

YAHTZEE!

With a cackle, I throw the bones. Snake eyes.

I squeal with delight and slam my hand on the desk: "You shall not pass!"

I scan the story, searching for some obvious plot point I can misinterpret. Aha! There it is!


I love this story, and the “obvious plot point I can misinterpret” especially LOL I kind of resonate with that because I feel like I miss some obvious plot point when I’m reading stories on the forum (unintentionally, of course), but I have to wonder how picky judges need to get when they have to decide which story gets 8th and which gets HM…


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Posted By: lmdw819
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2022 at 8:30pm

The Storybearer’s Flame



As the first of twelve chimes echoed through the night, the Judge squinted out into the nothingness, desperate for a glimpse of something, anything. He’d warned them this may happen, that things can be… unpredictable, but still, each pang of the clock made his heart lurch. Where the hell was she? What if she’d... The Judge stopped himself. She knew what was at stake. Suddenly, a harrowing shriek cracked through the sky and a trumpet of fire appeared on the horizon. The Judge watched her break through the smoke, sixty-six charred scraps of paper clutched in her talons, and wept.



Posted By: Zero11
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2022 at 9:05pm
You all are cracking me up. 

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Posted By: CamsynClair
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2022 at 9:13pm
Originally posted by Zero11 Zero11 wrote:

You all are cracking me up. 

We've gotta entertain ourselves somehow! LOL


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Posted By: Zero11
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 6:04pm
Let's hear more creative ideas into why results are delayed!

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https://forums.nycmidnight.com/topic58099_post627682.html#627682" rel="nofollow - 2023 R2 250


Posted By: Popsicle Crows
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 7:48pm



-- Shagreen or Chagrined --
    A tale from the Bay

The shark gave The Judge a side eye.
Judges were an unpredictable lot.
But still, this judge had a fish taco.
It had been a while since he’d eaten someone with a fish taco.


The Judge dangled the taco enticingly.
The shark’s stomach growled.
Was there cheese on it?


The shark circled the rowboat, calculating.
The judge braced himself.

The shark sailed through the air and chomped down on the tossed taco.
The Judge held his letter opener horizontally at a precise 22° angle as the shark flew over.

It was finally sharp enough to open the NYC Midnight envelope.


Posted By: Popsicle Crows
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 8:11pm

He was a dark and stormy knight.
This night, he was especially stormy.

His letter hadn’t arrived.

It hadn’t arrived on the previous night as expected and had sent him into a thunderous rage.
He reamed out the local dragon for eating the mail bard but the dragon was innocent.

The Jester and the Prince proved useless as well.

That was normal but they were especially useless this time.

 

The King went into hiding because it was his fault that the workhorses couldn’t carry the load.

The knight’s letter lay on the troll bridge, covered in mud and ogre spit.


Posted By: Popsicle Crows
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 8:41pm
Oops, I missed that there was prompts for this, hahaha.

25 stories before midnight?

One more before I make cookies.
_______

“Pass me the tape”
The Creator tsks aloud and shakes his head as he tapes the stories of the world together.
Mittens, the Creator’s cat, slides the tape across the desk and resists the urge to knock it on the floor.

Tiny fragments of paper are pieced together, until all the entries become somewhat legible.
“Why, Mittens? Those writers did nothing to you.”

Mittens shrugs his shoulders.

The Creator sighs, “We need to get these to the judges pronto.”
Mittens nods.
“I’ll get my robe and be right back. Don’t move.”

Mittens pushes the ink bottle over onto the pile.


Posted By: AutumnBe
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 9:04pm
“You’re a perfectionist.” 1792 said, rolling her eyes.

“I want to critique them fairly.”

“Fairly!? Look. It’s a numbers game. You’re leaving like three paragraphs per participant. That’s insane.”

“You’re insane,” he muttered.

She slid next to him at the dining room table.

“Look,” she said again, pulling the laptop towards her. “Just say: could use more depth of characters and plot.”

2083 blinked at his wife.

“It’s only a thousand words.”

1792 winked.

“You should see the sparks fly when I say that on the 100 MF.”


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Posted By: TessaK
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 9:19pm

We are mole people

We judge your Flash

We type type type

But can’t go fast


Just type type type

In our holes

Working working

Little moles


Tiny claws go click clack click

Hard to tell which Flash to pick

Eyes so dim and screen so bright

Still we judging through the night


Don’t have clocks,

Can’t see the sun

Never know

when deadline come


Thursday come and deadline go

Don’t be mad for being slow

Judging hard, so hard indeed

Considering we cannot read.



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https://tinyurl.com/3k6rteaz


Posted By: Zero11
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 9:34pm
Originally posted by AutumnBe AutumnBe wrote:

“You’re a perfectionist.” 1792 said, rolling her eyes.

“I want to critique them fairly.”

“Fairly!? Look. It’s a numbers game. You’re leaving like three paragraphs per participant. That’s insane.”

“You’re insane,” he muttered.

She rolled her eyes and slid next to him at the dining room table.

“Look,” she said quietly, pulling the laptop towards her. “Just say: could use more depth of characters and plot.”

2083 blinked at his wife.

“It’s only a thousand words.”

1792 winked.

“You should see the sparks fly when I say that on the 100 MF.”

Love it!


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Posted By: Zero11
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 9:35pm
Originally posted by TessaK TessaK wrote:

We are mole people

We judge your Flash

We type type type

But can’t go fast


Just type type type

In our holes

Working working

Little moles


Tiny claws go click clack click

Hard to tell which Flash to pick

Eyes so dim and screen so bright

Still we judging through the night


Don’t have clocks,

Can’t see the sun

Never know

when deadline come


Thursday come and deadline go

Don’t be mad for being slow

Judging hard, so hard indeed

Considering we cannot read.


Have you been saying rhymes in your head constantly since the announcement of the Rhyming Story challenge?


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Posted By: TessaK
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 9:41pm
Originally posted by Zero11 Zero11 wrote:

Originally posted by TessaK TessaK wrote:

We are mole people

We judge your Flash

We type type type

But can’t go fast


Just type type type

In our holes

Working working

Little moles


Tiny claws go click clack click

Hard to tell which Flash to pick

Eyes so dim and screen so bright

Still we judging through the night


Don’t have clocks,

Can’t see the sun

Never know

when deadline come


Thursday come and deadline go

Don’t be mad for being slow

Judging hard, so hard indeed

Considering we cannot read.


Have you been saying rhymes in your head constantly since the announcement of the Rhyming Story challenge?

I have a two year old and I spend my days coming up with little ditties to sing for him LOL The idea of a rhyming contest did catch my interest though!


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SS R1: Rules of Entanglement (Fantasy)
https://tinyurl.com/3k6rteaz


Posted By: Popsicle Crows
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2022 at 11:48pm
I'm trying to get to 25 100 worders before the results. On 18. Boo hiss.

Earlier one inspired this one:

______

“Mr. Trump!
Why did you steal the NYCM entry boxes? Could you tell us your reason, Sir?”

“Fake Polling Station ballots. Rudy found ‘em. They even said PROMPT on the front!

“Polling stations with 250, 100 and even 1000 mail-in votes!
 They said Poll Sta right on the front!”

“Mr. Trump was it possible that you misread Pol S-A-T, and not Poll STA?”

“I know how to read!”

“I think you saw Pol Sat, it’s a genre.”

“There are only two genres! Male and Female”

“Where are the entries now, Sir?”

“FBI took them to judges in New York.” 


Posted By: sgspeed
Date Posted: 12 Aug 2022 at 12:00am
I'm pretty sure this is the actual reason.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he checks the time, and decides to take a break.

No one told him how hard this would be.

He looks at his cheat sheet and logs the entry in as Judge 2081. 

Across the room she reads and records. She never takes a break.

“1000 words, wow! Who knew?” He waits for a response.

“No breaks. Keep reading.”

He starts to sit, but his butt hurts. And she’s an ass.

“4000-something entries and we have to read them all? And then keep track of which judge we’re supposed to be? AND NO BREAKS?”




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