In regards to opera and comedy I LOVE all the things that can go wrong during a performance that would be laugh out loud funny. A proposal gone wrong perhaps? 

And a law breaking dead criminal makes for a fun ghost who returns to haunt someone? 

booklover13 wrote: It's only been a day and I'm having some struggles. Mainly because there's a lot of options with my prompts (Romantic Comedy, Happenstance, Operagoer) but I don't have a tone of experience with the genre. How are all of you doing right now? Feel free to use this as your space to complain. I find it therapeutic to vent sometimes :)

So, RomCom.  Evil, but not much to do about that.  Mash it up with something less evil, whatever your head does best.  The one rule you can't break (yet) in comedy is nobody gets hurt.  If a building falls on them they get up, dust themselves off, and keep going.  Dark comedy is a different story.

Happenstance.  Autobiographical (Random)l.  According to the Law of Truly Large Numbers (which isn't actually a law, more like a comment) improbable things happen.  The same numbers come up in the lottery twice in a row, which has the same odds as two different numbers coming up in a row, but that's a different story.  Intuitively we think that's less likely, but it happens anyway.

Operagoer.  Someone who goes to the opera.  I've been to a lot of operas and you can't pin that one down, so pretty much anyone who happens to think Pinkerton is an idiot and invariably casting will ruin the visceral effect.

If any of those operas were written today someone would go to jail.  A bit like Disney movies.  The prince marries the princess and gets twenty-to-life.

I'm group 77: action adventure, rush hour, world-beater.  A/A isn't a genre I've had a lot of practice with except in longer forms--a picaresque/quest novel, for example. 

I know many of the A/A tropes and can work with them, but what happens if your writing naturally bends toward comedy? If your action/adventure is more Deadpool than Diehard?

Has anyone here used comedy in their horror or their drama or their adventure and been bumped for not staying "true" to genre? 

Hi groupmate! :) Action/adventure can absolutely be comedic or dramatic or anywhere in between. I've written almost exclusively light-hearted/comedic stories for A/A. The key elements are the fast pace, suspense, and danger to the protagonists. Here's more info from the genre page: https://www.nycmidnight.com/genres" rel="nofollow - https://www.nycmidnight.com/genres

I'm super stoked to read your entry, if you decide to share it when the forums open! :D

p.s. if you ever enter a microfiction NYCM contest, it's defined as action OR adventure. There you could lean more into adventure fic like, say, Indiana Jones or The Lord of the Rings, where a journey to a destination is more the focus.

I’ll keep thinking of ideas. I think my issue is weaving the prompts together. I can think of using strongman and fantasyland in a romance etc but not action. 

A/A is what is holding me up the most. It’s not a favourite genre for me to read or watch in a movie or tv. I don’t really enjoy it. 

There is my whinge of the day. Thanks for reading if you’ve got this far. 

The best thing about this is there's a week or if you're busy during the week two more weekend days to get it done. 

You've got all week - it's far too soon to give up. Read some old action/adventures for inspiration, think about the classic A/A films. If you don't like A/A, mash it up with a genre you do like (you mention romance - how many action/adventure stories have a central romance?).

I kind of like some of the other ideas I have better anyway, and after I pushed the envelope last time on my ghost story and it didn't go over so well, I might play it safe and go conventional. 

Romance (cool, cool, I can do that)

Enchantment (okaaaay)

Lobsterman (well, what the heck.)

When I told my husband, he thought “lobsterman” was some kind of superhero. Maybe I’ll go with that…

Fantasyland could be anything, up to and including the headquarters of your least favorite government three letter agency.  The NSA is known as the puzzle palace.  Calling Langley (CIA headquarters) fantasyland isn't a stretch, but don't forget it's got a certain amount of chic grimness to it and everyone works in vaults.  It could be the name of a corporate research facility.  It could be a section of the most expensive (and artificial) place on earth.  I'm looking at you Disney.

A strongman could be an amateur body builder.  It could be a guy who can bench press five hundred.  It could be some skinny guy who is always choking down the latest supplements and his co-workers have turned it into a joke.  It could be some woman who worked out once and nobody let her forget it.  Just make sure the label sticks and makes sense for whatever reason that is.

Action adventure is something Stallone or da Ahnold would appear in.  Think special effects without much story to tie them together.  Lots of shooting and running and for reasons never fully explained the most muscular guy and the prettiest girl end up with the least amount of clothes on.

Just think constant motion, constant threat, non-stop action.  Only in the last bond movie, arguably the worst movie since Spawn of Slithis, does the 'Action Guy' stand around and try to do a Shakespearean soliloquy. 

<edit>

Now that I think about DARPA would make a great Fantasyland...and a great reason for A/A

</edit>

I kind of have an idea but I'm not sure how to turn it into a plotline, I really don't want to make the anesthesiologist the "bad guy" because I feel like its too obvious. 

Just really not sure how to turn my idea into a workable plot.  

I think after 15 ghosties I’m pretty authoritative on the subject. Happy ghosts. Sad ghosts. Scary ghosts. Ghosts that don’t know they’re dead. Ghosts that do. I’ve seen ‘em all. As long as it has a ghost, you’re good. 

In fact, back in the day someone wrote a story about a woman who kept trying to find her dead husbands ghost and never did. There was actually no ghost in the story and it didn’t get a DQ. 

What I do know about this contest is that creativity is often rewarded. Don’t play it safe. Think outside the box. 

It's the Drama that's the hang-up for me. I like to watch dramas sometimes, but I've never written drama. I've looked at the NYCM definition, and have been perusing examples of Drama short stories, but I still don't really have any 'great' ideas. The first thing that popped into my head was a story about drama in a retirement home, but I don't necessarily like that, and I feel like I'm leaning more towards comedic than dramatic. I've also seen people commenting that mixing genres can be ok if you do it right, so I thought about maybe adding in some fantasy/supernatural elements. 

Not really sure how to build in the "character development" that's mentioned in the NYCM Drama definition. Maybe, someone learns a lesson as an outcome of the drama that happens? I also feel that I might be taking 'Drama' a bit too literal. I guess I'm looking for some different explanations on the defining characteristics of Drama as a genre here in this competition.

You've never seen a story that's not also a drama.  The first time I tried to write drama I tried to be dramatic, and the only thing dramatic about it was how badly I did.  That was the point where I quit getting hung up on genre and worried more about story.

Of course I put stuff in to appease the genre deities, but if I've written a pure anything I wasn't aware of it.

Write a story.  Teach your main character something.  Make them wiser, at least.  Happiness is optional.

The heart of drama is conflict. A gossipmonger could be causing serious problems by spreading rumours now that they're retired.

AprilBaker wrote: My requirements are Fairy Tale, revival, and winemaker. I’m getting hung up on revival. For words with multiple definitions we can use any version, correct? We don’t have to figure out how they are expecting us to use it?

Revival means what you think it means, just make the definition clear in the story.

Okay thanks! To some people revival is a religious event and I really don’t want to go that way. Would rather focus on the other definitions of the word.

*****

Still figuring out how to use the forums, but if I can find you again, I' ll tag you for a beta read if you're interested and am happy to reciprocate.  Today I outlined, fiddled with some dialogue and backstory, and wrote two action scenes that I think are hysterical.  

How are you doing? 

Thanks! That helps a lot. Bonus because it gave me a little chuckle. 

Pages wrote: The heart of drama is conflict. A gossipmonger could be causing serious problems by spreading rumours now that they're retired.

I also received political satire, but I'm in group 106 -- petition (subject) and chairperson (character).

Are you experienced in political satire? What do you recommend I do for research, etc.? I usually write fantasy :)

I'm nervous about that though. My only other entry was a ghost story and I wrote about an incubus and the judges really hammered me for including non-consensual content...but that is literally what an incubus does. One judge didn't buy the main character's yearning for the incubus afterwards, even though the story said she was possessed. One judge thought that the encounter was supposed to be consensual and I'd erred by making it sound non-consensual. One judge thought it was supposed to be a fantasy and thought the language I used was too coarse. Three different takes, but the overall message seemed to be that you can't write about an incubus in a ghost story.

I guess I'll take your advice because I don't want to play it safe. I just hope I don't get booted again because I didn't choose one of the hackneyed paths like "ghost can see the action but is powerless to stop it" or "person doesn't know they're a ghost until the very end" or "ghost has unfinished business" or "ghost teaches main character a moral lesson"...

No reason not to write fantasy pol-sat.  Ever watch the second Shrek movie?

My favorite pol-sat is Master and Margarita.  It was a 'desk drawer' novel and never meant to see the light of day, mostly because the author knew Stalin (little soso dzugashvili) personally, but still would have ended up in the gulag for it.

1984

Soloviev or Skabieva or Simyonan one of the others for the last 12 months.  I swear MinTruth was their operating model.  I thought 1984 was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not a guidebook.

Animal Farm.

Brave New World

The difference between Huxley and Orwell is Orwell believed that which we fear will enslave us.  Huxley believed that which we love will enslave us.  They're both right.

<edit>

Should have mentioned 1984 is officially banned in the Russian Federation now.  For the record I read it in 1984 while I was *cough* 12 miles off the coast of the then Soviet Union.  The only guy who thought to bring a copy.  Surrounded by Philistines.

</edit>

WhistlerCrowe wrote: Hey y'all! My prompts are Mystery - Summer School - A boyfriend. The boyfriend is tripping me up. Leaning towards going the magical realism route with this, but I don't know how broad the character of a "boyfriend" can be... Could he be a minor character? Or the boyfriend of a secondary character who is mentioned within the story? Help, please.

Never have to meet him.  It.  Could be a frog for all anyone cares, just make the 'boyfriend' a frequent distraction for the main character.  Source of exasperation.  Constantly going to meet the boyfriend and some mystery gets in the way.  Almost anything you can think of.

I've made characters secondary, and the only reason you knew who the character was is I applied the label (and they earned it).

"Watch out for him, he's a TROUBLEMAKER".  And done.

Don't let your imagination get the best of you.  Write the story and let the judges fall where they may.  Judging is improving anyway.  Always room for more, but if the story is good and you made the attempt to check the boxes...

In your example I might have pitched a fit to feedback.  Wouldn't have changed anything, but if the story stands the story stands, even if the judges don't know the difference between a succubus and a city bus.

Wonderful. Thank you for the help!
That frog comment has me considering writing a retelling of The Princess and The Frog where the whole story is the two of them trying to find who turned him into a frog. 
I'm not going to actually do it, but the thought is there. 

He doesn't need to be the MC, but he needs to be significant enough to the story that it can't exist without him. Even if he never appears, something he did or said has to drive the plot. (But I personally think it's safer if he actually appears.)

I spent a summer in Russia (Altai Republic). Good thing I didn't take any Orwell with me!

thanks for this. i think i will follow the advice you and nodiving gave me. just needed that extra boost of confidence. good to hear that the judging is improving.

My SS entry last year had some magical realism, and it got HM1! It was my first ever NYCM and not the best entry by any means (it was also 500 words under count because I'd never written something so long before haha), but being a total newbie to PolSat, I was pretty happy with it! Feel free to check it out if you'd like, but no pressure, of course!  http://forums.nycmidnight.com/r1-gr143-man-overboard-polsat-hm1-fb_topic45745.html" rel="nofollow - https://forums.nycmidnight.com/r1-gr143-man-overboard-polsat-hm1-fb_topic45745.html

Is there a rule about non-consensual content? If so, I need to scrap the one lone idea that I have...

No rule; however, different judges often vary in how they receive content like that, so how your story does may highly depend on your particular judges. If you post your story on the forum, just make sure you share with a CW! I've seen stories that mention non-consent do well, but from experience, I haven't seen stories that show it explicitly "on-screen" so to speak do quite as well outside of the horror genre, where I figure judges expect more explicit content

Thank you. If I go this direction, it will have happened in the past and be mostly alluded to.

Prinkles123 wrote: I'm really at a loss here - Political Satire, Insider Trading, Anchorman - I could not be less inspired.  Any thoughts on interpretation of insider trading?  Anyone think this could be anything other than stock market related? Snoooooze.  All thoughts welcome!

A few things pop into my head, actually.  Anything can be traded.  Votes.  Appointments.  Positive press.  Board seats.  As long as the public thinks these things are done one way, above board, but some people get an advantage by going behind the scenes and using underhanded means to get what they want.

Anchorman, so I'm thinking positive press for candidates.  The 'insider trading' is politicians buying that press, and getting their opponents smeared, because they are 'insiders'.

This is about fifteen seconds thinking about it, actually, but I think it's the right track.  At least for me.

I should've put a content warning on it for the judges. Also I should've written something else entirely if I wanted to advance. this was for MF250. anyway, I voiced my displeasure in the judge feedback. Incubus stories have appeared around the world for thousands of years, going all the way back to Mesopotamia. they're some of the oldest ghost/demon stories we have

My genre is Ghost Story, my character is an assessor, and my subject is laughing stock! I don't know how to work all of these together. Any ideas would be wonderful.

laughing stock lends itself to a revenge ghost tale. assessors have to assess houses which could be haunted. I think either idea works, but you could also combine the two

be pretty funny to see an anchorman reporting on insider trading that he's eventually going to be connected to... I don't know just a thought

Seems like it should fit together and be a piece of cake but it's not my usual genre. 

I've started and restarted several times and I'm not getting anywhere. My idea/ brainstorming list is lengthy. 

I'm glad there's a few more days. Here's hoping we can all pull something together and submit on time. 

Ugh. 

The prompts that fit the mostly "neatly" are the hardest imo! For my MF100 R2, I had suspense/thriller | turning off an alarm | hunt, and I stared blankly trying not to write the exact same story as all of my groupmates. Fortunately, we all came up with something different, but when the prompts are so straightforward, it really stagnates my creativity! 

Meanwhile for this comp, I have RomCom | an escapade | a denturist. First of all, I had to look up whether a denturist was what I thought it was, and put that together with escapade and RomCom, the possibilities are endless! I'd definitely be hurting with your prompts; I hope the muses strike you soon! 

Deschain wrote: does anyone know a term of endearment a russian mother might use when comforting her young daughter? something like "sweetie"

In Russian?

Solnyshka?

The diminutive of her name, because Russians love diminutives?  The go so far as to invent them on the fly.

There are lots of possibilities.

i think her name already is a diminutive...dasha? not married to that name. i dont even know how russian it is. it just reminded me of dacha, which is what my ukrainian family called their cottage in the country when i was there several years ago.

I think "dochka" (little daughter) might work, but I'm not sure of all the cultural connotations.

Dacha is not really a name, and in fact if you named your kid that in Russia they might have something to say about it. 

They pick from a really limited list of names traditionally.  In the last ten or fifteen years people have found it trendy to use other names, but you're still not going to find a Dacha.  Maybe a western name, because using English words is also trendy.

Even when there's a perfectly good Russian word for the same thing, though some days I think Russian is a mash-up of English and German.  They use gastarbiter for guest worker.

It's 'cool' to throw English in conversation to show how smart you are.

Anastasia's diminutive is usually Nastya, which is close enough to 'Nasty' that I won't use it.  I hate using pejoratives for people, even if they don't realize what or why.  The accent is on the -nas- by the way.  A-NAS-ta-sia

"Dasha" is a nickname for Daria.

There. I did something productive today. (Well, I did many productive things, and I have two words written. Okay a name. It's something.)

I just started writing it today (after aborting another idea) and just letting words fly. Just enough not-quite-terrestrial plot twist to conform to the genre (I hope- I never read or watch the stuff) I’m going to hole up in library, I think, to ensure minimal distractions. The stories don’t HAVE to be 2,500 words, right? That’s just these maximum alllowed, right?

The Title/Synopsis, why is it these two little things that are maybe 30 words at most are more intimidating than writing the actual story? 

The name I have is Dasha, not dacha. I was a foreign exchange student in Ukraine in the 90s, and my exchange family had a flat in Kyiv (Kiev back then) and a "dacha" in the countryside.

I googled Dasha and the first three celebrities that popped up had Russian (or eastern European) surnames, so I think it works culturally. And the story's setting is a house in a small Ukrainian village, so I like that little double meaning with Dasha, even if it's one that pretty much nobody would pick up on.

Thank you! That sort of works the other way in the scene. The mother is trying to comfort Dasha because the father just sent her to her room. So I don't think I'll be able to work this detail in for 2500 words, but if I expand later then it's perfect for the father to call her Daria when sending her to her room. (I think the judges might conclude I made a typo if I don't include an explanation for the name change, but I really love this story and plan on revising it later.)

zajka - bunny

solnyshko - sunshine

úmnitsa - good girl

púpsik - cutie

zólotse - precious

yagatka - sweetie

dochen'ka - daughter/darling daughter

I can neither confirm nor deny one of those is what my wife calls me all the time.

I know this is old and you may not see this, but a romance story that features a superhero called Lobsterman sounds absolutely adorable.

My prompts were Historical Fiction, a Shellacking, a latecomer. I always wanted Historical Fiction, but this has definitely been my most difficult story. I usually have a first draft done in the first couple days, but this time I didn't manage to get anything on paper until Thursday...

zajka - bunny

solnyshko - sunshine

úmnitsa - good girl

púpsik - cutie

zólotse - precious

yagatka - sweetie

dochen'ka - daughter/darling daughter

My wife is a native Russian speaker.  I might disagree about a definition or two, but close enough 

zajka - bunny

solnyshko - sunshine

úmnitsa - good girl

púpsik - cutie

zólotse - precious

yagatka - sweetie

dochen'ka - daughter/darling daughter

thank you so much!

What have I learned. - Suspense is not my forte. The biggest part of the suspense was that even I was in suspense as I had no idea where the story was going until it got there. It is weak at the end. I didn’t want to over explain so I under explained and ran out of words anyway.

I will leave it tonight do a quick rewrite tomorrow, submit and wait for the inevitable failure to progress. This was by far the hardest challenge I have had and I thought I was bad at horror.

zajka - bunny

solnyshko - sunshine

úmnitsa - good girl

púpsik - cutie

zólotse - precious

yagatka - sweetie

dochen'ka - daughter/darling daughter

thank you so much! i was kind of trying to find an english word with a russian flavor. the original word that popped into my head was "dumpling" (which I now realize sounds good but looks terrible, kind of like "no one" ) but then my mind started wondering if dumplings were specifically Asian cuisine, and maybe they don't have dumplings, or maybe dumplings are called something else.

i do really appreciate all the help though with the Russian words. but i think it's going to interrupt the flow too much to use a Russian word in that spot. what i'm really searching for is an English word with similar connotation to sweetie or dumpling, but has a decidedly Russian flavor. 

if i have time i'll just watch Masha and the Bear for the 20th time with my girls. I'm sure the word I seek is in there somewhere .

I might still use one of those names. i'm starting to care less about the judges and more about my characters, especially Dasha. she's awesome. i don't want her to get sent to bed without some cute epithet from her mom to let her know everything will be alright.

zajka - bunny

solnyshko - sunshine

úmnitsa - good girl

púpsik - cutie

zólotse - precious

yagatka - sweetie

dochen'ka - daughter/darling daughter

Pierogi is Polish, Pelmeni is Russian.  Vareneki is a variant.  Monte is central Asian.  Various people will argue where all those originated, and in fact there was a lawsuit over the origins of Vodka.  That's how serious people can get about things that don't matter all that much.

zajka - bunny

solnyshko - sunshine

úmnitsa - good girl

púpsik - cutie

zólotse - precious

yagatka - sweetie

dochen'ka - daughter/darling daughter

BABKA!!!!!!!! that's it!!!!!! we ate babka when i was there. thank you so much!

zajka - bunny

solnyshko - sunshine

úmnitsa - good girl

púpsik - cutie

zólotse - precious

yagatka - sweetie

dochen'ka - daughter/darling daughter

I'm pretty sure 'Babka' also means 'grandma' though...

zajka - bunny

solnyshko - sunshine

úmnitsa - good girl

púpsik - cutie

zólotse - precious

yagatka - sweetie

dochen'ka - daughter/darling daughter

That's babushka lol

zajka - bunny

solnyshko - sunshine

úmnitsa - good girl

púpsik - cutie

zólotse - precious

yagatka - sweetie

dochen'ka - daughter/darling daughter

My husband called his Russian grandmothers both "Babka," but his family definitely spoke a regional dialect.