Summer Challenge #1: A Picture Tells 5,000 Words

Greetings fellow writers!

Well, it's now summer and that means it's time for our first official Summer Writing Challenge of 2015! I was hoping to do one each month of June July and August and the first one is now open for submissions!

The Challenge:

A Picture Tells 5,000 Words

For this challenge, you will pick a famous piece of artwork from any time period of your choice and write a story based off of it in 5,000 words or less. The key is to write what you think the picture is about, despite the fact it might already have a story attached to it or not. It can be as obscure or as literal as you wish it.

Rules:

Try to keep it at or under 5,000 words. The Summer Challenges are short so you can finish them in a month; of course I'm not going to stop you if you want to go a little over. It's acceptable ;)

When you send your story, please attach the picture you used (and title/artist) so we can all see your inspiration!

The due date for submissions is Friday July 3rd Please get your stories to me before them.

As usual, if you want to join in this challenge, email me at sirwilliamssquire@gmail.com and let me know if you have any questions.

Modern Mythical Creature Posting Schedule/ Summer Challenges

Well, it's almost time to start posting the stories for the Modern Mythical Creature challenge! I'm really excited about this one because I had a great time writing my story and I have really enjoyed everyone else's that I have read so far. We got some really awesome submissions this time around!

Here is the posting schedule, so you can see what will be coming up for you in the coming weeks:

The Bane of Maine by Joseph Leskey-- May 11th

Mary Had a Little Lamb by Abigail Leskey-- May 13th

The Old Wardens by Hazel West-- May 15th

The Girl an the Leaf Dragon by Mara A.-- May 18th

I hope everyone will stop by to read all the stories we will have up and leave a comment for the writers :-)

And now on to the next:

This isn't an official Call for Writers yet as I don't have a specific challenge in mind for our next one, but I wanted to give everyone a head's up that I am planning to do short summer challenges, one for each month of summer, June, July and August. Anyone who has any ideas, let me know, and if you want to participate, please email me at sirwilliamssquire@gmail.com. I will have more details by the first week of June once I get back from BookCon so check back then!

Cheers, Hazel

Dictionary Word Challenge/ Call For Writers

Well, it's nearly the end of September and it's time to post the stories for the Dictionary Word Challenge for this month. If you missed it, I picked ten words at random from the dictionary and we had to incorporate them into a story. I'm really excited to post the stories because we got some very cool and varied results from the words that were picked:

1. Carpenter

2. Ginger

3. Natural

4. Aloft

5. Stretcher

6. Mire

7. Justice

8. Feat

9. Nomad

10. Throb

Now for the posting schedule:

Shadows: Caroline Keeth-- September 29th

Easy: Abigail Leskey-- September 30th

Conventional Issues: Hazel West-- October 2nd

And if you still want to do this challenge, feel free to do so and post on your blog or wherever and drop me the link so I can read what you came up with :)

And now it's time for our next:

Our next challenge was provided by Abigail and is going to be to write a story about a historical ruler. Whether it's a Roman emperor, a queen or barbarian chieftain, anything goes. This challenge will run though December. I'll be back with more specific dates in a later post after the Dictionary Challenge stories are posted. If you're interested in joining in the next challenge, let me know now, so I can start getting a head count.

Until then, I hope you will all come back to check out the current challenge stories :-)

Dictionary Word Challenge

I previously said that I would provide more information about the Dictionary Word Challenge, so here it is!

What is it? 

This challenge involves me picking 10 words at random from a dictionary that will then have to be used in a story. I've posted the words below, and what you will do is take them and write them into a story. It can be about anything as long as you incorporate the words in it somehow.

You can come up with a completely fresh story for this challenge, or you can do this with characters already established. I find these are easier to do if you already have a theme. There's no wrong way to do it. Feel free to use your own already established characters, or even write a fan fiction with the words, whatever you want to.



Rules (or whatever you want to call them):

-These are meant to be short fun writes that aren't meant to be too stressful. If one you're working on doesn't work out, try again! Let's keep the stories under 5,000 words this time.

-Yes, you can use variations of the word (tense and such) but it has to psychically appear in the story. Like you can't just use the idea of the word. And if the word has more than one meaning you are allowed to use any meaning.

-This challenge is open for anyone who wants to enter. I'm aiming to post the stories of all the participants here on Modern Bard, but since this isn't an official challenge, if you have your own blog or a site where you post stories, feel free to post them there instead. If you do, send me the link and I will link it to the post with the finished challenges.

When:

Since this is a short challenge it's only running through September. I'm going to post the stories from the 28th to the 30th.

If you are going to send me the story itself, I'll need it by the 27th at the latest.

The Words

Here are the official words of the challenge:

1. Carpenter

2. Ginger

3. Natural

4. Aloft

5. Stretcher

6. Mire

7. Justice

8. Feat

9. Nomad

10. Throb

Comment below if you want to join in the challenge. Please also note if you are planning on sending me the story or if you are going to just send me a link. If you are sending me a story, please email me at sirwilliamssquire@gmail.com so that I can get your email and you can send me the story when you're finished.

And a note for the people who will be giving me links: You can either email me or just post them in the comments here. Also feel free to post your stories wherever you are going to at any time. I will just add the links to the challenge post when I get the others up =)

If you have any other questions, please let me know, and I really hope to see what you come up with for the challenge!

Slainte, Hazel

Classic Authors Challenge/ Call For Writers

It's nearly time to post the results of Modern Bard's most recent challenge! This time we wrote stories that involved a classic author, and I think we've done some pretty interesting stuff this time, if I do say so myself! Here's a schedule of the titles and when they will be posted:


The Curse of Oz: Mara A. --August 26th
Nothing That Needs Poisoned: Abigail Leskey--August 27th
A Grimm Profession: Hazel West--August 29th

Like last time, I hope you will all join me here at Modern Bard next week to read the challenge stories!

And that leads to another:

Instead of jumping right into another long challenge, I decided to do a fun short one to end summer with. Anyone who wishes to join in is certainly welcome, I will post more specific details later, but here's a little about it:

It's going to be a Dictionary Word Challenge. I have done this before and found it to be really fun. How it works is I will pick 10 words at random from the dictionary and we will all have to write a story using all the words. 

I'll try to have specific info about this challenge up by September 1st, but if you are interested in participating, please email me or comment below with your email address so I can add you to the list of interested people. You can email me at sirwilliamssquire@gmail.com 

Again, hope to see you next week, and I hope you will consider doing the next challenge with us too!

Slainte, Hazel