Comments | fpsers_unite: Scenario Writing

lowfatsourcreme in fpsers_unite

Scenario Writing

Dec 04, 2005 22:28

So I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone else participates in scenario writing? If so, are you writing one this year? I've done it for the past three years and found the topics this year to be rather challenging to devise a creative plot for -- what do other people think? Also, what is your experience like? ie, how far in advance do you start, ( Read more... )

Comments 7

icklefickle December 5 2005, 05:27:25 UTC

And how do you all (I don't do scenarios) get under 1500 words. That seems like the hardest part, not to mention a reason to force you to do many drafts.

lowfatsourcreme December 5 2005, 13:11:56 UTC

Contractions and stripping HUGE parts of the story. It basically ends up with taking a lot of detail out, at least for me. I'm at some 2000 now, and really dreading the word elimination.

icklefickle December 5 2005, 22:05:40 UTC

I know... I checked a word count although if you take the part out that I recommended, it should help some. But yeah, I was trying to think of a cuttable chunk in the scenario this year and not coming up with any ideas. The amazing thing is that when you read winning finals, they seem as though they are fully intact, as though they were written at under 1500 words, but I know they've been cut a LOT.

wilbur103088 December 5 2005, 11:34:50 UTC

This is my first year doing a scenario, and its been crazy. We have a specific coach at our school for scenarios, so she has deadlines and peer edit dates and all sorts of things so we don't get behind. BAout 3, maybe 4 weeks ago we had a brainstorming group thingy, and that helped get the ideas flowing, which was good, because I had nothing!

I really am nervous about this tho, its great you've been doing it for so many years!

lowfatsourcreme December 5 2005, 13:10:14 UTC

Wow, that sounds really cool. You lucky.

It is fairly nervewracking, especially because it takes 3-4 weeks to get results back, which seems like forever! Although I'd have to say the most stressful part is mailing it in on the postmark deadline -- worrying that the post office has closed, that you've forgotten some aspect (I don't know about where you are, but in Wisconsin they require something like three copies of the scenario, three copies of one form, but only one of two others, and a floppy disk -- kind of a lot), etc.

Good luck!

daily_rant December 5 2005, 13:28:41 UTC

My kids do scenario writing and have done it at IC a few times. The first time it was more challenging, but once they understood how the competition worked it was okay. They are more lenient on grammatical things knowing that you are basically turning in a draft. It does work differently in that the four scenarios must mesh time-wise, character-wise, etc...My daughter's team was first at IC last year.

They also write fewer drafts. I think what they've discovered is that their coach can correct all the grammar and such, but a bad story is a bad story. If they concentrate on a good story, the nit-picky errors correct up quickly.

I think the topics this year seem harder for scenario, too.

black_trillium December 7 2005, 02:15:07 UTC

I do a bit of scenario writing- i had a good one for the latest comp. down under, and then got sick and destroyed it in a fit fuelled by evil bacteria.
*nods*
I also do evaluating scenarios/ short stories as well- im afraid i'm a little harsh on grammar and sentence construction, not to mention dialogue. It pays to crit fanfiction :P
Anyhow- i don't find it hard, really- the word limits a bit tough, when you consider there are marks to make it futuristic, but a plot doesn't depend on gadgets- so you need to allocate precious character and plot time to making it futuristic if you wnat the marks.