Competition: Variations on a theme 4 (World Cup)

pickarooney

The latest installment of our themed short story competition is now underway. For details of some previous contests, see here and here.

The theme this time is A World Cup Story.
Word limit is 1500 for this competition and submissions should be by PM, to me.

The closing date for competition entries is the 1st of July and I'll be accepting submissions via PM as of today, June 17th. Voting will run from the 2nd to the 7th of July.

Once again, all votes must be accompanied by a post on the thread giving feedback to at least one of the stories, although obviously the more time you take to give your impressions the more the writers will benefit.

Please post in here with any queries on the competition itself.
Please do not post pieces directly in the thread.

Good luck!

Mr E

1500 words.... great! Should give us a bit more room to manoeuvre.

Antilles

Shorter deadline and longer wordcount. Meep!

pickarooney

1500 is just the upper limit. If you can get your story done in 1000 or even 250, all the better.

You still have a link to Cinderella in your sig, by the way.

ToasterSparks

Hmm...

Coming up with an idea is proving harder than I thought. Work, brain, work!

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Have a great idea for this competition - I just hope that no one else has been thinking on the same wavelenght as me or I'll just end looking stupid... again...

pickarooney

It's a cagey, scoreless draw for the moment with nobody yet having committed anything. There's likely to be a flurry of activity in the last minute though.

Nope, just not able to make a football metaphor today.

angelll

Out in Italy at the moment,they're world cup crazy here,and sure who can blame them! Will write something this weekend when i come back. Hear ye are all baking over there,we had thunderstorms for the last 3 days,thankfully the sun is back today! Looks like this will be a last minute thing for me again! Next competition i'm going to start as soon as it's announced!

Mr E

I'm struggling. I have an idea, but its hard to flesh out.

The Mad Hatter

To my astonishment, I have a story. The first draft is finished now, but it's Bloody Awful, so gonna see if I can make it into something that's Not Terrible.

Antilles

Hope I'm not the only one tearing my hair out over this!

Mr E

Nope, I've barely started. I've put aside some time on Sunday to work on it. Deadline is Thursday night, so I need to move my arse.

Oryx

Three own goals so far. Im doing worse than the French. Any chance of extra time ref?

The Mad Hatter

Have not had a moment free to get at the second draft of this. Writing while moving house and starting a new job is hard...

pickarooney

I haven't had a single PM yet. I think an extension might be necessary if this doesn't pick up

Mr E

pickarooney wrote: »

I think an extension might be necessary if this doesn't pick up

Extra time, dude. Try to keep up the analogies!
What'll we do for penalties if you're still scoreless after extra time?

Oryx

I thought this was a pretty broad scope for a story, but as it turns out, when Ive tried to write, the stories have gone nowhere. But I havent resorted to helicopters and explosions yet...

I was joking about the extra time btw.

pickarooney

Just write whatever story you want and add a line like "there was nothing on telly only that ould Word Cup ѕhite."

ToasterSparks

I have a vague, terrible idea in my head. It's awful.

But hey, if no-one else enters, I'll win!

Also Starring LeVar Burton

pickarooney wrote: »

Just write whatever story you want and add a line like "there was nothing on telly only that ould Word Cup ѕhite."

Totally unfair on those of us who sat down and made time to come up with an excellent World Cup Story... :mad:

The Mad Hatter

pickarooney wrote: »

I haven't had a single PM yet. I think an extension might be necessary if this doesn't pick up

Anyone else find it funny that we can all write a 500-word story in an hour, but none of us seems to be able to do a 1500-word one in two weeks?

Antilles

I could write a 1,500 word story in an hour. The problem is I'd never be willing to show the resulting crapfest to the world

Also Starring LeVar Burton

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Anyone else find it funny that we can all write a 500-word story in an hour, but none of us seems to be able to do a 1500-word one in two weeks?

I think its more the fact, that since we've two weeks to write it, we'll spend more time on it and not end up sending it in until a day or two before the deadline... Why do today, what you can put off until tomorrow...

ToasterSparks

I know I shouldn't show my story on here, but it's so good I felt I had to share immediately. It's obviously the winner.

It was summer. The World Cup was on TV. France did not win. I enjoyed that.

Fin.

Antilles

ToasterSparks wrote: »

I know I shouldn't show my story on here, but it's so good I felt I had to share immediately. It's obviously the winner.

Now that you've posted that story, it should be disqualified from winning.

And thank god, because I think it would have gotten pretty much everyone's vote

Wantobe

Cannot think of anything remotely resembling a world cup theme. Writers block.I hate soccer, and hate world cup. Only thing that could be worse would be a badmington/tennis theme.

Oryx

Well wonder of wonders. I just made my pigs ear of a beginning into a whole pig of a story. I have something to enter. Hooray!

angelll

. Am jealous oryx. Fair play to you. I usually leave the writing til the deadline and think about what i will write in the meantime but i haven't a clue!

--amadeus--

I have a story written "in my head" but I don't think I'll get to write it on paper, real life keeps getting in the way

Oryx

You said that before and you managed it. And you did a winning story in less than an hour. No excuses!

Mr E

Very productive morning..... 750 words in the last couple of hours.
Looks like I will have something to submit after all.

Glad the word count was extended too.... 1000 wouldn't cut it for this one.

pickarooney

We might have enough entries to make a play-off at this rate!

Mr E

Finished!

3 days to spit shine, and shave 150 words off it.

angelll

Hmmm, i might write about what the bloody ref was thinking when he declared that wasn't a goal!!!

Antilles

I keep going back to the script Patrick Stewart is writing in 'Extras'.

Patrick Stewart: And I do other stuff, like I go to the World Cup final, and it's Germany versus England, and I wish that I were playing, and suddenly I am, and I score the winning goal, and they carry me into the dressing room and there's Roony and Beckham and then Posh Spice walks in and ...

Andy Millman: Her clothes fall off?

Patrick Stewart: Instantly.

Blush_01

So we have until midnight on the 1st then? *scratches head* I hope I'll get something by then.

ToasterSparks

Submitted my awful, awful story. Truly cringe-worthy!

Please be very generous with your votes people, VERY generous.

The Mad Hatter

Finished draft two. It's in that weird place where I like it, but I'm not sure if it's any good.

Antilles

I'm afraid I'm going to have to withdraw from this one. I have a 400 word chunk, but I'm exhausted from work with more of the same for the rest of week. I just don't have the energy to write

Also Starring LeVar Burton

I'm going to have to get cracking on this tonight... I've had the premise since last week...

Oryx

Pickarooney you did get mine?

pickarooney

Three qualifiers so far... come on lads and lassies!

ToasterSparks

Yay! Guaranteed third! :P

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Wrote half of it this afternoon, but then had to go to work... stupid work... hopefully finish it tomorrow afternoon...

Also Starring LeVar Burton

This could either go very well or very badly for me, as I've decided to take a big risk on this one...

ToasterSparks

CaptainNegative wrote: »

This could either go very well or very badly for me, as I've decided to take a big risk on this one...

Me too! I took a big risk mainly because I was forced to. But it should be fun to read the entries.

Mr E

Another risk here. Wow... I'm expecting some interesting reads on Friday morning!

So who did the story from the perspective of the ball?

The Mad Hatter

These are due tomorrow, not tonight, right?

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Right, sent mine in...

It's awful...

Mr E

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

These are due tomorrow, not tonight, right?

Yep, tomorrow night at midnight.

ToasterSparks

Mr E wrote: »

So who did the story from the perspective of the ball?

Not me. Which is probably a bad thing!

I have the strangest way of finding a domestic violence theme in every story. :rolleyes: But I was damned if that was gonna be my entry. Although it might have won if I accompanied it with this picture.