Iron Writer Competition, EFNW · 4:53am May 20th, 2017
A lot of people know that Everfree Northwest is oriented towards writers (which is one of the reasons I wanted to go), and of course every year they host a contest called Scribblefest, which I got an honorable mention in one year.
But you might not know about the Iron Writer competition.
How it works is that a whole bunch of writers sit down in a room together and battle to the death write. There's a prompt, which you get when the contest starts, and then you have two hours to come up with a story that fits the prompt. When it's over, it's over (and you can't really cheat; it's online, and when the counter goes to zero, that's it).
Now, probably y'all know that I can crank out a prodigious volume sometimes, but it really depends on what I'm writing. I think my speed has increased over the past year, thanks to Silver Glow's Journal, but even so, there were times in that story where I was kind of searching for just the right word or phrase for a section, or leaning back in my comfy chair and contemplating what Silver Glow was going to get up to next. And on other stories, where I'm not so invested in the character and don't have the benefit of literally hundreds of hours of practice, it doesn't always go so easily. Sometimes it's really hit or miss.
Just the same, as soon as I heard it was a thing, I thought that I ought to give it a go, because why not.
Now, I had a day to ponder before the contest, and I could have possibly thought of some open scenes that I could write, maybe, ones where I could probably shoehorn in a prompt. Or, if nothing else, I could potentially come up with characters to use, maybe someponies that I use a lot or that I'm really familiar with--ones that speak to me, or ones that I've used in a story a lot.
Of course, since I use a lot of background ponies and prior gen ponies, that might backfire, for two reasons. One, the judges might not know the character at all, so I'd have to do all the work that goes into writing an OC; second, they might recognize the character, know it was me, and if one of the judges had some reason to dislike me, it would remove the anonymous part of the judging. Anyone might write a story about, say, Shining Armor, but it's not too likely that anybody but me would write a story featuring Incidental Background Mare #9.
From the wiki
And I did consider that it might be possible to really cheat; to write some of a story. Once again, if I were to do that, I'd really be guessing. I have no way to know what the prompt is, and it could certainly turn out to be completely unworkable when the time came to write (or in that case, copy/paste). But the thought did cross my mind.
[I should say here that it's not because I'm inherently a cheater; rather, it was something I thought about way back when I was just getting started on FimFiction and had noticed how whenever a new episode aired, a story which featured a new character in that story invariably got featured, and I thought that maybe if I wrote a nice, generic story where I could plug in the new character and a few salient details, I'd get a feature.]
I didn't do that, though. I went into the room with my mind sorta blank except for a bit of curiosity and a little bit of apprehension--what if I just stared at the computer for two hours and nothing came to me? Or what if the computer crapped out--it hasn't been as reliable since it got a shower (that's a story for a different time). Also I think that I was eating lunch, too.
I was expecting a sort of 'pony does X' type of prompt. You know, like 'write a story about a pony discovering chocolate eclairs' or something along those lines. Instead, we got three words: Telescope, Envoy, and Arena.
The first thing that came to mind upon seeing those words was this:
Source
Luckily, I quickly worked past it, and then I got an image of three pegasi flying in formation, being seen through a telescope, and there was one of my words. The could have been envoys from somewhere, and there was word two.
And what happened next, I blame wholly on Somber. You see, I sat through almost all of the writing panels, and Somber was a frequent panelist. Many of you probably know that he wrote a well-known Fallout: Equestria story, which I haven't read, but that's not the point. He did a lot of talking about it, and mentioned some of the characters and locations and so on, and that's the only reason I can think of that my mind went to where it did, because this is not the kind of thing I ever even thought about writing before. It just sort of came to me in a flash.
Then I did what I do best. Instead of starting off with writing, I started off with research--spent about half an hour of my two hours researching, in fact, along with another couple of quick research breaks in the middle.
At this point, you're probably wondering how I did. Actually, you're probably wondering what I did, but I'll get to that.
I got second place.
For the life of me, I can't remember who got third, and I really feel bad about that, because I sat next to him at dinner the day before the winners were announced, and I even read his story (that wasn't against the rules), and I must have heard his name at least a dozen times if not more, and I just can't remember it at all. Which is a shame, 'cause he's a good writer, and he's probably got stuff on FimFiction that you and I would enjoy reading.
I do remember who got first place; that was redsquirrel456 with Take Notice, and I highly encourage you to read it. It's a very good story, and has a very unlikely (and yet, believable) pairing of characters, and also features a word I don't know. Anyone who knows what a Margess is, feel free to inform me.
And now, without any further ado, let's get on to the story notes! It should be apparent what I did as we go forward, so for those of you who are new followers, be aware that there will be spoilers.
There isn't gonna be any character art, since they're all OCs I came up with on the fly. You'll have to use your imagination.
The first thing I researched were names. It was kind of fast and dirty, but here we go:
Masimba: "Most powerful" (Shona)
Takudzwa: "We have been honored," often given to the first male born after several girls (Shona)
Zuri: "Beautiful" (Swahili)
Anopa: "God gives" (Shona)
Zakia: "Smart, chaste" (Swahili)
Danai: "Loving each other" (Shona) I kind of screwed that one up; that's a girl's name.
Zuwena: "Good" (Swahili)
Zawadi: "A gift" (Swahili)
Zahara: "Flower, white" (Swahili)
Hyrax: An African mammal, which to me looks kinda like a woodchuck, and even more like pikas, apparently (I'm not sure what a pika looks like). They're apparently more closely related to elephants and manatees, though.
Virga: A rainfall that doesn't touch the ground.
Derecho: A line of intense, fast-moving windstorms, often accompanied by thunderstorms.
Tea, sisal (for rope) and pyrethrum (chrysanthemums) are all things which Kenya currently exports, according to Wikipedia. Sisal was kind of a stretch, since it was introduced from Mexico, but I didn't have time to do better research.
Aside from correcting a two small spelling errors, the story is presented exactly as it was entered into the contest.
Source
It feels like there's less here than your usual story notes.
They probably meant "marquess" but had the q mutate into a similar-looking g.
I had to stop partway through and go read your story, since you said there would be spoilers. I was not disappointed.
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There wasn't as much research as normally goes into a story, due to the time limit to write it. The bulk of it was spent on names, and on Kenyan exports, to be honest. There's only so much you can do in a half hour.
Then again, I bet I did more research than anyone else in the competition, so there's that.
If I'd had more time, I would have done more research on how their village might be set up, both in terms of the buildings, and the social structure, and if I wind up revisiting this story in the future, you can be sure I will.
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I dunno. It seems like an odd mistake to make throughout (if it was a mistake), although it's possible. Maybe I should PM redsquirrel and find out.
Also, Google doesn't flag margess as being misspelled, so it is a word that Google knows.
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Well, it does become easier with practice, I'll say that. But there were some authors in the room who were fairly new, and I suspect some of them wrote some pretty solid stuff in the two hours that they had. Xepher said that a lot of people would up being surprised by how much they got done or how decent their stories turned out despite the time limit.
One thing that I've done in the past, and which might be a useful exercise if you want to improve your writing skills, is to find some prompts somewhere and set yourself a time limit, and then write something from one of those prompts. Don't try to edit it as you're going, and you might not want to even read it right away; rather, kind of let it sit for a while, and then go back to it a week or a month later and see what you think of it then.
While I was on the plane to Seattle, I happened to look at an older story I'd started and never finished (I think about two years ago), and it turned out it was a lot more solid than I'd thought at the time--so much so that I'm thinking of finishing it now and publishing it, even though at the time I rejected it because it wasn't working out the way I thought it would.
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The Prompt-A-Day group (now defunct, unfortunately) has about ninety different story prompts, and there are other sources out there as well. I suspect that you can look through the writeoff group's prior threads, or even use an online plot generator/randomizer.
4540040 I dunno either, but it's not in my electronic Merriam-Webster, and I don't see anything else starting with "marg" that sounds plausible. Post the answer if you find out? (I was there for the reading, so I have some idea of the context, albeit the memory is somewhat faded.)
4540138
Alright, I PMed him, and here's what he had to say (spoilered for anyone who doesn't want to know):
I'm actually quite impressed with the word.
4539618 The only "margess" I was able to find is a town in Switzerland.
I realized I have not been following you and this contest helped rectify that cosmic error. Congratulations, you have helped bring a little more order into a chaotic universe.
4540394
Right above your comment, under spoiler text, is how redsquirrel came up with the word. I asked him, 'cause I was curious--I also only got a town in Switzerland, or 'margin' if I dropped an s.
4541094
Yay!
Well, I don't know about more order. My trollfics and crackfics probably offset the good I do with SoL.
Incidentally, do you remember who won 3rd place? 'Cause for the life of me, I can't remember.
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re: margess
For what it may be worth, the first word that popped into my head was margrave.
4562194
Ooh, that’s a good one.
The actual answer (’cause I PMed Red Squirrel) is he made it up.