Challenge #23 - Hidden Histories

Hi folks

(1 of 2)

Yes, I’m going to send you two prompts a day for the next three days, so you have all the prompts early to take you through the holiday weekend.  That way, if you want to write extra ahead of time and bank it, you can do that.

This prompt is the one you would be writing Tuesday to be turned in on Wednesday morning, but just label your email for prompt 23 and you can turn it early and I’ll credit it ahead.

And of course, you can always use the mini-play at the bottom of the email and blog post as an escape hatch for the day’s writing.





Let’s get you that writing prompt…


Challenge #23 - Hidden Histories

Due: Wednesday, November 24th, 8am
(whenever 8am arrives in your time zone; we’ll do the math here in the Central Time zone, no worries :)

The Queerstory prompt from Left Coast Theatre the other day reminded me of other script calls that asked for writers to delve into figures from history that didn’t make a lot of our classes in school growing up.

There’s the ongoing call for scripts called “365 Women A Year” which is endeavoring to collect scripts on an epic list of women leaders throughout history from all over the world.  And they’re not accepting repeats until they cover all the women on the list.  You check out the list, put in a claim for a set of names (just in case someone else gets to one of your choices first), and then you get an assignment of who to write about, and it goes on from there. “This international playwriting project involves over 300 playwrights who have signed on to write one or more one-acts about extraordinary women in both past and present history. The project’s ambitious yet focused goal is to write women back into the social consciousness as well as empower and promote female playwrights around the world.”

The Arch & Bruce Brown Foundation used to support an annual playwriting competition (sadly discontinued in 2018) which asked for writers to submit scripts that focused on “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or genderqueer characters and/or themes and must be based on, or directly inspired by, a historical person, culture, work of art, or event. LGBTQ history must be central, not incidental, to the work.” 2017’s call had the intriguing additional guideline that “although submissions on any theme are welcome, this year we are particularly interested in works concerning pornography, sex workers, military service, aging, and education of LGBTQ youth.”  That is… a very eclectic list of interests.

All of which got me thinking, why not dig into history and see what stories we could find?  Because there’s lots of opportunity, both in theater companies calling for material on particular communities of people, and direct calls for works grounded in historic events and the people at their center.

I pulled some random websites up as potential resources:

African American

Asian American

Latino American

LGBTQIA+

Native American

Women

These are just samples.  If you type “(Insert Name of Group Here) History” into a search engine, you’ll find lots of other potential jumping off points.

Figure out a place your personal or family background might intersect with history, and find a person or event you’d be interested in researching further and writing about.

Or maybe just for a rough draft of the day, take real events and people as inspiration, and create something fanciful that recontextualizes it in a fictional framework you can take greater artistic license with.’

However, since truth is often stranger than fiction, you might find a story that needs no embellishment.

Poke around.  You may not have time to write even a script, but you might have time to write a scene, or a proposal of a paragraph or two about what you want to do.

Play around, or, as always, feel free to ignore this entirely.  It was just on my mind because I knew there are always outlets for it.




How to submit your work for Challenge #23

You have options.  They are:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and send as an attachment to an email sent to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

OR

Copy and past your script in the body of an email and send it to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

OR

Post your script online (as a Google doc, or in a blog post, on your own personal website, etc.) - email a link to this script to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com
(If you’re going to Google doc route, just make sure to have the document public, or give permissions to our email address to open it)

When emailing us, make the subject line of your email - Challenge #23
(That just helps us sort through the email more quickly)
(Or, you know, just reply to this email if you want :)

OR

Post the link for the online document option above in the comments section on this very blog post for this challenge on our writing challenge blog.



Again, this is: Due: Wednesday, November 24th, 8am
(whenever 8am arrives in your time zone; we’ll do the math here in the Central Time zone, no worries :)

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

We will be VERY understanding about technical difficulties and how they can screw up making the deadline.  No need to fret about anything except the writing (and hopefully that’s not something causing you to fret too much either :)

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 8am on Wednesday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

A friendly reminder - you don’t have to write to the prompts if they don’t inspire you.  You can ignore them and just write whatever you want, just as long as you’re writing (that’s the main thing, not what you write)

Someone had a good question about the overall goal of the month, are we supposed to write a full-length play, or two one-act plays, etc.?  The short answer is no (unless you want to).  The longer answer is here if you’re curious.

For those concerned about format, we’re pretty liberal about that, too - just as long as it’s legible and in English.  More on that here.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later. You have 7 more days to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want. Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it make sense to you.

It just needs to be something.

And that something can be:

Lights up.

Someone unexpected you never heard of does something historically significant.

Lights down.

The End

That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day (and a half).

Just write.