Challenge #8 - Series and Cycles

Hi folks

Hope you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep, or writing, as the case may be, for the switch back to standard from daylight savings time.

Busy weekend at the second job for me, so I’m going to get right to the challenge today.



Let’s get you that writing prompt…


Challenge #8 - Series and Cycles

Due: Tuesday, November 9th, 8am
(whenever 8am arrives in your time zone; we’ll do the math here in the Central Time zone, no worries :)

August Wilson is of course known for his ten play Century Cycle, or Pittsburgh Cycle, chronicling the African-American experience in the 20th century, one play in each decade - 1900s, Gem of the Ocean; 1910s, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone; 1920s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; 1930s, The Piano Lesson; 1940s, Seven Guitars; 1950s, Fences; 1960s, Two Trains Running; 1970s, Jitney; 1980s, King Hedley II; and 1990s, Radio Golf.  It’s a staggering volume of work, and simple but powerful guiding thesis.

One side benefit of collaborating with other people is you get exposed to things they really love that you might not have otherwise heard of. When collaborating on a screenplay project with a local independent filmmaker and photographer, he introduced me to one of his favorite film directors, Krzysztof Kieslowski from Poland.

He’s best known for his Three Colors trilogy, three full-length films, each centered on a mesmerizing but very different woman, all seemingly unrelated, yet still wandering in and out around the edges of one another’s lives. Each film had a dominant color - Blue, White, and Red - for the colors of the French flag, and their themes of liberty, equality and fraternity.  Each film on its own is mind-blowing, and all together even more so.

As the son of two pastors, I’m also quite fond of his sprawling Dekalog miniseries, ten short films, each toying with one of the Ten Commandments, all set in the community of an apartment complex in Poland.

He went into retirement after Three Colors, but was contemplating coming out of retirement to do a new trilogy of films based on the concepts of heaven, hell and purgatory. He died unexpectedly of a heart attack before he could bring any of the films to fruition, but Tom Tykwer (of Run, Lola, Run fame) did direct the Heaven film, based on the script in development at the time of Kieslowski’s death.

All of which got me thinking, there’s something really seductive about the structure of series of things, and how you can plan inside that structure, letting it inspire rather than restrict you.

So maybe take something that’s part of a series as a jumping off point and see what interests you.  Maybe craft a sequence of thematically interrelated ten minute plays or a full length script split up into representative parts.  Whatever gets you going.

I’ve got a couple of these in my back pocket still dogging me - this is just reminding me to get back to work.

For example, something as simple as the days of the week, the months or seasons of the year.

The suits and numbers in a deck of playing cards.

The traditional gifts for various anniversary years (paper, wood, silver, etc.)

The five stages of grief (on death and dying/Kubler-Ross)

Birth stones for the months of the year.

Signs of the Zodiac

A deck of Tarot cards

The Seven Deadly Sins

The planets

The Great Lakes

The Seven Wonders of the World

These lists are making you think of other ones, I’m sure.  

Grab one and run with it.




How to submit your work for Challenge #8

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 #8
(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: Tuesday, November 9th, 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 on the first few days.  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 Tuesday 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 22 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.

A leaf falls.  A snowflake falls.  The sun melts it.  A green shoot appears out of the ground.

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.