{"id":138,"date":"2013-11-06T21:28:20","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T20:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/?page_id=138"},"modified":"2026-04-02T11:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T10:16:17","slug":"challenge","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Season 22 <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Challenge 8<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Challenge 8 is our final challenge this season. The task this time is to write pure dialogue. Two characters conversing; no speech tags or descriptions, no \u2018he said \/ she said … while the rain poured down\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speech marks are optional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One little extra detail: I\u2019d like you to use the word \u201ckey\u201d; noun (car keys, music), adjective (key witness), verb (to key in your code) in any one of its many guises. It\u2019s not a theme, just something to play with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

300 words, title not included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Challenge 7<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The challenge is as follows:-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Write a fairy story.<\/strong>  Maximum 300 words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As ever, please try ro give the story a title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please start your story with the words “Once upon a time”<\/strong> (Not counted within the 300 words.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Theme 1000(2)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As per the last Theme 1000, the choice of genre, writing style and approach is entirely up to you. Poetry, short stories, journal entries, blog post, letter(s), an extract from a longer piece of work. Feel free to choose whichever you think suits you best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only stipulation is that it must be no more than 1000 words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, the theme is THE NATURAL WORLD<\/strong>. You may interpret this however you wish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st place Morgen and Colette with 12 marks each, 2nd place Fanny and Liz with 10 marks each, 3rd Martin, Francesca & Ros with 7 marks each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaderboard
1st Liz – 20 points
2nd Morgen & Francesca 19 points each
3rd Fanny 17 points
4th Ros 15 points
5th Colette and Martin 14 points each<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Challenge 6<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The theme for your poem is Nostalgia
You are going to write a poem about an object, or a group of objects which carry some nostalgic meaning for you. It could be anything, e.g. Grandad’s bow-tie, or your collection of Postcards, or the TV you bought with your first wage packet. Anything, but the poem must  convey your attachment to it\/them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poem is to be written in the Villanelle Form<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st place Morgen 17 marks, 2nd place Francesca 11 marks, 3rd place Sally 10 marks.
Leaderboard
1st placeLiz and Francesca 17 points each
2nd place Morgen 15 points
3rd place Fanny 14 points
4th place Ros 13 points
5th place Martin 12 points<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Challenge 5<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Your challenge is to write a diary entry from your …. survival bunker. You can decide if it’s your first day, or if the entries spread out over a few weeks or months.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can decide the cause of the apocalypse – nuclear war, climate change, anarchy etc and whether you have just entered the bunker or are about to exit it, back into what is left of Civilization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you need any inspiration – this could help – [https:\/\/www.terravivos.com\/](https:\/\/www.terravivos.com\/)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only rules are that the maximum length is 300 words – not including the title <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this challenge:
Sally in 1st place with 14 marks, Colette in 2nd place with 9 marks, Morgen, Christine and Liz in 3rd place with 8 marks each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaderboard
1st Liz 16 points
2nd Francesca 14 points
3rd Fanny 13 points
4th Ros 12 points
5th Morgen & Martin 11 points
6th Ruth 10 points<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Open Page<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here is the one and only Open Page Challenge of the Season. For the new Alphas \u2013 this is where you get to let your hair down and go crazy.
Anything goes.
It could be fact or fiction. Mainstream or experimental. It might be a chapter from a novel you\u2019re working on that you\u2019d like feedback on. It could be an excerpt from something. It could be poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The maximum word count is 1500,<\/strong> so you have plenty of space to dazzle.
Add a short something at the start outlining what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st place Morgen with 20 marks, 2nd place Liz with 10 marks, joint 3rd place Fanny and Ros with 9 points each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The leaderboard looks as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st<\/sup> place Liz 14 points
2nd<\/sup> place Francesca 13 points
3rd<\/sup> place Fanny 12 points
4th<\/sup> place Ros 11 points
5th<\/sup> place Martin 10 points
6th place Morgen & Ruth 9 points each<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Challenge 4<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Your challenge is to write a ghost story. That\u2019s it! The rest is up to your imagination – your ghost story can take any form, from unsettling encounters to the utterly terrifying, from poltergeists to full-on floating sheets going \u2018woooo\u2019. It can be frightening, funny, profoundly disturbing or just mysterious.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your only constraint is that your ghost story is a maximum of 300 words<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st place Francesca with 14 marks, 2nd place Liz with 12 marks, 3rd placeChristine with 10 points each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st<\/sup> place Francesca 12 points
2nd<\/sup> place Liz 11 points
3rd<\/sup> place Fanny 10 points
4th<\/sup> place Martin and Ros 9 points each
5th<\/sup> place Ruth 8 points<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Challenge 3<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once again, we’ll have the 300-word limit. This time, you have received a letter from your favourite fictional character. Your task is to write a letter of reply.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st place Fanny with 13 marks, 2nd place Liz and Martin with 10 marks each, 3rd place Francesca with 9 marks<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leader board<\/strong>
1st<\/sup> place Fanny 9 points
2nd<\/sup> place joint \u2013 Francesca, Liz, Martin and Ros \u2013 all on 8 points
3rd<\/sup> place Ruth on 7 points
4th<\/sup> place Mike on 5 points<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Theme 1000 (1) Procrastination <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Good morning Alphas,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

It is my privilege to introduce you to the first theme 1000 for Season 22. These themes are relatively new to this group. We started them last season and they were successful and enjoyed by the group, so they have been continued into this season. As you are aware from the notes that Ros has kindly provided, these differ from the Open Page in that all of us in this challenge write on a common theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The choice of genre is yours as well as your writing style, so it could be a poem, short story, extract from a longer piece, diary entry, monologue, news item, blog, a letter (or series of letters) – anything goes. It does give you the opportunity to write to your strongest or favourite style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1000 word is a maximum. You can write a shorter piece if you wish, but not a longer one. If writing a shorter piece, bear in mind that at least three people will need material to comment on and marks are awarded as with the other challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The theme for this time: –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Procrastination<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How you interpret the theme is up to you – literally or laterally, but other Alpha members must be able to recognise the theme in your work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st place Francesca with 14 marks, 2nd place Liz with 13 marks, 3rd place Fanny with 9 marks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leader board
1st place Ros – 7 points
2nd place Ruth & Francesca – 6 points
3rd place Fanny, Liz & Martin – 5 points
4th place Mike – 4 points<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Challenge 2<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Write a story (prose) of no more than 300 words ( excluding title) starting with someone, (be it in the first or third person) hearing a bang coming from another room .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st place Ruth with 17 marks, 2nd place Ros with 13 marks, 3rd place Mike with 11 marks<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leader board after Challenge 2<\/strong>
1st place Ros 6 points
2nd place Ruth and Martin 5 points each
3rd place Mike and Fanny 3 points each
Everyone else on 1 or 2 points<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Challenge 1<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Please write a piece of 300 words maximum, not including the title<\/strong>, inspired by the photo below. It could be fiction, non-fiction, a poem, a radio play: anything goes. (Please choose any photo if you are looking at this on the web)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st place Martin with 18 marks, 2nd place Ros with 14 marks, 3rd place Fanny with 9 marks<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leader board after challenge 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin \u2013 4 marks
Ros \u2013 3 marks
Fanny \u2013 2 marks
Almost everyone else on 1 mark each<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Season 22 Challenge 8 Challenge 8 is our final challenge this season. The task this time is to write pure dialogue. Two characters conversing; no speech tags or descriptions, no \u2018he said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-138","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":57,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}