On the Web site for the Cyberspace Open, it says “Judging is expected to take 3-4 weeks.” Now, I understand that’s not the same as saying “Judging will take at most four weeks,” but round two is this weekend and still no word on our scores from round one. It has now been over four weeks.

Note: Ooops! Looks like I missed one of the bullet points on the contest Web site, and the results are due by tomorrow at the latest. The rest of this episode was a bit of a rant (tempered with my belief that this is a cool contest), and at least part of what I said was unjustified.

Sorry, Cyberspace Open Guys!

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A couple of people have asked me what’s up with the ol’ Cyberspace Open. The short answer is that we’re in the waiting period while the judges wade through all the entries. You may have noticed by now that I’m rarely satisfied with the short answer.

The long answer is that last time the judges were a bit overwhelmed, and didn’t hit their deadlines. Being the clever humans they are, they allowed themselves more time for judging this spring. Round two of the contest goes from 5pm May 22 to 9am May 23. Or something like that.

Of course the added judging time gives me extra time as well, to go back over my entry and find more things I could have done better. Hopefully most of the other entrants are in the same boat. Time will tell.

I misreported about the contest format a while ago; while last fall there were three rounds, this time there are only two. In round two the remaining 100 contestants will have overnight to construct a dazzling scene. The top three of those scenes will be produced and put on the Interwebs for voting. To vote, one must subscribe to the contest sponsor’s mailing list, or something like that. If it matters, I’ll get back to you on that.

In previous years there was a third round with the top ten contestants, giving them 90 minutes to produce a masterpiece. I suspect that the quality of those entries was suspect, and that they went with the two-round format to have a better product to put on YouTube. Can’t say as I blame them.

Anyway, I’m continuing to cross fingers and toes and wait (mostly) patiently for the results. Will the judges like my work, or will they trip up on the parts I want to make better? Will they roll their eyes and say, “Vampires? Again?” (There are also four cash prizes for genre submissions, awarded based on round one entries. Unfortunately I expect that two-thirds of the entrants did some urban fantasy/horror thing, so the competition will be pretty fierce.)

I’ll probably be in Prague when my score comes out, but don’t worry, kids, I’ll be sure to let you know right away.

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I have my entry almost ready to submit, and I have to say it’s turning into a pretty powerful scene. I thought of submitting now to prevent myself from editing the soul out of the piece the way I did last time, but I’m going to read the critique I got last time, then go over the current entry once more with the specific goal of editing more soul into it. I think it still needs a little kick to put it into the top 100.

It’s in the verbs, baby. Soul is in the verbs.

I’ve received several notes of encouragement from hither and yon, including one offer to have a shot of absinthe on my behalf. Now that’s support! After time has expired I will post my entry here, to see what you all think of it. In the end I went with writing the scene my novel needs, and the twist I came up with this weekend to make the scene work also provides some excellent grist for the novel. So, even if I don’t win fame and fortune in the contest, my story will benefit.

Update:
OK, I’ve submitted! 14 hours early, in fact. That doesn’t earn me extra points with the judges but it does stop me from driving myself crazy over every damn word for the next forthour. Thanks once again for the friends who sent their support, and especially those who helped me decide which scene to use and provided helpful feedback. The result is solid, but does it sparkle? Does it change the way people think about film as an art form?

Well, no. But it’s not bad. I will post it here once submissions are closed.

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Here’s the prompt. Talk among yourselves. I’ll be brainstorming for a little while.

Your protagonist is crushed. His or her plans have been dashed; his objective now appears impossible. And yet if he throws in the towel, bad things will happen. Write a scene in which a mentor, friend, love interest or enemy rallies or provokes your protagonist in an unexpected way. Be sure to give us your best dialogue here as your protagonist comes around and rises – or falls — to the occasion.

* * *

Results of my musings, one day later.

I think one movie that captures this scene particularly well is Happy Gillmore, when his “Happy Place” is overrun by the evil forces that are dogging him. You have to appreciate a flick that can make that dark moment so entertaining. So far, my attempts to come up with a lighter scenario have come up empty.

Interestingly, this prompt is a scene that the novel I’m working on right now desperately needs. So there’s the whole two-birds-with-one-stone synergy going on. I’ll be drafting that scene tonight. What’s hanging me up right now is the word ‘unexpected’ in the prompt. I know when I find just the right button to push on the protagonist that it will be really sweet.

I just finished a rough draft of my other candidate and I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. Still needs some work, and this time I’ll pay special attention to accentuating the individuality and unique voice of each character. One thing about this idea – it would be really easy to pitch to a producer. I have a hard time summing up most of my ideas into and “elevator pitch” but this one summarizes so nicely into a shining nugget of marketability that I’m a little hesitant to let it out on its own just yet. We’ll see.

Hope everyone else is doing well!

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Just a quickie while I take a break from work to remind anyone who wants to play along that I will be posting the prompt for round one of the competition here later today. It’s too late to register as an official participant, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play along! If you’re not formally entered you don’t even have to worry about screenplay formatting and all that folderol.

The prompts last time were excellent writing exercises in their own right, so pull up a laptop and play along!

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I had a great time participating in the previous Cyberspace Open. I didn’t make it past the first round but I participated in the second as if I had, just for giggles. Now I’m back to try again, a little wiser this time, a little more savvy about what they’re looking for. Will I be able to separate myself from the crowd, to elevate myself from ‘pretty good’ to ‘awesome’? We’ll see. I think I can.

The contest works like this: In the first round, a premise is published Friday evening. Everyone writes a scene based on the premise, due first thing Monday morning. No pressure! The 100 best screenplays move on. In the second round a new premise is given and participants have but one night to write their scenes. The top ten of those will be given a new premise and two whole hours to turn it into art.

Last time I did ok with the first round, but not well enough to distinguish myself from the pack. I did the second round just for fun, and though it was not judged, some bystanders thought it came out better than my first round’s effort. That may well be; I think my first round script lost some sparkle as I worked on it. I lost the original quirkiness as I polished the language. While writing a scene in a weekend may seem daunting, last year I think it was too much time for me. This time around I will concentrate on increasing the unique character of the scene as I polish the script.

As I did last time, I’ll be posting my work here, along with any observations about the contest in general. One fun side effect of last autumn’s effort was that this blog became, for a short while, a meeting-place for a few participants in the contest. It was an unexpected bonus that made participation all the more fun.

So pencil the weekend of April 17th, grab your word processors and gather ’round the ol’ Muddled Ramblins. It’ll be a hoot!

Or, just drop by to cheer me on.

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I finally got my score back from round one of the Cyberspace Open and I think it’s unlikely that I will be (officially) advancing to the next round.

For reference, you can read my entry here. This is the review in full, with the reviewer’s ID and my email addy redacted:

Total Score–Calculated: [21+20+21+21]
Reviewer ID number:
Writer’s Name: Jerry Seeger
Writer’s Email Address:
Structure Score: 21
Dialogue Score: 20
Style Score: 21
Originality Score: 21
Judge’s Comments: The scene has a nice energy to it throughout, though the action feels a little hackneyed and familiar. The relationship between Tommy and Lenore is interesting but it never really becomes something easy to invest in. The dialogue is a little talky and the writing a bit wordy. Try not to open a scene with a large chunk of description – ugh! Apply the 4 line rule throughout (no more than 4 lines of description at any one time). A slimmed down writing style that shows rather than tells – using as few words as possible – would help to bring out the inherent drama and suspense. Less is often more! Good luck.

I knew some of this criticism was coming; the ‘hackneyed and familiar’ part was the subject of a previous lament in a comment somewhere. I failed to break the two out of the ‘modern Bonnie and Cyde’ mold and give the two their own identities. A pity. The opening wordiness demerit is a bit frustratiing; I had put in extra stuff to set the context of the scene better (in an actual script you’d know about the GTO already, for instance), and normally character descriptions would not happen there. They would have been taken care of long before.

As for the wordy dialog, there’s one phrase, “You got some drivin’ to do,” that I really dislike now, but I think the two are talky people. Once again without context the mercurial conversations don’t make as much sense. It goes back to me doing a better job establishing who these people are in the first few words. I failed at that.

Still, I think it’s a fair score and the comments are things I can definitely learn from as I work on other things.

Will I go on to round two? I have to admit that I’m pretty pessimistic on that front. I expect I’m firmly in the middle of the pack of competent entrants, but I think it’s going to take a little more than that to move on. Only time will tell, however, so keep your digits crossed!

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As the end of judging nears, I still haven’t received my score. Is that a good sign? Does it mean they are holding back the top candidates so they can sort out the best 100 after their first pass? Do they want to announce the winning scores all at once? Or is it that since I submitted a long time before the deadline I’m at the bottom of the virtual pile, unread?

No way to tell.

However, while I can think of positive reasons my score announcement might be delayed, I can’t think of any negative ones — unless they lost my entry, but I think we’d be able to work that out. They’ve been quite reasonable with other folks who have fallen to technical glitches. So: only good reasons for them to delay telling me my score. Most likely they just haven’t got to me yet. No reason to fidget.

Except that I’m a writer, and I’m bound by the Writers’ Code to be neurotic about stuff like this.

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There are still several hours left before the deadline, but, well, I was done, so I submitted my entry. I just saw this message:

Seeing this screen means your entry arrived.

Finally, congratulate yourself for having the courage to say,
“I can create on deadline,” and then doing it. Yay!

There is nothing more to do; my fate is in the hands of the judges now. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed for a top-100 finish. Think positive thoughts and all that crap. I’ll be posting my entry here in a while, but I’m going to reread the rules to make sure it’s OK first.

To the rest of you still working on the challenge: You can do it! Go Team Muddle!

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With nineteen hours before the end of round one in the Cyberspace Open, I’m feeling pretty good about the way it’s going, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. I spent last night working with two of the plots from the list above. I really like the idea with the multiple personality disorders, but try as I might I couldn’t come up with a confrontation scene that could stand alone well enough to not confuse the reader. In an actual movie the viewer would already understand things that someone reading the scene cold would not know. The light of my life had a bunch of great suggestions that make the idea really intriguing, though. I’ll file the idea away for another time, when I’m drinking beers with a producer. Green light by the third round, baby!

Meanwhile, God getting distracted while making the universe will probably end up as a short story. As a scene in a feature film it actually told too much of the story. (Unless God and his rival spend the entire time messing with each other’s universes, until one universe breaks quarantine… hmm.)

Similarly waysided are the demons/aliens/whatevers taking over the Earth. Some fun ideas there, but I never came up with that sparkling moment of conversation that sells a scene. It’s probably better as a short story, too. Finally, protagonist as a criminal is actually based on an idea my sweetie and I hashed out one night which will make a great screenplay someday. I couldn’t get all the pieces right in my head to work it for this competition, though. Later, the title alone will sell it.

In the end, it’s the car chase. I don’t know why, but that’s where my creative juices flowed with the lowest viscosity. Little moments all strung together into something fun (at least, I think it’s fun). Drivin’, shootin’, arguin’, fibbin’. Mortal danger and true love. Outlaws on a two-lane blacktop.

Meanwhile, fuego is over on his side of the Atlantic, writing away. I have no idea what he’s cooking up, but it’s sure to be good. It’s too bad he’ll have to settle for second place.

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The Cyberspace Open has been going for six hours now, and I’ve got some ideas percolating. Round one, which provides an entire weekend to write a scene, may be the most difficult because there is time for over-thinking and over-editing. Then mix in the “I’ve got lots of time, I can watch cartoons” trap and there are plenty of potential pitfalls. I’m not too worried, though. I’ve spent the time since the premise was distributed (see the previous episode) coming up with different approaches. Deception, confrontation, difficult task, and somewhere in the background there’s a bad guy, pulling strings. Not bad.

I’ve spent the last few hours simply brainstorming, coming up with different ideas that are off the beaten track but contain lots of room for drama. Tonight is the night when any idea is a good one. Here are a few I’ve come up with so far, in no particular order. None of them are perfect, but they all have something going for them.

• God is busy creating the universe when his girlfriend comes in to confront him about cheating in the universe-building contest. God has pulled five consecutive all-nighters and just wants to get the damn thing done so he can rest the next day. During the argument he accidentally creates man, or maybe the tree of knowledge. Strongly implied are ensuing hijinks.
• Protagonist is a notorious criminal – her rival (ex-boss?) tips off her boyfriend, who is inconveniently a cop (or the father of kidnapped children?). (She spends a lot of time dealing with the police.) It turns out that this time she is trying to use her skills for good to thwart ex-boss, but that’s going to be a hard sell, (hostages at risk?). Boyfriend is plenty pissed off and not ready to provide any constructive conversation. Perhaps she’s defusing a bomb during the conversation?
• Enemy and love interest are both the same guy – with multiple personality disorder. Enemy persona has been leaving clues for love interest persona to find. Protagonist is trying to hide the truth from the love interest persona while dealing with the enemy persona in a way that won’t harm love interest persona.
• Powerful outsider (demon from hell, alien from outer space, whatever) has been sent to Earth to enslave humanity. All beings in the universe love hot Earth women, though (look it up!). Chance for gender bending since outsider can choose inappropriate disguise. Some swashbuckling Biff-type has tipped off the lovely Tiffany that her BFF is not all she (he/it) appears to be. Good chance for some space opera dialog.
• Bonnie-and-Clyde-style car chase. Bonnie has just broken Clyde out of jail. While the outlaw couple are drivin’ and shootin’, Clyde mentions to Bonnie that the Sheriff told him that Bonnie’s been right friendly with a certain judge. They have to cooperate to get away, but that doesn’t mean they have to be civil about it. The argument and the chase peak when the car breaks down… and they roll to a stop just over a county line — into the jurisdiction of a friendly judge.

And there they are. They range from fairly mainstream stuff that provides a lot of room for style, to the rather ridiculous. I could have sworn there were more; I should have been writing them down all along. If I think of others, I’ll add them here. Most likely the idea I go with is one I haven’t thought of yet.

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The first premise is out:

Cyberspace Open Round 1 Premise

Your PROTAGONIST is in a jam. He (or she) had been relying on deception in order to further his objective, but his ENEMY has figured out the ruse. Write the scene in which your protagonist’s LOVE INTEREST confronts him with this information acquired from the enemy – while in staging it in a tricky or dangerous situation.

Have at it! Pencils down Monday at 9 a.m. Pacific Time.

Wish me luck!

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