2018 NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge

Last year I was introduced to NYC Midnight short story challenge. They give you a genre and two other criteria to incorporate into a short story piece. If you write a unique enough piece which follows the necessary pieces then you move on to the next round. There are three or four rounds (I forget now) but I was unable to pass the first round last year. You can see my piece here. It was supposed to be a comedy and I failed miserably at doing that.

This year I entered early for two reasons. One, they were offering $5 off the entry price. Two, I was worried I would chicken out when the time came at the beginning of the year to actually sign up. I had actually forgotten I had signed up and was trying to decide if I even wanted to when I received a reminder email about the event. After searching my email I found the receipt showing I had paid early to enter. Well, I guess I knew what I was doing and knew myself pretty well since I had not planned on entering it at that point.

I figured there was no way I would receive comedy the second year in a row and was ready for what the committee was going to give me. Well, comedy was apparently going to see if I had learned anything over the past year since that is again the genre I was given. The other two pieces being teacher’s assistant and recycling. Those two lend themselves hand in hand actually pretty well, but I keep thinking of making it a social commentary rather than a comedy. I know I can do both, but I have a hard time not making something like this into a drama.

So, I have been doing some research and landed on 10 Ways to Improve Your Writing While Thinking Like a Comedy Writer. I think I may have found it last year since some of it sounded familiar, but the ten ways make a lot of sense in just writing in general. Hopefully, it can help me through this challenge well enough to move on to the next challenge. And hopefully, I will not receive another comedy genre.