Contest!
(Note: This is not the contest, which I’ve rescheduled for the summertime. This is just a contest.)
The Scientific American entry spawned a few comments that got me thinking — what if I tried to write the stories that belonged to these headlines? And then — what if you tried to write the stories that belonged to these headlines? And I gave out some prizes?
Let’s do it. Let’s fall in old-timey-writing-followed-by-free-stuff love.
How To Play
Write a story no longer than 500 words based on the headline I’ve selected from the list, in the style of SA at the turn of the last century. Email it to me at sars [at] tomatonation [dot] com by 5 PM ET tomorrow (that’s Thursday April 26); you can paste it into the body of the email or attach a file, but please use the subject line “SA contest.” (And please don’t go over 500 words.) I’ll pick a winner and three honorable mentions, and post them here.
We’re going for an Onion-y type of parody writing here, versus straight fiction.
What You Win
The winner of the first headline contest will receive some Glarkware. Honorable mentioneers will receive the TN swag of their choosing.
The comments field is open for questions and remarks; please don’t post entries there.
And your first headline is…”Kerosene and Spiders.”
Hit it.
Tags: contests writing
Hey,
Are we going for total fiction, or a stab at a faux-factual type article as we would expect from SA?
It should go for the style of SA at that time.
…I’ve updated the entry to make that more explicit.
This is a FABULOUS idea. Is there a place where we can see examples of the SciAm writing style at the turn of the century? I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at the contest, but I need a reference point. Their website only has archived issues going back to 2001. Would this require actually going to a library to see if they have old copies on hand? I don’t think I’d have time for by the Thursday deadline, so any online examples would be awesome. If that’s no possible, hopefully you’re planning on making this an ongoing contest so I can hit the periodicals archive this weekend.
If anybody else is looking for examples of early Scientific American writing, I flailed around for a while and found a few sites. And Sars, when you say “turn of the century,” you mean…1900’s? Yes? Or are you looking for a more 1999-ish style? (I’m one of those people who, during arguments that contained the words “the millenium starts in 2001, dumbass” sat there with a blank expression. “Turn of the century,” same thing.) I’m making this too hard, I know. ANYWAY, for a 1901 article about the NY subway (with pictures!) see here:
http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/sa-1901-tunnel.html
For a 1901 article about a flying machine (I know!) see here:
http://www.deepsky.com/~firstflight/Pages/article1.html
And for a YUGE pile of Scientific American issues from 1846 to 1869 (may be too early, but hey, YUGE) see here:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/browse.journals/scia.html
(Hee, one of the patent notices in the 1869 issue is for a “DESIGN FOR CHAMBER PAILS: This invention relates to an improved design for the form and construction of chamber pails.†Hee hee. Cutting-edge stuff.)
Thanks for the links, Llyzabeth!
…and then I would only read this entry when it’s too late to submit… Dang! Can’t WAIT to read the entries!