Storytelling Made Simple by tdyans |  |
One of the more common questions that I get after people look at my trophy
case is, "How do you win the Storytelling Competition?" Well, I'm not one of the judges, of course, so I can't
offer a foolproof way to win the competition on your first try or anything like
that. But what I can do is offer some tips from my experience that will hopefully
increase your chances of winning and help you to at least improve and have fun
along the way.
First of all, although I don't know the exact process involved in the judging
of entries, I'm convinced that timing is important. After all, the sooner you
get your entry in, the better your chances that NeoPets will receive it before
they've already chosen a winner. They've often already picked the winner hours
before the winning entry gets put up on the site. So, if you're really interested
in the Storytelling Competition, you should keep your eye on the news page every
Monday so that you know when the latest contest starts and can enter as soon
as possible. After you enter the first part, if you don't win, you can keep
entering each time a new part comes out, so you should check back often to see
when it's updated so that you can get each new entry in quickly.
  
Now you have to consider the actual writing of your entry. An important thing
to keep in mind is that many other Neopians will be entering the contest also,
so you need to make your entry interesting and different so that it will stand
out among the flood of other entries. You might try to make your entry exciting,
funny, sad, or scary depending on the particular contest. Use your own judgement
and whatever style seems to come naturally to you in deciding. Often the type
of entry you want to write comes to your mind right away. Other times, you might
not have a clue what kind of story you want to make it. In that case, going
through the list of the different tones your story can have (exciting, funny,
sad, scary, etc.) and thinking about how you would write each one will help
you come up with the one you think is best. It's also nice to end your entry
with a good cliffhanger, something that will leave your readers guessing and
on the edge of their seats, and that will offer a nice challenge for the next
writer.
A great thing that you can do in order to make your entry stand out is to
write something that the reader might not necessarily expect based on the previous
part of the story. One of my favourite examples of this is my entry that won
for the third part in Week
21 of the Storytelling Competition. In the second part of the story,
four pets who are on vacation in Tyrannia see Tyrannian pets running around
in a panic, yelling, "The beast is angry!" One might logically expect that in
the next part of the story, some frightening beast, such as a giant pterodactyl
or the Monoceraptor, would appear, and I'm sure NeoPets probably received many
entries with a scenario similar to this. Instead, however, I made "The Beast
is Angry" into the title of a Sticks N Stones song. I explained that the Tyrannians
were running around screaming it because a local radio station was having a
contest in which the first 102 NeoPets to tell them the name of the song would
receive tickets to a concert. This plot twist was different and unexpected,
and probably helped me to get my first storytelling trophy. Of course, you don't
always have to write the unexpected, but besides being a good way to make your
entry stand out, it's also a fun way to stretch your creative muscles.
Speaking of fun, another thing that you can do to improve your chances of
winning the Storytelling Competition is to practice, and make sure that it's
enjoyable. First of all, entering as often as possible is about as good a way
to get practice as any. But even outside of NeoPets you can hone your storytelling
skills. If you and your friends are ever on a long bus ride or just sitting
around with nothing to do, why not use that opportunity? Just start telling
a story with one or two paragraphs (written or spoken) just like NeoPets does--it's
doesn't have to be about NeoPets if you don't want--and go around your group
of friends, having each person make up another small part of the story. You
can not only dispel your boredom and have a lot of fun making up silly or scary
stories with your friends, but you can be practising as well.
My final advice may be a bit cliché, but it's still vital and true: if at
first you don't succeed, try, try again. Don't be discouraged every time you
don't win. Remember that you're competing against many other players. I entered
more times than I could keep count of before I finally won the Storytelling Competition for the first time. Meanwhile, there are lots of other contests
on NeoPets that I enter all the time and still haven't won at, but I just keep
trying, because I've seen that perseverance pays off. If you want to win the
Storytelling Competition, you have to keep on trying too and just have faith
that if you do, eventually you'll get what you've been working for. In the mean
time, just have fun coming up with the most creative entry you can and take
pride in each one even if it doesn't win. I hope that the tips that I've given
you here have improved your chances of winning and at the very least given you
an appreciation for the creative fun that you can have in just giving it your
best. |
