Tutor Writing Challenge! [August]

How does it work? That's simple! Every month, the tutor team will be posting a challenge where you, the members, may submit your writing for a chance to win! Each month, the prompts will be different. Some may be based on pictures, some may be based on situations, some will ask you to refrain from using key words, and some will give you words you have to use! But they will each be designed to test you and, hopefully, allow you to step a bit outside of your comfort zone and try new things. We want to push you as a writer and a creator. Think you can handle a little challenge?

You will need to post your submission down below. Submissions should be new for the event, not repurposed posts. Please try to keep your post concise, but not to the point of detriment. If it feels necessary to leave in that's fine, but if you wish to take your writing further you may create a thread in the AU Roleplay Board and link us to it in addition to your actual submission. This is optional and will not negatively affect your chances of winning if you choose not to do so.

Next, the tutor team will read each submission and deliberate until they've selected a winner, who will be announced publicly!

But wait, what if the opportunity to push your creative boundaries isn't incentive enough? Well! The winner each month will have $500 in site cash added to their account!

The theme for this month:

Don't Say What You Mean

Here on the site, so many posts hinge on pure emotion. Be it iconic moments of love and friendship, of hatred and revenge, or subtler things in between — much of the time we build our stories up from the perspectives of people who have just met and have no shared history together. The complexity of their feelings depends on the way we present each small moment and their personal interpretation of events, for better or for worse.

This month's challenge is to choose an emotional state to describe without directly saying what it is, as if presenting a mystery story for the reader to solve. There can be bits and pieces of small inner feelings laid out as clues or interactions with other characters to set the scene, but the goal is to stay focused on all of the understated, minor details of a story that come together to show the reader what the bigger picture is, rather than directly telling them. Like any good mystery story, ideally there should be a twist to really throw a wrench in things. Maybe the characters say the opposite of what they actually mean or are in denial to themselves about their own feelings. Maybe they're caught in a catch-22 and what should be a good feeling for them has a negative implication for someone else. Great! Make a mess of things! I dare you not to simply avoid using giveaway words and straightforward explanations, but to make the reader delightfully surprised by the reveal of the conclusion.

You have until 11:59pm CDT on 15 August to submit yours below, and then the Tutors will announce a winner on the 20th! Good luck have fun!