Two Ways Contest

Details

There's something to be said for perspective. Especially as authors, how we look at reality often has a big effect on our writing, and it's important to be able to pull back a bit and realize exactly how we're looking at it.

There are all sorts of ways of getting another perspective—you could ask a friend to read your work, or even ask a complete stranger. If you're really strange, you can even post your work to the Internet, and get feedback from a whole bunch of people you don't even know. Seriously though, perspective is important. You don't always need to rely on other people for it, either. Sometimes, approaching your own work from another perspective will do the trick.

Mention of more than one path may call to mind Robert Frost's famous "The Road Not Taken," where the narrator laments that he cannot travel both ways when he comes across a fork in the road. As writers, we don't have the same problem. We can travel both paths, or even more than two paths if necessary. In fact, unless we're very lucky, it's highly unlikely we'll get to a finished piece without a few detours along the way. For the Two Ways contest, we invite you to celebrate paths direct and roundabout, to take pleasure in the views afforded by multiple perspectives.

To enter, write a short story (or essay, or other piece of creative non-fiction) and then re-write the piece as a poem. Alternately, you can write a poem and then re-write it as a piece of fiction, an essay, or piece of creative non-fiction. Regardless of the order you write or present the pieces, please keep your total word-count to 2500 words or fewer. That can be 2400 words of prose and a 100-word poem, or the other way around. It's up to you.

Combining poetry with prose is not a radical idea—in Japan, the "haibun," a genre which contains both an essay and a haiku, has been around since the times of master poet Matsuo Basho in the late 1600s. The very best "dual form" pieces don't just feature a strict revision, but two parts which approach the same content in different manners. Read a few haibun or poetic journals, or take a brief look at William Carlos Williams' Spring and All, and you'll get the idea.

If you've never experimented with dual forms before, the experience can be daunting, but rewarding. You may find that approaching the same subject matter in a more roundabout way opens up surprising shortcuts in the original piece.

(Photo provided under a CC license by Trevor Wright)

Winning entries

Winners have been announced! Log in to see them.

Prizes

Rules

• Your entry must contain a piece of fiction or non-fiction and a piece of poetry. Both pieces together must total no more than 2500 words as counted by Scribophile.

• Entries must be received before midnight on May 31, 2012 (UTC time), and winners will be announced within two weeks of that date.

• Entries will be judged by the Scribophile staff. Decisions are final.

• Only one entry is allowed per member. Multiple entries will all be disqualified.

• Work must have Public visibility on Scribophile until winners are announced.

• Winners must have a valid Paypal account, or we won't be able to send the prize money!

Submission guidelines

• To enter the contest, post your work on Scribophile and check the box that says "Enter this work into the Two Ways contest". Your work will automatically be considered. The checkbox will be visible until the contest deadline, which is in UTC time.

• Entry is free, but you'll need karma points to post your work. You can earn karma points by writing critiques of work by other members.