Inventive Law Office names...bravo!

Getting into the challenge of reading the current Picture Challenge stories & I just had to comment on the great names our authors have found for the lawyers handling the various wills. Great fun. Good going.

Naughty Pet

Yes, but I also have extra admiration (and extra points) for those few with enough imagination to write an excellent story springing from that picture without including a solicitor's office scene, or even a lawyer.

Originality and novelty were definitely challenges on this one. In fact, in my scoring, it was at the top of the list. Anyone who could avoid the plot canard of the scene in the lawyer's office with the lawyer telling the spoiled heiress that she gets the inheritance if she takes her punishment got extra points.

I agree. While some excellent stories are based on roughly that premise, it's quite familiar from other stories (don't ask me to name them, but I've read a few) and it's the obvious, easy route to follow given that picture, so clever variations, provided the impressive document is still central to the story, deserve credit.

That's a good point. If this were a professionally judged contest, a major factor would be just how well the picture integrated into the story. But here, I think, more people just care whether the story pushes certain buttons and the picture can be peripheral.

Do you think it is vital to the scoring that the scroll is actually described in the story, or more that the story hinges around the fact that someone inherits something from someone's Will? I tended to base my votes on the latter and, of course, gave extra points for originality and being an enjoyable read. Hopefully, I didn't break any rules here, as not all of my favourites described the Will in great detail.

As a probably unsuccessful author, I am at a loss to understand how you can write a story without referring to the picture that you are supposed to base the story on.

I'm with jools here. My assumption was that the picture was to inspire a story about an inheritance, not necessarily requiring a scroll like the one in the picture. But if I was wrong, it wasn't the first time and I'm quite sure it won't be the last.

Well, the instructions state:

quote:

Please write a spanking story based on your interpretation of the picture below.

Unquote

Which is simply an act of interpreting or explaining something heard, said, or seen. It doesn't mean describing the scroll as pictured. I'm not giving points on describing because there are a lot of good stories there that don't. Why open a can of worms?

Worms can be tasty, with the proper sauce.

But in other ways, I agree with bendover and others. I don't really care if the picture is exactly described, as long as the story is well written. And more points for creativity and original thought. So far - and I still have about 15 stories to read - I've only found one instance in which a will isn't a significant item in the story. But even THAT story - in which I found that the mention of the will was more incidental than necessary - was a good read.

I'd rather an author go beyond the literal and into the unusual, rather than sticking to the black and white.