Now, for the second year in a row, Northern Attack is once again having a summer Office writing contest. Full details about the contest can be found here: Hiatus Entertainus: We’ve got that covered: A Summer Contest.
If it's anything like last year's contest, it'll be fun coming up with ideas for an entry, it'll be agonizing realizing all the things that could have been better, it'll be fun reading all the great entries, it'll be agonizing realizing how much better they are than mine, it'll be fun looking forward to next year's contest, and of course all the fun & agony that entails.
I submitted my entry for the first week's assignment earlier today, and I already have several small changes I really wish I could make. Unfortunately, editing entries once they're submitted is strictly prohibited, so I can't do that. But, there's nothing stopping me from posting what I wish my entry was here. So here it is in all its edited glory.
Writing Assignment #1: Northern Attackers Make a Scene
Conference room
Michael: Last night after work one of you walked in on me when I thought I was alone and saw something she shouldn't have.
Pam (Talking Head): I had to come back to the office after work last night because I forgot my sketchbook. When I came in I heard "C'mon N' Ride It (The Train)" blaring. Then I turned the corner and saw Michael dancing in his underwear.
Michael (Talking Head): A few weeks ago I got an email from a company offering me the chance to buy a prototype invisibility cloak at a special introductory price. I received it yesterday and tried it out after work. But I must have been using it wrong because Pam came in and she saw me.
Conference room after Michael's explained things to everyone.
Michael: It's only fair that I should get to see Pam in her underwear. And she has to do a little dance.
Kevin nods in agreement
Pam: No. That's ridiculous.
Jim: There's no such thing as an invisibility cloak, Michael. Didn't you realize that when you could still see yourself?
Michael: The instructions said I would be able to see myself since my eyes were under the cloak.
Dwight: Michael, if it makes you feel better you can watch me dance in my underwear.
Michael: Ugh.
Michael shakes his head
Michael: We need an "arbotrator."
Pam looks at Jim for help.
Jim raises his hands near his head and does a little dance move.
Pam smiles.
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In order to better prepare for this year's contest, here are my 8 entries from last year's Northern Attack & Office Tally summer writing contest. Following each of my original entries are some notes on what I think of them now, and what I would have done differently if I could do them over again.
Writing Assignment #1: Create a new office character. Name, occupation, and personality.
Sarah Rogers - Advertising Specialist. Sarah is 28 years old and single. She grew up in Minnesota and went to college at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Since graduating college she has worked at several different jobs around the Northeast. Sarah is hired at the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin to help them reach a more diverse customer base. She has a somewhat quiet presence in the office as she is focused on her work, but outside of the office she is quite energetic and extroverted, especially around friends. She quickly becomes friends with several people in the office including Pam, Jim, and perhaps surprisingly, Creed.
Jim is disappointed that Pam decided to stay with Roy after he finally told her how he felt, although the postponement of their June wedding date has left things unresolved. Eventually he decides he needs to try and move on and asks Sarah out on a date, which she accepts. Between Jim’s enduring feelings for Pam and Sarah’s tendency to move often the relationship is kept from getting too serious, although they both enjoy each other’s company. Pam is glad to see her friend happy but wonders if she made the right decision.
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After the contest was announced and before it started, I thought it was going to be some kind of discussion thing, where there were opinion questions or something about the show and everyone chimed in about something or other. When I saw the first assignment, my expectations for the contest were wildly changed. My main goal was just to write something - anything - so I'd be in the contest and try to do better the following weeks. I think this entry is pretty bland, even though a similar scenario did end up playing out in Season 3 (though without Karen and Creed being close friends, sadly). If I had it to do over again I'd definitely be more adventurous in making my character. And instead of "Sarah Rogers," I'd make it "Megan Albini," daughter of James P. Albini.
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Writing Assignment #2: Pick a character and develop a scenario for how they might have turned out in an alternate universe.
Kevin Malone, LFL Placekicker, 22nd Century
Kevin Malone is the starting placekicker for the Colbert Shredders in the Lunar Football League (LFL). Malone played for the Chappelle Ligers during his first two seasons in the LFL before being traded to the Shredders, where he has played for the past five seasons. He wears jersey number 69, which he has worn for the duration of his career. Malone holds several LFL records, including the record for longest field goal (219 yards).
Prior to his career in the LFL, Malone was a member of the United North American States Navy SEALs. In order to join the SEALs, Malone received several genetic enhancement procedures. This has led some to dispute the legitimacy of the LFL records he holds.
Malone is married to actress Aishwarya Leibowitz, whom he met while vacationing at Hedonism XIII on Mars. Malone had a cameo appearance in a recent holofilm starring Leibowitz, Summer At Greenland Beach, which was a remake of the early 21st century film American Pie 2.
During the off-season Malone is lead vocalist and drummer for LXIX, a Wyld Stallyns tribute band.
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This is my favorite entry that I made for the contest, and there are a ton of things I'd change with it. First, I'd change how it's structured. It's written like a Wikipedia entry or something. I think I'd change it so it was an obituary. Second, I'd have Kevin Malone be traded to the Colbert Shredders from the Chappelle Ligers in exchange for Oscar Martinez, to make clear that my entry was an alternate take on the paper football game (i.e., hateball) that Kevin & Oscar played in Office Olympics. Finally, I'd try to figure out a better way to end it, since I didn't even have an ending, and I'd be sure to use the remaining 11 words I had at my disposal. OfficeAddict's entry for this assignment, which featured a Prohibition era Meredith, was my favorite entry of the whole contest.
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Writing Assignment #3: If you could follow one Dunder-Mifflin employee around on the weekend, who would it be and what do you think you’d witness?
Friday night after work Michael Scott goes to Scranton High for his weekly improv group meeting. When he arrives he finds the group just getting finished. Apparently they changed their meeting time and no one told him. Michael then goes to see a movie, but all that's playing is Over the Hedge, which he already saw. He decides to call it a night and when he gets home he finds the new issue of MAD Magazine in the mail. He reads that until he dozes off to sleep.
On Saturday Michael calls Carole to ask if she and her two kids want to go with him to Claws 'N' Paws that afternoon. They go and everything is going great until Michael gets too close to one of the porcupines and gets a bunch of quills shot into his foot, forcing them to end the trip early.
On Sunday Michael drives to Dickson City to take his mom to church. Afterwards he takes her out to eat at Chuck E. Cheese's. Michael then heads back to Scranton and spends the rest of the day playing poker online so that he'll be prepared for the next time he faces Toby.
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This is another one of my favorite entries from the contest. It's also probably the one I'd make the fewest changes to. In Office Olympics Michael said he subscribed to Cracked, not MAD Magazine. I just got the two mixed-up, and I'd probably change it to Cracked, although I kind of like it how it is, so he reads both magazines. I did a ton of research online for this entry, looking for interesting things from Scranton that I could add to my entry to make it flavorful. I finally decided on Claws 'N' Paws, which is a zoo about a half hour outside of Scranton. I wish, though, that I could have come up with something better to happen there than a trite reimagining of The Injury. And even reading it now, I still think the idea of Michael taking his mom out to eat at Chuck E. Cheese after church is really funny.
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Writing Assignment #4: What new pranks would you like to see Jim pull on Dwight in Season 3?
For Halloween Jim comes to work dressed up as Dwight, complete with the brown suit, dark yellow shirt, gold tie, glasses, and a similar hairdo. When Dwight sees Jim he turns red with anger, which is appropriate, since he is dressed up as a giant beet. Pam finds Jim’s costume too disturbing, though, so she asks him to change. He agrees to change back to plain white Jim over the lunch hour. Before he can go home to change, though, Jim notices that, peculiarly, Angela is continually glancing at him and finding excuses to come talk to him.
When Jim gets back from lunch he sees that Dwight is still gone so he hides a walkie-talkie in Dwight’s desk. Then after Dwight returns, Jim and Pam go to the kitchen area and make strange noises and whisper things into the other walkie-talkie. Before long Dwight becomes convinced that his desk is haunted.
Eventually Dwight finds the walkie-talkie and is outraged. Dwight tries to call corporate to report Jim’s malfeasance, using speed dial. Unfortunately for him, earlier in the day Jim reprogrammed all of Dwight’s speed dial numbers to instead dial a Scranton mental health clinic.
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The somewhat cool thing about this entry is that in the Season 3 episode Product Recall JIM ACTUALLY DID COME TO WORK DRESSED AS DWIGHT!!! To me, that made up for not winning any prizes. Well, almost. I mean, it was an iPod. Anyway, I think my first two pranks are fine, although I'd change some details, but my third one is blah, and I'd scrap it and try to think of something more interesting.
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Writing Assignment #5: Pick a character from the show and write their profile as if it will be used in an online personality test.
You are Dwight Schrute
You are a natural born sidekick. You work hard and perform your job to the best of your abilities. In addition, you often seek out extra work and responsibilities. You consider protecting your boss to be one of your primary duties. You view work as a kind of war, and look down on those who use time at work to socialize or make friends, which you haven't done. You follow nature's law of survival of the fittest and refuse to coddle the weak.
Positive qualities that you pride yourself on include discipline, intensity, strength, punctuality, enthusiasm, and above all else, loyalty. If a situation arises and you must choose between following the rules or being loyal, you will choose loyalty. You try to remain calm and logical whenever possible, although this can be difficult when dealing with what you perceive as incompetence or something threatens your relationship with your boss.
You consider yourself an expert on human behavior, but in actuality you still have a lot to learn. Others are able to take advantage of you because of your gullibility. Your reverence for authority often leads you to take foolish actions.
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The only good thing I can say about this entry is that I like my first sentence. Other than that, I think this entry is total garbage. Giving it an F-- is too generous. Since I like most of my other entries, I like to tell myself that this abomination was the reason I didn't win any of the prizes. Even though others had much better entries for all other writing assignments, singling out the obvious horridness of this one keeps me from appreciating how far down the list I must have been even with my best entries.
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Writing Assignment #6: Besides mung bean sprouts, what else do you think Creed keeps in his desk drawer and why?
Creed’s middle desk drawer contains reading material for times when work is slow because no one needs to be assured of the quality of Dunder Mifflin paper. This includes a copy of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu in Simplified Chinese that he checked out from a Hong Kong public library in 1983 and never returned, a Grand Theft Auto strategy guide, several issues of Warren Ellis’s Planetary comic book, the Summer 1974 issue of High Times, and the weekly menu for St. Francis of Assisi Kitchen.
Creed’s bottom desk drawer contains a disheveled melange of various items. Near the top are some Dundie Awards from past years, including the “Hope You Had Fun Wherever You Were” award, which he won after the time that he didn’t show up to work for two weeks without any prior warning. Then when he returned he acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Other items include a sequined cornflower blue purse, a winning lottery ticket that would have been worth several hundred thousand dollars if only he had remembered to redeem it before it expired in 1998, schematics for a working space elevator, and a bag of oregano.
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I think this entry is decent, as I really like most of the things I came up with. I included the issue of Planetary because Creed Bratton shares a slight resemblance to the main character of Planetary, Elijah Snow:
A short time after I posted this entry I thought of some more things I wish I had included. They were:
-Charlotte Light and Dark by Gareth Feinberg Ph.D.
-Bronze medal from the 1957 hopscotch world championships - he might have won silver or gold if his right foot had 5 toes
-Hat FM baseball cap with built in radio
-Key to safety deposit box, which is empty except for a key to a storage locker, which contains over 3,000 stolen Post-It Note Pads
I'm not sure if I'd use all 4 of these things, but I'd definitely take out the Grand Theft Auto strategy guide (a reference to Creed playing at the arcade in Michael's Birthday), as well as "the weekly menu for St. Francis of Assisi Kitchen" (Scranton's soup kitchen), as I don't really like either of those.
For this entry, more than any other that I'm aware of, it would have been really helpful to know in advance what the two judges, tanster and James, were looking for when judging entries. I thought it would be best to think of mostly plausible things (with the obvious exception of the schematics for a working space elevator). In contrast, the grand prize winner's entry for this assignment was a list of mostly ridiculous things and very unrealistic things (including "8453 Florida ballots from the 2004 Presidential Election" - I'm not sure if having the ballots be from 2004 was a mistake on the writer's part or intentional, and having the ballots be from 4 years after the election when Florida's ballots were so important was the point, that being something Creed would do. Still, ridiculous or not, the grand prize winner's entry was without a doubt extremely creative, so maybe that's what mattered most. To this day I don't know for sure, though, since as far as I know the judges never explained what they judged the entries by, and all we have to go by is by reading and rereading the winning entries.
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Writing Assignment #7: What should Roy do if he ever finds out about The Kiss?
Roy decides to do something unforgettable for Pam to show her that he's serious about saving their relationship. Roy knows that Pam is a big fan of Taylor Hicks, and that in a couple of weeks Hicks is going to be performing at the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes-Barre. Although the show is long sold-out, Roy has a connection, and not only is he able to get tickets for seats near the stage, but also he's able to obtain Hicks's phone number. He calls Hicks to explain his situation and say that it would mean a lot to him if Hicks was able to do something special for Pam at the concert. They go to the concert and as the night progresses, while Pam is clearly enjoying the show, Roy is growing increasingly worried that Hicks forgot about his request. Hicks gets to the end of the set and announces that the next song will be the last one, and that it's dedicated to Pam Beesly, from her fiancé Roy. He then gives a spellbinding performance of "You Are So Beautiful" by Joe Cocker. Pam is overwhelmed, and at least for one night, she forgets about Jim Halpert.
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True story: After I had this idea, I was so worried that someone else would come up with it and submit before I did that I dropped what I was doing and raced to write it up and submit it. Anyway, this entry was definitely my most "out there" one of the contest, and I don't know if it hurt me or helped me. I had several other ideas before this one, including one about Roy going to Poor Richard's to meet Captain Jack to talk about things. Here's the unpolished 457 word rough draft:
Not knowing who else to turn to, Roy calls up Captain Jack and asks him to meet him at Poor Richard's to discuss a personal problem. They meet and over several rounds of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer Roy explains the situation and asks Jack for advice. Jack knows about the documentary that's being filmed, so he says that actions that might normally be reasonable, such as confronting Pam, confronting Jim, or trying to treat Pam better, might not be the best course of action in this case. Instead, he recommends "forming a crisis" in order to win over both Pam and the audience of the documentary with sympathy, so that she will have no choice but to stay with him. Over several more rounds of beer, they decide that Roy will fake an accident on his WaveRunner that will leave him incapacitated enough that will require lots of help, but not so severe that he can't do his job. Jack recommends that Roy meet with a personal injury lawyer to get all the details of the fake injury correct so that it will be convincing as possible. Roy mentions that he drives past a billboard for James P. Albini everyday to work, and Jack says he would be perfect. Satisfied with his plan, Roy orders Jägermeister shots for everyone in the bar. As he's driving home Roy, who is completely inebriated by now, loses control of his truck and crashes into a building, killing him instantly.
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That's too dark for my liking, so that probably partly explains why I was in such a hurry when I came up with the idea I ended up using. But as soon as I submitted my entry I immediately started having second thoughts on whether I should have used the idea I did. I don't think there's any point to picking little things I might have changed, as the only real decision for this entry was to either use this idea or come up with something entirely different. If I had it to do over again I'd probably go for something entirely different, although I don't know what.
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Writing Assignment #8: What song would you most like to hear from Scrantonicity, where, and why?
Michael decides to hold a soirée for representatives of 50 area businesses that used to have their paper supplied by Dunder Mifflin. He hopes that he and the sales staff will be able to convince some of them to once again give their business to Dunder Mifflin. Since there will be too many people to hold the event at Chili’s, it’s instead held in the Station Ballroom at the Radisson. The night includes dinner, business presentations, and entertainment provided by Dunder Mifflin employees.
Lonny from the warehouse does a stand-up comedy routine and he gets a lot of laughs. Creed takes the stage and announces that he’ll be doing some magic. He then requests a $20 bill from the audience which he says he’ll make disappear. Someone gives him one and he makes good on his word by walking off the stage and leaving. It’s silent for a little bit but then everyone starts laughing. The highlight of the entertainment though is Scrantonicity. They perform several songs, the most memorable of which is “Working for the Weekend” by Loverboy. It is quite entertaining to see the usually lethargic Kevin perform such an energetic song.
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For the final writing assignment, I put the most effort into coming up with a scenario where Scrantonicity might play, and comparatively little effort into thinking of the song they'd play, and even less effort coming up with what else happened at the event. If I had it to do over again, I'd definitely spend more time working on the latter 2 things.
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So there are my 8 entries with analysis from last year's Office Tally & Northern Attack writing contest. Realistically, though, the entries of the other contestants, not only those of the 6 who won prizes, but also everyone who entered, were really good, and even if my 8 entries were ones that I was happy with now, I think I'd be lucky to land somewhere in the middle of the pack. Based on the early entries for this year's contest, and considering the vastly different judging system, I'll be lucky if I get 1 vote over the course of the entire contest. Still, like I said at the outset, even without the hope of winning a prize, it's still a lot of fun just to participate.
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