Discussion summary
A writing contest challenged participants to craft 1,000 words based on an uninteresting picture, sparking varied opinions on creativity and contest logistics.
What the discussion says
- Some see it as a fun, creative challenge to write about uninteresting images.
- Others question the cost and practicality of reviewing thousands of submissions.
“Anyone can write about interesting pictures, but can you make an uninteresting one interesting?”
“It's just someone having fun and creating a challenge for others.”
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- Hacker News
- I used to exercise, by writing “mini-sagas.”
50 words exactly.
Got the idea from Dan Pink, although he didn’t invent it.
- Here is my contribution, titled "The human zoo": https://gist.github.com/Essenceia/c54a8d8fe0d693f96fb7c036f2...by random__duck
- I am partially worried of discovering that writing a 1000 words is actually much harder for me now than it was when I was 13.by random__duck
- probably for a lot of people, AI has been degrading our skillsby PcChip
- A lot of people will view this as the decline of creative power in adulthood, but I actually think it's just a sign of maturity. Writing a lot of words when you are thirteen is easier for multiple reasons:
- You know less about the world, so bullshitting is easier because you don't know, and maybe don't care about the truth as much (in many senses, ranging from ensuring you aren't spreading misinformation in a nonfiction text to ensuring your fictional work has some plausibility) - It's easier to write a lot when you don't care about reading time. When you mature, you appreciate the preciousness of time, and understand that less is often more when it comes to written communication. - Your increased knowledge can also create a kind of analysis paralysis or associative fan effect on the brain that's fatiguing. Again, the curse of knowledge as an adult might actually make it harder to start something even though you have more "raw material" to work with (I personally think this is part of the reason a lot of artists stress "beginner's mind" so strongly (another huge component of it being open to randomness and happy accidents, or course)).
by voidhorse - Sounds kind of like they are spending $1500 on an email list of people interested in creative writing, plus gaining writing samples.by moron4hire
- There are A LOT of cheaper ways to get some writing samples on the internet. This is just someone having fun, and creating an interesting challenge for others to have fun with.by msm_
- > Does it have to be 1,000 words?
> Yes. That’s what a picture is worth, after all.
Not to be pedantic but does this mean "1,000 words or fewer," "at least 1,000 words," or "exactly 1,000 words?"
I'm asking because with school assignments the number is usually a lower bound, but with writing contests it's often an upper bound (sometimes even a fuzzy limit).
by kmoser - if it's not exactly 1000 words, then no skill is involved and the writers may as well be published by Penguin or HarperColins or something.by ko_lqc
- Took the bait and sent them my email to apply because, in the page linked, they would "send you the instructions" to it.
But no, no exact definition of what they mean for "1000 words" - wether if it's minimum 1000 words or what, or how are they counting those 1000 words - throwing everything to a Word doc? a parsing script? Will they count things like an "I" or an "a" as a whole word?
I'm thinking about giving this a try, though, but not being pretty clear about that rule seems quite odd.
by Gualdrapo - "Does it have to be 1,000 words?
Yes. That’s what a picture is worth, after all. Your entry must be exactly 1,000 words, not including the title (if you choose to write one)."
by bjourne - Looking forward to some writing assignments. Like in school. Sometimes I miss that in my day to day job. Using just human intelligence. Or maybe "dog intelligence" ;-)by tom1337890
- It really depends on what a word is...
If a WORD is 16-32 bits, you could pack in quite a lot. If a word is a Unicode word, that's even more bytes. Or you could do this in German and go nuts.
by avaer - they say "a picture" is worth thousand words....not every picture....certainly not this one. fun idea but the choice of picture is dubious, but hey its not my money on the line.
- Curious if allowing AI-based submissions was because there is no reliable way of filtering this out 100%? Would have loved to read these submissions in search of some stellar non-ai writing.by ingvay7
- That is a very good point, such a rule would place a huge burden on the organizers.by random__duck
- Here's mine: https://gist.github.com/nvlled/45b60884523cb48029686c50d0719...
It ended up kind of weird, but it was fun writing it. The organizer should suggest what programs to use for word counting, since different programs slightly give different counts. I used vim to write but used google docs to check word count and spellings.
by nvlled - For all the people asking whether or not it is exactly a thousand words or only more or less than that, I think it is very plain from the content. For example:
> "Write 1,000 words about it"
> "you are writing the definitive 1,000 words for this photo. Make them count."
> "Does it have to be 1,000 words? Yes...Your entry must be exactly 1,000 words"
It also says that the prize is $1,000, and there's 1 picture - but I haven't seen anyone asking whether each of those is an upper or lower bound!
- Very fun!
I submitted this more 'nonfiction-y' entry:
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/gregsadetsky/08b6cdd56902...
It looks like it's only one entry per person, so I'm playing fair and not submitting this second entry, which encodes a compressed version of the image using a 128 word dictionary (ie each word encodes 7 bits).
The explanation + the dictionary + the encoded image result in 1000 words.
https://gist.github.com/gregsadetsky/97ac9c8efe9c2a9f08c9cfe...
by gregsadetsky - I read your nonfiction entry, my thoughts where somewhere along the line of "well this escalated quickly".by random__duck