In celebration of reaching 150% funding on THE SKULL & LAUREL Kickstarter campaign, S&L Editor Cameron Howard is running an exquisite corpse, a collaborative storytelling game. Sign ups are open now; read on for details.
WHAT IS THE EXQUISITE CORPSE?
The exquisite corpse is an old parlor game in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, then pass it to the next player to continue. The purpose of the game is to write a collaborative story despite only being given the previous player's contribution.
Exquisite corpse stories can be surprisingly cohesive under the circumstances, with some suggesting that the uncanny connectivity represents a collective muse or some form of unconscious communication between the artists. The name is derived from a phrase that resulted when surrealists first played the game, "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau." (The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.)
HOW IT WORKS
The story's genre and POV will be predetermined, and a single, one-sentence prompt—upon which the story need only be loosely based—will be provided (everyone is given the same prompt).
The game will be played in ten rounds, with players competing each round to write the best continuation of the story. Competitors will only be provided the winning submission from the previous round, so that no player will know the full context of the story as it unfolds.
Each player's submission will consist of two paragraphs, between 50 and 150 words. Players will be randomly distributed and split as evenly as possible per round, and each player will only have one chance to contribute to the story. Each player will be given 24 hours to write their submission once their assigned round begins.
Players should be mindful of how their part of the story interacts with the whole; your piece is all the next writer will have to go off of, and likewise, your reaction to the previous writer's contribution will be the only trace that remains of what transpired before.
While we will accept almost any ripple a player may introduce with their contribution to the story, low-effort submissions or those that attempt to purposefully disrupt the story or troll the following players will be rejected at our discretion.
Once a winning submission has been selected for each round, the story will be assembled and posted on the Tenebrous Press social media accounts. The full story will also be published in the first issue of THE SKULL & LAUREL.
Winning players will be paid a token payment of $5 for their submission and offered a 100-word space on the credits page that follows, which they may use to promote their book/a charity of their choice/compliment their dog/whatever they like.
DETAILS FOR THIS EXQUISITE CORPSE EVENT
Genre: Weird horror
POV: Second person
Prompt: You see a dog at the end of an alleyway, and something unusual comes out of its mouth.
SIGN UPS ARE OPEN
To sign up to participate in the exquisite corpse, send an email to tenebrouspress.mag@gmail.com with the words “exquisite corpse” in the subject line. Feel free to ask any questions you may have about the event as well.
Sign ups will be open until March 30th 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, at which point the first round will begin.
