July 2024: Last week, Star of the Sea College’s Writers’ Collective, participated in the national, Write a Book in a Day (WABIAD) competition. A record 6 teams from Years 7 to 12 competed in the 12-hour marathon.
WABIAD challenges students to plan and write a narrative (between 4,000-5,000 words in length) based on parameters provided only hours before kick-off! Each story must be based on five parameters. The parameters are: two human characters, one non-human character, a setting and an issue. The story may include secondary characters and settings, but the parameters are the key components.
To add to the complexity, each team is assigned five random words to be included anywhere in the story. The random words are the same for every team in the competition.
For example, the Year 7 & 8 team, who wrote ‘The Grocery Code’, were provided with the following parameters and random words:
Parameters – Primary Character 1: Judge, Primary Character 2: Explorer, Non-Human Character: Canvas bag, Setting: Greengrocer, Issue: Cracking the code
Random Words – Swept, dazzling, faded, wrinkled and quirky
We encourage our school community to read these incredible stories by clicking on the images above. It is truly amazing to see what can be achieved in a day and we congratulate the students for once again accepting this extraordinary challenge and rising to the top.
Thank you to Chris Pearson, who continues to inspire our wonderful writers and for coordinating this incredible endeavour. Thanks also goes to all the teachers who gave up their time to assist with proofreading and editing.
The six outstanding results must be read to be believed.
Write a Book in a Day is a The Kids’ Cancer Project initiative. It concludes on the 30 September with awards and prizes announced in November.
