Let's complete some mysterious fragments! (A Harris Burdick Thread)

Oh yes. Another fun writing project. Sort-of suggested by Feo! But I don't think this one's going to be a contest. Not yet, anyway.

First off, necessary background information:

This thread is based around a book by Chris van Allsburg called The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. It is one of my favorite books of all time; not because of its writing or its story (because they don't exist), but its potential. For those who are not familiar with it: The book consists of a series of thirteen illustrations, each one accompanies by a title and a line or two of text. Each picture is different, as is each title and caption. The book provides nothing more on each one, save some backstory in the book's introduction: The illustrations were given to the author by the titular Harris Burdick, who then mysteriously vanished without ever giving him the completed stories.

It's impossible not to look at the images and get ideas. Stephen King even published a short story based on them!

Here they are. My idea: To have Tropers write a story for each one of the pictures.

However, I have additional ideas to go with it:

• Only one Troper may claim an image at a time. That provides some incentive for each troper to participate, unlike with the writing contests.
• There should be certain recurring threads through each story, so that they come together to make a larger whole. A story made up of stories, so to speak.

Anyone else think this sounds like fun? If so, I'll start a signup list and we can start discussing what theme should run through the stories.

And people actually bought this book? If you'll pay for a few photos with cryptic captions, I can write some code to generate them for you at random. For a little extra, I'll screen the output by hand so they don't accidentally make sense.

I have no idea what you're saying, bt if you're not interested in participating, don't make useless posts.

This looks interesting...the UNDER THE RUG one has potential.

-puts thread low on already piling-up priority list-

That doesn't mean I won't do it, I may forget about it though. I just need to finish my rough draft before considering any other projects.

edited 6th Aug '11 11:10:53 AM by chihuahua0

That... sounds pretty interesting, I guess. Though, when you said captions, I imagined a paragraph, not a sentence. But anyway, it can get me write something, so why not. I'm in.

...holy crap!

edited 6th Aug '11 11:56:38 AM by Dealan

*eyebrows* You're... mocking me, aren't you?

To make up for my gaffe, I'm willing to join in the festivities. Just one question. Where can we find the signup sheet? In this thread? I haven't done one of these Troper contests before.

For a theme, I'd go with childish wonder overcoming suspicion. In several of the pictures, it looks like there is some sort of threat, while in others there are children discovering something.

For an additional degree of difficulty, how about mandating that the text be used as the last line of the story?

I think they mean that the stories should have plot points that run through them and stitching them to a larger, unexplained story or world. And I freaking loved these pictures when I was younger.

Yep, like that.

And it's not a contest, just a project. The singup sheet will be in this thread, if enough people display interest.