Special Activities Pack Edition

Next Gen Headcanon Challenge
Writing School Challenge
Themes and Prompts Galore!
Picture Perfect Challenge
Trivia and Puzzles Galore!

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Next gen Headcanon Challenge by Nerdgirl

This challenge is all about sharing our headcanons with each other, and interacting as a community. There are a few interpretations as to what constitutes next-gen, however for our purposes anything following the Battle of Hogwarts will be accepted. Do keep it within a reasonable limit though – a headcanon about Harry’s great-great-grandaughter is likely to make this difficult.

How to participate:

Share a headcanon you have about next-gen — it could be about a specific character, how the wizarding world changes, or anything in between
Choose a headcanon that has been shared by another student and write a drabble about it. When complete, post it here for everyone to read.

Rules

Normal IWSC rules apply in terms of content and ratings
Word length is 500-900 words
There is no limit to how many headcanons you submit or drabbles you write
More than one person can claim the same headcanon

Writing School – show don’t tell by LuN and TQA

Time for some more of Headmistress Lun’s creative writing tips (with the support of Admin TQA)! This round we are looking at an old classic: Show, don’t tell. Our older students might know this topic from Season 1!

Do you have the feeling that your stories sometimes feel flat and boring even though there are loads of awesome and creative ideas mixed into them?

What you should do is show, don’t tell.

I know, it is an old concept that most of you probably have heard about before. Still, I often hear from fellow writers that they have trouble implementing it, unable to pin down what it is about this rather simple and powerful advice that is so hard to put to good use.

Why is telling so bad?

Telling is a quite efficient way to give the reader a lot of information with as little words as possible. But it loses all emotion and feeling in the process.

Example:

Let me give you an example from CoS that will be eye-opening to you!

When Harry asks Tom Riddle through his diary about the first time the Chamber was opened, Riddle decides that, instead of just telling Harry what has happened, he can show him by taking him into the memory.

Wouldn’t it have been boring if Tom Riddle had written pages and pages just telling us about how Moaning Myrtle had been killed, and how he had accused Hagrid for her death?

This is a clever example to package important information in an engaging way.

But how can you use this?

Reduce your plot to the absolutely necessary!

Make sure your plot is not bursting at the seams, especially when you are working with a word count! If you overload a story that is limited by words or simply by your own stamina as a writer, it will be hard to avoid telling. When writers try to squeeze too much into one story, they often tend to compensate that by glossing over events. Reduce your plot so you have enough space to set the scene, introduce the characters, let emotions play out and, of course, let your action take place.

Let your characters talk in an interaction!

Dialogue often suffers most from telling, and dialogue will help you out of the telling-trap. It forces you to think of the implications of an interaction, how characters react and how exactly they say something. It can help with characterisation and to introduce emotion. But do not let your characters do the telling! That is even worse than using the narrator’s voice.

Use vivid description!

It is important to describe how things happen instead of that they happen. If your character is crying, describe the tears on their face, the sobs they have to gloup back, the heartbreak they feel. If your character is angry, let them scream bloody murder, break something or stalk off while stomping their feet. Let them show their feelings instead of telling us about them.

And last but not least, write action!

You are not a movie director that has to save budget and cut battles short; let events take place! You have all the resources the imagination has to offer. You can blow up a city, you can zoom in on all the details, and you can give insight into intimate moments of your characters in the most remote corners of the world.

Writing School Challenge

Win up to 10 extra points by writing a drabble that will be judged specifically on the aspects of this round’s challenge. These stories are not to be beta’d by another member of your team. The idea is that you learn the rules and beta for yourself, ensuring that there are as few errors as possible.

Find the rules for this challenge in our rules and regulations thread!

For this special edition drabble, we want you to avoid telling at all costs.

Your prompts this round will be focusing on everything that’s inside our own four walls as we stare at them way too much these days. We desperately need to be inspired by the bleakness that is our home!

Prompts:

(object) shower curtain
(action) doing chores
(emotion) cabin fever
(plot point) being locked up
(quote) Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in. – Alan Alda

Themes and prompts by Verity Grahams

This challenge is about doing as many stories during your isolation as possible! I have created three themes, twenty-five prompts, and with that I hope that there are endless possibilities.

Rules and Regulations

Must include at least one theme or prompt
You can submit as often as you like and as many as you like
Any Genre
Ratings up to T
No prewritten or WIP’s allowed
You can combine with any other challenge on FF.net
Crossovers allowed
No incest/graphic violence allowed/descriptions of harm to animals
Can be written as Oneshot, Drabble, Poem or Multi Chapter (no min or max word count)

Theme One – Marauders Era

In my opinion, there can never be enough Marauder stories, and so this challenge is for all the Marauder lovers out there. If you’ve never written a Marauders Era fic before, this is a good place to start.

These can be set Hogwarts years, or after,
Before James and Lily were murdered and Sirius went to Azkaban.
Anything between those dates and Harry getting his first Hogwarts letter.
You have to include a Marauders character
- The Marauders (James, Sirius, Remus and Peter)
- Lily Evans
- Severus Snape
- Mary Mcdonald
- Marlene McKinnon
- Avery
- Mcnair
- Lucius Malfoy
- Any many more – if you are unsure if a character fits into this category, please ask 🙂

Theme Two – Let Slytherin’s Reign

Slytherin’s make some of the most interesting characters. After all, they are rarely what they seem. This theme is all about celebrating our slytherin characters and the attributes that they admire.

Can be set in any era
Your main character must be canonically Slytherin
Must strongly feature one of the slytherin attributes:
- Cunning
- Resourcefulness
- Ambition

Theme Three – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Fantastic Beasts has introduced a whole host of creatures and characters. For this theme you get to dive right in and have some fun with these shiny and new character toys. This theme is really focusing on lovely creatures and the crazy witches and wizards that love them.

Must include a creature from the Fantastic Beasts Book
Should take place in the Grindelwald Era
Does not have to include Fantastic Beasts characters

Prompts:

[spell] – Expecto Patronum
[colour] – Turquoise
[genre] – Hurt and Comfort
[object] – Smelly sock
[first line] – ‘There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.’
[dialogue] – ‘That’s what I do, I drink and I know things.’
[quote] ‘The only time a man can be brave is when he’s afraid.’ – Ned Stark – Game of Thrones
[event] – Hogwarts Graduation
[spell] – Priori Incantatem
[colour] – Black
[genre] – Comedy
[object] – Painting
[first line] – ‘In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.’
[dialogue] – ‘I don’t have dreams, I have goals.’
[quote] ‘Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us dragon’s exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.’ – Neil Gaiman
[plot point] – Wizards Duel
[spell] – Imperio
[colour] – gold
[genre] – Parody
[object] – Muggle Phone
[first line] – ‘Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.’
[dialogue] – ‘Shut up, ____! You lower the IQ of the whole street.’
[quote] – ‘If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.’ – Napoleon Hill
[event] – St Mungo’s charity Ball
[plot point] – Becoming a Death Eater

The picture perfect challenge by Tiggs

In the last edition of the WWN, we had an anonymous drawing of the moderators.

We thought it would be a fun challenge to see what we—the various teams and mods of this forum—would look like drawn by you!

Your challenge is to draw your school team. You can use any style you wish. In particular, we hope to see your particular school uniforms. You are free to do as many as you like; maybe you want to try the other schools too? We can’t wait to see them all!

The Lair of Madam Pince

During the break, Verity will periodically add the links of all your submissions here, that way avid readers can fill their isolation with all your fantastic fanfics!

Trivia and Puzzles by Claire, Lun and Hope

What does the ‘K’ in J. K. Rowling stand for?
What is the name of the person who was flying with Mad-Eye on the night he died?
How many children do Molly and Arthur have?
Where in Hogwarts is the Slytherin common room located?
What is the name of the Weasley twins joke shop?
Who is the ghost of Hufflepuff?
Who played the role of Lord Voldemort in films 4-8?
Who took Fleur of the Yule Ball?
On what date did Lord Voldemort murder James and Lily Potter?
What item of food does Harry smell when he encounters Amortentia for the first time?

	a	b	c	d
1	Next to me are three sisters. The one closest to me is my wife.	At the bottom of this column is the oldest member of the golden trio	The person below me is a traitor. The person next to me is a blood traitor.	I am not Lucius Malfoy.
2	I waited for a very long time.	I outlived the person to my right.	The person below me hid his half brother from the world.	Everyone in this row is a Marauder.
3	My brother is above me.	I am next to my deceased master.	I am a teacher as is the person next to me.	My successor who also was my student is in the cell below me.
4	My previous master is in one of the cells farthest away from mine.	next to me are my head of house and a house elf	To my right is a person sharing my position.	The person I hate the most is in A2.

We also have a bonus puzzle! Check out Headmistress Hopes epic, downloadable, wordsearch!! wordsearch-64faVm7nmK.pdf

Feel free to contribute to other aspects of the paper by sending a private message to the Competition account. We are always looking for pieces of fanart, and even your thoughts or recommendations. Even if you want to send a message to someone in the competition that you think has excelled, or maybe they helped you out? Send it to Aunt Molly! Anything else should be sent to Wizarding School Championship. In the Subject should be Wizarding World News: [Name the section of the paper you are writing about] depending on what you’re messaging about.