The Storytelling Workshop Club held a 24-hour writing challenge this weekend in the Binghamton University Union.

The first six hours of the semesterly writing competition were held from 6 p.m. Friday to midnight Saturday. Students of all years, majors and backgrounds participated in the challenge and competed for the highest word count, working on screenplays, novels, poems and thesis projects. The prize for the six-hour challenge was a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card, while the 24-hour contest winner received a $50 gift card.

“We want to encourage people to write whatever they want,” Sydney Lee, the storytelling workshop liaison and a senior majoring in English, said. “We want to make a comfortable environment for [people] to be able to come in and express themselves [to] each other, as well as on the paper.”

Following the six-hour challenge, Wade Tang, a junior majoring in biomedical engineering, had the highest word count, putting him in first place. He then went on to win the 24-hour challenge with a word count of around 20,000, so Mia DeGeorges, the six-hour challenge runner-up and a sophomore majoring in history, then claimed the 25 dollar first place prize.

“I’ve always enjoyed participating in the writing challenge because it provides an environment for me to really push my passion for writing to the maximum,” Tang wrote. “I’m glad that this challenge exists because it helps me and others to revitalize our creative passion throughout the year. I hope it continues, so others like me can use the challenge to fire up their creative side and inspire them to one day publish a book of their own.”

The six-hour competition stems from the club’s annual writing challenge, NaNoWriMo, a month-long November competition where students aim to write 50,000 words (7). In hopes of keeping the writing spirit alive year-round, and to give writers a designated space to express their creativity, the club decided to hold competitions each semester.

“The people who we have in the club like writing, and whether it be that they don’t have time in the semester or they want to engage in a time where everyone around them is writing […] it is a community,” Lee said. “It’s a great space.”

Students used the time to destress, and the E-Board arranged the room so competitors would solely focus on their writing. Organizers provided students with pizza, chips and refreshments. Competitors were also required to take shorter rest periods and a break halfway at 9 p.m.

“[As we have] gotten more organized and [made] it more of a structured event […] we do shoutouts every hour [with the word counts], and we make sure everyone is on track,” Jeffry Purnomo, the group’s treasurer and a senior majoring in biomedical engineering, said. “We try to have fun with it.”

Unlike the annual NaNoWriMo, there is no official word count goal for this competition. Students set individual goals and some attempted to beat last year’s winner — who, according to Lee and Purnomo, wrote 35,000 words in the emergency room.

The organization will be publishing its Poppy Anthology, a collection of student work across campus, providing an opportunity for students to publish their creative projects and read other’s work, as well. Yaseen Elamrani, a club member and a freshman majoring in English, said that while the competitors are “locked in,” the club and its members’ passion have improved his writing skills.

“[They give you] really good advice about how to publish, [as well as] encouragement,” Yaseen said. “It’s definitely helped with my writing skills, just [to sit] in a workshop and [listen] to people talk about the pieces other people wrote.”

Editor’s Note: Wade Tang is a news contributor for Pipe Dream.