Bangladesh Creative Writing Olympiad (BCWO)

Selection Round – Sample Format & Task Design


Purpose of the Selection Round

The selection round of the Bangladesh Creative Writing Olympiad (BCWO) is designed to discover writers who think deeply, feel intensely, and write authentically. This round is not about memorisation or MCQs ... it is about creative power, philosophical depth, emotional intelligence, originality, and voice.

Participants will be given one or more short stories and a set of open-ended creative tasks. They will have 48 hours to submit their responses.

These tasks are designed to:


    Format of the Selection Round


   Sample Story (Excerpt) (ENG)

(This is only a sample. Actual selection rounds will include different stories.)

Murray: “Is this Heaven?”


Voice: “This is no place as you understand place.”


Murray: “Pardon me if I sound like a jackass. Are you God?”


Voice: “Strangely, I am always asked that in, of course, an infinite number of ways. There is no answer I can give that you would comprehend. I ... am' – which is all that I can say significantly, and you may cover that with any word or concept you please.”


Murray: “And what am I? A soul? Or am I only personified existence too?”


Voice: “You are easy to explain – even to you. You may call yourself a soul if that pleases you, but what you are is a nexus of electromagnetic forces, so arranged that all the interconnections and interrelationships are exactly imitative of those of your brain in your Universe-existence – down to the smallest detail. Therefore, you have your capacity for thought, your memories, your personality. It still seems to you that you are you.”


Murray: “You mean the essence of my brain was permanent?”


Voice: “Not at all. There is nothing about you that is permanent except what I choose to make so. I formed the nexus. I constructed it while you had physical existence and adjusted it to the moment when the existence failed.”


Voice: “An intricate but entirely precise construction. I could, of course, do it for every human being on your world, but I am pleased that I do not. There is pleasure in the selection.”


Murray: “You choose very few, then?”


Voice: “Very few.”


Murray: “And what happens to the rest?”


Voice: “Oblivion! – Oh, of course, you imagine a Hell.”


Murray: “ I do not. It is spoken of. Still, I would scarcely have thought I was virtuous enough to have attracted your attention as one of the Elect.”


Voice: “Virtuous? – Ah, I see what you mean. It is troublesome to have to force my thinking small enough to permeate yours. No, I have chosen you for your capacity for thought, as I choose others, in quadrillions, from all the intelligent species of the Universe.”


Murray: “Do you choose them all yourself, or are there others like you?”


Voice: “Whether or not there are others is irrelevant to you. This Universe is mine, and mine alone. It is my invention, my construction, intended for my purpose alone.”


Murray: “And yet with quadrillions of nexi you have formed, you spend time with me? Am I that important?”


Voice: “You are not important at all. I am also with others in a way which, to your perception, would seem simultaneous.”


Murray: “And yet you are one?”


Voice: “You seek to trap me into an inconsistency. If you were an amoeba who could consider individuality only in connection with single cells and if you were to ask a sperm whale, made up of thirty quadrillion cells, whether it was one or many, how could the sperm whale answer in a way that would be comprehensible to the amoeba?”


Murray: “I’ll think about it. It may become comprehensible.”


Voice: “Exactly. That is your function. You will think.”


Murray: “To what end? You already know everything, I suppose.”


Voice: “Even if I knew everything, I could not know that I know everything.”


Murray: “That sounds like a bit of Eastern philosophy – something that sounds profound precisely because it has no meaning.”


Voice: “You have promised. You answer my paradox with a paradox – except that mine is not a paradox. Consider. I have existed eternally, but what does that mean? It means I cannot remember having come into existence. If I could, I would not have existed eternally. If I cannot remember having come into existence, then there is at least one thing – the nature of my coming into existence – that I do not know.


Then, too, although what I know is infinite, it is also true that what there is to know is infinite, and how can I be sure that both infinities are equal? The infinity of potential knowledge may be infinitely greater than the infinity of my actual knowledge. Here is a simple example: If I knew every one of the even integers, I would know an infinite number of items, and yet I would still not know a single odd integer.”



Murray: “But the odd integers can be derived. If you divide every even integer in the entire infinite series by two, you will get another infinite series which will contain within it the infinite series of odd integers.”


Voice: “You have the idea. I am pleased. It will be your task to find other such ways, far more difficult ones, from the known to the not-yet-known. You have your memories. You will remember all the data you have ever collected or learned, or that you have or will deduce from that data. If necessary, you will be allowed to learn what additional data you will consider relevant to the problems you set yourself.”


Murray: “Could you not do all that for yourself?”


Voice: “I can, but it is more interesting this way. I constructed the Universe to have more facts to deal with. I inserted the uncertainty principle, entropy, and other randomisation factors to make the whole not instantly obvious. It has worked well, for it has amused me throughout its entire existence.


I then allowed complexities that produced first life and then intelligence, and use it as a source for a research team, not because I need the aid, but because it would introduce a new random factor. I found I could not predict the next interesting piece of knowledge gained, where it would come from, or by what means derived.”


Murray: “Does that ever happen?”


Voice: “Certainly. A century doesn’t pass in which some interesting item doesn’t appear somewhere.”


Murray: “Something that you could have thought of yourself, but had not done so yet?”


Voice: “Yes.”


Murray: “Do you actually think there’s a chance of 'my' obliging you in this manner?”


Voice: “In the next century? Virtually none. In the long run, though, your success is certain, since you will be engaged eternally.”


Murray: “I will be thinking through eternity? Forever?”


Voice: “Yes.”


Murray: “To what end?”


Voice: “I have told you. To find new knowledge.”


Murray: “But beyond that. For what purpose am I to find new knowledge?”


Voice: “It was what you did in your Universe-bound life. What was its purpose then?”


Murray: “To gain new knowledge that only I could gain. To receive the praise of my fellows. To feel the satisfaction of accomplishment, knowing that I had only a short time allotted to me for the purpose. – Now I would gain only what you could gain yourself if you wished to take a small bit of trouble. You cannot praise me; you can only be amused. And there is no credit or satisfaction in accomplishment when I have all eternity to do it in.”


Voice: “And you do not find thought and discovery worthwhile in itself? You do not find it requiring no further purpose?”


Murray: “For a finite time, yes. Not for all eternity.”


Voice: “I see your point. Nevertheless, you have no choice.”


Murray: “You say I am to think. You cannot make me do so.”


Voice: “I do not wish to constrain you directly. I will not need to. Since you can do nothing but think, you will think. You do not know how not to think.”


Murray: “Then I will give myself a goal. I will invent a purpose.”


Voice: “That you can certainly do.”


Murray: “I have already found a purpose.”


Voice: “May I know what it is?”


Murray: “You know already. I know we are not speaking ordinarily. You adjust my nexus in such a way that I believe I hear you and I believe I speak, but you transfer thoughts to me and from me directly. And when my nexus changes with my thoughts, you are at once aware of them and do not need my voluntary transmission.”


Voice: “You are surprisingly correct. I am pleased. – But it also pleases me to have you tell me your thoughts voluntarily.”


Murray: “Then I will tell you. The purpose of my thinking will be to discover a way to disrupt this nexus of me that you have created. I do not want to think for no purpose but to amuse you. I do not want to think forever to amuse you. I do not want to exist forever to amuse you. All my thinking will be directed toward ending the nexus. 'That' would amuse 'me' .”


Voice: “I have no objection to that. Even concentrated thought on ending your own existence may, in spite of you, come up with something new and interesting. And, of course, if you succeed in this suicide attempt, you will have accomplished nothing, for I would instantly reconstruct you and in such a way as to make your method of suicide impossible. And if you found another and still more subtle fashion of disrupting yourself, I would reconstruct you with that possibility eliminated, and so on. It could be an interesting game, but you will nevertheless exist eternally. It is my will.”


Murray: “Am I in Hell then, after all? You have implied there is none, but if this were Hell, you would lie to us as part of the game of Hell.”


Voice: “In that case, of what use is it to assure you that you are not in Hell? Nevertheless, I assure you. There is neither Heaven nor Hell. There is only me.”


Murray: “Consider, then, that my thoughts may be useless to you. If I come up with nothing useful, will it not be worth your while to – disassemble me and take no further trouble with me?”


Voice: “As a reward? You want Nirvana as the prize of failure, and you intend to assure me failure? There is no bargain there. You will not fail. With all eternity before you, you cannot avoid having at least one interesting thought, however hard you try against it.”


Murray: “Then I will create another purpose for myself. I will not try to destroy myself. I will set it as my goal to humiliate you. I will think of something you have not only never thought of but never could think of. I will think of the last answer, beyond which there is no knowledge further.”


Voice: “You do not understand the nature of the infinite. There may be things I have not yet troubled to know. There cannot be anything I cannot know.”


Murray: “You cannot know your beginning. You have said so. Therefore, you cannot know your end. Very well, then. That will be my purpose, and that will be the last answer. I will not destroy myself. I will destroy 'you' – if you do not destroy me first.”


Voice: “Ah! You come to that in rather less than average time. I would have thought it would have taken you longer. There is not one of those I have with me in this existence of perfect and eternal thought that does not have the ambition of destroying me. It cannot be done.”


Murray: “I have all eternity to think of a way of destroying you.”


Voice: “Then do so.”


[This story is taken from the last answer by Isaac Asimov]

Sample Tasks Based on the Story

Task 1: Creative Continuation

Write a short story in the same genre and philosophical tone as the given story.

You may:

There are no word limits ... quality matters more than length.


Task 2: Philosophical Dialogue

Write a conversation between you and the protagonist of the story.

Explore:

Make it personal, deep, and honest.


Task 3: Analytical Interpretation

Explain what you believe the author is trying to convey through this story.

You may discuss:

Support your ideas with reasoning ... not summaries.


Task 4: Inner Voice Challenge (Optional in some rounds)

Write a piece where the protagonist’s inner voice argues with their external reality.

This can be:


Task 5: Personal Reflection (Optional)

How did this story affect your worldview, fears, or hopes?

Write honestly. This is about emotional intelligence, not literary polish.