[2003: SEP-OCT] Writing Challenge

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

I think it's time we started some writing contests. I don't know what the winner will get -- but it'll be something!

Guidelines:

To participate, create a new thread. The subject of the thread must be the title of your story. If it is a Work In Progress, denote that with the heart post icon. If your work is complete, use the horizontal arrow post icon.

Your work must be entirely your own. No co-authoring.

You are welcome to create any character you so desire, but they must be from the Star Trek universe. No "canon" characters allowed. (i.e.- No one who has been on a show.)

Challenge: Death

Your story should be about someone who is facing death in any form.

Length: No more than 3000 words accepted.

Beginning Date: Wednesday, September 24th.

Ending Date: Friday, October 31st.

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

We're getting close to the end of this challenge. Anyone else?

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

From our judges, J. Frink, and R. Bejain!:

This was an extremely difficult task for we Lieutenant Commanders. I mean, run a ship, fire on Cardassians, discipline drunken crewmen, send an away team to almost certain death, that stuff’s fine. But read six such excellent sims and choose the best one? Whew! That’s a doozy. But setting with coffee down one morning (in Australia) and beer one afternoon (in Pennsylvania), Lieutenant Commander Rhys and Lieutenant Commander Frink attempted to do just that.

And the winner is (cue drum roll)

Steven Spielberg for Schindler’s List. Get up here, Steven…

Oh hang, on, maybe I’m at the wrong ceremony

The winner is Idril Mar for her “In Service to the Emperor”. We’ve also “The Logical Conclusion of Life” by Akino Janaar as the runner up. But, we’d like to emphasize that all the contestants did a superb job and it was extremely hard to judge this contest.

Both judges were extremely pleased with Mar’s use of a little known Trek species, the T’Kon , in her entry. Though we knew very little about them, Mar’s immediately sucked us in, relying on her skills as a writer rather then our understanding of who this species was. This story was short and to the point, but we sensed a larger plot at work here. Short stories are often harder to write, as the constraints of space limit how much information a writer can transit to the reader. Still, while we still don’t know much about the T’Kan, through Mar’s work we want to learn more. With only a small amount of words to work with, Mar created a great sense of time, place and emotion which allowed us to be intrigued by and sympathize with the main character. Although her entry wasn’t explicitly about death, we felt the sorrow her character felt as well as the urgent struggle to preserve his race in the f ace of possible extinction. Well done, Idril!

Janaar, “The Logical Conclusion of Life” was really an excellent piece of work, filling in a gap in (presumably) Sarek’s and Amanda’s life which the Trek canon people felt compelled to omit. Though I like how you never actually make it clear who the two are. Nice touch.

In fact, our erstwhile judges took a while to decide on who to award the prize to, and in the end, (to paraphrase a well-known movie) there can be only one. Well done, Idril and Akino.

The winner and runner-up both get mini-banners for their forum sigs, and the Idril Mar gets a banner to be placed on her ship's website.

Thank you everyone who participated -- check back here in January for the next challenge!