The Friday Challenge: September 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

The Friday Challenge — 9/30/2011

This week in The Friday Challenge:

STUPEFYING STORIES wil launch in T-minus (Really? We're that close?!!) hours, and counting. • Join the discussion...

Henry Vogel uses a ~13.46:1 ratio, to analyze 78 words. • Join the discussion...

Bruce Bethke expresses his appreciation for thought-provoking scientific accuracy in televised programming. • Join the discussion...

Kersley Fitzgerald diversifies her expertise. (“Can we get someone to write an article on ‘diversified expertise’?”) • Join the discussion...

Henry Vogel shares a link to The Rule of Three, an online writing contest. • Join the discussion...

Henry also wins our 78 R.P.M. (Rejections per Manuscript) challenge! Technically, this disqualifies him from the Esquire contest. Congratulations? • Join the discussion...

All this and more, as Arisia reminds M about the importance of International Coffee Day (also known as "Confucius Day" in some parts of the world), and the inmates discuss the view from their respective places in the asylum.

Where Have All the Yahoos Gone?

As of this morning, we have received the following entries for our current challenge (listed in their order of appearance within Files > Friday Challenge 2011 09 30, or linked if posted as a blog/comment):

An enthusiastic “Huzzah” to all who have entered! The judges are considering your submissions, and a winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 2 October 2011.

You're the Editor

And now it is time for this week's Friday Challenge, courtesy of Henry:

Congratulations, you're the new editor of Astounding Stories of Amazement, a premiere science fiction magazine. The publisher, who doesn't believe in electronic submissions, loved your gung ho willingness to read every last word of every single story in the slush pile. You settle into your chair on day one and reach for the first story. You read every last cringe-worthy word in the poorly written story. With relief, you toss a form rejection letter on top of the story, stuff it in its return envelope, and turn to the next story in the slush pile. Surely, you think, this story will be better. It isn't. In fact, in some ways it's worse. It gets the form letter rejection, too. As does the next story. And the next. And the one after that. You find yourself wishing for stories which are merely bad. Finally, you work your way down to the last story in today's slush pile. You take a quick look at the cover letter for the last story and simply snap.

Editor,

I can't believe Astounding Stories of Amazement hired a hack like you to edit their fine magazine! Seriously, what was the publishing thinking? The publisher didn't even call me in for an interview even though it's obvious I would do a better job editing the magazine than someone like you. I am bitter, no doubt about it, but am willing to throw you a bone anyway; my finest story! Much as I despise the publisher's taste in editors, the magazine's readers deserve the chance to read this story. You will find it contains every single element required to make a story truly great. In fact, you should go ahead and send the check now and read the story later.

I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Everett Hopkins

Against your will, you begin to read the story. Hopkins was right about one thing; he threw virtually every possible science fiction element into his story and then some. It's got space opera, cyberpunk, steampunk, time travel, laser swords, beautiful, large-breasted women hanging on the arms of the strong-jawed heroes, an Adam and Eve side story, swordplay, gun fights, and fist fights. The villains are pure evil with cackling laughs. The heroes are incorruptible and always brave and noble in the face of certain death.

This story is the last straw. Instead of reaching for the stack of form rejection letters, you reach for your keyboard. Everett Hopkins is about to get his very first personal — extremely personal — rejection letter from an editor. Your challenge is to write that rejection letter. Be as sarcastic, snarky, mean, cutting, and scathing as you feel like. Just make sure Everett Hopkins has no illusions of your opinion of his story and, if you wish, Everett himself.

You are not bound by my description of Hopkins' story. If you prefer to envision another steaming pile of science fiction clichés, go for it.

Anyone can enter, except for Henry. You may enter as many times as you wish, but each entry must be independent of the others. Your entry must be scathing. There is no limit on length, aside from the depth of your own invective.

Everyone is asked to vote, and to say a few words about what they liked, and why. Or to say a few words about what they disliked, as the case may be; by submitting an entry, you implicitly agree to accept criticism, because there will probably be some handed out, and no one is immune. When voting, please rank a work as either “0” (not so good), “1” (not as bad), “2” (could have been better) or “3” (pretty good stuff!). If you give either a “0” or “3” vote, feel free to argue in support of your reasoning.

Don't like the negativity? Feel free to think of the levels as “0” (Not bad for a first attempt), “1” (Right on!), “2” (Holy cow, I wanna buy this now...) or “3” (Sweet mother of God, how did you write something this awesome?!!). The point is to clearly differentiate, and rank according to your own preference.

For the purposes of this challenge, Henry will be serving as Ye Olde High Marker, Voluntarily Walking th' Plank.

As of now, we are playing by the loosely enforced and slightly modified rules of The Friday Challenge. All entries are due by 6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Friday, 7 October 2011. A winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 9 October 2011.

Oh, there is one more thing... but it is the most important! Have fun. Always have fun.

Online Writing Contest

My sister sent me this link for an online writing contest called The Rule of Three. There are small prizes for the winners, but the thing I found most interesting is that the contest has some distinct similarities to the Friday Challenge.

All of the stories must take place in a town described by the three authors running the contest. The contest will run in four parts, one part each week. A series of prompts are provided, one of which must be used for that week's story. Overall, the story must feature three main characters with a different one of them taking center stage each of the first three weeks. The fourth set of prompts will be used to wrap up your story. There are no restriction on genre. Everything about the setting other than what the contest creators have provided is up to the individual writers. Finally, the authors have put a soft length limit of 500 words on each entry. Entries close on October 3, so go sign up now if you plan on entering.

This is a good chance to stretch your literary legs a bit and get some feedback from others outside of the Friday Challenge. If you don't have a blog site, don't worry, there are plenty of places where you can get a free blog site. Just ask if you aren't sure where to look.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Deadline Reminder

The deadline for the current Friday Challenge — Where Have All the Yahoos Gone? — is 6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Friday, 30 September 2011... less than twenty-four hours away.

Entries may be added to The Friday Challenge Yahoo Group (see the appropriate directory within the "Files" section), hosted on your personal blog(s) and linked within the comments for the challenge, or copied directly into the comments section as a post.

In previous challenges, we have accommodated late entries. This time, we have no such luxury; if you post an entry much later than 6 AM Eastern time, there is a chance the judges will not be able to properly consider your work. Should you anticipate a need to snowdog, please mentally back the deadline up as much as necessary. If the deadline hits and you are very, very close, please publicly announce your intention to enter.

A winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 2 October 2011.

Fitz of Distraction

Kersley Fitzgerald

Kersley Fitzgerald is an accidental cartoonist and proof that ~brb is right--you don't have to write what you know if you can write what you like to research.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Ultimate Geek Fu

Okay, show of hands. Who here will admit to having spent two hours Monday evening watching Terra Nova?

I'm tempted to leave it at that and just throw the topic open for discussion now, but no. The whole point of THE FRIDAY CHALLENGE is to help you to become a better writer, and so once a week we indulge in these massive pile-on free-form gang critiques. So how did Terra Nova fail? Let us count the ways.

1. The story begins in the overpopulated, over-polluted, resource-starved mid-22nd Century, where the air is so bad that even mid-day looks like darkest night and people have to wear breathing masks when they go outdoors. Haven't we seen this before? And seen it again? And seen it again and again, since 1970? Granted, they've improved the CGI for the exterior establishing shots of the dystopian cityscape, but really, this sort of vision of the future only makes sense to someone who was living in Los Angeles around 1970 and hasn't gotten out much since. You really should get out of the valley, once in a while. It's not 1970 out here anymore.

2. In this overpopulated, over-polluted, overwhelmingly white future—that's right, there are a handful of token blacks and Asians, and the lead actress is of either Latino or Asian Indian ancestry, albeit with a BBC accent—

Okay, that's one of my bugbears: demographics. It bothered the Hell out of me about Star Trek, too, that it completely ignored demographic trends. If you're going to set your story in the future, make it the future, and not just late 20th Century Urban/Suburban White Middle-Class America with cooler gadgets. Remember, the key to imagining a credible future lies in the answer to this ancient riddle: Knock knock.

3. We begin by meeting an average American family. He's a hard-nosed streetwise cop; she's a doctor, a saint, and a genius; top of her class at Harvard Medical; fashion-model beautiful; works at a free clinic for the poor and on her weekends moonlights as a nuclear physicist, a race car driver, and the lead guitarist in a world-famous rock 'n' roll band—no, wait, that was Buckaroo Banzai—

Anyway, it's one of those sorts of marriages that only makes sense to Hollywood scriptwriters. She's top-of-her-class Harvard Med, he's a tough street cop, and they're perfectly happy living together in a housing-project hovel that makes a double-wide seem spacious. With their children, Emo Boy (in the year 2149 they'll still be wearing blue jeans and plaid flannel shirts?), Valley Girl ("Like, whatever."), and Little Miss Totally Cute & Sweet—no, wait, that makes three—

Ahah! Transparent tension-producing plot device! Their illegal third child! Because in this world, overpopulation is so bad that it's now a serious felony to produce a third child! (How ever did they manage to get the Hmong, Somali, Mexican, and Mormon voters to go along with that? How ever did Ms Harvard Med ever manage to keep her third pregnancy a secret?) Which brings a squad of the usual standard-issue helmeted and body-armored jackbooted thugs through their front door, searching for the contraband child, which leads to a fight scene—for being a streetwise cop, Dad sure seems to lead with his chin and his knuckles a lot—which leads to Dad being thrown in prison...

Hmm. Apparently in this world, the penalty for having more than two children is to throw Dad in prison. Because, unlike in our world, the women here cannot have children while their husbands are locked up in prison, or away on long sea voyages, or anything like that.

4. Flash forward a couple of years. Dad is rotting in prison; Ms Harvard Med comes to visit him and tell him that she, Emo Boy, and Valley Girl have been accepted for Terra Nova—but only the three of them. Then she slips Dad a gizmo that enables him to break out of this maximum security prison (if it's so easy, why did she wait so long to do it?), collect Little Miss Totally Cute (what, she wasn't immediately seized by Child Protective Services right after the initial raid and adopted out to a nice lesbian couple in another state years ago?), and meet them on the train platform—

I'm sorry. There were steam effects. Understandable mistake.

Meet them on the Time Tunnel platform, so they can all escape into the past—but of course, Dad can't actually get through the portal without getting into another chase scene and a fist fight...

(At which point The Kid said, "You know, if overpopulation is such a problem and they're so terribly short of resources, why are they bothering to send people back through time at all? Why not just have them walk through that visual effect and then drop down the chute into the Soylent Green factory?")

5. And all of this happens before they ever get around to going through the Time Tunnel to Jurassic Park IV, which it turns out was built on the Mysterious Island from Lost...

Oh, I'm sorry. Cretaceous Park. Big difference.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have watched Terra Nova while sitting in the same room with Karen and The Kid. Pretty soon Karen was channeling for Wilma Flintstone ("Those little cars they're scooting around in really would work so much better if they had holes in the floor, so that when they got stuck you could put your feet out and push") while The Kid was having a wonderful time chopping the physics and causality to pieces.

I could go on and on, but I've gone on too long already, so I'll just leave it with The Kid's favorite moment from the script. When the Hot & Troublesome Babe is explaining "slashers" to Emo Boy, she ends with: "They mostly hunt at night."

"Mostly."

How about you? What's your favorite target of opportunity in Terra Nova? Let the arguments begin!

Monday, September 26, 2011

And the winner is...

For some writers, 78 words is a standard paragraph. For some writers (cough, Steinbeck) it's half a sentence. But for some of you, oh what you can do, when constrained by an unreasonable limit!

If any of you are able to take a second look at your own work, and see ways in which to improve a concept so that it can be more successfully developed, the effort will be worthwhile.

Those of you who vote are allowed to assign a range of “0” to “3” points, per entry. Since challengers may not vote for their own stories, a bonus of 2 points is given to a participant's highest-ranked work, if that participant also takes the time to numerically vote on the other entries. (Yes, we added a word. This shall henceforth be known as the “miko Rule.”)

Official judges receive a 30 point allocation, to assign as they see fit. The only restriction is that at most, only half of those points may be given to any single entry, and there is no requirement for a judge to use the entire 30 point allocation.

J.M. Perkins is about to put on the “Editor Hat.” It's sort of like the “Sorting Hat” they use at Hogwarts (“'78 was a good year, Harry. I vaguely remember it...”), but a little less sarcastic.

78 R.P.M. (Rejections per Manuscript)

“Droid” by Topher

J.M. Perkins Neat little story that raises a lot of questions. Suggestion: Don't start the story with the passive voice 'Was locked' maybe instead use 'Three Technicians locked Unit 1246 into the magnetic harness.'

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 1 / topher: voted! / Vidad: 1.5 / xdpaul: 1
J.M. Perkins: 2
Total: 7.5

“Rage” by Topher

J.M. Perkins This one was pretty great. Only suggestion I have is 'God knows what' is cliche and can probably be substituted for something else.

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 1.5 / topher: voted! / Vidad: ?? / xdpaul: 3
J.M. Perkins: 3
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 11.5

“Goatman” by Vidad

J.M. Perkins I adore the patent absurdity of this.

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 2 / topher: 1 / Vidad: voted! / xdpaul: 2
J.M. Perkins: 3
Total: 10

“Human Resource ” by xdpaul

J.M. Perkins It was cool to read about all the work that went into this piece but I feel that you sacrificed some intelligibility at the altar of cleverness (*cough* Featherstonehaugh *cough*). I still really enjoyed all the telling details and the backing quest/goal.

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 1.5 / topher: 1.5 / Vidad: ?? / xdpaul: voted!
J.M. Perkins: 3
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 10

“It wasn’t about the pants” by Vidad

J.M. Perkins I like all the little details in this story and the overall humor. Would love it if you could hint at a little more about who these characters.

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 2 / topher: 1.5 / Vidad: voted! / xdpaul: 3
J.M. Perkins: 2
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 12.5

“O-Machidō Sama” by miko

J.M. Perkins Cool premise, but where's the conflict/characters?

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 1.5 / topher: 1 / Vidad: 1.5 / xdpaul: 0
J.M. Perkins: 1
Total: 7

“Shattered” by miko

J.M. Perkins Great story! We get a sense of character, a problem and a resolution all in 78 words. I personally like the lyricism of 'Her face had shattered her windshield and her windshield had shattered her face.' Although given Bradley's character, I doubt that he would use 'Frankenstein's Monster' as a description, instead opting for the far more common 'Frankenstein.' Only genre fans and pedants make that distinction ;P.

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 2 / topher: 2 / Vidad: 2 / xdpaul: 3
J.M. Perkins: 3
Total: 14

“So What Did You Think Made It Work, Anyway?” by Avery

J.M. Perkins I can dig it! Wonderfully suggestive of a larger world.

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 2.5 / topher: 2.5 / Vidad: 2 / xdpaul: 2
J.M. Perkins: 2
Total: 13

“Odyssey” by Topher

J.M. Perkins I personally don't like the 'internet predator' trope as it is a narrative that is wholly overused in our society. Also, I think making the username 'redrum' seems a little blunt, but I get that understatement might not be possible given the confines of the challenge.

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 2.5 / topher: voted! / Vidad: ?? / xdpaul: 2
J.M. Perkins: 1
Total: 7.5

“Pages” by Topher

J.M. Perkins I'm a fan of your recursivity. I like that you add one little detail (Alder tree) to give the world a bit more flavor. I would have liked to know a little about what Jabin was trying to do when the witch tricked him. But mostly, I'm a fan of your recursivity ;).

Arisia: 2 / Henry: 1 / topher: voted! / Vidad: ?? / xdpaul: 1
J.M. Perkins: 2
Total: 6

“The Plea” by Henry

J.M. Perkins Wow. Such evocative language, so much emotion in only 78 words. You should definitely submit this to the Esquire contest.

Arisia: 3 / Henry: voted! / miko: + / topher: 2.5 / Vidad: 3 / xdpaul: 3
J.M. Perkins: 4.5
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 18+

“Senescence” by spikerNSponge

J.M. Perkins I personally like how you you don't name characters and I also love the phrase 'her creams were dry and cracked in their tubs.' Well done!

Arisia: 2.5 / Henry: 3 / miko: ++ / topher: 2 / Vidad: 2 / xdpaul: 3
J.M. Perkins: 3.5
Total: 16++

Wrap-up...

Impressive results! Staggering brevity! Impeccable wit/drama/tension, not necessarily in that order. The final results are as follows:

3rd Place: 14 points — “Shattered” by miko

2nd Place: 16++ points — “Senescence” by spikerNSponge

1st Place: 18+ points — “The Plea” by Henry

Congratulations, Henry! As winner, you are hereby invited to propose next week's challenge, scheduled to be announced the morning of Friday, 30 September 2011.

Afterword...

So what was the lesson of this challenge?

J.M. Perkins Frigging Aye, judging is hard! Heh, everyone did great job and I really enjoyed all their stories.

M: What can you do with only 78 words? Although temptation leads you to say, “not a lot,” actuality depends upon the nature of the words you select, the degree to which they may be refined, and the finesse with which you wield your armament. Assuming you manage to select the right words, and always treat them well, they may do likewise by you. Choose them very well, and you may ultimately prevail upon the field of literary combat.

(Now, who was counting 'em?)

Ruminations of an Old Goat

Last week's Friday Challenge, write a 78 word short story, was a fun exercise for me. It was a challenge to tell a full story in such a short space. In a traditional short story, the author can count on full paragraphs, or even several paragraphs, to pull the reader onward, drawing them into the story and almost forcing them to keep reading. When you only have 78 words, each sentence has to do the job of one or more paragraphs, setting the scene, describing the action, and resolving the story. Even better, a 78 word story gives us an opportunity rarely provided by most of our stories. We can examine the entire story, sentence by sentence, to figure out why it works (or doesn't work).

For those of you who haven't read my 78 word story, here it is:

My house lies in state, wrapped in a shroud of its own remains. I drift through the wreckage, remembering my frantic dash, carrying my son toward the shattered window. I stand over the beam that had come crashing down upon us. I gaze down upon the bushes which broke my son’s fall after I threw him out the window. I watch the firemen find my trapped body and plead silently, “Don’t let my son see me like this.”

Now, let's break it down, starting with the first sentence.

My house lies in state, wrapped in a shroud of its own remains.

The first two words set the scene; my house. The rest of the sentence tells you that something bad has happened to the house. Even if the "shroud of its own remains" doesn't make you think of ashes, you know the house has been destroyed. It could be a pile of rubble after being hit by a tornado or an earthquake or something else entirely. Whatever comes to mind, you have a picture of a house devastated by some kind of disaster. So the line succeeds in setting the scene while also presenting the question, "What happened to the house?"

I drift through the wreckage, remembering my frantic dash, carrying my son toward the shattered window.

I chose the word "drift" very carefully; it can mean to wander aimlessly as well as to float at the mercy of the winds. It's not surprising that someone whose house had just been destroyed might wander aimlessly through the wreckage. But a spirit or ghost would also drift. The word doesn't give away the ending, but it works well with it.

The sentence also marks the beginning of the action. The main character is making a "frantic dash," an image almost anyone can picture (especially after all the frantic dashes one can see in movies and television shows). The sentence tells us what is truly important to the character, the son he is carrying. Finally, it gives us the character's goal, a shattered window.

All told, this sentence sets up the ending, sets up the action, sets up the stakes, and sets up the character's goal. What it doesn't do is tells the reader exactly what happened to the house. The reader still has the question presented by the first line but also has a new question, "Will they make it to the window?" Tension is built because the goal is close enough for the characters to see but the frantic dash implies danger so great that even such a short distance may prove to be too far.

I stand over the beam that had come crashing down upon us.

This seems to answer the question posed by the second line, since it appears the beam is going to trap the character in some way. This is the third sentence of five sentences in the story, the exact mid-point. The scene has been set. The stakes have been set. Now is the time for a complication or a conflict to arise. We've already set the conflict -- man against a disaster -- and it's pretty much the entire story. That means we have to introduce some kind of complication, something unexpected which makes an already difficult task harder. So, the beam comes down and the reader is drawn deeper into the story. "Does the beam trap the character, putting two lives into further danger? What happens next?"

I gaze down upon the bushes which broke my son’s fall after I threw him out the window.

Well, that sort of answers one of the questions. There's only one reason the character would throw the son through the window; the character is close enough to the window to throw a child through it but it appears the beam has managed to trap the character. But all must be well, right? After all, the character is gazing down on the bushes and remembering events in the past. We now know the son is okay but tension for the parent ratchets a bit higher. Yet another question is added to all the other unanswered questions. "How does the character get out?"

We've finished four out of the five sentences and each of the sentence has left us with at least one question. So far, the only things we know for sure are that the house has been destroyed and the son is safe.

I watch the firemen find my trapped body and plead silently, “Don’t let my son see me like this.”

It takes nineteen words, nearly a quarter of the story, but all of our questions are answered.

"What happened to the house?" There are firemen in the ruins of the house. Obviously, it burned down.

"Will they make to the window?" We already knew the son made it, thrown by the parent, but he was the only one to reach the goal.

"Does the beam trap the character, putting two lives into further danger?" Yes. The beam forces the character to throw the child through a shattered window, something only a desperate parent would do. And the final line very specifically tells us the character was trapped by the falling beam.

"How does the character get out?" He doesn't. He's been dead through out the entire story.

Finally, though the question was never asked, the silent plea reinforces what we already knew. Through out the story, the most important thing to the character was the son. Now that the character knows the son survived, the character is concerned with the son's future. The son will be scarred enough from the memory of the fire, don't let him see the burned and ravaged body, too.

Most stories require some sort of input from the readers. A story as short as this one requires much more input from them. Where a traditional short story would spend a paragraph describing the wrecked house, I had to count on all of you drawing on memories of news stories, movies, television, whatever, to construct every last detail of the scene. I had to count on you extrapolating the age the son from the fact that the parent could carry him and could manage to throw him through a window. From beginning to end, I was counting on you to provide the majority of the story's imagery.

I appreciate all the help you gave my story.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Open Mic Saturday

Good morning all, and welcome to Open Mic Saturday. This is the place to share your news and perhaps do a little bragging. If you're writing a novel: how much progress did you make this week? If you're writing short stories: did you finish anything or submit anything this week? If you've sold or published anything recently, when is it coming out and where can we find it? In short, as a writer, what kind of progress did you make this week?

Or what else is on your mind, that you feel like sharing with the group here?

Friday, September 23, 2011

The Friday Challenge — 9/23/2011

This week in The Friday Challenge:

STUPEFYING STORIES becomes a monthly, paying market, and reopens for submissions! • Join the discussion...

Henry Vogel continues his evaluation of abandoned hardware. • Join the discussion...

Bruce Bethke gets to the bottom of what makes good cover artwork, by using various editions of Conan: The Freebootie as an example. • Join the discussion...

Kersley Fitzgerald muses on the ultimate value of technical proficiency. • Join the discussion...

Ryan Jones witches his way to a win in our Sneaking Killers through the Back Door challenge. • Join the discussion...

All this and more, as Elephant Appreciation Day enters the room (but no one talks about it), and the inmates discuss the view from their respective places in the asylum.

78 R.P.M. (Rejections per Manuscript)

As of this morning, we have received the following entries for our current challenge (listed in their order of appearance within Files > Friday Challenge 2011 09 23 ):

“Droid” by Topher
“Rage” by Topher
“Goatman” by Vidad
“Human Resource ” by xdpaul
“It wasn’t about the pants” by Vidad
“O-Machidō Sama” by miko
“Shattered” by miko
“Quest” by J.M. Perkins
Note: This one is ineligible for the competition, but J.M. Perkins requests feedback from any willing to offer a critique.
“So What Did You Think Made It Work, Anyway?” by Avery
“Odyssey” by Topher
“Pages” by Topher
“The Plea” by Henry
“Senescence” by spikerNSponge

Yahoo seems to be working again! Did we miss any entries, and does anyone else have 78 words they'd like to throw into the mix?

An enthusiastic “Huzzah” to all who have entered! The judges are considering your submissions, and a winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 25 September 2011.

Where Have All the Yahoos Gone?

Ryan J won the previous challenge, and offered the “Editor Hat” to Van, the Quish, but as of this morning no challenge had been proposed... so we're going to improvise:

Last night the Yahoo group started acting glitchy. As of this morning we still can't upload new files. At least we can read the files that are already there!

Your assignment? Explain what happened.

No, seriously. Wide open format. You can go as long or short as your heart desires, with as much technical proficiency, or as much made-up jiggerty pokery, as you'd like to include. Aliens are fair game, as are Quantum Phizziks, Sunspots and Were-Weasels. (So is pretty much anything else that a Yahoo might do... or that might do in a Yahoo.)

Anyone can enter, without restrictions.

Oh, there is one more thing... but it is the most important! Have fun. Always have fun.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Deadline Reminder

UPDATE: The Yahoo group is acting up... so if you are trying to add an entry and can't get it posted tonight, please include a quick message here so that we'll know to expect your submission as soon as the system is working again!

The deadline for the current Friday Challenge — 78 R.P.M. (Rejections per Manuscript) — is 6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Friday, 23 September 2011... less than twenty-four hours away.

Entries may be added to The Friday Challenge Yahoo Group (see the appropriate directory within the "Files" section), hosted on your personal blog(s) and linked within the comments for the challenge, or copied directly into the comments section as a post.

In previous challenges, we have accommodated late entries. This time, we have no such luxury; if you post an entry much later than 6 AM Eastern time, there is a chance the judges will not be able to properly consider your work. Should you anticipate a need to snowdog, please mentally back the deadline up as much as necessary. If the deadline hits and you are very, very close, please publicly announce your intention to enter.

A winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 25 September 2011.

Fitz of Distraction

Kersley Fitzgerald

Kersley Fitzgerald is an accidental cartoonist who got her full-time job after her boss accidentally erased sixteen hours worth of Spanish printer-friendly pages, and she didn't whine when he asked her to redo them.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Ultimate Geek Fu

COVER ARTIST DEATH MATCH!

Have you ever wondered how much difference the cover art really makes? Especially these days, when most books are sold over the Internet: is it really worth the expense, time, and trouble (believe me, they're artists; there's always trouble) of putting a fancy-schmancy color cover on the book? By the time the potential reader actually gets to looking at the listing on Amazon, they already know the author's name and the title, and probably have a fair idea of what's inside the book. Is a nice piece of art on the cover really going to make them any more likely to look at one book over another? And if so, what's the best kind of picture for a hungry publisher to use?

Well, by incredible luck, we have on hand today a perfect test case: the UK and US mass-market printings of the same book. Same authors; same title; same contents; same size and format. Even the artists are as close to evenly matched as is humanly possible.

First up, in this corner, we have the UK edition of Conan the Freebooter, with a cover by the legendary cover artist Frank Frazetta.

And next, in this corner, the challenger: the US edition of exactly the same book, except with a cover by the equally legendary cover artist Boris Vallejo.

If you were to run into these two books somewhere, side by side, which one would you pick up first, and why? Be honest, now. And at first glance, did you also think the title of the US edition was spelled wrong?

Let the arguments begin!

ULTIMAGE GEEK FU runs every Wednesday. Have a question that's just bugging the heck out of you about Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Battlestar Gallactica, Farscape, Firefly, Fringe, Heroes, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Smallville, The X-Files, X-Men, The Man From Atlantis, Fireball XL5, Space: 1999, Forbidden Planet, Linux distributions, or pretty much any other even slightly remotely SF-flavored subject that you can remember or imagine? Send it to slushpile@thefridaychallenge.com with the subject line, "Ultimate Geek Fu," and we'll stuff it in the queue.

Monday, September 19, 2011

And the winner is...

Is your story good enough? Strong enough? Smart enough? Enough... to qualify?

Vidad wants to qualify. He wants you to qualify as well, and toward that end he proposed the following challenge: Write a story that is good enough to sell to one of SFWA's "Qualifying Short Fiction Venues."

Given the nature of the challenge, we decided to allow him to enter, rather than being relegated to the sidelines... but since he proposed the challenge, we are including his (non-High Marker!) scores and comments here.

Given the nature of the challenge, we also thought it would be fun to have feedback from a few editors! One of them is our own Bruce Bethke, and he has a little magazine called Stupefying Stories... you might have heard of it. The other is Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, editor of one of those SFWA-approved "Qualifying Short Fiction Venues," Bull Spec, where I made my own first professional sale.

Drawing from their feeedback, if any of you are able to take a second look at your own work, and see ways in which to improve a concept so that it can be more successfully developed, the effort will be worthwhile.

Those of you who vote (including Vidad, this time!) are allowed to assign a range of “0” to “3” points, per entry. Since challengers may not vote for their own stories, a bonus of 2 points is given to a participant's highest-ranked work, if that participant also takes the time to vote on the other entries.

Official judges (BRB, Sam M-B and M) receive a 30 point allocation, to assign as they see fit. The only restriction is that at most, only half of those points may be given to any single entry, and there is no requirement for a judge to use the entire 30 point allocation.

Ready? Let's get started.

Sneaking Killers through the Back Door

“A Beast War Story” by Bruiser Beast

Vidad: Bruiser Beast has dropped a smoking load of war on us. As advertised, it contains Hard Action, Big Guns and Bad Language. For some reason, these three always go together. Except for that one time I was running through the words with my .357, popping Grays as they converged on my farm. There wasn’t any bad language that time, unless the telepathic clicks projected at my mind were their form of profanity. I dunno, somehow “tik tik CLICKY CLICKY tik tik” just doesn’t have the same umph as F$%^$, S$%^, D$#%^%%& or B!#$%. Blame the rigors of interplanetary travel, I suppose.

Where was I? Oh yes, “A Beast War Story.”

I particularly liked this line: “As he fell away I discharged all 12 of my gun mounted grenades into the face of the man on the ladder below before slamming the hatch and leaping to safety.”

That sounds like the Pentagon must be funding this excursion. Do you know how EXPENSIVE grenades are these days? 12 for one kill... whoa. Maybe there were more people below the guy, I dunno. But 12!

The “Pirate Radio” angle is nice – the RIAA would probably enjoy this one. But why is the transmitter being defended by troops and tanks?

This feels like the middle of a story, even with its resolution. Not bad, but I wouldn’t buy it as is. But I’m just this guy, you know?

BRB: Too much like a media tie-in to some really violent video game for my tastes. And there are problems throughout. With the punctuation. I can see a 14-year-old boy really loving this one, but it just doesn't hold my interest.

Sam M-B: Some typos and capitalization issues ("..." We said; "plunged in an out"), but an ok little military SF story, though not really my cup of tea. Would have been a form rejection.

M: For a very brief moment when I first say this entry, I thought Bruce Bethke was sneaking one in on us. Bruser Beast... see why I was confused? When I started reading, it didn't take long to dispell that notion.

Although I enjoy good military SF, this didn't really feel convincing. Instead, it felt like it might have been an attempt to fuse the action of those early-80s Transformers and G.I. Joe cartoons, but with more swearing and 'splosions. I never could get into those, either.

Arisia: 1.5 / Ryan J: 1.5 / xdpaul: 1
Vidad: 1.5
BRB: 1 / Sam M-B: 3 / M: 1
Total: 10.5

“Dear Manny” by Vidad

Vidad: I won’t comment on my own story, but I can tell you what my wife said.

“I can’t believe things like this come out of the head of the man I married...”

Of course, she’s helping edit my novel now – so many more revelations of this sort are likely to pop up. Also, if anyone doesn’t like my review of their story, please make nasty comments about mine. Reach out with your hate... strike me down... and my journey to the SFWA will be complete!

BRB: This one made me laugh, but I've a vague sense that I've read too many like it too many times before. Obnoxiously intrusive computer gets involved in trying to solve user's romantic problems? You've definitely taken this one up a notch, but it's still from a lineage that traces back to Kurt Vonnegut's “EPICAC.”

Sam M-B: I have seen this kind of thing a few times, but will say that the soap getting into the act was a surprise, and put me into a bit of a bizarro mindset. “Well, that was unexpected...” Didn't feel very tied together through the build-up to the climax, and the ending just felt off. Would have been a form rejection. Points for talking soap.

M: I liked the talking soap. I would have liked to hear more from the talking soap. The guy could even start carrying around the bar of talking soap, and periodically washing his hands when he needs “help.”

Of course, that would make it a completely different story! The problem is, I think I'd enjoy the resolution of that story more than I enjoyed the resolution of this one.

Arisia: 2.75 / Ryan J: 2 / xdpaul: 2 (darn close to a 3)
Vidad: voted!
BRB: 2+ / Sam M-B: 3 / M: 4
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 17.75+ (and darn close to another one)

“Plague of Witches” (short story version) by Ryan J

Vidad: Ryan has a gift that must not go unpunished, er, unrewarded. Most witch stories tend to run the “oh, these poor folks are getting mistaken for handmaidens of the devil and burned by evil fundamentalists” angle, or the “wow it's really cool to worship Satan and witches are awesome and all my girlfriends are Wiccan” route - or sometimes a bit of both. In Ryan's world, I get a distinctly different impression. Multiple “gods,” some sort of a witch-hunting temple group that believes itself to be pure yet has no problem with sleeping with the village girls, etc. Intriguing. I get almost a bit of a Zelazny feel and wonder where it's going. I found out from Marc that this is part of a larger tale. Write it. Finish it. Don’t make us wait. This section may be publishable as a short story.

BRB: There's the core of an interesting idea here, but this story would need a *lot* of work before it would be usable. It suffers from Generic Magical Fantasy Malaise; there's no real sense of place, time, or culture, only the usual vaguely Medieval Europe vibe. The characters' names seem to be a polyglot of random syllables, and provide no clues as to when or where this happens. Javis, Jehannon, Gerrid, and -- Blacky? Real names *mean* something. They encode history. If you want to give your characters exotic names, it's perfectly acceptable to dig into, say, Magyar history, and lift a handful of names there.

Oh, and watch out for the tendency to use unnecessary capitalization.

The abrupt change in point-of-view character in mid-story throws everything off-kilter -- *especially* when your p.o.v. character is delivering interior monologues. The long flashback after Captain Austam's funeral oration arrests all forward momentum. If I were you, I would start over and rewrite this story from the beginning, sticking to Jehannon's point of view and telling the story in linear time.

“Jehannon was six years old when he first saw a witch burn.” That is a *great* opening line!

And that, my friend, is where your story begins. Start there; tell us the story of Jehannon, and how he grew up to become a great witchslayer, only to break faith with the Church of Gratuitous Capitalization and decide to let the young witch go free. Do *that*, and you've got a really strong story here.

Of all of these entries, this is the one I'd be most likely to send back with, “But if you fix these things, I'd really like to see it again.”

P.S. But if you do rewrite it, take a few minutes to learn something about sword-making. The business in the blacksmith's shop is all wrong.

Sam M-B: Good opening line; some of the ending exposition/backstory/etc. felt a bit over the line of infodumpy; some of the "witch-farmer" stuff confused me a bit — just call him a warlock again, ok? Felt unclear about what happened to Javis. Good, true-feeling ending. Would have been a rejection but would have included a small note of liking it and needing some tightening up, welcome to submit it again. By far the longest story — and also the one which most interested me.

M: I've seen more of the framework for this one than the others, so my expectations are probably a little different... but my first recommendation would be to leave the first half in the novel, and focus on the young Jehannon for the short story. Work in background and experiences that you wouldn't necessarily want to use in the novel. Spend words that you might begrudge in the longer setting.

Start with “Jehannon was six years old when he first saw a witch burn,” and keep him six years old for the rest of the story. Give him an earlier opportunity to not rat out a witch. Maybe let him make the wrong choice, and feel guilt.

A good excerpted short story can be a branching point, or background for the whole. Pushing it to incorporate too much of the larger picture is not always the best approach, though.

This one has incredible potential!

Arisia: 2.75 / Ryan J: voted! / xdpaul: 3
Vidad: 2.5
BRB: 8 / Sam M-B: 15 / M: 12
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 45.25

“Tem's Ballroom” by Van, the Quish

Vidad: Van’s writing is less comprehensible than my own. He has the unique gift of drawing someone in, then abandoning them in the wild like an unwanted kitten. If you took Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland and crossed him with George MacDonald, you’d get Van.

Far away, I hear the muted sobs of Joseph Campbell.

So... who is Tem? Why does he have hooks for a hand? Who’s the woman? Is the constellation Orion important? What’s the Jewish joke, and why would it offend the ladies rather than Jews? Why can’t Tem find his victim? Why does she tuck him into bed? Is Tem a robot? Is Tem a starchild? Am I Tem? OW MAKE IT STOP IT HURTS OHMIGOSH IM DYING!!1!1!!!1!

I want to know what in the world is going on in your head. Can you explain this tale to me in little words?

I’m giving you a 2, just because it’s highly engaging, if infuriating. Don’t spend it all in one place.

BRB: This is easily the most polished of the entries. It's got literary style and grace out the wazoo, and the story really pulls me in and keeps me reading. There are little bits of wordplay I really love all over the place; e.g., "The shiver reminds him of a saxophone he once heard in the war..."

What the heck happens at the end? I have no frickin' clue. But right up to that final paragraph, I'm entranced. For me, this one would not be a "must buy," but it's definitely a hold and read again, in hopes that it makes more sense the next time through.

Sam M-B: The opening really left me going into "skim/scan" mode quickly before getting back on the horse. Couple of monster-wall paragraphs, and... this is a story I just didn't get. Would have been a form rejection. Points for the nice image of counting the stars, though.

M: Short, enigmatic stories can have a powerful impact. I keep feeling as though I've missed something in this one, though. The prose was fun, and full of style... but in the end it felt as though there wasn't really anything at stake, and that Tem would be switched on again the next night, only to relive the same autonomously frustrated mission.

With a more compelling dénouement, it would get bumped out of the slush and into the “hold for consideration” pile.

Arisia: 2.25 / Ryan J: 1.5 / xdpaul: 3
Vidad: 2
BRB: 9 / Sam M-B: 3 / M: 7
Total: 27.75

“The Unmethoding” by xdpaul

Vidad: (Note to self: do not drink straight warm vodka while reading xdpaul’s stories. You’ll just have to read them again in the morning with an even fuzzier head.)

I got confused counting the headaches in this one. The repeating “woman’s hair continually snapping hair ties” meme is one of my favorites. It made me laugh. I love it when dames can’t control their hair.

Let me back up and do the math on headaches again.

At the beginning, he has a headache in his head, along with two additional headaches involving numbers being off. That’s three headaches, though you tell us he has two. In section two, he gains another headache by losing a friend. That makes 4, right? In the last section, his head is hurting yet again. Is this the same headache, unvanquished, from the beginning? Or is this another headache? If it’s the same, the count remains at 4. If it’s a new headache, that brings us to 5. Of course, when the 4’ spark fountain appears, I would say that compounds the headaches by a factor of 10, making the actual number of headaches in this story either 40 or 50. I would put that in scientific notation, but I can’t figure out how to do it on my keyboard. Add another headache for that.

The story builds, we find out there’s something terribly wrong with Teeter, and then the protagonist is apparently burned up in an Alka-Seltzer-induced spray of fireworks.

My guess is that you’re implying that the laws of physics got a headache and gave up?

Work on this a little, add a bit of clarification, make me care more about Teeter, then sell it to Bayer. It has the skeleton of a good tale. I can feel it in there, inside my pounding skull.

BRB: As a story, this one really hangs together. It doesn't have the surreal elan of “Tem's Ballroom,” but it's got a nasty realism.

In fact, that's the problem for me. It's *too* realistic.

“Yeah, about that. We maybe want to look at limiting the sample of the second data set, and expanding the margin of error.”

You've worked with government scientists before, haven't you? Scary, innit, how you can completely change the results of a study just by changing the parameters of a single Fourier transformation?

This would be another “hold and read again,” but mostly because I'd want someone else to read it and give me a sanity check. It makes perfect sense to me but I don't know whether it would make sense to anyone else.

Slight edge to “Tem's Ballroom” for style.

Sam M-B: OK. This is a strange one to consider. I might have form rejected it near the mid-way point, as some dialog issues and lack of any SF/F elements I could sink my teeth into... the ending image though was very well done, and I was left not really knowing what I'd do with it. There wasn't really any SF/F element (the throw-in "gene therapy" is both currently done — though rare — and not developed as an element) but the topic is an interesting one and there was that last image. Would have been a rejection, but I would have said thanks for the incandescent alka-seltzer.

M: Likewise, I had a bit of trouble sinking my teeth into this one. Everything about it felt a bit like you were dancing around the story, rather than giving us the story itself.

Story trumps everything, and there wasn't enough of one for my taste... and yet... and yet... that was a beautiful image at the end. The biggest question in my mind was whether or not, as an editor, I would have stuck it out until the end.

Arisia: 2.5 / Ryan J: 2.5 / xdpaul: voted!
Vidad: 1.5
BRB: 9- / Sam M-B: 5 / M: 6
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 28.5-

Wrap-up...

What a spread! What fierce competition! What advanced math it took to tabulate all the scores!

Without further ado, here are the results:

5th Place: 10.5 points — “A Beast War Story” by Bruiser Beast

4th Place: 17.75+ (and darn close to another one) points — “Dear Manny” by Vidad

3rd Place: 27.75 points — “Tem's Ballroom” by Van, the Quish

2nd Place: 28.5- points — “The Unmethoding” by xdpaul

1st Place: 45.25 points — “Plague of Witches” (short story version) by Ryan J

Congratulations, Ryan J! As a previous challenge winner, you have the option of proposing another new challenge, scheduled to be announced the morning of Friday, 23 September 2011, or passing the “Editor Hat” to the challenger of your choice so that you may more quickly participate again.

Afterword...

So what was the point of this challenge?

Vidad: Congratulations to all who entered. May you all end up published.

M: What Vidad said... because with persistence, you all very well may.

Ruminations of an Old Goat

Last week I wrote about my new HP Touchpad, describing it's functionality as an ebook reader. But for most of us here at the Friday Challenge, a more interesting use for a tablet computer is as a portable writing machine.

As I mentioned last week, I already have a Dell netbook, which weighs about twice as much as the Touchpad, has about half the battery life as the Touchpad (and only then because I bought a nine cell battery), a screen only slightly larger than the Touchpad, and a keyboard which is advertised as being 92% the size of a standard QWERTY keyboard. Oh, and it generates a lot of heat.

If you've got a desk or table on which to place the netbook, it's a good portable writing machine. The smaller keyboard takes some getting used to -- typing on Chiclets is how Bruce has described using his -- but once I've adjusted to the slightly smaller size, I can type fast enough to keep up with my imagination. Despite the netbook's memory limitations -- one GB of memory and a small, 80 GB hard drive -- the netbook can run any word processor available for PCs, including anything associated with MS Office. I mention Office not because it's so good (though I do really like OneNote) but because Microsoft is not known for making particularly memory-efficient software. All in all, the netbook is a good, highly portable option for a writer looking for a way to carry his work around with him. Or her.

Given my summary of the netbook, what possible benefit is there to a Touchpad, iPad, or any of the other tablets? Compared to a tablet computer, a netbook is bulky, heavy, and far more difficult to carry around. My Touchpad is nearly as easy to carry around as my Kindle. I can't stuff the Touchpad in one of my pants pockets, something I can do with the Kindle (depending on the pants I'm wearing), but the Touchpad is a seriously portable device which does not suffer from the heat build up you get from a netbook.

What the Touchpad is not is a serious touch typing device. The Touchpad, like all tablets, has a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard. I've compared the size of the keyboard to the netbook and the two keyboards are very nearly the same size. The problem with the touchscreen keyboard isn't its size. The problem is that there is no tactile feedback from the keys.

There's not little bump or bar on the 'F' and 'J' keys to help identify the home position. There's feel of a key being struck and, even worse, no feel of two keys being struck. If you hit the wrong key or hit two keys at once, you're only going to notice if you're looking at the screen. Despite the fact that I am a very good touch typist (somewhere in the 90 to 100 word per minute range), I cannot touch type on the touchscreen keyboard. I must look at the keyboard rather than the words and that ruins my typing training and the decades of experience I've had. Worse, you don't press and hold the shift key. Hitting it causes the entire keyboard to change from lower to upper case letters but you don't continue to hold it down. Once again, this goes against over 35 years of experience typing.

To be fair, you can buy portable keyboards for tablets. They're wireless and come in various sizes, including full-size. I haven't tried one of those keyboards, but I have no reason to assume they won't work just fine and provide all the tactile feedback missing from the touchscreen keyboard. The primary problem I see with the wireless keyboard is that it effective ruins the one big advantage the tablets have over the netbooks -- portability. It's one thing to carry around a tablet somewhat larger than a Kindle. It's something totally different to carry around the table and the keyboard. You're going to end up getting a carrying bag for the tablet and keyboard, leaving you carting around something which will probably be somewhat lighter than the netbook but just as bulky. To be fair, I have seen a really clever Logitech design for the iPad which has a keyboard tucked inside a protective case. While it's really clever, it's also $100.

Put simply, to make your tablet work well for writing, you have to spend more than the cost of a netbook (since all the cheap Touchpads are gone now) and then spend even more to get a keyboard for it. By the time you're finished buying these, you could most likely have purchased two netbooks for about the same price as your one tablet and keyboard.

Bottom line, judged solely as a portable means of writing on the go, I would have to say that tablets still lose out to netbooks. If you have other reasons for getting a tablet, though, then the extra cost of the keyboard would certainly be worth the money.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Stupefying Stories Update #5

by Bruce Bethke

Okay, as far as I can tell everyone who submitted a story for Stupefying Stories #2 has been contacted with either an acceptance, a rejection, or a few, rare, "We're still holding onto your story and thinking about it" replies, so now it's time to break the news to the rest of the world:

We're changing everything.

The original vision for Stupefying Stories was that we were going to put together a series of quarterly, print-oriented, "theme" anthologies, and then, in about a year's time, when we felt we had all the bugs worked out of our processes, we were hoping to be in position to cut over to doing a monthly e-book only magazine. We've since had cause to reevaluate our plans, and have concluded there's nothing to be gained by waiting.

Therefore, effective immediately, STUPEFYING STORIES is going to a monthly release schedule, switching to a direct-to-ebook only format, dropping the concept of "theme" anthologies, and dropping all plans to do a print version.

Also effective immediately (and retroactively, for our original contributors—thank you!), we are raising our base word rate to 1-cent/word. I would much rather put the money into the people who write the words than the dead trees upon which those words are printed.

Obviously, this change in plans also means we're going to be publishing lots more original content, and we're going to need to be seeing new submissions sooner rather than later. So again, effective immediately, we are open to reading new submissions. If you have a story you want us to consider for publication, you can submit it either by emailing your story file to slushpile@thefridaychallenge.com, or else by mailing your manuscript to:

Rampant Loon Press
P.O. Box 111
Lake Elmo MN 55042

What types of stories are we looking for?

This question kind of took me by surprise. I guess, because of the "Halloween" theme we were planning to use for SS#2, a lot of people got the mistaken idea that STUPEFYING STORIES is only interested in publishing horror.

To repeat: we have dropped the idea of "theme" issues. We are now open to reading quite literally any kind of mind-stretching story. Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, horror, mystery, edgy mainstream, adventure, cyberpunk, cipherpunk, khyberpunk, fiberpunk, sabermetricpunk, steampunk, slipstream, zipstream, dipstream, dripstream...

The truth of the matter is, I hate labels. As someone who has sold science fiction to mystery magazines, political satire to horror magazines, and vampire and pirate stories into the hard SF market, I think that for a writer to think in terms of marketing labels is tantamount to intentionally putting on a crippling set of blinders and crawling into a narrow pigeonhole. Remember, I'm the guy who wrote "Cyberpunk" thirty-some years ago because there wasn't a label for the kinds of stories I wanted to read, and write.

That's what I'm looking for now. By my reckoning, I figure we're about ten years overdue for the next revolution. I want to be the editor who finds and publishes the story that leaves readers thinking, "Wow! I've never read anything like that before! I don't know what the heck to call it, but I want to see more stories like that one!"

So, show me a story that grabs me, keeps me reading to the end, and stuns me with its imagination and originality. We'll let the critics worry about what kind of marketing label needs to be slapped on it, long after it's been published.

Deal?

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Open Mic Saturday

Friday, September 16, 2011

The Friday Challenge — 9/16/2011

This week in The Friday Challenge:

Bruce Bethke recalls an anniversary. • Join the discussion...

Bruce Bethke also notes that the Were-Weasel appears to be cursed. • Join the discussion...

Henry Vogel spends money and time on abandoned hardware. • Join the discussion...

Henry Vogel also questions the authority with which Harlan Ellison's assertions are made. (Oooh... he's got a stainless steel pair of 'em, doesn't he?) • Join the discussion...

Kersley Fitzgerald runs short of a few essentials. • Join the discussion...

J M Perkins takes our Dust My Jacket... challenge, by supplying a visual confirmation. • Join the discussion...

All this and more, as we celebrate a proud Mexican Independence Day, and the inmates discuss the view from their respective places in the asylum.

Sneaking Killers through the Back Door

As of this morning, we have received the following entries for our current challenge (listed in their order of appearance within Files > Friday Challenge 2011 09 16):

“A Beast War Story” by Bruiser Beast
“Dear Manny” by Vidad
“Plague of Witches” (short story version) by Ryan J
“The Unmethoding” by xdpaul
“Tem's Ballroom” by Van, the Quish

... but for this challenge, and at the specific request of the individual who proposed the challenge, a twenty-four hour "snowdogging" window is in effect. (You now have until 6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Saturday, 17 September 2011.)

An enthusiastic “Huzzah” to all who have entered! If you haven't yet entered, this time you have an additional twenty-four hours. The list ~~will be updated tomorrow morning, before the judges begin considering your submissions~~ has been updated. A winner will still be declared by the evening of Sunday, 18 September 2011.

78 R.P.M. (Rejections per Manuscript)

And now it is time for this week's Friday Challenge, courtesy of J M Perkins:

My first publishing credits were flash fiction, and they're still what I have the most success getting sold. The form seems particularly apt in this day and age where the overarching narrative is 'ZOMG attention spans are getting shorter twitter/youtube/yahoo-!' and editors reluctant to take a chance on newbie writers. In light of this week's challenge (which a handful of deadlines kept me from participating in) I wanted to take an alternate path to the cutting edge of micro fiction. Esquire is having a 78 word literary fiction contest. Using Hemingway's brilliant 'For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.' as a template, they're challenging writers to craft a exactly 78 word story for a chance to win fabulous prizes. So, let's play with an experimental form and have completed entries for a contest! Seriously, we can beat their sample story.

If you need some more examples of awesome tiny, tiny fiction here's some link love.

Also, in addition to your story I would love for you to write a paragraph about how you either adore or loathe micro/twitter fiction and why. Now get to work!

Anyone can enter, except for J M Perkins. You may enter as many times as you wish, but each entry must be independent of the others. Your entry must be exactly78 words. You are not allowed to supply a more lengthy story in 78-word chunks, and you are not allowed to build on anyone else's setup. (Your loathe/love exposition is not restricted by any such encumbrance.)

Everyone is asked to vote, and to say a few words about what they liked, and why. Or to say a few words about what they disliked, as the case may be; by submitting an entry, you implicitly agree to accept criticism, because there will probably be some handed out, and no one is immune. When voting, please rank a work as either “0” (not so good), “1” (not as bad), “2” (could have been better) or “3” (pretty good stuff!). If you give either a “0” or “3” vote, feel free to argue in support of your reasoning.

Don't like the negativity? Feel free to think of the levels as “0” (Not bad for a first attempt), “1” (Right on!), “2” (Holy cow, I wanna buy this now...) or “3” (Sweet mother of God, how did you write something this awesome?!!). The point is to clearly differentiate, and rank according to your own preference.

For the purposes of this challenge, J M Perkins will be serving as Ye Olde High Marker, Voluntarily Walking th' Plank.

As of now, we are playing by the loosely enforced and slightly modified rules of The Friday Challenge. All entries are due by 6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Friday, 23 September 2011. A winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 25 September 2011.

Oh, there is one more thing... but it is the most important! Have fun. Always have fun.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Deadline Reminder

UPDATE: For this challenge, and at the specific request of the individual who proposed the challenge, a twenty-four hour "snowdogging" window is in effect. (You now have until 6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Saturday, 17 September 2011.)

The deadline for the current Friday Challenge — Sneaking Killers through the Back Door — is ~~6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Friday, 16 September 2011... less than twenty-four hours away~~. (M: See the update, above!)

Entries may be added to The Friday Challenge Yahoo Group (see the appropriate directory within the "Files" section), hosted on your personal blog(s) and linked within the comments for the challenge, or copied directly into the comments section as a post.

In previous challenges, we have accommodated late entries. This time, we have no such luxury; if you post an entry much later than 6 AM Eastern time, there is a chance the judges will not be able to properly consider your work. Should you anticipate a need to snowdog, please mentally back the deadline up as much as necessary. If the deadline hits and you are very, very close, please publicly announce your intention to enter.

A winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 18 September 2011.

Fitz of Distraction

Kersley Fitzgerald

Fitz of Distraction is like a warm summer day in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Rare, beautiful, and not likely to occur for another twelve months. But definitely worth the wait.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Ultimate Geek Fu

I got this story from ~brb, but it's the perfect opening for this week's UGF column so I'm going to appropriate it.

I suspect most of you are familiar with the name Michael Stackpole, a quite prolific science fiction and fantasy author. I actually first heard of Stackpole through gaming, both computer and role playing. His computer adventure Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic adventure game released back in 1988, was extremely popular when I worked in a mall computer software store. I always regretted being unable to play that game, having moved up to a 16 bit Amiga before Wasteland was released.

Anyway, the same year Wasteland was released, Stackpole's first two novels were released. They were gaming-related novels set in FASA's Battletech universe. I've read those books and, given the restrictions of staying true to Battletech, they're quite good. Since then, Stackpole has written more Battletech books, original novels, and a bunch of Star Wars novels.

Now the story from ~brb. At conventions, many a fan has enthusiastically approached Stackpole, proudly proclaiming that they've read everything he's ever written. This is something any author would enjoy hearing and Stackpole is no different. Unfortunately for him, it quickly becomes apparent that the gushing fan standing before him has not read every novel Stackpole has written. What the gushing fan really means is that he has read every Star Wars novel Stackpole has ever written. The gushing fan rarely even knows Stackpole has written anything else.

That brings me around to books based on outside properties. By "outside" I mean novels based on movies or games or comic books or television shows or, lately, even video games. Anyone who has looked through the science fiction section at a bookstore has likely seen lots of these books. My local Barnes & Noble has several shelves filled with books based on Warhammer 40K (miniatures-based wargame), Dungeons & Dragons, Star Trek and its spin-offs, Star Wars, and things I just can't remember right now.

I readily admit to having bought and read quite a few of these novels. I just finished the latest Timothy Zahn Star Wars novels and own all of the ones he's written and quite a few more. I've read my share of Star Trek novels, a few D&D novels, and, obviously, some Battletech novels.

It used to be that books based on properties like these were almost throw-aways. The author wasn't someone you'd necessarily have heard of because publishers figured people would buy the books for the property, not for the author. But, as with any market, the book market for properties has improved considerably. Some big name authors can be found writing novels for some of the properties these days. On top of that, the number of releases can be downright staggering.

After Zahn's Heir to the Empire was release in 1991, the flow of new Star Wars books was manageable. A guy could read almost all of the new novels and still keep up with his regular reading as well. At least, a guy could back before a certain Boy came into his life and he went from reading 50 to 60 books each year to 15 to 20 books each year. But within a few years, the steady flow became a flood. I've now met a guy who reads nothing but Star Wars novels -- absolutely nothing else -- and he can't keep up with all the new releases.

Is this a bad thing? Harlan Ellison says yes. Sales of those books take away sales (and shelf space) which could go to better, original novels. Of course, Harlan Ellison says a lot of things and says them very forcefully. But is he right about tie-ins like these? What do you think? And, do you read or have you read tie-in novels? Got a favorite? Stake out your position and defend it.

Let the arguments begin!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Ruminations of an Old Goat

After only six weeks on the market, HP decided to give up on their tablet computer, the HP Touchpad. Prices for the 16GB model of the Touchpad were slashed from an original list of $499 to $99 ($149 for the 32 GB model). What followed was a feeding frenzy for geeks as millions of them, including many of my co-workers, scrambled to buy one of the suddenly-coveted machines.

Unlike many of my co-workers, I got one.

While I fully expect one of several groups to succeed in finding a way to install Android on the Touchpad, greatly increasing the available apps and making the unit much more useful, right now I'm going to review the functions I think most of you Challengers will be interested in. Primarily, I'm going to compare the Touchpad to my Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook for writing and to my Kindle for ereading.

Before I start, I'm going to provide a few vital statistics for all three units. I was tempted to add information on the iPad 2 since it's the most popular tablet on the market. Since I haven't used one of those, I decided to leave it out. If you're really curious, the iPad weighs .3 pounds less than the Touchpad, is thinner, and otherwise probably performs similarly to the Touchpad when it comes to ereading and writing.

Weight
Dell netbook - 3.1 pounds
HP Touchpad - 1.6 pounds
Kindle 3 - 8.5 ounces

Screen size (diagonal measure)
Dell netbook - 10.1 inches
HP Touchpad - 9.7 inches
Kindle 3 - 6 inches

Battery life
Dell netbook - 2 hours, 6 hours if you buy the nine cell battery (which I did)
HP Touchpad - 10 to 12 hours after I overclocked the processor
Kindle 3 - 30 hours with wireless networking turned off

Okay, time for some functional comparisons. This week, I'm going to do the ereader comparison. Next week, I'll compare word processing. I had hoped to do both in one column, but this one is already long enough.

I'm not even going to bother rating the netbook in this category. It's easily the worst of the bunch to use as an ereader. You can read from the netbook, but only if you're desperate.

Most of you already know how much a like my Kindle. The rest of you can find my review of the Kindle here. To sum up, the Kindle is easy on the eyes, holds an entire library worth of books (I have about 1000 on mine right now and haven't even used up half the storage space), is light and easy to handle, and only needs to be charged once every few weeks. Physically, the Kindle beats the Touchpad hands down (and would, I'm sure, beat the iPad hands down, too). The Kindle is so much lighter and easier to handle that there really is no comparison at all.

The Touchpad works pretty well as an ereader. It comes with a Kindle software installer already on it. The software installs in a few seconds, you sign in, and you're ready to go. The tablet syncs with your Kindle library easily, as well, so you can be up and reading in a matter of minutes if you already have a Kindle account setup.

Because the screen is much larger than the Kindle, you end up with considerably more text on the screen at one time. If you hate "turning" pages, you'll like this part. At least you will until the screen starts dimming. The Touchpad, you see, is incredibly needy. If you go too long without touching the screen it starts going into power-save mode. A quick tap on the screen and you're back in business. I'm sure I will find a time-out setting when I get around to looking, but I find the continual need to caress the screen a bit annoying.

Another difference between the Kindle and the Touchpad is that the Touchpad has a back lit screen. This is great if you want to read in low light or in the dark, but the back lighting comes with a price. The price is eye fatigue. Having a Kindle, I haven't spent much time reading ebooks on the Touchpad. I have spent a lot of time reading comic books on it. The color screen is absolutely beautiful, showing the artwork in comic books sharply and in vibrant color. A week ago, I settled in and read 10 or 11 comics on the Touchpad, all but one of them in one sitting. By the end of that first sitting, my eyes were tired and it actually hurt slightly to focus on the Touchpad screen. I did other things for five or six hours before returning to the Touchpad to read some more comics. I made it through one comic book and gave up on comic books for the rest of the day. I don't know whether the back lit color comic books were harder on my eyes than the back lit mostly bright white ereader screen would have been, but I definitely cannot imagine spending an entire evening reading ebooks on the Touchpad.

It does surpass the Kindle in two respects. PDF files are much easier to read on the Touchpad. There's no need to convert the PDF and a single page fits neatly on the full screen in portrait orientation. The type is a bit smaller than I'd prefer but perfectly readable. Second, the Kindle simply cannot read digital comic books. Even with the eye strain issue, the Touchpad is a good way to read comic books as long as I only read a few each day.

Unless you want to read digital comic books and lots of PDF files, the Kindle is easily the better ereader. The difference is even greater when you consider what your average tablet costs compared to what a Kindle costs. (Hint: I'd never have bought a tablet without the HP sell-off.)

One quick note: In my Kindle review I linked to above. I mention that I had heard the iPads built up heat with use. Apparently, I heard wrong. The Touchpad never suffers from heat build-up, even after prolonged use. I've been told the iPad is the same. This is not something I can about my netbook, but more on that next week.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

And the winner is...

Have you ever read a book solely because you couldn't get the monstrous image of its author out of your head? Someday you will. Better yet, you may even be the monstrous image that snags an unsuspecting reader!

If any of you are able to take a second look at your own work, and see ways in which to improve a concept so that it can be more successfully developed, the effort will be worthwhile.

Those of you who vote are allowed to assign a range of “0” to “3” points, per entry. Since challengers may not vote for their own stories, a bonus of 2 points is given to a participant's highest-ranked work, if that participant also takes the time to vote on the other entries.

Official judges receive a 30 point allocation, to assign as they see fit. The only restriction is that at most, only half of those points may be given to any single entry, and there is no requirement for a judge to use the entire 30 point allocation.

Ryan J is about to put on the “Editor Hat.” It's sort of like the “Sorting Hat” they use at Hogwarts (“Seriously? You've done all of that? And no one pressed charges?”), but a little less sarcastic.

Dust My Jacket...

J.M. Perkins

His atomic components are the bones of dead stars. His emotional and physiological features are the end result of millions of years of relentless warrior ape breeding. He is 113 kilograms of tooth, claw and muscle wrapped around the most advanced computer known to man. He draws from the common cultural knowledge of humanity to forge shocking visions through the power of language itself. He is: J.M. Perkins.

Ryan J: I really loved the description here, it's a great revelation into the sorts of things J.M. Perkins thinks about. The fact that most of the elements of our bodies were once gouted forth from the heart of a dying star is so overwhelming, you can only live an ordinary life by not thinking about it.

After reading it, though, I'm not so sure I could say anything about J.M. Perkins' life, or what he writes about. I do know that whatever he writes will be produced by a mind that can't forget we are made of star-stuff.

I'm gonna give this 4 points- it's awesome writing, but does not convey all that it should.

The photo has been added to the catalogue of source material for my future nightmares.

** I'm capriciously giving J.M. Perkins' scores a 1 point boost for courageously offering photographic evidence that he is nominally human, neither undead nor synthetic. **

J M Perkins: voted! / Henry 1
Ryan J: 4 + 1
Total: 6
J.M. Perkins

J.M. Perkins spent the first 14 years of his life preparing to flee to the wilds of Canada to escape the forces of the Antichrist. Since then, he's spent his time since attending college, working at a candy factory, performing a variety of unsanctioned sociological experiments, getting published and graduating high school... though not necessarily in that order. He lives in San Diego with his roller derby playing photographer wife and his chickenshit dog.

Ryan J: I think the prose of your first one was slightly more mindblowing, but this one tells us more about you, and in a similarly entertaining manner. It presents facts that are more informative, but in a manner that conveys a lot of personality.

This one was more successful than the first, even though the first entertained me a little more. The photo comes across as a more serious writer too.

I give this a 8.

** I'm capriciously giving J.M. Perkins' scores a 1 point boost for courageously offering photographic evidence that he is nominally human, neither undead nor synthetic. **

J M Perkins: voted! / Henry 2
Ryan J: 8 + 1
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 13
xdpaul

Eness is the first, less famous, farmboy on a remote planet who wondered if there was more to this than moisture vaporators and patch-in droids.

He writes adventures in rural horror, technology and the burning pink seascape of the soul.

The head of a rugged clan of six livestock-raising urban denizens, he’s been grafted to the capital city of the future home state of Captain James Tiberius Kirk.

Ryan J: The second sentence is my favorite. Not sure why. Must be the seascape. The whole blurb does an excellent job of giving a sense of your life, and the sci fi references do a good job of suggesting other fiction that you've loved- which is important. It makes me think 'this guys likes things that I like. Maybe he'll write stuff I like too."

I give this 8 also. The consequent tie was broken by photographic evidence.

J M Perkins: 2 / Henry 1.5
Ryan J: 8
Total: 11.5
Henry

In his long and varied life, Henry has bagged wild groceries, labored manually, been a student, built sandwiches, purveyed pizzas, sold the news, been a student, edited a magazine, delivered the news, aided engineers for whom English was a second language, been a student, written comic books, supported software (L)users (he says the ‘L’ is silent), broken software, broken more software, told stories professionally, edited a magazine, all while working part-time as a minor god.

Ryan J: I like the bagging wild groceries, and the (L)users- though I work with computers, so perhaps I'm not entirely objective here. I'm left with the impression that this is a guy who's done a lot of interesting stuff. There's a lot of twists on common sayings here that are fun (selling the news made me think for a moment that the right to control the content of the news is what was for sale. The citizen in me suspects that's wrong. The fan of dystopian fiction in me suspects that's right.)

I'd love to see a little about the kind of writing you've done, but working part time as a minor god is as good a description of writing as I've ever seen. The Greeks called their poets (some of them would have been novelists today) 'makers' and 'creators'- it's actually what the word poet means.

I give this 6.

J M Perkins: 1.5 / Henry voted!
Ryan J: 6
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 9.5
Vidad

Vidad MaGoodn is an occasionally typo-prone neurotic, who thinks having lots of babies is good and having debt is bad. Needless to say, that line is easier to type than to live.

He likes starting fires, arguing both sides of an argument with lots of gesticulation and little actual content, and typing up things that most people wouldn't dare to think.

His writing verges on the insane and borders on the profound, though both are generally sacrificed to a good joke.

When he's not writing, he's thinking about writing. When he's not doing either, he's wishing he'd chosen a career that made money without requiring work.

Gin and cigars are his less-than-secret vices, and both were used in the creation of this book, albeit with limited efficacy.

Though his "career" is in radio, be glad you're reading this rather than hearing it, since his voice painstakingly intertwines the rich timbre of Larry King with the soothing richness of a far-off truck horn.

Finally, before reading, be sure to pack your cheeks with something nutritious, because the sweet-tart fluff herein is likely to raise your literary cholesterol. Don't say you weren't warned - because no one will listen.

Cloning Ray: because "Great" and "American" are both far-off seconds to the word novel.

(Disqualified due to length, but included for the sake of completeness!)

Ryan J: I'm hesitant to score this because it's been disqualified, but I can at least make a a few comments. This does a great job of telling us what kind of person you are, and your general personality. Though I think it's better to be self deprecating of yourself and less of your book- the part about sweet-tart fluff sounds more like the observation of a critic and less like text printed on a book to make people want to buy it.

I agree with the advice to break this up into two parts.

J M Perkins: 1.5 / Henry 2 minus 5 = -3
Ryan J: (null)
Total: -1.5

Wrap-up...

Given the fact that we had our first negative total, and that a relative newcomer bookended the viable tally, I think this qualifies as a truly impressive spread! Here are the numbers:

5th Place (out of 4): -1.5 points — Vidad

4th Place: 6 points — J M Perkins

3rd Place: 9.5 points — Henry

2nd Place: 11.5 points — xdpaul

1st Place: 13 points — J M Perkins

Congratulations, J M Perkins! As winner, you are hereby invited to propose next week's challenge, scheduled to be announced the morning of Friday, 16 September 2011.

Afterword...

So what was the lesson of this challenge?

Ryan J: I think that the actual blurb for the dust jacket has a couple of goals- convey some distinctive facts about the author, tell you a bit about what they write, and suggest their personality. These entries all are suffused with personality, but some do a little less telling about your life and writing.

As usual, all scoring is necessarily capricious- so don't go basing your sense of self worth on the outcomes here. You are all phenomenal human beings, forged of the bones of dead stars. And stuff.

One last thing- if I'd been able to participate, I would have added a picture too. But my daughter's birthday party precluded the snake festooned photo shoot, so I'm instead posting an out of date photo of my first experience with the savage and prophetic children. (The kid is now seven, and my horrid chin is now concealed by a majestic goatee, but otherwise, yep, that's me.)

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