The Friday Challenge: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

And the winner is, part deux...

They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and... well, some are more "ooky" than others, but this is Halloween!

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.

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.

Arvid Macenion is about to put on the “Editor Hat.” It's sort of like the “Sorting Hat” they use at Hogwarts (“Brainnnns... are not easily found among Hufflepuffs, are they?”), but a little less sarcastic.

Arvid Macenion: I've always wanted to have a Halloween story challenge, as I joined last summer and the 2010 Halloween challenge was preempted by other concerns. I've always appreciated the Halloween Holiday, the night of ghouls and candy. I was sad when, at the tender age of 15 I was informed that I might be getting old for it. The smiles and the candy are put aside, for the contemplation of the dark evils that exist beyond the reach of light. Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days of carefree ghouling, when Halloween nights meant candy and fun.

My Friend-and-rival Carmine has often said of me that its not that I want to know What lies beyond the dark mask, its that I want to know that something IS. It's the unknown that I feel prickling my neck hairs; its the unidentifiable mutterings hanging just in my hearing. Goblins and Boggarts, Werewolves, and Vampires, Demons and Devils I can fight. Its the darkness itself I cannot strike. So I set this challenge to see what it was to see what IS behind these tales... you, authors of The Friday Challenge. And you did not disappoint...

The Third Annual (whaaaaaat??!) Halloween Story Challenge

“Our Favorite Holiday” by Larian

Arvid Macenion: Oooh... a very tastefully done story of horrific Halloween intrigue. Mature it may have been, but I thought it carefully described to the point where I wouldn't call it X-rated. There may have been a few spelling errors or the like but I could see the story for what it was. I have often wondered what the daily life of the oft-depicted Halloween horrors would be, and whether they only existed on the day or whether it was merely a fun holiday for them as it is for us humans. I do agree however that the specific naming of their species at the end was probably unnecessary, although I myself didn't see the Rex reference until it was mentioned by another commenter. I also like the interplay between the three when it came to the reaction to our protagonist's father and mother; makes me want to know more about how their species' society functions. Overall a delightful tale; twisted and sensual without necessarily being dark.

Arisia: 0 / Jack Calverley: 3 / miko: +- / Tyler Tork: 1.5
Arvid Macenion: 7
Total: 11.5+-

“Legal Recourse” by Tyler Tork

Arvid Macenion: Heh... precedents. Its good to see that some still follow the older ways. I liked the protagonist although, naturally I expect, I still don't know exactly who or what he is. I was expecting a spook but his closing line made that unlikely. An old man, knowledgeable of the old laws, forced to live beside a family of religious yuppies. Rough. A great story, from an interesting perspective. I just hope that Reese's are considered Treats so that no children will mark my house.

Arisia: 2 / Jack Calverley: 2 / miko: ++ / Tyler Tork: voted!
Arvid Macenion: 6
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 12++

“A Holiday for Howard” by miko

Arvid Macenion: A touching tale of the season. I feel for Howard. For so many sickness or injury is a glancing blow; either you get better and reach levels at or near your previous experience, or the damage is too extensive and you die. But for those who fall into that valley in-between, life can become a chore, a matter of endurance. The story was touching and heartfelt, well versed and everything I expect from you Miko. Love it.

Arisia: 1.5 / Jack Calverley: 1 / miko: voted! / Tyler Tork: 2
Arvid Macenion: 5
Participation bonus: +-
Total: 9.5+-

“Reunion” by Vidad

Arvid Macenion: The Life of an Avenger is such a hollow thing. It can fester below the surface leaving not a ripple on the surface until the moment comes. The revenge may be a seething pit of fire, consuming everything, or it can by a tiny flame, never forgotten long enough to go out, steadily burning up everything else inside the shell over years and years. Poor Daniel. I loved the structure, the development and how you demonstrated the progression of his disease. However, I don't really see any Halloween in this story. I may just be missing it, but after several read-throughs, I'm afraid that if it is present, it is simply nor prominent enough.

Arisia: 2.5 / Jack Calverley: 1 / miko: +- / Tyler Tork: 2
Arvid Macenion: 4
Total: 9.5+-

“The Road to Odinmorden” by Jack Calverley

Arvid Macenion: A change and a challenge she wanted, and never did she think what a challenge might mean. Her mother's apparition was right; be careful what you wish for. Because a challenge is not a challenge without the potential to lose. This story really had the Halloween, "deep dark places" vibe to it, and I really liked how the truth behind the dark grey backdrop is never truly revealed. Haunting, scary, and with just that edge of the beyond to it. If the skitter upon the roof was not so deft in catching itself from rolling off the edge, she might not have made it as far as she did.

Arisia: 2 / Jack Calverley: voted! / miko: +- / Tyler Tork: 2.5
Arvid Macenion: 8
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 14.5+-

Wrap-up...

This week's winner skitters into first place, with a runner-up in hot pursuit:

2nd Place: 12++ points — “Legal Recourse” by Tyler Tork

1st Place: 14.5+- points — “The Road to Odinmorden” by Jack Calverley

Congratulations, Jack Calverley! As winner, you are hereby invited to propose next week's challenge, scheduled to be announced the morning of Friday, 4 November 2011.

Afterword...

So what was the lesson of this challenge?

Arvid Macenion: Halloween season has always been somewhat of an enigma to me. Perhaps because of the duality of how it is seen by children and then adults. Perhaps its because it has become the focus for all the darkness we can conceive of. Who is to know? The stories this week certainly brought forward many different viewpoints. Halloween is many things to many people. So perhaps knowing Who is behind the darkness is just as useful as What is in the darkness...

Sunday, October 30, 2011

And the winner is...

... going to be announced as soon as I have Arvid's official analysis in hand. In the interval, any of our challengers, visitors or regular participants who have not yet taken the opportunity to offer their own feedback and votes are encouraged to do so.

We should know more by mid-day(-ish) tomorrow.

But to hold you over, how about a sneak-peek at something neat?

Saturday, October 29, 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, October 28, 2011

The Friday Challenge — 10/28/2011

This week in The Friday Challenge:

Kersley Fitzgerald shows how a submission can stand out from the rest in our STUPEFYING STORIES slushpile. • Join the discussion...

Guy Stewart finally gets a Lexus. • Join the discussion...

Allan Davis puts a serious dent in his daily word count, just by talking about how he's going to maintain a daily word count. • Join the discussion...

Bruce Bethke says we've gone mainstream. • Join the discussion...

Arisia wins our Zero (point?) challenge, by maintaining a tightly focused, consistent POV! • Join the discussion...

All this and more, as xdpaul enjoys a happy “National Mole Day”, and the inmates discuss the view from their respective places in the asylum.

The Third Annual (whaaaaaat??!) Halloween Story Challenge

As of this morning, we have received the following entries for our current challenge:

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, 30 October 2011.

CTRL+ALT+DELDELDEL...∞

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

What if you woke up tomorrow and found that an important part of your life had never existed? You could remember it, but no one else could. What would you do? (Or, what would your main character do?)

For example, what if you remember that yesterday you were a jeweler with your own jewelry design business, but today there's no such thing as jewels or jewelry. No diamonds, no gold bracelets, not even wedding rings. Would you try to introduce the concept of jewelry into your world—try to convince people that digging up a chunk of rock and hanging it on a string around their neck is really cool? Or would you adjust and go with what does exist—get into the booming business of designing modesty gourds? Or maybe you would give lectures on how everyone had been brainwashed. That choice might get you put into a psych ward. If they still exist.

Anyone can enter, except for Arisia. You may enter as many times as you wish, but each entry must be independent of the others, and you may not build on anyone else's work.

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, Arisia 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, 4 November 2011. A winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 6 November 2011.

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

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Deadline Reminder

The deadline for the current Friday Challenge — The Third Annual (whaaaaaat??!) Halloween Story Challenge — is 6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Friday, 28 October 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, 30 October 2011.

Critical Thinking

Kersley Fitzgerald

I recommended a Stupefying Stories submission the other day.

Not because it was good. I mean, it was okay. Needed some editing. Okay, quite a bit of editing. But I approved it because it was a story. And after reading twelve manuscripts filled with telling, back-story, and ambiguous endings, a mere 3000 words with a beginning, middle, and resolution filled me with joy.

When I ask writer-friends to submit a story, of course the first words out of their mouths are "What are you looking for." Well, folks, here's what I'm looking for. And bear in mind that this whole thing is so subjective. All of us have different criteria based on our own interests and backgrounds.

Story. Not a message—although the story can contain a message. Not the summary of a novella. Not a detailed background of the setting and characters. A story. One of those things with a beginning that sets the stage and gets me interested, a middle that adds intriguing details along the way, and an end that wraps things up in a relatively logical fashion. It's amazing how few of the entries we've seen fit this criteria.

Resolution. ~brb gets on me for my short endings, so I say this with admitted chagrin. A resolution is an ending that is relevant to the plotline. It may reveal something that is important to the characters or it may be a logical outcome of the plot. It does not have to tie up every single loose end. In fact, the story may be more interesting if it doesn't. But it should bring the scene to a credible close. A resolution is not an abrupt ending mid-scene, a completely out-of-character twist, or a vague fade-away. It's okay to leave the reader wanting more, but not so okay to leave the reader completely confused or unfulfilled.

Empathy. I would like to care about the characters. I know this is a classic plot-based/character-based writer issue, but if all the characters are certified pickle heads or vile and nasty or just boring, I'm not going to care about the plot. And if they just are vile, hopefully they can at least be funny.

Depth. I don't mind short little tales that have a cute surprise ending. We have a surprise-ending story coming up, possibly in the next issue. It's really cute. And although I had an inkling of the resolution, I didn't get what was really happening until it was revealed. But only slightly less irritating than the story with no end is the story whose end is obvious too early on—if the surprise ending is the point. If the ending is obvious, as in Marc's "Don't Eat the Piano Player" (Hmm…it sounds as if something is trying to eat a piano player…), that's fine as long as the story is compelling by its own right (which his is, of course). In fact, for the most part, I'd prefer a deep, interesting story to one that ends in a one-liner.

Taste. Here is where the SS crew varies widely. I was able to look past the giant, quivering…uh…thingy…to see the sweet story of a man who's afraid to be a first-time dad. The lads weren't. I don't like stories about demons; they're fine with it. Bear in mind that Vidad is front and center in this whole process, so there is definitely room for creativity. And we're all good little Americans who have no problem with violence that is appropriate to the plot. But none of us were able to stomach what that one character did with a driving glove. *shiver*

Deliberateness. I am all for breaking the rules if it's intentional. What I don't like is sloppiness. I am a long-time fan of Douglas Adams, and I can usually understand what the Monty Python guys are saying, so I'm all about random and absurd. But those characteristics should be deliberate. Submitted work should be gone over with a fine-toothed comb, washed, blow-dried, and then gone over again. Contradictions in an absurd story are funny. Contradictions in a straight story are annoying.

Narrative. These are short stories. In general, back-story, info-dumps, and flashbacks should be kept to a minimum. Of course, some background information is necessary, but there's a great chance for creativity, here. No characters standing in front of a mirror describing themselves (is their appearance really that important?), no detailed information on things that aren't relevant, and no boring conversations that are obviously just an excuse to lay down a lot of information that could be better relayed in a more entertaining manner. If you're trying to pad the word-count to earn more money, you're probably submitting to the wrong anthology!

Having said all that, there is a time to throw all the guidelines to the four winds and see what happens. We have a story coming up that's quiet, confusing, out-of-sequence, and terribly lacking in emotional closure. It's also brilliant. When done well, these types of stories really shine. But it's like the chocolate mousse at the end of the meal—really rich and often emotionally draining. There's even more need for a big, meaty, juicy steak-of-a-story that makes you sit back at the end of the reading, satisfied. That's the type of story I'm really looking for.

As the wife of a marketing major, Kersley wants to know: what do you want to see in a short story?

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Ultimate Geek Fu

As we continue to wrangle about genres, sub-genres, micro-genres, and so on and so on, ad infinitum, a simple but powerful idea keeps coming to me. One of the problems with writing genre fiction in general, and fantastic fiction is particular, is the extraordinarily permeable nature of the boundary that separates the genre from the mainstream. If the tropes, conventions, conceits, idioms, vocabulary, etc. of the genre are successful enough, they invariably become mainstream.

So that's today's Ultimate Geek Fu question. What's your favorite example of a science fiction, fantasy, horror, or other SF/F genre idiom that was clearly SF/F, say, ten or twenty years ago, but is centered squarely in the middle of popular culture today?

Let the arguments begin.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

World Enough, and Time

Yes, it's that time of year again...that time when we all reach up over our heads, yank the zipper cartoon-character style, and tear away the masks we use to hide who we really are from the rest of the world. Time to quit pretending we are anything other than who and what we are, and display it proudly.

No, I'm not talking about Halloween, or your local midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I'm talking about Nano.

Yes, it is I, your favorite ~~serial perennial glutton-for-punishment masochist~~ Nano participant, dropping in to touch bases and see who else is up for the ~~fun-filled form of self-flagellation~~ writing challenge to end all writing challenges.

Nano is short for NanoWriMo, and NanoWriMo...um...I'm feeling some serious deja vu here. Hold on. Grab your coffee, take a deep breath, and spend a few moments to review the original Glutton for Punishment Nano intro, here.

Oh, wow, you actually came back?

I have tried my hand at Nano every year since 2005, and every year, I have come up short. Most of those years, my total word count is somewhere under ten thousand; my worst year I think I barely made it to 2500 total. My best year? Two years ago. That year, I came a mere five thousand words from reaching the goal, but more importantly, I actually reached the end of my story.

Most years, I have no idea what the story is about until it starts flowing out of my fingertips and into the keys. Okay, okay, maybe "flowing" isn't the right word; it's more like a slow drip, smearing the keyboard with a light coating of prose, as opposed to hosing out with enough force to blast the keyboard off the desk. I generally start with a line or two of general info and a semi-solid mental image of my lead character.

This year, my subconscious mind is clearly getting geared up for Nano. I have had six or seven dreams over the last three weeks that interrelate. I've got a strangely clear picture of what I'm going to write. Well...strangely clear for me, anyway. I know my story involves Lovecraftian beasties, a lost book of black magic, a man with multiple personalities, his therapist, and Shroedinger's Cat. Oh, and the destruction of the world. Of course.

Every year, during Nano, I snag a few favorite scenes from my past Nano attempts and plop them onto my blog.

The Zombie Wrangler

Dragon Nightmare

Undying

Tangler 2

Tangler 1

While other people might consider this a form of showing off--as in, "here, everyone check out some writing I'm really proud of!"--that's not it at all. It's meant more as a slap in my own face. "Look, you cranked out something THIS cool two years ago. Stop whining at yourself about lack of time, lack of sleep, dead cars, horrible jobs, idiot employers, and that six hour drive home in a blizzard, and get back to writing!"

Surely I'm not the only glutton for punishment in the room. No doubt there are others out there, others like me, who also feel ready for the coming writing challenge...?

Actually, I'm not sure there is such a thing as "ready for Nano." Getting ready is more like spasmodically strapping on a crash helmet while desperatly hunting for seat belts that don't exist while forward momentum rapidly approaches 88 miles an hour with the flux capacitor glowing menacingly behind you...

Who else is--like me--deluding themselves into believing they are actually "ready" for Nano...? What are you planning on writing this year, and what are your strategies for heroically facing Otogu and keeping the demon at bay for as many minutes as necessary to reach that fifty-thousand word finish line...?

Please feel free to connect with me on www.nanowrimo.org; my username there is AlDavis.

-=ad=-

Allan Davis is a writer, photographer, and programmer hailing from the rocky windswept crags of lower Nebraskaland. In his copious spare time, he manages to read half a page of a novel or squeeze out seventeen or eighteen words on his latest work-in-progress...wait...what did "copious" mean again...?

Monday, October 24, 2011

WRITING STUFF FOR BIG AND LITTLE KIDS 6: FIRST PRO-SALE TO “THE LEXUS OF CHILDREN’S MAGAZINES” – “Mystery On Space Station Courage”

In these articles (about once a month on the third or fourth Monday), I’ll be sharing with you what I’ve learned in the past fifteen years from first trying to get short stories and articles published in the non-adult market to publishing pretty much whenever I submit a short story, article or essay to a non-adult market. I’m going to do this chronologically so that those of you who are beginning your journey can learn what I did as I did. This will also tend to make me more coherent as I cast back to those first days – and I won’t make assumptions about what I did and didn’t know…

This sale was perhaps my first real brush with the wisdom of remaining persistent in sending out manuscripts.

It was also my first serious attempt at writing SF for children – unfortunately one I haven’t managed to repeat, so there’s probably a lesson there or something.

First of all, the appellation above “The Lexus of Children’s Magazines” was coined by Marianne Carus, founder and executive editor of the CRICKET Magazine Group. That was in response to a comment I made in a letter to the then editor of CRICKET Magazine, Deborah Vetter. She’s not in that position any more, replaced by Lonnie Plecha (whom I hear speak at a recent Minnesota SCBWI Conference). The appellation is completely true when I factor in the notion that the Group pays $ 0.25 PER WORD.

I’d written “Mystery On Space Station Courage” for HIGHLIGHTS FOR CHILDREN Magazine after brainstorming on a torn sheet of paper I still have down in the paper file for this story. It involved an communication antenna on a space station that has a maintenance compartment underneath it. That was it. The original idea was boring. So I added some excitement and a condition.

A worker gets trapped, his oxygen is running out and the compartment is shielded against stray radiation. He starts banging on the nearest bulkhead in Morse Code (everyone in the station learns it in case of malfunctions)..

Still traumatized by the death of her father, Candace Mooney – all full of attitude and grief – is confined to quarters by her frustrated and equally hurting mother. She is also grounded from the ship’s “internet”. When she hears the banging, she has to do a 911 call to get her mother’s attention. The astronaut is rescued and she and her mother have a chance to do some healing.

Needless to say, the story wasn’t THIS brilliant when it first arrived on Ms. Vetter’s desk. Working with her through a re-write and a subsequent “editing for house style”, the story was published two YEARS later (two more stories later, I came to realize that this is SOP with CRICKET).

This was not my first attempt at writing SF for young people. Checking my files, I see that it was my eleventh attempt with one other published piece called “Test” (see previous entry at http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/05/first-semi-pro-test.html). I did know that CRICKET was the golden ring of writers. I tilted for it and hit it on my fifth try. After that, while I haven’t batted anywhere near 1000, I get a personal rejection almost every time I submit and am rejected by the Group. I have a piece there right now and another will be on its way, soon.

What I Learned #6: “I KNOW we all know this but this is another anecdotal story to encourage you to KEEP SENDING THINGS OUT TO THE TOP MARKETS! You have to break that ceiling someday!” (Law of Averages and all that, you know: “In illustration of the law of averages…as the number of trials increases, the percentage of successes approaches the expected percentage of successes while the difference between the observed and expected number of successes increases.”)

image: http://www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/congressms/GAAjazz/what.bmp

Sunday, October 23, 2011

And the winner is...

Ever pushed an envelope so hard you turned it into a postcard? Admittedly a poor analogy, but with this challenge, it's the first one that came to mind.

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.

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.

xdpaul is about to put on the “Editor Hat.” It's sort of like the “Sorting Hat” they use at Hogwarts (“Why are you asking about my point-of-view? It's hair, mostly.”), but a little less sarcastic.

xdpaul: There was no point to this challenge, which makes what transpired in the results so remarkable.

Perhaps it's my bias, or simply my surprise at such an obtuse and impossible challenge being met at all, but I must applaud the work of everyone who participated this week.

These were incredibly fine stories. Such variety. Such mood. Such code.

To put it very basically,

10 PRINT "CLAP"
20 GOTO 10

That said, someone's got to win, and I have only a finite number (greater than zero) of points to distribute. So here we go.

Zero (point?)

“0111001101110100011011110111001001111001” by J.M. Perkins

xdpaul: This one is as stunning in its elegance as it is its brevity. As straight code, it is beautiful to look at, and the seemingly random movement in the pattern tells a story - one that ends where it begins, with a lot of action in between. In this form, its inscrutability is an expression of the Zero Point of View (ZPOV.)

That elegance is amplified when the story is decoded. Converted to ASCII in plain English, it successfully expresses (or mimics, at the very least) a theoretical ZPOV. It is, at once, metapoetic, poetic and a darn good story.

Cool to see a good brain doing good work: not showy at all. A fun tale, a well-played puzzle, and I envision it as a subroutine in GERTY's AI - not HAL's - friendly, but not terribly self-aware. A lot is here in very little space.

Jack Calverley: 1 / miko: +
xdpaul: 6
Total: 7+

“No One's Story” by RoyO (a.k.a. "qwertyname11")

xdpaul: I'm happy to take this ride, even though, when all is not said and not done, this one is, at least on the strictest technical level, written in the 3rd person, masquerading as ZPOV. Acknowledging that, it is a very funny lyrical approach to the cunning insight that this Challenge is annoying and stupid. I really like how the poem telescopes back in on itself, thereby negating the ZPOV character.

A clever read, a good commentary, but I think it loses points on an intentional category error: it is a poem technically in third person, not a story in ZPOV. I'm glad for the error, because it is a fun literary take on the Challenge.

Jack Calverley: 2 / miko: +
xdpaul: 2
Total: 4+

“Moinomi” by Jack Calverley

xdpaul: "Maybe" is the operative word here. This is well written, but I'm not entirely sure it isn't an elegant 2nd person with some disorientation thrown in (and a clever cheat for some critical dialog). I'll leave the jury out on whether this story meets the challenge criteria precisely, though, because it is unique and quite readable. And I'm arbitrary.

As a story, I think there just must be something in attempting ZPOV that inspires recursive tales. This one folds back in on itself nicely. I can't help but wonder if the disastrous recovery of the deleted information and the error that fails to recognize the transfer of the virus is a bit rough. I don't know if it is pacing or in the narrative of the transmissions, but I feel just a bit railroaded, not by the narration, but by the content of the mystery. Is there another way to suggest the disaster less overtly?

Jack Calverley: voted! / miko: ++
xdpaul: 2
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 4++

“Carnival Day” by WaterBoy

xdpaul: I think this is the 1st person point of view...of the Carnival. Which is sort of creepy, which I like. I might change the title on this one to "Every Day is Carnival Day," and it skates off the map (I think) away from the letter of the challenge, although it captures its remote, impossible spirit nicely.

Jack Calverley: 3 / miko: _
xdpaul: 1
Total: 4

“Joblog” by Arisia

xdpaul: If I were the sort of person who weeps at great literature (I'm not) - this one would be worthy of tears. There is so much here - the ZPOV functional non-awareness of the operation, the power interruption and methodical tick-down, and the moving plot elements of the mysterious object detection. If Hitchcock ever wrote code for routine operations, he wouldn't do better than this.

joblog is a powerhouse thriller and a tragedy and an unsolved mystery. No wonder Marvin struggled with such deep bouts of depression. If your own internal CPU had to deal with orderly chaos like this on a daily basis, wouldn't you? I've got to say that no story has ever made me as glad to know that my own Maker loves me sacrificially as joblog has.

Unbelievably moving. I'm hard to shock. I was throttled to the core. I've read a lot of good stuff this year at the FC - it is a pleasure to count this among the elites.

Jack Calverley: 1 / miko: _
xdpaul: 15
Total: 16

“LiteraryExcellence” by miko

xdpaul: And the hits keep on coming. I laughed a number of times at this wry commentary on the seemingly random tastes of literary critics, and the preposterous notion that short stories can compete on a quantitative basis. Miko's tongue-in-cheek objection to the restrictive and draconian FC Scoring System is noted. As reward, I give him zero points. I'm sure that, in lieu of 1st place, the irony of such is award enough for him.

Very nice.

Jack Calverley: 2 / miko: voted!
xdpaul: 0
Total: 2

“No Point” by miko

xdpaul: This one doesn't so much as tug at the heartstrings as it plays them like a harp. Challenge aside, this is a beautifuly rendered recursive story. I think the hidden roots of 3rd person (3rd tree?) POV (or possibly 1st person, depending on how a tree thinks of itself) do expose themselves a little, but they are somewhat better hidden than in "No One's Story" and, frankly, I think it is still pretty close to the concept of ZPOV to qualify. I get the impression of the story happening elsewhere, but the unconscious but living tree having some sense of that story, and, more importantly, the story of the tree expressing itself without an aware narrator.

I like this plant a lot more than that doormat the apple tree in Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" (which I think would have been better named as "The Taking Boy") by virtue of its zen indifference over a life well-lived.

Jack Calverley: 1 / miko: voted!
xdpaul: 4
Participation bonus: +
Total: 5+

“Document not found” by Yahoo (a metatextual SNAFU)

xdpaul: [Please note the omission of one of the Challengers. In keeping with the spirit of this particular Challenge, that is wholly intentional.]

Jack Calverley: 2 / miko: _
xdpaul: null
Total: 2

Wrap-up...

Our winner stands headless, shoulderless, and point-of-viewless above (beyond? through? except?) the others, while our runner-up made a thoroughly impersonal, yet impressive, impression:

2nd Place: 7+ points — “0111001101110100011011110111001001111001” by J.M. Perkins

1st Place: 16 points — “Joblog” by Arisia

Congratulations, Arisia! As winner, you are hereby invited to propose next week's challenge, scheduled to be announced the morning of Friday, 28 October 2011.

Afterword...

So what was the lesson of this challenge?

xdpaul: There wasn't one... but golly, the Challengers this week zeroed in on the contest in ways I simply could not imagine. I can't remember the last time there were this many entries without a spectacular wipeout of some sort. "Zero point" may equal zero flaws! What an unexpected result!

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Open Mic Saturday

Friday, October 21, 2011

The Friday Challenge — 10/21/2011

This week in The Friday Challenge:

STUPEFYING STORIES finally has a set of official submission guidelines! • Visit the website...

Henry Vogel still loves the girl in the window, and he has a very good reason for slowing down his columns over the next few months. • Join the discussion...

Bruce Bethke knows where ideas come from... the good, the bad, and the ugly. Vidad just wants to see bacteria. (Hey, that just gave me the idea for a protozoa-punk western!) • Join the discussion...

Kersley Fitzgerald sends an encouraging rejection letter. • Join the discussion...

xdpaul wins our Local Newsworthy challenge, and passes the “Editor Hat” to our own gnumerical gunman, Arvid Macenion. • Join the discussion...

All this and more, as Henry and M present a unified resistance to “No Beard Day”, and the inmates discuss the view from their respective places in the asylum.

Zero (point?)

As of ~~this morning~~ now, we have received the following entries for our current challenge:

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, 23 October 2011.

The Third Annual (whaaaaaat??!) Halloween Story Challenge

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

I think it’s about time for...

*Drumroll*

The Third Annual Halloween Story Challenge!

It's been two years nearly to the week since we’ve been able to hold our usual Halloween Story Challenge, thanks to the intervention of RL™ concerns. So I think its time to make up the difference.

No Word Limits. No Restrictions. No Lead-In Stories. Just you and the frightful events of the season. Any genre is available, even sabermetricpunk and zipstream if you can tie Halloween in.

So give me your best Halloween story. It can be anywhere from funny to disheartening to terrifying and anything in between.

Annnndddd.... Go!

Given the challenge, and the known proclivities of the individual who proposed it, we'll allow anyone to participate. (That means if Arvid elects to submit an entry, we'll find a few additional judges to take his place.)

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.

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, 28 October 2011. A winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 30 October 2011.

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

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Deadline Reminder

The deadline for the current Friday Challenge — Zero (point?) — is 6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Friday, 21 October 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, 23 October 2011.

Fitz of Distraction

Kersley Fitzgerald

Kersley Fitzgerald is an accidental cartoonist who has not actually seen a story about a generation ship taken over by a fundamentalist gerbil militia. But if you can get one in before Vidad, she'll definitely take a look at it!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Ultimate Geek Fu

A Moderately Serious Post About Writing, For A Change

As a writer, one of the questions you keep hearing is, "Where do you get your ideas?" Most non-writers have trouble understanding that good ideas are everywhere, free for the taking; the hardest part is finding the time to develop those ideas into stories. But as we wade into the STUPEFYING STORIES slushpile, it becomes evident that it's time for a quick refresher course on the relative quality of the various sources of free ideas.

1. The worst possible place to get an idea for a story is from a movie. That's what makes this topic suitable for Ultimate Geek Fu. As I hope we've demonstrated over the years that we've been running this column, original thinking is anathema in Hollywood. And yet, we've seen many a manuscript that suggests that the author saw something in a movie that made him or her say, "Wow! I want to write a story just like that, only different!" And then they did.

I think the reason why movie-derived ideas generally make lousy print stories is that most people fundamentally misunderstand the core appeal of movies. A movie is not a novel, turned into a play and captured on film. (As a century of botched cinematic adaptations of novels and plays pretty conclusively proves.) A movie is a carnival attraction. The whole point of a movie is to get your money, get you inside the tent, give you the old razzle-dazzle hootchie-kootchie show, and then push you out to make room for the next crowd of rubes. As Ernie Fosselius put it in Hardware Wars: "You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll kiss three bucks goodbye."

What if, as you emerge blinking into the daylight, you suddenly stop stock-still and say to yourself, "Hey, wait a minute. That made absolute no sense at all?"

Tough. We already got your money. It's not like the carnival is coming back to this town before next year. And by that time, you'll have forgotten all about how annoyed you were when you realized you'd been scammed, and remember only how much fun you thought you were having while you were inside the tent.

2. The second-worst place to get an idea is by watching a TV series. Not only does TV screenwriting suffer from the same general dearth of originality as movie screenwriting—if it's truly a unique and ground-breaking idea, there's almost no way in Hell it's ever going to be green-lighted to become a series, much less stay on the air long enough to find an audience—but again, people suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of the product being delivered. A television series does not exist to deliver entertainment to you.

It's there to deliver your eyeballs and focused attention to advertisers.

Hence the "crisis every ten minutes," "let's stop right in the middle of everything and argue about our relationship issues," and "make sure you never really resolve or change anything" approaches to scriptwriting. It's not because those make for good storytelling. It's because the primary and secondary objects of the script are to: a.) make sure viewers don't change channels (or worse, turn off the TV) during the commercial breaks, and b.) make sure they leave wanting to watch the show again next week.

If you've ever done some focus group work and watched videos of people watching TV, it's all there in their expressions of slack-jawed stupefaction. Good God, the last thing anyone in the television industry wants anyone in their audience to do is to start thinking.

3. Currently third in the Bad Source of Ideas derby, but moving up fast, are video games. It's depressing to realize how many young writers seem to believe that a verbatim retelling of a video game back-story, cut scene, or playing level, equates to telling a story. I am watching this development with great trepidation.

4. The fourth-worst source of ideas, and I feel some discomfort in saying this, is reading other peoples' stories. You must like to read fiction in order to write good fiction. Literature is our mythic reservoir; it's the common collective memory of our species. You simply cannot be a good writer if you do not also read a lot. Especially in genre fiction, there is typically a body of tropes that defines the genre, and you must be cognizant of and pay attention to at least some of these tropes in order to write what is recognizably genre fiction.

All the same, we're seeing quite a few stories that suggest that the writer hasn't read anything written after 1960. And while there are some forms of fiction in which this is not a problem, here in the domain of the genre that calls itself "The Literature of Ideas" — that's a conceit, not a truth, but we can have that argument another time — producing a slower, longer, less focused and more complicated retelling of a story that Heinlein first told in 1942 is not generally a desirable thing to do.

"Okay, Mister Smarty-Pants," I hear someone say. "You've been pretty disparaging so far. So what do you consider a good source of ideas?"

First off, you have to realize that good ideas for stories rarely come whole. More often they present themselves in pieces, and then some catalytic spark triggers the creative synergism that makes for an idea.

For example, I've long known that Lockheed Martin has been working on the HULC, a powered exoskeleton intended for military use. I've also long known that one of the chronic problems with exoskeletons has been the power source. It's hard to build something that doesn't expend most of its energy lugging around its own battery-pack.

Then I learned of the Vanderbilt arm, an experimental prosthetic limb that gets around the battery problem by being steam-powered. Steam? Yes, steam, generated using highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide.

So I did a little more reading. Fascinating stuff, hydrogen peroxide; in 80- to 90-percent concentrations it makes a terrific monopropellant. All you need to do is introduce a catalyst—say, silver—and it immediately and aggressively turns itself into free oxygen and steam. Withdraw the catalyst, and the reaction instantly ceases. Lace the hydrogen peroxide with another fuel—say, alcohol—and put it in the right kind of combustion chamber, and you can get one hell of a lot of thrust in a tiny package that can be controlled via an on/off switch.

Okay so far. But how do you control that on/off switch? Well, DARPA is currently looking to fund development of Reliable Central-Nervous-System Interfaces, so that wounded military veterans can be turned into useful cyborgs with reaction times on the order of 10x to 20x faster than normal human neuromuscular lag times. Very cool stuff. But again, how do you power it?

Enter the catalytic idea. A few days ago I was browsing around the BBC News Technology site, and I ran across this item. A team at Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble announced the successful creation and testing of a biofuel cell—in other words, an implantable device that generates electricity from bloodstream glucose and oxygen.

Voila! In a sudden moment of creative synthesis, I realized that the steampunks and gamers were right all along! In the future, cyborg soldiers will get tanked-up on Red Bull and vodka before going into battle!

Let the arguments begin...

Monday, October 17, 2011

Ruminations of an Old Goat

Exactly thirty years ago, today, I married the girl in the window. I'm still amazed she said yes to my proposal. I'm equally amazed her father didn't run me off with a shotgun when asked him for permission to marry his youngest daughter (follow the link, above, for the details).

Thirty years can bring a lot of changes. Most of them, especially the Boy, have been good changes. A few of them have been not-so-good changes. Those of you who have been around the Friday Challenge since at least September of last year are probably aware one of those not-so-good changes has been going on since Labor Day weekend of 2010. In six days, my wife will begin receiving chemotherapy in preparation for a bone marrow transplant. At least we get to spend our anniversary together. She was in the hospital on our twenty-ninth anniversary.

For most of the next three months, I will be performing a balancing act between being my wife's primary caregiver during the most dangerous part of her treatment, the Boy, work, and some semblance of every day life. I'll still find time to hang around the Friday Challenge because all of you help keep me sane. (Yes, the pathetic level of sanity I display here passes for "sane" in my book.) I may even manage to squeeze in the periodic column, but don't hold your breath.

Also, on a totally unrelated topic, it appears I did not manage to win the Esquire Short Short Story contest or finish in the top ten. According to the rules, the top ten authors were expected to have travel arrangements to New York City made by October 17, which is today. I haven't heard anything from the contest judges about arranging a flight to New York City, ergo I didn't win. I'm not surprised, considering that they must have had thousands of entries, but an announcement would have been nice.

STUPEFYING STORIES Update

For those of you who missed our quiet announcement last Saturday, the STUPEFYING STORIES submission guidelines are now available online. Click here to read them.

Tell your friends. Tell the people who aren't your friends but are in your writing group anyway. Heck, maybe you might even consider reading them yourself. And remember, we don't have "reading periods." STUPEFYING STORIES is continuously open for new submissions.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

And the winner is...

(This “And the winner is...” is being posted a little earlier in the day, due to borrowed technology and schedule considerations. Next week should be back to evenings.)

I heard the news today, and oh boy, was it strange...

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.

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.

Triton is about to put on the “Editor Hat.” It's sort of like the “Sorting Hat” they use at Hogwarts (“What do you mean, my subscription to The Daily Prophet ran out?!”), but a little less sarcastic.

Triton: I'd like to thank everyone who participated in this week's challenge. We even had an entry from the Sceptered Isle! Let's see how everybody did:

Local Newsworthy

“Summary of Investigation” by Arvid Macenion

Triton: I liked the suspense and the buildup a lot; I was hooked right up to the end. Unfortunately, I didn't like the punchline at all. Maybe it's because I've heard the “seven ate nine” joke many times before, but it kind of ruined an otherwise cool story for me.

However...

I did really like the artist's rendition of the crime scene. It made me laugh. Frankly, it kind of saved the story for me. I'd heard the joke before, but hadn't seen it in picture form before. Editorially, I would delete the “Investigation Activity Report”. You've already served up the punchline, which is essentially the conclusion of the story, so you should just follow it up with the picture. Which is awesome.

Arvid Macenion: voted! / Jack Calverley: 3 / xdpaul: 3
Triton: 7
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 15
“Verdure Inferno” by xdpaul

Triton: Pretty good; you always have an excellent way with words. I especially like the weirdness of the real-life news story of a pumpkin growing in a pear tree. Adding in a tall tale angle was a nice touch, too. I particularly like the “face shock-frozen like an owl's” line - that's a nice piece of imagery. As an editor, I would remove the first couple of paragraphs and start the story with “From the fluttering shade”. I would also de-emphasize the color green. I think the repetition serves as more of a distraction than anything else. Other than those points, though, I think it's a pretty neat story and especially timely considering the season. Good job.

Arvid Macenion: 3 / Jack Calverley: 2 / xdpaul: voted!
Triton: 9
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 16
“Hand-me-down Memories” by Jack Calverley

Triton: This is an old and oft-used device, but it's inspired by actual living history recordings in London (as per the challenge criteria), so it gets a pass. And I definitely like the “peas in a pod” line – that's a nice homage to the pod people of yesteryear. I have to say that overall, though, this story was a little hard to follow. I would suggest adding more description as well as being more specific as to what is going on. I was puzzled by several things: are the original memories of the other victims still in their respective bodies in a repressed state? Or have they been removed completely and stored entirely on a computer? Because I got both impressions at different times in the story. The stuff about the cops didn't really work; if the Bingmans are masquerading as the original hosts, why would the police have a list of their names? If the “cult” members are criminal suspects, then the names on the list should be those of the bodies, right? Or, if the police aren't a credible threat, then why didn't the cult become more suspicious of Jim? There's just a little too much that doesn't quite fit together. I also had to consult the Urban Dictionary for “mob handed”. When writing for a primarily-American audience, it's a good idea to be careful about using British idioms. There's a potentially neat story here, but it needs cleaning up and fleshing out.

Arvid Macenion: 3 / Jack Calverley: voted! / xdpaul: 2
Triton: 3
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 10

Wrap-up...

Stop the presses! Okay, I've always wanted to say that. What are you supposed to do once they've stopped, anyway?

We have a winner:

1st Place: 16 — “Verdure Inferno” by xdpaul

Congratulations, xdpaul! Since you also won last week, and already proposed a new challenge for this week, you have the option of proposing another new challenge, scheduled to be announced the morning of Friday, 21 October 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 lesson of this challenge?

Triton: Thanks again to those who braved the hazardous waters of literary criticism and submitted entries. I also appreciate the end-notes detailing the respective real-life news stories.

One of those real-life news stories stood out as more “out-of-the-ordinary” than the others, and that was the one about the pumpkin in the pear tree. That's some weird, wild stuff. Nice job, xdpaul; that's the kind of bizarre item I was hoping for.

If nothing else, I hope this challenge topic has inspired you all to plumb the archives of your local area's history for potential story ideas. Because when truth is stranger than fiction, then maybe truth and fiction deserve to meet each other somewhere in the middle.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Open Mic Saturday

Friday, October 14, 2011

The Friday Challenge — 10/14/2011

This week in The Friday Challenge:

STUPEFYING STORIES volume 1, number 1 escapes! • Join the discussion...

STUPEFYING STORIES volume 1, number 1 gets its first review! • Join the discussion...

Bruce Bethke brags us about his coolest Geek Artifact. M refrains from telling anyone about his android head of Philip K. Di—oh, wait. He's still not gonna tell anybody about that one. • Join the discussion...

Kersley Fitzgerald shows a fellow writer The Way. • Join the discussion...

xdpaul wins our You're the Editor challenge, by not rejecting the twin dawns, twin Dawns or twin dawns. • Join the discussion...

All this and more, as “Moldy Cheese Day” bumps up against “National Angel Food Cake Day”, and the inmates discuss the view from their respective places in the asylum.

Local Newsworthy

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 10 14, or linked if posted as a blog/comment):

“Summary of Investigation” by Arvid Macenion
“Verdure Inferno” by xdpaul
“Hand-me-down Memories” by Jack Calverley

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, 16 October 2011.

Zero (point?)

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

Jay McInerney, Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Faulkner, among others, distinguished themselves by an occasional long foray into 2nd person narratives. Faulkner also rather famously tried his hand at a rotating 1st person point of view in As I Lay Dying. I, Robot was told in a somewhat unusual 1st person plural.

So fiddling with point of view is old hat. Is there anything that hasn't been done?

Thus, the challenge: Write a story told from a point of view other than 1st, 2nd, 3rd (or omniscient) person point of view. Call it the Zero point of view, if you like.

That's all: tell an authorless story, from the point of view of no one. How would that even read?

Please note that I don't even know if this can be done in anything other than an artificially processed machine language (or maybe Finnish), and even then, I'm not so sure.

If it can even be done, I would imagine the stories will be quite brief, but, heck, if you can tell a tale from no one's point of view and it rumbles on for 6,000 words, go for it. No word limit. No speed limit. No sanity limit.

That's why they call it a challenge, folks.

I'm glad I'm not you - good luck.

Hmm.

Better to say: Whether good luck is wished or not, the substance of fortune will be necessary.

Anyone can enter, except for xdpaul. You may enter as many times as you wish, but each entry must be independent of the others. Your entry must not be discernable as 1st, 2nd or 3rd person POV (or as far from such as conceivably possible for the purposes of determining a winner), and must not build upon the work of any other challenger.

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, xdpaul 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, 21 October 2011. A winner will be declared by the evening of Sunday, 23 October 2011.

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

The Friday Challenge - 10/14/11

Somebody left the gate on the Time Tunnel unlocked again, and as a result we're currently dealing with a dinosaur stampede here. Today's Friday Challenge post will appear later today—

Or earlier, if we can fix the TransChronic Regulator a clumsy stegosaurus backed into. In the meantime, we invite you to use this space and time to participate in a free-form discussion of The Valley of Gwangi. Cowboys and Dinosaurs: is it time for a remake?

Now if you'll excuse me, we've got to get back to— Hey! Somebody get a rope on that triceratops before it knocks over th

Although we are all covered in burnt triceratops feathers, most of the temporal damage has been repaired.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Deadline Reminder

The deadline for the current Friday Challenge — Local Newsworthy — is 6 AM Eastern time on the morning of Friday, 14 October 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, 16 October 2011.

Fitz of Distraction

Kersley Fitzgerald

Kersley Fitzgerald is an accidental cartoonist who has found the ultimate gig for introverted writers--no readings, no fan mail, no cons with mostly-naked green aliens from Star Trek. Yes, she realizes she did just make her male readers gasp in horror.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Ultimate Geek Fu

"A Piece of History"

In 1984, Universal, Lorimar, Warner Films, and Digital Productions made history by releasing The Last Starfighter, the first movie ever to make extensive use of CGI instead of mechanical props and models for its special effects. The movie was not entirely successful; the box office returns were disappointing, the Atari arcade game tie-ins flopped, and today it remains more of a "cult classic" than a revered milestone in cinematic history; but in its day, it was a film that really redefined the state of the art. In fact, its groundbreaking CGI effects were so bleeding edge state of the art that there was only one computer in the world that could be used to create them: the Cray X-MP.

Specifically, Cray X-MP Serial Number 108, which was installed at Digital Productions on November 14, 1983*, and after The Last Starfighter used to render CGI footage for 2010, Labyrinth, Dune, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a series of award-winning TV commercials, among other things.

[* Ironically, at almost exactly the same time as #108 was being shipped from Chippewa Falls to Hollywood, some punk kid from another small town in Wisconsin about sixty miles away from CF had just had his first sci-fi story published, in which he advanced the idea that you could get the effect of a supercomputer by chaining hundreds of personal computers together, if you could just find a good way to let them share data. In time render farms, composed of exactly such clusters of commodity computers, completely took over the CGI business, and Cray ceased to be a player in that market. But that is another story.]

#108 went on to have a long and checkered history, as Digital Productions was assimilated in a hostile takeover by a Canadian company that subsequently went bankrupt and the machine changed hands and bounced around the North American continent. Eventually it returned home to Chippewa Falls, though, where it remained in service as a test-bed and backup system until the last working X-MP in the field (a meteorology system owned by the government of India) was decommissioned in the summer of 2001. At that time #108 was finally shut down for good, and then disassembled and reduced to a heap of its component parts.

Like this one:

This is a 3ZD memory data out module from #108. When it was new it cost $10,000. It weighs a little over four pounds, mostly because of the two massive copper heat sinks that were required for heat dissipation. Cooling has always been a critical problem for supercomputers. That's what finally killed the met system in India; a cooling system failure.

How about you? What's the coolest Geek Artifact you own?

Let the bragging begin.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Verdict

So you wrote a story. Poured your soul out in prose. Whereupon the Fates smiled upon you, and your story was accepted for publication. And then, after who knows how many years of writing, struggling, and wondering whether you really had what it took, the great day finally arrived, when the publication was at last released, and you became that incredible thing you'd always dreamed of becoming: a published author.

It really is an amazing feeling. One moment, you're on top of the world. At last, my story is published! I've made it!

The next, you're hit by the terrifying realization: My God. My little darling is out there all alone and naked, with no one to protect it.

That's when you realize what a terrible emotional gamble writing fiction for publication is. Your tender little story is going out there, utterly defenseless, into a big bad world full of big bad wolves—and worse, critics. People who you don't know and who don't know you will read your story. They will form opinions about it. And some of them might not like it.

In some respects I think writers had it easier, back in the glory days of dead tree publishing. Back then you might wait months or even years between the time you sold your first story and the time it finally came out in print, but this lag was a valuable buffer. You had time to bask in the glory of having finally broken into print, and then to turn around and write and sell more stories, before having to face that terrible moment when the magazine finally hit the racks and you were forced to realize: the jury is out. There's nothing more you can do for your story now but wait for the verdict to come in.

There was great consolation to be had in knowing that you had six more stories already sold and in the publication queue. The critics don't like your story in this month's Amazing? Big deal. Maybe they'll like the one in next month's Fantastic better.

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. These days, writers are constantly playing with double-edged razor blades. Yes, the Internet means it's now possible to write a story today and have it published to a world-wide audience tomorrow.

But it also means that critics, both professional and amateur, can have their opinions about your work published world-wide with equal rapidity, and worse, you can learn what those opinions are in the blink of a Google search, or a quick peek at the Amazon listing. Doubly worse, critics are no longer strange and distant creatures, hidden behind bylines at magazines or newspapers; now they're people with blogs, and names of their own, and email addresses, and probably a bio on Wikipedia and critics of their own, if you're sufficiently motivated to start digging for dirt. The temptation to respond to what seems like an unfair review by leaping to the defense of your story; to level the guns, load with flaming shot, and return fire with a wildly unaimed broadside, can be almost irresistible...

In other respects, I think I had an unfair advantage over the other writers who were in my age group, in that I backed into writing fiction via music and theater. By the time I started getting fiction published and reviewed, I'd already had my work torn to little bloody shreds by theater critics. For sheer venomous bitchiness, there is nothing in the world of fantastic fiction that begins to compare to a major newspaper theater critic.

This experience also inured me. I soon grew to realize that the critic wasn't savaging me; he was just criticizing some music I'd written. Or maybe not even that; maybe of all the music I'd written for the show, he just didn't like the particular music the director chose to use in a particular scene. Or maybe the critic was grumpy that night because he'd had lousy service in a restaurant before he ever arrived at the theater. Or maybe he was just determined to hate everything about the show, because he'd had an affair with the lead actor years before, and then he'd been jilted by him, the bitch.

In those days, a wise friend gave me some good advice. When I had steam pouring out of my ears because of a particularly insulting review, he said, "Go ahead. Write him a letter. Begin it with, 'Dear Ignorant Flaming F**king Faggot,' if you like. Then seal it in an envelope, stick it in your desk, and don't look at it again for at least a week. If you still feel that strongly about it after you've let it sit for a week, go ahead and send the letter.

"But I'm betting you won't."

He was right. I never did.

Before you give in to the temptation to respond to a critic, then, ask yourself: What do I gain by doing this?

Will you change the critic's opinion of this story? Not likely. Will you convince the critic to print a retraction? Not a chance in Hell. Will you make the critic inclined to give your next publication a more even-handed review? Even less likely. Will you find yourself promoted to a place of prominence on the critic's personal Known Jerks & Twits list?

Very probably.

Back before I decided I had better things to do with my time, I used to write book reviews. Not everyone liked my reviews of their novels, and I got more than a few letters and emails from self-identified big name authors that essentially said, "You stupid punk! Don't you know who I am?"

Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I do. You're someone whose work I will ignore completely in the future. Keep sending me those free review copies, though. I get top dollar for them at Half-Price Books.

Hard as it may be to believe, a reviewer is doing you a favor whenever he or she takes notice of your work, even if that notice comes in the form a bad review. It's still free advertising, and it brings your work to the attention of readers who might not know of it otherwise. Readers are smart enough to realize that a review is only one person's opinion, and reviewers sometimes form opinions for utterly irrational reasons. This one doesn't like steampunk; that one will never like a story with elves. Heck, sometimes readers read reviews just because the reviewer is a known reliable contra-indicator: if reviewer "A" loves a movie, I know I'll hate it. I'm sure you can think of a few reviewers like that.

The point is, this is the risk we take every time we put our fiction out in public: we are laying ourselves open for criticism. If we are lucky, people will read our stories and feel moved enough to form opinions. Some of these opinionated people will then for personal or commercial reasons feel inclined to publish their opinions, and their opinions might contain words we don't take pleasure from hearing.

You cannot write for publication without taking this risk. It comes with the job; it's part of the territory. The way you silence those unpleasant words is not by arguing with the critic over his current opinion of your current publication; it's by writing something new that makes him begin to suspect there's more to your work than first meets the eye, and perhaps he should be paying closer attention to you in the future.

And that something new is probably not a letter that begins, "Dear Ignorant Flaming F**king Faggot..."

Sunday, October 9, 2011

And the winner is...

It isn't often that we are asked to be cruel, cutting and snide... but when such opportunities present themselves, isn't it fun?

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.

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.

Henry is about to put on the “Editor Hat.” It's sort of like the “Sorting Hat” they use at Hogwarts (“Dear Mr. Hopkins, One of your children seems to have mailed us a thesaurus.”), but a little less sarcastic.

You're the Editor

~brb

Dear Talentless Hack,

Were you by chance going to the town landfill on the same day that you mailed your manuscript? We ask because it appears that you have gotten confused, discarded your story, and mailed your garbage instead.

In the future you may save yourself postage simply by not submitting to us at all. We will be watching for your name; rest assured that we will never forgive you for attempting to foist this load of pathetic crapola off on us.

With malice aforethought,
"The Editors"

Henry: Yeah, your entry isn't supposed to count and all that. Great letter, though. I love the the suggestion that the "author" mailed his trash and threw away his story along with the threat to keep an eye out for future submissions. But I will honor your wishes and leave you out of the scoring.

Jack Calverley: 2 / miko: - / Vidad: 0 / xdpaul: 2
Henry: his entry does count and all that
Total: 4- (and the fact that it counts)
rycamor

Dear Mr. Hopkins,

Wow... refreshing honesty! And yes, I shouldn't have this job. It was more of a dare, really. I just told my friends "I don't know anything about writing or editing, but I'm a great BS artist, so why not? 200 bucks says I can walk in there, insult the publisher, steal his cigars, and still talk enough game to get the job." So not only did I get the job, but I'm $200 and a few extremely smooth Maduros richer just for being such a prick. I called him an uptight old fart (I do it cool... people eat it up), so he said "You know... chutzpah like that is just what we need around here. You're hired!"

Feels good to get that off my chest. It's been bothering me ever since I got the job, especially since I schmoozed my way to a 25% pay raise. Oh, and I didn't tell you about lunch with Neal Stephenson. Coolest dude ever. Ahh, me... Anyway, on to business:

Since it pains me to think what you must be going through (the guilt is killing me), I'm going to do whatever I can to make it up to you. I see the genius in your story (well I trust your judgment since I don't know what I'm doing here), but what I want is more. More of whatever it is that you do in this story. I'm thinking an ongoing series in the magazine. Story in installments, whatever they hell they call it in this biz. But, since I don't understand this job, I need ammo to convince the boss. So here's the plan:

1. Make it bigger. MUCH bigger. You know... more boobs, more ray guns, scarier aliens, and make it big enough for 6 issues, and leave the ending a real cliff-hanger so you can get started on the rest of the year. Put everything into this one, man... it's your time!

2. I'm gonna need your help on the write-up for this, since I don't even know the lingo. Honestly, up until now I've been using an online writers discussion* to help me critique and choose the stories. Soo... how about YOU write up the critique and make it good. That way we're covered no matter what. I know a genius like you can make it sing and we'll be in like Flynn.

Oh, and one last thing: let's use a separate channel from now on. Keep this on the low-down. I actually talked my way into a 2nd editing job (I "telecommute" every other day). So I want you to send all future stuff to my alias at this publisher:

Bruce R. Bethke
Rampant Loon Press

Just to make it convincing, I'll write back saying I don't know what you're talking about. Play along, but keep feeding me stuff.

*OK, it's not even an online writers' discussion. They'd figure me out for a hack in no time. I actually use a service out of Taiwan that guarantees full anonymity and only costs $125/month. They're even working on my keynote speech at Worldcon, but enough about me now. Let's get your story polished up.

Yours truly

Ryc A. Mor
Editor in Chief
Astounding Stories of Amazement

Henry: Viscious, under-handed, snarky, and all wrapped up in a psuedo-complimentary manner which will probably leave freezer burns on the fingers of anyone who touches the paper this letter is written on. I just wonder what this poor Bethke fellow did to deserve such treatment. You may never hear from Hopkins again, but don't be surprised if someone named Bethke darkens your office door sometime in the future.

Jack Calverley: 3 / miko: - / Vidad: 0 / xdpaul: 3
Henry: 5
Total: 11-
passinthough

Dear Mr Hopkins,

I read the manuscipt you submitted. After reading your manuscipt I was amazed and astounded at the depth and breadth of your submission. Fortunately for our readers. I am unwilling to subject them to the mental torture I endured as I read your manuscipt. May I suggest that any furture manuscripts be submitted to the DHS to be evaluated as potential torture material.

Sincerly,

R Aset Editor

Henry: It's great to see an entry from you again! This one was short and to the point and left no doubt as to your opinion of the material. I'd suggest not using the word "torture" twice. At the end of the letter, something like the phrase "enhanced interrogation material" would have carried the same meaning without duplicating the word. Also, unless something has a well-known acronym — such as the CIA or FBI — I'd suggest writing out Department of Homeland Security.

Jack Calverley: 1 / miko: - / Vidad: 0 / xdpaul: 1
Henry: 2
Total: 4-
Triton

Dear Mr. Hopkins:

Thank you very much for your submission to Astounding Stories of Amazement. I don't think I've ever received a submission quite like yours, and that's saying a lot.

Unfortunately, I fear that my little rinky-dink magazine just doesn't have the appropriate level of gravitas required to host such an amazing story. So, instead, I'm forwarding your submission to one of our subsidiaries, a publication called Raging Bull Dyke. I'm sure they'll love your beautiful, large-breasted female characters. I'll even encourage them to include your address in the publication so that all of your new-found fans can shower you with their praise in person.

Thanks again.

Sincerely,
Triton

Henry: So, are raging bull dykes more or less likely be offended by larged-breasted female characters? I guess I need to get out more, since I have no idea. As threats go, I think this one is probably too subtle for someone of Hopkins' density. You'll probably get at least one more submission from him, likely filled with rants that you're not even qualified to edit magazines for Raging Bull Dyke magazine.

Jack Calverley: 2 / miko: - / Vidad: 0 / xdpaul: 2
Henry: 3
Total: 7-
Jack Calverley

Dear Mr Hopkins,

I have to report that someone interfered with your postal submission before it arrived at our office.

It seems all your communications are being monitored. Your speculative fiction inadvertently made reference to some items of science fact which the authorities are unwilling to have released to the public.

I cannot tell you which aspects of your story aggravated them (they would not tell me) but they made it perfectly clear that neither this magazine nor I, in any future role, may ever publish any of your work.

The inane drivel which they substituted for your piece read like an early reject from the recent attempt to simulate a million monkeys writing Shakespeare. In fact I was reminded of those X-Factor competitors whose total lack of talent is apparent to all the world except themselves. I guess you've seen them too. Sadly from time to time the occasional ignorant narcissist with pretensions to write submits to us!

But I do resent the arbitrary imposition of authority as, I expect, do you. And despite your doubts about our editorial policy I feel a personal duty to warn you that if they have not already interviewed you: they surely will (unless they are content just to watch you. For now).

They didn't actually tell me that I couldn't contact you, but I probably should not be writing this. So this had better be our last ever correspondence.

I'm not sure whether Mexico would be a safe bet, but I guess Europe or Asia ought to be - if you make it across the border.

Good luck!

J Calverley
Editor

Henry: Welcome to the Friday Challenge, Jack! While it's not certain that Hopkins is a conspiracy freak, it does seem well within the realm of possibility. I like how you played up to potential fears while also slagging his story without appearing to slag his story. I doubt you will receive any more submissions from Hopkins.

Jack Calverley: voted! / miko: - / Vidad: 0 / xdpaul: 3
Henry: 5
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 10-
miko

Dear Reader,

Thank you for your letter of the 30th ultimo. I am indebted to you for your frank appraisal of my editorial competence; a spur to self-examination and re-dedication is always welcome. Doubtless there are better editors than I, so I have forwarded your letter to the publisher for reconsideration of present staffing.

Thank you also for your accompanying submission. I accept with full confidence your contention that this is your "finest story". It is apparent you have taken our publication's title quite literally, for I do indeed find your story astounding and its content amazing.

In my judgment as editor, however, I have concluded that your submission is not right for this magazine. Consequently, I have decided to decline the opportunity to publish your story. I trust your evident awareness of this department's deficiencies will mitigate any disappointment you might feel.

I encourage you to submit your story to other publications as their responses are certain to be most edifying. Do write back when you meet with success, for to watch the forgone acclaim of a roused readership accrue to a competitor will be a gratifying lesson to us all.

Thank you for your interest and good luck with your writing.

Sincerely,

/s/ miko

Editor (pro tem), Astounding Stories of Amazement

Henry: Your letter has a very professional veneer covering some seriously high-level snarkiness. What I like about this letter is how you've managed to thoroughly insult Hopkins in such a way that Hopkins probably won't realize he's been insulted. It's much too subtle for the likes of Hopkins, but your fellow editors will enjoy it a lot. Well, up until they start receiving submissions from Hopkins as a result of you encouraging him to submit his stories to other publications.

Jack Calverley: 3 / miko: voted! / Vidad: 0 / xdpaul: 1.5
Henry: 7
Participation bonus: - (The lone "Grand High Exalted Mystic Pan-Galactic Non-Scoring Non-Vote Bonus Point" you awarded was not a number, so you don't get a number.)
Total: 11.5-
xdpaul

Everett,

Congratulations! In what is, I am quite certain, the finest story that ever leaped, fully formed, from the mortal confines of what surely must be the largest and most misshapen cranium (due no doubt, to such intense and fevered content) since that estimable literary inspiration Joseph Merrick breathed his last, I can do little else but marvel.

An extraordinary work, this "Twin Dawns on Za'atar."

I'm sure you are well aware that no published author has ever intentionally named a planet after oregano.

Even more stunning is that you so cleverly use the motiff of the twin suns to subtly suggest the budding sexuality of the bioengineered twin heroines, Dawn One and Dawn Two, as well as their most prominent physical features, respectively known as Dawns 3 and 4 and Dawns 5 and 6.

My favorite line comes when the heroines realize that the sheer fabric of their form-fitting space bikinis are nanometers too thick for them to squeeze safely through the pneumatic bank teller tubes in order to orally deliver the urgent message to the President of Za'atar because email hasn't been invented yet due to the rip in the space time continuum.

"As the clingy fabric released its tender hold when the women simultaneously tugged at the material, the twin dawns of the twin Dawns dawned in the autumnal summer glow of the twin dawns of Za'atar."

It is as if you have invented a new language that holds a warped mirror up to English and mocks it openly.

The only thing I will change slightly in the story is the presentation of the hero, Ttereve. Not only is the obvious sexual subtext between himself and his alien sidekick Shep the Space Sheep too subtle for our readers, it is almost to the point that it is hardly apparent at all! Let's change that, shall we?

Nothing drastic, just a punchy, torrid and explicit scene of raw and naked passion between Ttereve and the Sheep. Perhaps Dawn Two should walk in on the affair, and run off in tears, finally realizing that his macho rebuffs of her advances have complex roots in his secret proclivities.

Also, instead of single-handedly defeating the villain's army with a space pinecone and a waffle iron, it seems a more natural creative choice for him to use subterfuge. I believe he should borrow Shep's space suit and pass himself as an ovine temple priestess, and sacrifice his body to the lusts of the enemy soldiers, thereby passing on his debilitating venereal disease to them, securing victory.

Of course, that means the inevitable elimination of the consummation scene between Ttereve and the twin Dawns, but it is a minor loss, I'm sure. It could easily be replaced in a later, collector's edition with an "author's cut" fondling scene betwixt man and sheep that would be too avant garde for even our progressive family magazine.

I have spoken with the publisher, and his recollection of you is such that you must be an incredibly busy and important person to give such a personal impression. It is, in his words, as if, "he has never met you in his life."

With that in mind, to spare you from the annoying details or distract you from more important ventures, I have taken the small liberty of making the above edits, and have demanded a rush on the publication calendar.

Your story will be in print and distributed electronically worldwide by the time you receive this letter, which I had to send via media mail in order to return the wonderful DVD you sent of yourself reading your unpublished poetical odes to the yttrium mines of Jupiter.

I have also included a payment check. It is, by far, the most pleasant 2 and 1/5 pennies per word (rounded up for your benefit!) with which I have ever had to part. I did take the liberty of discounting the slightly padded word count by eliminating from the final text all conjunctions, articles, pronouns and references to cybertechnology. They hardly affect the meaning, and saved me a whopping $7.32 (rounded down for your benefit!)

Finally, in the process of assuming the editorship at ASoA, I have discovered that we have a unique glitch in our spell-checking process. Our printer, unfortunately _reversed_ the name of your hero from the original. I will include a correction on the back page of the following issue, but I'm sure it won't affect the pleasure I will derive from being the first professional publisher to, at long last, expose you to the light of day.

Again, congratulations, Everett. No one in the publishing industry will possibly forget your name after this.

Warmest Regards,

X. D. Paul
Editor-in-Chief
Astounding Stories of Amazement

Henry: I laughed out loud several times while reading your entry. Dawns one through six are inspired, as is Shep the Space Sheep. I should probably reduce your score for making me laugh, since the Boy cannot hear me laugh at anything without asking, "What?" followed by insistent requests to have the amusing text read aloud to him. Since I managed to avoid doing that, I won't hold it again you this time. On the surface, receiving payment for his submission seems likely to bolster Hopkins' resolve to continue writing. But distributing the story electronically is actually a far more cruel fate than that suggested in any of the other entries. Somehow, I think getting what he wanted will not make Hopkins happy.

Jack Calverley: 2 / miko: -+ / Vidad: 4 (I'll allow it. He used a number.) / xdpaul: voted!
Henry: 8
Participation bonus: 2
Total: 16-+

Wrap-up...

In a cruel twist, the winning rejection letter is the one that accepted Everett Hopkins' submission:

1st Place: 16-+ points — “...the twin dawns of the twin Dawns dawned in the autumnal summer glow of the twin dawns...” by xdpaul

Congratulations, xdpaul! As a previous challenge winner, you have the option of proposing another new challenge, scheduled to be announced the morning of Friday, 14 October 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 lesson of this challenge?

M: As a writer, you will see rejection letters. Cherish the good ones, learn from the kind ones, and try not to earn any that could have been mistaken for an entry in this challenge.

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