So you think you can write a story? Prove it!

[Vintage Season]

Think you can write a story? All right then, here is a challenge, from Bruce Bethke. He is the science fiction author who coined the term "cyberpunk." He is the science fiction author who first used the word "spam" to describe junk e-mail. These days he also hosts an ad hoc literary community designed as a workshop -slash- writing contest, known as The Friday Challenge.

If you decide to enter, you have 144 hours, 19 minutes left in which to conceive, write up, and submit an entry according to the loose guidelines posted below. There is no fee to enter. You aren't signing away any rights by submitting a story. You might even win a small prize, from whatever is stashed behind Door #3, and you'll get excellent feedback from a troika of qualified judges, as well as from your fellow participants.

Once you are ready, you can submit an entry by following this link and submitting a quick post telling who you are, and where to find your story.

* UPDATE *

I have updated the link above to the current "Deadline Reminder" page (since no one had used the other link yet), so you can either post your entries at the new link, or at the link where the Folk Tales of the Final Frontier Challenge was originally announced (as a few people have already begun to do): http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/04/friday-challenge-4910.html

* UPDATE *

I hope to see you there!

- M.

Folk Tales of the Final Frontier

A while back, Henry wished there were science fiction versions of traditional folk and fairy tales that he could use in storytelling performances. We here at the Friday Challenge think this is an interesting idea... and hereby offer it as the next Greater Challenge. The idea is to take an existing folk or fairy tale and science fictionize it. Henry offers this example for Sleeping Beauty:

Beauty was the first of the great sleep-ships sent from earth to colonize distant worlds. Other sleep-ships followed and, a century later, ships with faster-than-light drives. No trace of the Beauty or her colony was ever found and her fate became the first great space myth. Over one thousand years after the Beauty was launched, relic hunter Pete Charming, for whom finding the Beauty is an obsession, actually finds the ship. Beauty is far off course but still under power. Are her colonists still in suspended animation? What of her beautiful captain? Before Peter can discover these answers, he must find a way past the Beauty's powerful point defenses (against meteors and other space debris) and her internal defenses (perhaps a wall of laser beams rather than a wall of thorns). To add some drama, Henry was thinking of tossing in some space pirates or rival relic hunters who show up after Peter has awakened the captain.

Feel free to make up whatever you need to make your story work. Need a talking wolf? Just create a wolf-like alien race. The same goes for pigs, if you need some of those! If the story you choose to convert isn't one of the well-known folk or fairy tales, you might include a note at the beginning telling us which story you're converting.

As always, we're playing by the loosely enforced Official Rules of the Friday Challenge and playing for whatever is behind Door #3. This is a Greater Challenge, so the deadline for this one is midnight, Thursday, 4/29/10.

There's alien porridge to be eaten, cybernetic evil queens to overthrow and bio-sculpted princes and princesses to meet and fall in love! So get started writing.

And remember, let's have fun out there!

Another thing...


If you do not have a website, or your entry is longer than will easily fit in the comments, feel free to upload your submissions to The Friday Challenge Drop Box (use "challenge" for guest access). But don't forget, you'll still need to leave a comment so the judges will know you have submitted an entry there!

[Vintage Season]

~125 hours, 11 minutes left...

- M.

[Kevin2960]

Giving it a go if I can find inspiration,

Thought I might do "Hansel and Gretal",

Wish me Luck

[Winter]

Damn. I'd love to throw one in with this, but I just don't have the time right now. Sigh.

Regards,
Ryan

[Vintage Season]

@ Kevin2960: Wonderful! I look forward to reading it, and I'll see you there.

@ Winter: Fear not. There will be other challenges! We'd still like to see what you can produce for this one, if you get a chance.

~110 hours, 55 minutes left...

- M.

[Vintage Season]

~95 hours, 45 minutes left...

Tick, tick, tick!

- M.

[J. Dean]

Gotta sit this one out, but I would be interested in trying a future challenge!

[Vintage Season]

~73 hours, 59 minutes left.

Decided which folk/fairy tale you will tackle? There is still time to enter!

- M.

[GeoffC]

an interesting idea - and there ought to be plenty of ideas likely from some of the excellent writers here on MR....it's a bittie limited on how to submit, though .... via ones own web site, or in a small comment box that might or might not have a size limit to it ....

[dadioflex]

Edit.

[Vintage Season]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

....it's a bittie limited on how to submit, though ....

Feel free to upload your submissions to The Friday Challenge Drop Box (use "challenge" for guest access). But don't forget, you'll still need to leave a comment so the judges will know you have submitted an entry there!

~63 hours, 9 minutes left...

-M.

[Kevin2960]

Help haven't even managd to start yet, and really want to have a go ... Wish the world would go into standbye mode and leave me to it .... Some hope !

[Vintage Season]

Anyone searching for inspiration might want to check out Wikipedia's entries on Grimm's Fairy Tales and Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, each of which includes a thorough list of the stories included, and also links to plot summaries and online texts where applicable.

~59 hours, 38 minutes to go...

- M.

[Vintage Season]

We are now down to...

~49 hours, 53 minutes to go.

- M.

[dadioflex]

Edit.