January-February 2010 Short Fiction Contest

[kater]

Perhaps we could stick with ninjas or pirates, and head off a lot confusion at the pass by not imposing a genre?

Nope, the contest was set-up by the OP with Fantasy specifically the genre ergo you have to write a fantasy piece. Simples

[tmso]

Nope, the contest was set-up by the OP with Fantasy specifically the genre ergo you have to write a fantasy piece. Simples

Well, there goes two of my ideas...

[kater]

Well, there goes two of my ideas...

Fung's rules seemed clear to me:

Your Mission:

Write an original work of Short Fiction, min. 1,500 words max. 5,000 words, in the Fantasy Genre with your particular, personal spin on the theme.

You are free to construct your entry however you like, however you interpret the theme, so long as it is within the restrictions outlined above.

The rules are part of the challenge Though I'm sure FP will be along to clear it up.

[tmso]

(huge sigh) that was a joke

[kater]

Errr .... heh Owen's not in right now, if you'd like to contact the body's owner or simply report dangerous typing please call 0-BALLS-MY-BAD and our monkeys will get back to you within 24 years.

[tmso]

Errr .... heh Owen's not in right now, if you'd like to contact the body's owner or simply report dangerous typing please call 0-BALLS-MY-BAD and our monkeys will get back to you within 24 years.

LOL! (only second time I've used that)

[Fung Koo]

By 'fantasy genre', do you mean conventional tropes (I.e. Medievalism), or some other definition?

In the absolute most simplest sense, fantasy stories will typically have some form of magic in them. That's about as specific as the requirement gets. Note the word "typically," too.

I assume space pirates would be sci-fi, not fantasy, but then ninjas also stretch my definition of 'fantasy '.

I can only take this as a statement of your own particular sense of what fantasy vs. sf is and so can't really comment. If your definition of fantasy precludes ninjas, then it precludes ninjas (though I'd say that's a strangely limiting definition of fantasy -- never played the east-of-Forgotten-Realms setting of Kara Tur/Rokugan? Ever watched Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon?)

Perhaps we could stick with ninjas or pirates, and head off a lot confusion at the pass by not imposing a genre?

You may certainly do so if you choose

[dandelliondeath]

What is Star Wars? Science fiction because it has robots, spaceships, and blasters? Or space fantasy because it has swords, dragons, armoured knights, wizard-warriors, gnomes and damsels in distress?

Star Wars is a Space Opera

[goldhawk]

Star Wars is a Space Opera

Nice evasive manoeuvrer.

[benh]

Hello dear friends,

I'm back from my honeymoon! Holy toledo, being married is awesome. I have an actual desk now, and a computer. No more laptops on my lap on my bed for me! And posters. I have posters up. Inspiring ones. Mmmmm. Plus my wife is the best. The best.

Anyway, thought I'd enter this thing as a way of getting back into the swing of things. I know most of the times when I write for these things my ideas aren't the best, plus my style and you know, overall weirdness kind've alienate a lot of people from my stories. They are not that well written. Which is fine right, practice and all that. But! (and here's the but) I feel very good about this one. Spent some time on it you know, structure wise, taking things out, putting them back. Went through it slowly, built a plot, built characters. I tried to write a conventional story. Oh boy. Hope you guys actually enjoy this one!

So, and I'm not sure how this works with the new forum, here it is!

(if there's a tip on how to indent your work in the correct manner I would love to hear it)

Ben H - The Body

[kater]

Just across from the underline button on the full menu, as in Post Reply not Quick Reply, there are three buttons for alignment - left, center, right. Or if you're looking for something less pronounced there are two buttons under the big A button that allows you to change font colour, with which you can increase or decrease the indent per your desires. Hope that helps and bravo on getting a story out so quickly too

[tmso]

I'm back from my honeymoon!

Welcome back Ben! Looking forward to reading your story.

[benh]

Thanks tmso! I hope you like this one. It totally has a narrative and everything.

And thanks kater, for both the help and the praise. I meant that little indentation at the start of a paragraph or when a person speaks, but that's okay. It's no big deal.

Good to be writing again! I wrote a bit on the honeymoon too... between... snorkling. It was amazing hey. An island on the barrier reef where there were no televisions, no computers, no phones at all. It was very very refreshing and relaxing.

[kater]

You can do it simply by highlighting the text and pressing the button below the big underlined A button, which says Increase Indent when the need takes you and it will create a slight movement of the words that you chose to highlight

[Hereford Eye]

Suggest the creation of folders in the Stories section. When there is no such segregation, stories such as my entry for the Jan-Feb short story contest migrate to the bottom of the stack. This could be problemmatic for the czar of the short story contest trying to track all entries.