This challenge is not anonymous. This is a discussion challenge. The more you discuss, the more I think we can get from it. So here goes.

You have two hours to write a story. These two hours can begin at any point from today to the end of march, but you cannot spend more than two hours total finishing the story. As soon as your hours are up, send your rough drafts to me through email, and then post the first thirteen on the site.

When March ends and the stories are all up, I will send the stories out to everyone in anthology form. We read and make comments (on the site) about everyone's stories.

Then, you have a month to revise the story. Clean up the grammar, flesh out the details, start in the right place, whatever it takes. When the story is clean, send it to me again, and then I will send out first and final drafts to everyone to compare. At which point we vote for best story, and most improved.

Again, discussion is encouraged.

Rough drafts due: last day in March
Final drafts due: last day in April
Trigger: Price of Peace

Newbies and seasoned pros, you want to play?
~Sheena
shimiqua@gmail.com

Edited to make the trigger more noticeable.

Write a story in two hours. Writers are encouraged to be messy in their prose. Then, when April hits, writers are assigned a random story (not their own) to edit. This way no emotional attachment is generated to the original content. They make the changes and recommendations, and those edits are judged.

Thoughts?

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Do we get a trigger?

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Interesting question. This will be tough to be sure a writer really took 2 hours to write.

Would you like each person that wants to play provide a trigger then they can be randomly assigned? That way when a writer is ready they can bug someone (this is teh weak part of this idea) for a trigger.

Edit to add...

oops. Just noticed the trigger in the first post

Rhaythe's idea is interesting, what do the rest of you think? I personally wonder if that takes away from the authors content. For example, If I wrote a weird story with sloppy prose(been known to happen) and Satate edits it into a nubula finalist, would I get the rights to it?

I think it is best to just edit your own, however if someone wants to, I have no issue if two people swap.

That's the good thing about discussion. Who ever talks gets to mold the challenge into whatever they want it to be.

Either way I'm in. Lately I need motivation to write, for which both the trigger and competitiveness are invaluable.

(And thanks for volunteering, shimiqua)

http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2010-02-28.shtml

I think that concept could be expanded upon for a really interesting story.

Start writing!

The challenge is to write a first draft of a story in two hours. This story should be inspired or based from the trigger, Price of Peace. It should be spec fiction, or at least that is what tends to play best to this audience. There isn't a length limit, though >2000 words will be the normal.

Only one entry per challenger.

Email entries when the first draft is finished to me @ shimiqua@gmail.com by the end of the month. I'll send out the stories to everyone's email and we do a brief and helpful crit (keeping in mind it's a first draft) Crits should be posted in the Editing Challenge First Thirteen post within a week or so of receiving the stories.

Then, using the crits, and the time you have from now until the end of April, you clean up the story until it is ready to be submitted, or the best you can possibly make it, and then send it back to me @ shimiqua@gmail.com. I send the clean versions around again, and we then vote on best story overall, and Most Improved. No crits this time, unless you really want to say something, at which case do it here.

You can comment on this post at anytime about your story, about others stories, about the process, about what changes you made...etc. Even why you decided to name your MC what you did,(Frank) or anything that comes to mind.

This challenge is about the process, more than the result. If it works out the way I want you should learn a lot about why people change a word, a structure, or perhaps even a main characters name (Frank).

Does that make sense? Any specific questions, please, feel more than free to ask.
~Sheena

Remember this is a rough draft, so take and hour or two, and free write. See if you can get a story out of it.

Good luck,
~Sheena

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By the time someone found him he only hours from death itself.

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Death itself was an experiment and some where not as reserved in their attitudes toward the living as Roland was.

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It made his nauseous to think that he, who loved his beloved wife more than his own life, had killed his her

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But he could not allow himself to subcomb to death.

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Funny draft. I am impressed considering you did this in an hour. Lots of potential. Needs lots of work though.
This premise needs a bit of added silliness. Think of ways in which you can exploit the similarities of our world with one involving supreme beings. Hopefully I can give you a few examples that you’ll find useful.

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God stood in his heavens with a shopping list. He was a man (surprise) and he wore long white robes that piled up in lines on his arms as if the robes were made for someone larger. You think God would have a better tailor.

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God thumbed through His shopping list as He walked down the isle pushing His heavenly cart. Not the first time I saw Him in the store, but it was the one time when He wasn’t just window-shopping. His Holiness, (Yes, I said ‘his’ not ‘hers’. What else would you expect?) wore the same long white robes that He always wore, triple-thick bleached hooded cowl, layered in lines on His arms. As if they were made in a ‘one size fits all’ and for someone a lot larger than Himself. You would think He would have created a better tailor.

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tinny music playing in the back ground Super-Walmart

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Elephants came in a wrapping that looked like a sugar taffy, humans one tiny toy doll

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When the cart (i.e. the earth)

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He's not a bad man, God

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or open a can of you know what on my you know where

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I could tweak your whole story I like the idea so much. But it is yours so…\
One thing I would like to see is more interaction between Harvey and God. Just like a kindly shopper would make with a supermarket cashier he meets once a week.

“Lovely nova today,” I say as I scan. “How did those dinosaurs you bought work out for your world?”
He shrugged and grunted. “Some kids threw an asteroid at my world, spoiled the great plan I spent 200 million years working on.”

Another suggestion for you; when God is putting things back that he can’t afford, make them mythological creatures. Fire breathing dragons, unicorns, centaurs…that kinda of thing.
Keep up the good work. Can’t wait to see the rewrite.

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His father’s eyes looked down on him.

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His father’s voice sounded inside his head and even in death his voice held that hint of cynicism.

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His father said inside his head. Even in death his voice held that hint of cynicism.

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Can’t you send an earthquake to the Empire’s capital, or famine, anything to draw them away.

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Escaped strands of black hair framed her face. Even with dirt on her face she was a beauty and her brown shift couldn’t hide what was underneath. She curtsied.

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If he had been free to choose his own wife he would choose her

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“Get out of my head father,” he said inside of his head.

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He had no idea how to woe a woman and his own fiancé was supposed to be hear any day.

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The sound of footsteps rang down the hall and Fenrich looked behind him to see Thane striding toward him with several papers in his arms.

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Stopping he waited as his advisor approached

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“You’re not going to let him get away with this?” Thane said.

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This draft is a bit overwritten, quite a few redundancies. You are missing several commas as well. You could cut 10 to 20 percent. Not at all sure where you are headed, which is a good thing (still an element of mystery). Keep up the good work.

A sad story and I think it has the makings to be epic. I have to agree with Snapper though. The narration is incredibly distant. Everything is told and summarized and nothing is happening live. Perhaps this is how you write your first drafts. It reads a little like how I write my notes. Here are some comments from my reading.

"No one was quite sure if he choose that dreadful school of magic for evil or for power" - Who is no one? His friends, family, fellow school chums, the other death mages? Who else is in his life. Who wonders about this choice, his mother, his sister, his best friend? Be more specific and get more into his life.

"But now, his studies required a living human subject and it was possible they could die from it. That was a risk he was unwilling to take." - Why? The whole intro section talked about how he went into this evil field (without ever saying why)Surely he knew what went into being a death mage before going into it. Why would he choose this subject without being willing to do a little killing? What about this guy makes him want to be a death mage and yet at the same time not kill anyone. This is an interesting contradiction that could make for a good character.

"At first he experimented upon insects, and then animals. There were complications. With each step up the food chain, his experiment adapted" - How did the experiment adapt? What were the experiments? Show me an experiment? Does it involve spells or real knowledge of the body. Try having a scene where he does these experiments so I can see what it means that the experiment adapts.

I'll stop the commentary there. I wasn't expecting the ending and I like that. As I was reading it became obvious real early that Claire goes and saves Roland so I was glad that the story went beyond that. The other death mages seem like dunces though. You might want to put in how advanced Roland and Claire are in the beginning somewhere.

I just have to say that it was so cute. I loved it and laughed out loud at least once. (It was at the can of you know what you know where part) At first I wasn't sure what to tell you besides that it was good, but I think it missing something. I loved the voice but I think your main character need more. He's mysterious and I want to know more about him. Where does he live and how come he's so special to work at the God store? Right now the story is like a good candy you can pop into your mouth and enjoy but it needs something to go from a yummy quick dessert to something that is more sustaining. Maybe more conflict, maybe more dirt on the cashier. What are his desires? Does he envy the Gods? Where does he go when he's done with work or is he some sort of God creation and he lives at the store and has no outside life?

Here are my overall impressions:

Life & Death by RillSoji
This is a tale with no dialogue and little action as it is a told love story. I thought it a bit dull without real-time interaction. There are some issues with references. The worldbuilding was interesting, though

Blue Light Special by Shimiqua
A little rough in its current form. Part of the problem is calling a god "God" when there are others. The idea is very cute, but the "joining" thing didn't quite to it for me. I think it needs to be worked on for reader understanding.

A Burden of Purity by Snapper
Obviously more to come. The story is fine as far as it goes. The writing was engaging. The voice is enjoyable. Lots of little mistakes (intentional to get a good score? Hmmm)

Gods & Kings by Satate
Not really the end. I felt myself pulled into this tableau, but this story requires a great deal more scope in order to satisfy the reader. A few editing issues but mostly well written.

In the Fullness of Time by Brendan
The flashback strategy is a very ambitious plan. The character issue is very important as the alien/human confrontation is very well traveled ground. I think flashbacks in a short story are often problematic and are difficult to interleave well with the current story.

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said President said

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What affect would it have on my daughter?

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I didn’t know I was so tense, he thought.

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I’d cut. It would be unusual if he were relaxed. Tense is what any normal person would be going through, considering the extraordinary circumstances.

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“We’ve learned more about their power in that last hour than we did since we were contacted, six months ago.”

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I felt the relationship with the servant girl could benefit from an earlier start to the story. As it is she is sort of thrown into it, doing her servant work in proximity to the young king.

But bear in mind, I was drawn into the story so that I wanted more of it.

As it is the story at this point ends as a hook. Will he enlist the old and the young? Will he defy convention and follow his heart? Will something happen in the war to turn everything on its head?

I think the flashbacks are definetly risky but could be cool if you can pull it off.

I agree with Snapper about starting before the negotiations to show some prealien father/daughter relationship stuff. I'd like to know how the father and daughter stand before he's thrown in there with her. Were they close or distant. Did he even know she was consorting with the aliens? Did they ever argue about the aliens? Does she still live at home? Is she away at college? Is she married with five kids? All of these factors would create a different kind of relationship and dynamic with her father.

This reads like a synopsis for a novel, or perhaps a novelette. Fleshing this out to make a story that conforms to the current expectation of readers will probably make a longer story than this challenge is aiming at (although maybe not). So, are you doing a nano in April?

Plot-wise, have you considered a cute-meet at the start? This will get us tuned to the potential that this is a romance. Also, the key character draw-card is why does a death-mage have an issue with experimenting on people. So why does he have this qualm? Also, why do they continue to experiment after nearly dying? There needs to be a purpose behind it, or else I feel the mages are simply stupid since they do not learn from their mistakes.

Blue Light Special by Shimiqua

Well, where do you want to go from here? Do you want to keep it as flash (which works for me)? If so, it may need a trim, possibly cutting the paragraph focused entirely on the cashier (which is a complication rather than the main idea). If you want to explore the idea further, as satate said, it needs a stronger conflict – the idea alone won’t sustain a longer story. Perhaps some conflict between the cashier and God. Also, I wonder, does the invisible bunny have horns?

There are a couple of places where you imply that you aren’t allowed to say certain things. They are great, funny lines, but they do draw the attention to the material that preceded them. You probably need to show us why those pieces of information were so important that you couldn’t help but tell us. Otherwise we could be holding them in memory as important pieces of the plot, only to feel they are unresolved at the end.

A Burden of Purity by Snapper

Some really funny bits in this one. I loved the GPS. And the broom – I initially thought that he was implying that Sheena was a witch.

Obviously the story isn’t finished yet, so I can’t really comment about the plot. However, I am still somewhat confused as to why virginity is so useful yet not – for the other people, not for Sheena. The reasons for the “inability to capitalize on Sheena’s purity” (and perhaps the “disappointment” after rescue) seemed withheld from the reader. This was a key driver to the story, and withholding this may turn readers off.

Gods and Kings by satate

I did enjoy this. It has some good ideas and enough familiarity too. I am not sure about the romance side of it – if a king is distracted by romance at the key time of dealing with a major calamity such as war, then is he really fit to be king? And to me, the main focus was the war. If he is outnumbered 5 to 1, doubling the size of the army, particularly with sub-standard troops, isn’t going to do much. I may have missed it, but I don’t have any sense of why the war was started or why they don’t attempt to surrender and the king simply escape. These are important points to help understand why the allies don’t automatically join and why they believe they can negotiate their way out of this threat to them.

By the way, was this a Freudian slip? “He had no idea how to woe a woman”

The Fugitive Princess by Owasm

Ok, got back to this. The writing style of this was quite fine - clear and well paced. However, there were some key story elements which I thought severely weakened the story. I found the Brull's history as a great warrior/hunter was quite inconsistent with his actions of getting drunk just before attacking the camp. His character, as demonstrated by his early sleuthing and strong reputation, would be much more careful. His blundering therefore just didn't ring true. Furthermore, when he was invisible, why didn't he simply kill Porto? It would have been much easier than revealing himself to be attacked.

Secondly, the kidnapping party did a number of plain silly things - left Brull alive (given his reputation), didn't find his horse (just 50 yards away) or take it, attacked with a lightning attack, instead of the originally effective air wall spell. Nor did any of the men attack Brull from behind, rather they wasted time listening to conversation, letting Porto face Brull alone.

Finally, the last section about the price of peace seemed tacked on. While it is a good (although well covered) concept, it needs significantly more focus right throughout the story. Otherwise, it won't produce any real payload at the end. As it is, the focus is on explaining the dual magic systems, with little about peace, war or politics.

Snapper - Thanks. The antagonistic president aide is a great thought. I am wondering whether I have too many people in the group (realistic size but too many for a story). Having a single antagonist, an information giver and a leader is perhaps all I need, apart from Henry. What is everyone's thoughts on this?

Starting earlier is something I am considering, at least at the point where she is chosen as a advocate rather than already being one. FYI, the aliens have only made contact, they are not there is any physical form, although they certainly have the ability to manipulate matter in the solar system. They are still very much a mystery.

Satate - some great character questions that I will have to interleave into the story. FYI, Anna is early career and single, therefore in the most free to choose stage in her life.

A couple of questions. What is the Empire General's role in the Empire? Is it as supreme ruler, or just a general? What are his ambitions? How do these differ to the Empire's ambitions?

If the general is to be such a pivotal element to the resolution of the story, it needs direct contact with him at a much earlier stage in the story. We need to know what we are up against. A scene from his point of view, or an early scene where negotiations are made that tries to avert the war before it becomes obvious who is winning, could work.

The General is the man who is directing the Empire's war in that part of the region. He is simply the one who accepts Fenrich's surrender because the empress is not present.

A little backstory I did not put in simply because I didn't think the story needed it, but I see the Empire similar to the Roman Empire. They attack because of two reasons, 1 - they want to extend their influence and borders as far as possible, and 2 - because they see Fenrich and his God/King family as a threat and something they'd like to control. The Empire is massive and has more than one front. Fenrich's little kingdom is just one of many they are trying to gobble up. The Empress isn't present because there's a lot going on and she trusts her generals to carry out most of the war. So it is to the general that he surrenders.

I'm not sure that he is a very important character. He doesn't really need to be there. I could just end it with Fenrich walking toward the opposing army.