Friday, June 1, 2012

What Can You Imagine?


Due to the enthusiastic reaction to my query of yesterday morning, allow me to present to you the first ever Tales of Goldstone Wood Fan Fiction Contest!

Fan fiction, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, is fiction written by fans of an original work, using characters, themes, or settings from that original work to tell their own stories.

Prizes:

The winner of this contest will receive an autographed copy of Starflower, plus two other autographed Goldstone Wood novels of his/her choice. That's three novels, my friends! The winner's story will be featured on this blog.

The runner up will receive an autographed copy of Starflower.

There will be three judges for this contest, including a professional author and a magazine editor (and one more, yet to be determined!). They will include comments and helpful critiques for each submission that may encourage you in your own creative endeavors!

Rules

1) Any type of fiction is acceptable: Poetry, short stories, comics, dialogues, flash fiction, plays, etc.

2) The work must be set in the world of Goldstone Wood . . . which includes all of the Wood Between and the Far World of Faerie. So if you want to invent your own fairy tale world and link it to Goldstone, that is perfectly acceptable! Characters, scenes, and events from the original books may be used at will.

3) All submissions must be CLEAN. Anything inappropriate (dirty, suggestive, or inordinately gruesome) will be automatically disqualified.

4) The works may be no longer than 3,500 words long . . . so approximately 5 pages, single spaced. They may be as short as you like, but no longer than 3,500 words!

5) Each writer is permitted to submit more than one project.

6) All submissions must be in for judging no later than July 31st. The winner will be announced on September 1st. So that's two months for you to write, write, write, and one month for the judges to deliberate.

Ideas

For those of you writers out there, this should be a fun and exciting exercise! Here are some thoughts to possibly inspire you.

1 - Pick a favorite character and write a new scene about that character, either from before or after one of the original novels took place.

2 - Pick a scene from one of the original novels and rewrite it from a new character's point of view. For instance, the scene when the Dragon arrives at Oriana Palace . . . a terrifying moment for everyone involved. Could a character of yours have been in the crowd and had an adventure of his/her own that night?

3 - Write a completely new story with new characters, but set in a Goldstone Wood location, such as Parumvir, or Beauclair, or Southlands. Or even invent a new Faerie demesne and people!

4 - Take a character from one of your own novels-in-progress and have them meet a character from Goldstone Wood. How would they get  along? What sorts of adventures might they have?

Really, the sky is the limit!

Use this as an opportunity to stretch your imagination (and perhaps to escape from writer's block with a low-key project) this summer. I look forward to seeing what wonders you produce!

16 comments:

Clara said...

I'm so excited! Can't wait to get started!!!

The Southern Peach-Girls said...

Ye-Haw lets get started :)!!!!

Molly said...

Yay!! I'm beginning mine already!!

Taisia said...

I'd love to give it a try! Do I post it as a comment or do I email it to you?

Anne Elisabeth Stengl said...

Go ahead and email it to me! And I'll pass it on the judges. :)

Taisia said...

Okey dokey :) It might take me a while, but I've already started working on it.

Rachel6 said...

Ohh goodness, this is awesome! I'm so glad you said no limit; I want to try a lay and a short story. :)

Christie said...

Wonderful! I'm excited:) I guess I'm going to have to put favorite emoticons on the sidelines for now, though... sigh.

Jenna K. said...

Cool! What if you haven't read any of the goldstone wood books? :|

Christa said...

Jenna K.: Then read them!

Anne Elisabeth Stengl said...

Yes, Jenna K., I would have to second Christa's suggestion! If you want to participate in this contest, you'll need to read at least one of the books. Perhaps you could get a copy of HEARTLESS from your local library? Then you could join in all the fun and madness of the Goldstone Wood peeps! (Or maybe I should call them "Goldstone Wood imps" . . . sounds more fairy tale.) :)

Jenna K. said...

Okie! I probably wont have a problem reading through one of them..they sound really good! =D

decatbastet said...

I've been quietly following your blog for a while, and I was so excited to see this post! I just had a quick question - my apologies if this has already been covered and I missed it. I have an account on fanfiction.net, where I post most of my work, and I was wondering if I should post my submission to the contest there, and send you the link, or if you want the actual document file sent to you? I've never done anything quite like this before, so I don't want to do anything wrong.

Thank you in advance! :)

Anne Elisabeth Stengl said...

That's an excellent question. (And welcome to the Goldstone Wood community, by the way! Glad to have you!)

I believe I would like the actual document. I think it would be easier for me to gather submission into a similar format to send to my three judges. But feel free, of course, to post your story on fanfiction.net as well!

Looking forward to seeing what you produce! :)

decatbastet said...

Okay, thank you so much!! :)

Unknown said...

Can't wait!