Congratulations to kidishcaresh, winner of the Action Writing Challenge!

The Action Writing Challenge can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/topic/2872/11304795/1/

And below is what our judge, Monotonehell had to say:

My choice is 'Spring Tears' (fandom: Rurouni Kenshin) by kidishcaresh. There were only two stories this time. But both stories were fun to read and contained the requisite action scenes. Both were well written, and apart from a few grammatical points, contained good prose. While 'Sweet Revenge' was a fun spell fight, it didn't have as much substance behind the action as 'Spring Tears'. Both stories carried an equal treatment of action scenes but Spring Tears had some back story and motivation that made it a more interesting piece. Perhaps if Resident Bishounen didn't give away the story's only surprise too quickly, and the story contained a little more comedic colour throughout, it may have held the reader's interest longer. For these reasons, my choice was 'Spring Tears' by kidishcaresh.

The winning piece can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4887835/1/Spring_tears

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CHALLENGE:

Red Bess Rackham has offered up a fun challenge:

There's canon ships, common ships and popular ships. I want you to stretch your skills and branch out and try your hand at an uncommon or original pairing, and make it believable. It's not going to be easy, but that's why it's a challenge! Think outside the box. What could draw these two people together? What situation pushed them together or away from someone else? Remember, the key is to make it believable!

RULES:

1. The story can be multi-chapter (no more than 5 or 6 chapters), but one-shots preferred. Each chapter or oneshot cannot be obscenely long.

2. The story must have an uncommon pairing (the more obscure but believably done, the better). Alternate universe (AU) is allowed (and encouraged if you can do it well/smartly). Original characters (OCs) are discouraged - use canon characters!

3. Due to judge preferences, please don't post slash or incest.

4. The story must be uploaded to the site by OCTOBER 15, 2009.

5. In either the summary or author's notes, please note that your story is for the "Different Ship Challenge".

FANDOMS ALLOWED:

Now, the reason that this is an unofficial WA challenge (i.e. winner not featured in WA's C2): Both Red and I feel that an uncommon pairings challenge only really works if the judge is familiar with the fandoms, otherwise the significance of the pairing is lost. Someone unfamiliar with the Harry Potter fandom, for instance, would not know why a Voldemort/Hermione pairing was so unbelievable.

Since Red offered the challenge up, and will be judging it, in order for her to do this fairly, the challenge will be restricted to fandoms that she is familiar with. Bonus points for writing in a fandom with a star beside it. (I'm assuming these are the ones she is most familiar with out of the lot?)

Fandoms with star: Harry Potter, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Star Wars, Heroes, Chuck, Chronicles of Narnia

Other fandoms: Pushing Daisies, The Office, Pirates of the Caribbean, Firefly, X-Men, Star Trek 2009, The Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum, The Lord of the Rings, Friends, Disney, Pendragon, Princess Bride, Indiana Jones, CSI (Las Vegas version only), NCIS, Joey, Back to the Future, The Family Stone.

Note: Disney includes all categories like Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, etc. that are separated on FFnet.

Crossovers: Crossovers between any of the mentioned fandoms are allowed.

ENTRY:

Post a link below with title of the fic, author, summary, rating and the uncommon pairing you wrote about.

PRIZES:

From Red Bess Rackham:

The winner will be added to my C2, "Cream of the Crop" which showcases the best of the best, as well as a link on my profile page to their winning story. And of course the winner will have bragging rights. ;) Have fun and be creative!! :D

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Do you have a suggestion for future challenges? PM Rhea Silverkeys with your idea!

Congradulations Kidishcaresh!

Congrats, kidishcaresh!

Never having done much with action scenes prior to this, I learned a ton. Thanks, everyone!

-Blinks and reads first post 3 more times- Me? I was sure Resident Bishounen would win. I'm working on the grammar thing, but finding Beta's is difficult. I've got one for Gundam Wing stories but none for other stories so I'll keep searching for Beta's for those. Thanks everyone!

Just a post to let everyone know there's a new challenge up! Red came to me with her challenge and I thought pinning it would give it more coverage, even if it's not an 'official' challenge as such. Should be fun! Especially with the weirdest pairings topic floating around somewhere!

Thanks Rhea for posting this! :D And yes, the three fandoms I starred would be the most I'm most familiar with and would most like to read (Lost, Grey's Anatomy and Harry Potter). I look forward to reading everyone's entries!!

~Red

Well, being as I am only familiar with HP, that's probably what my entry would be. That, or a crossover.

HP/X-Men it is! Actually, this is a pretty interesting challenge. I never do slash or anything like that, so that's easy, but I also never do shipping, so that's going to be hard.

I'm glad we've got two months for this, though.

Ooh, crossover would be cool!!

~Red

I love crossovers. Especially since I Sci-fi everything enough that they can all blend well. Heck, I've already got a crossover with those two fandoms. It's just that there's tons of DC characters in it, and HP and his friends have made little impact as of yet. I sort of had to sit them on the back burner until I could figure out what I wanted to do with them. I have Ron ** of Cyclops though. Check it:

Cyke: "The people we were fighting are an anti-mutant organization."

Ron: "Mutants? You mean those gross little creatures you hear about in horrors?"

Narration: It takes all my self control to keep a cool head. Even so, I bristle at Ronald’s ignorance.

Lol, Ron is playing essentially the same part in my fic that he does...well, everywhere else. ^^ Also, he gives credibility to a superhero known to be a jokester, just by comparison.

Anyway, we'll see what goes on with my entry.

LOL - That sounds great! I'd like to read it anyway when you get it done whether it fits the challenge or not.

~Red

...Um...If you meant what I just posted, that's from Chapter five of Freedom For All?, which is already on FFN. But I should warn you, it's got Static Shock, two characters from Batman Beyond, Smallville and Robin (Batman's old partner) in it too. And only Ron gets any kind of part in the early chapters. It's still funny as hell though. The X-Men are the main fandom though, so I guess you might like that part. Everyone else gets to be dazed and confused trying to figure out the mutant/human confict from their hero/villain conflict experiences.

The challenge entry will likely be an entirely different thing. Or...possibly...I might do a spin off thing or something.

Oops! Haha. Ok, well, I'll have to take a look at it. I like X-Men and Batman, tho I'm not terribly familiar with the comics.

~Red

I'm not terribly familiar with the comics either. I watched the cartoons that came off of that. And the movies, but I never liked the movie canons. Especially since Robin never grew up or got out on his own in the movie canons.

Youtube might be helpful if you want to search some of the episodes. Teen Titans (where I got the Robin I'm using) has a lot of full episodes up, and Batman Beyond at least has a few of them. Although BB is mostly montages. I'll have to check out a site a BB freak posted and see if that's better as a resource.

Anyway, thanks. I've pushed myself really hard with that fic, trying so many new things. More characters, more characters in each scene (used to be two speaking parts, max), longer story, no dialogue tags, more unfamiliar AU elements, characters and POVs I'm less familiar with etc. It's my proudest work to date. I appologize for any HP issues though. That fandom is still pretty new to me.

Er..... can I join?

I love to write crack.

^.^

It's an open challenge to whoever can get an entry in before the deadline. So, in short, yes.

Thanks Dark, I defs will. :D It sounds interesting!

And yup!! This challenge for absolutely anyone. The more entries the better!! So make your friends do one too. :P

~Red

Cool, I'm gonna do Harry Potter since I don't write Disney and I don't pay attention to the other fandoms.

Thanks Dark, I defs will. :D It sounds interesting!

Thanks. ^^ I try to do the very best that I can, and pay respects to the fandoms, characters and readers. I think that makes for a very high standard of writing. Not to sound conceited or anything...^. ~

Edit: I'm not big on Disney either. I outgrew their target audience a loooong time ago.

I outgrew their target audience a loooong time ago.

Ah, but it's so classic!! Like The Little Mermaid, Robin Hood... and newer Pixar stuff? C'mon. :D Awesome stuff, I tell you!

~Red

The target audience for both my fandoms is about 8-10. In one, I'm about the average age for fanfic authors, and in the other I'm somewhat younger than average. I'm 39 :) It's interesting that there's a massive spike in the age distribution for people who were the target age when the shows were first released. The show for which I'm the average age was released in 1978-9 and probably half of all fanfic writers are aged between 36 and 40. The other one was made in 1966-8 and many of the authors have adult children and/or are grandparents.

I think it's pretty common for the fanfic in a fandom to have a target audience way different from that of the original show. In my case it's almost always much older (I had real trouble finding fanfic suitable for my daughter to read, when she got interested at age 9), but in others (Lord of the Rings) it's much younger - there's stacks of fanfic aimed at young teens, but the books are adult novels.

...Hmm, I'll see if I can think of something. No promises, though.

I watch the Pixar stuff because my mom enjoys it, and I enjoy enjoying things with people who enjoy the stuff we are doing (too many enjoys?) But I never really watch any of that stuff on my own. Just not my thing. I like to think when I watch a movie.

Anyway, one of the fandoms I write for had a target audience of little kids around ten or something. But their show demographic was mostly teens because the material they had was inherently geared for a more mature audience. So they had to 'adjust their sails', so to speak.

Does Pirates of the Caribbean count as Disney for this challenge? I have something I desperately want to write.

There's nothing in the rulebook that says you can't write it, then only enter it if she says yes to that.

I've started my entry, but it's currently directionless and...haphazard. I don't really know where I'm going, just how I'm going to get HP and Evo into the same universe. I'm doing a 'they were already there, but no one knew' thing. It's not as though we know everything the Ministry knew about the types of creatures in the world. And with HP being set in England and Evo being set in America, there's not enough overlap that I can't fanagle something.

I'm pretty proud of the setup I came up with, at least. Oh, and this isn't going to be part of my fanon continuity. This is like a 'what if' or something.

Does Pirates of the Caribbean count as Disney for this challenge?

Pirates has its own mention even though it is a Disney movie too ;) You can write it.

Yes, Pirates is totally welcome. I'm really excited for this challenge!! :D I can't wait to see what you all come up with.

~Red

How're the entries coming, everyone? :D

~Red

Sorry, I forgot to come back and tell you that my idea was kind of a dud. I just can't write it right now. I don't do well with fandom restrictions. :(

Aw, that's too bad. I know, having to be stuck with a certain fandom can be hard. I tried to list as many possibilities I could do, as Rhea and I realized this would only work if the judge knows the fandom well enough.

Hopefully there'll be other entries...! There's still time. :D

~Red

Yeah, HP is the only fandom I know enough about to write, but it's the fandom I know the least about of the fandoms I write. And I'm just not inspired by them.

There's also the problem of so much RL ** attacking me right now that I don't feel the least bit creative anyway.

Good luck.

That's too bad. :(

It's looking there may not be any other entrants here... Rhea, if it's alright with you, could we possibly change the deadline to Oct 15? I have a few places I think I might be able to round up a few entrants, but they'll need a little time. I know it's quite a tough challenge, but I was hoping more people would've stopped in.

~Red

Problem with having a set fandom list is that you do cut your potential entry right down - especially in a general forum like this, where a lot of people don't write for the really popular fandoms. It's a nice challenge idea but it's also an especially difficult one to write outside a familiar fandom. On the other hand I can certainly understand that it would be impossible to judge for a fandom you don't know. Maybe advertise it a bit in the fandoms you are active in?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There may not be too many takers here because most people don't write for any of the fandoms you listed. There's a really wide range of fandoms people write for in this forum, and most of the ones I know about aren't listed there.

Is it too late to start? :S I started a prologue about StarlyxMurkrow

But I dunno when I can update next ;_;

Edit by Mod: Oh sorry, didn't see the date, never mind...

Ya, I see what you mean guys, for sure. I think I didn't realize exactly which fandoms the posters in this forum write for. I also was planning to sort of advertise this in my fandoms, but I think I kinda forgot about it until about a week ago, lol.

Galactic: Technically yes, the deadline was Sept 15. But no one entered, so feel free to write something anyway! It just won't be considered part of the challenge (unless we end up extending the deadline).

~Red

EDIT: Actually, I think what I might as well do here is let this challenge close so you guys can move on to something new, and I'll repost the challenge somewhere else and advertise better. Thanks anyways all!! :) (Galactic, I can PM you a link to the new challenge if you're interested?)

What's wrong with having two challenges going at once? I mean, this is an unofficial challenge...

'Course it might be rather moot to extend the date if no one enters.

I just posted chapter one of the two-shot I'd started for the action writing challenge. Is it okay to post the link in that thread? It seemed okay at the time, but I want to ask again in case anything has changed.

Sorry for not showing up for the past three weeks or month or so. Boyfriend took a more than 24 hour journey to come visit and I was busy travelling and showing him around.

I hadn't really got anything planned for a future challenge yet, so this one can be extended. No one has come to me with any other challenge idea, either, so...extending the deadline is just fine. Red just needs to remember to try and get some people to join =P

Darkwinter, posting it there is fine by me.

Great, thanks Rhea. Now I gotta find it!

I hadn't realized challenge ideas were an open thing. If someone comes to you with a challenge idea, do they automatically end up as a judge, or is judge choosing a separate issue/optional?

I do mention at the end of every challenge post that if anyone has an idea for a challenge, they can PM me... since sometimes I'm out of ideas, and I know some people find it fun thinking up challenges for people to do! Judge choosing is a separate issue. It depends on who comes to me with the idea. If it's someone I've seen around the forum and have an idea of who they are, I'll probably ask them if they want to judge. If I don't have any idea about them, I'll probably do it myself or ask one of the mods.

So Darkwinter, if you have any ideas, just PM me about it! =)

Hey Rhea - thanks for the extension. :D I'm talking to people on various other boards here and other places, hopefully some people are interested. Oh, and Rhea, if it's not too much trouble, I thought of some more fandoms to add to the list which might help: Chronicles of Narnia, Princess Bride, Indiana Jones, CSI (Las Vegas version only), NCIS, Joey, Back to the Future, The Family Stone. Also just a note, Disney of course includes all the categories like Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc that are separated on FF. And I welcome (well done) crossovers too, if I haven't mentioned that before too!!

I don't know how many these necessarily work with the challenge, but people are creative - suprise me, lol.

~Red

Okay, cool! Will do! Actually, one just popped up in my mind. Not sure how good it'd be, but we'd probably end up with a lot of comedies from it. Maybe one that was actually serious. I just know someone would do that.

I had already started my challenge entry for this game, but RL got in the way, so this extension is really helpful. Hopefully my life will get settled as soon as I move (again) and I'll be able to write a fic I'm not all that interested in. It's a minor idea set in a fandom that scares me because of how little I know about it. This is a hard challenge to do, I gotta say.

And I welcome (well done) crossovers too, if I haven't mentioned that before too!!

I thought we were supposed to be doing crossovers? And getting unlikely pairings out of it?

I had already started my challenge entry for this game, but RL got in the way, so this extension is really helpful.

Mm, I know what you mean. RL always stops me from writing! *sigh*

This is a hard challenge to do, I gotta say.

Indeed. I figured it would be, but maybe I didn't exactly how hard until I saw barely anyone being up for it, LOL.

I thought we were supposed to be doing crossovers? And getting unlikely pairings out of it?

Ah, I probably should've been more clear about that, sorry. Originally I had intended for people to do an unlikely pairing within a certain fandom. But then I realized crossovers would be really cool too and less restrictive - why I didn't think about it before, I don't know. I'm thick like that sometimes, LOL. :D

~Red

Lol, oops. Oh well, what I started is already a crossover, so it makes no difference to me. ;)

Edited the first post to include the additional fandoms and to mention that crossovers are allowed. Red, do you want to make any other fandoms starred?

Thanks a million Rhea. :D And sure... how about: Star Wars, Heroes, Chuck and Chronicles of Narnia get "starred" as well?

~Red

Okay, done! =)

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