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June 2013 challenge: "Blaze of Glory"

Cobalt Frost

Cobalt Frost

Captain
Captain
Some of the best stories of Trek, or many other genres for that matter, involve a "desperate struggle against incredible odds," to quote a certain reptilian Navigator First Class. So this month's challenge is to weave a tale of a doomed but heroic struggle, of a pyrrhic victory, or where your heroes make that final stand, determined to go out in a "blaze of glory." Whether they're successful or not, of course, is up to you.

And now, The Rules:

  • Word limit: 10,000 words max, with a little wiggle room above if needed.
  • Story must be original for this month’s challenge, nothing posted here before please.
  • Let’s keep the challenge in the Trek arena, canon or your personal fic.
  • Only complete stories will be eligible; finishing the story before posting it is a good idea.
  • Post a link to your entry in this thread when you’re done.
  • Contest to run until midnight (US Eastern Standard Time) June 27th, with voting to follow from June 28th to June 30th.
Any questions can be directed to me here or via PM.

Allons-y!!
 
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Angry Fanboy

Quibbles over wording aside, I think it's an excellent challenge and one that lends itself to a self-contained tale suitable for this sort of monthly contest. :)
 
Amusingly, that song's been on heavy rotation on the radio lately, so it very well might have been my inspiration :D
 
It's a good idea for a challenge. Sadly, I've already written the story I would want to use. I'll see if I can come up with something new but...
 
Angry Fanboy

Given the response to these challenges as of late I can't help wondering what harm it would do to open them up to previously posted stories. :)
 
Well, the purpose of the challenge is to hone one's writing skills and get feedback on it. Often, small stand-alone stories by lesser known posters get ignored. Participating in the challenge creates attention for those posters.

With previously posted stories there would be no purpose to the challenge in my opinion.
 
What difference does it make any more? The challenges are down to one entry every two months anyway, why not just use them as a showcase for people's work, existing or otherwise, rather than this whole 'must be used to hone skills' exercise that barely anyone participates in anyway.

Because lets face facts, Ad Astra has killed this forum. The biggest threads here are those made by the 'big' Ad Astra writers and full of other Ad Astra members patting them on the back ad nauseum.

Two month long challenges that result in one entry are doing no one any favours. The current format has come to the end of the line.
 
The option to lay the challenge to rest for a while was on the table the last time but it wasn't taken. So you'll have to live with the terrible burden of possibly not getting that many new stories to read every month on this board for a while longer.

People are free to repost stories they've already posted elsewhere on this board if they want to.
 
Since we're approaching the deadline for entries and the thread's been quiet for a little while, please let me know if anyone's going to post an entry soon, or should we extend the challenge for another month?
 
I will say for myself that I would love an extension. I am working on something but thanks to the lack of forethought by the powers that be I had to spend some time working out a timeline before I could even start writing the blasted thing. *L*
 
Let's extend the challenge, then. Deadline is midnight US Eastern standard time on July 28th, with voting until the 31st.
 
Good to see you folks have already re-organised. I'm on vacation and checked in specifically to see what was happening with the challenge.
 
Given the lack of participation which has been a problem for a while with the monthly contests I'd say we let them rest for a while until there's enough interest in them again. If you want the challenge back just start a thread and if there's enough support it can start up again.
 
I was going to suggest something along the same lines, Count Zero. It's a bit of a bummer, as the monthly challenge often provided impetus for me to generate some story ideas, but Real Life (tm) often seemed to get in the way of posting, for me as I'm sure it did for others.
 
Real life got way too real here in the last few months. Inspiration took a hike, sorry.
 
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