Update on Wil Wheaton/John Scalzi Fan Fiction Contest

Posted on July 1, 2010    Posted by      71 Comments

Here’s where things stand:

1. The deadline for getting a story in has passed and we received more than 350 submissions, which is pretty amazing.

2. The Jury of Awesomeness will now go through the entries and select the most awesome.

3. Probably in August, I (or the site editor, who will be here while I am on my hiatus) will announce the winner of the contest here on Whatever.

I’ve already started to do some light reading through the entries, and I have to say, I can tell already it’s going to be a tough choice to narrow things down to a single winner. There’s some kickass stuff in these submissions.

If you’ve submitted a piece, remember that we’re not claiming exclusive rights to your fiction, so if you feel like showing off the piece while you wait for our decision, that’s fine with us. In fact, we think it’d be cool if you did.

I’ll post further updates as events warrant, but for now the only thing to say to everyone who submitted a piece is: Thank you. You rock.

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71 Comments on “Update on Wil Wheaton/John Scalzi Fan Fiction Contest”

  3. I had a lot of fun and it’s for a great cause, so thanks to all the powers that be for the contest!

    I for one would love to read some entries if folks would like to share. (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.)

  4. You’re welcome.

    You rock exponentially more. I had a lot of fun writing it, and everyone I showed it too laughed their head off, even the ones who didn’t know what it was for.

    If anyone needs me I’ll be off in the corner, jumping up and down and shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!”

    :)

  5. Loved this contest, had a great time writing for it and stretching the long-ignored writing muscle which, in itself, is enough awesome to fill a thousand Winnebagos.

    And it made a couple friends laugh when they previewed it before I submitted, so that’s already FTW in my book. Now to get it up on my bloggity blog so a few others who have asked can read it!

    Thanks again…brilliant fun.

  7. My son and I had a writing contest between ourselves, and both submitted an entry. We had a blast writing the stories.

    Thanks for such a fun contest. It would be cool to somehow see all of the submissions, although that would probably be a real pain for you guys to set up.

    With 350 clever people writing stories, I figure the competition is pretty stiff. If there was only a laser I could get my hands on to reduce the odds.

  8. Thank you for this awesome contest!!! I havn’t had that much fun writing something in years. It made me feel a bit better about myself as a writer and even helped me with other stuff I’m working on.

  13. I, too, would like to see what other people wrote!

    So, with President Scalzi’s permission, I’d be happy to set up a domain and stick a blog on it to collect people’s stories if they wanted to send them in…

    We could also put up donation information or the like for the Lupus Alliance of America, and add it into the fundraising pot…?

  15. Chris, I’d rather not, actually. People posting their own work on their sites is something that’s totally under their own control, where as one centralized site naturally isn’t. I don’t want people feeling as they are obliged to send in their story, even if it’s meant to be voluntary.

    Also, in terms of fundraising for the Lupus Alliance, we’ll be able to make a bigger impact with media write-ups and donations with a single large event than a diffuse series of smaller events. I don’t think people posting their own stories on their own sites compromises the fund-raising we hope to do with the chapbook, but a single site before the release of the chapbook probably would.

    So thank you, but no, not at this time.

  16. Okie doke, no worries — I certainly don’t want to compromise the sales of the chapbook! But please feel free to let me know if you’d like me to set up something like this in the future, after the sales of the chapbook and whatnot are finished.

  17. Oooh, LOVE Chris @#13’s idea, especially the fundraising link. I’d happily donate money to the cause to have the chance to read so much pegasus unicorn kitten awesomeness! :-) Please bless it into being, oh esteemed Presidente.

  19. Oh boo – just read El Presidente’s decree. Will follow many, many links then. I hate it when people make sense. :-(

  20. No problemo!

    I figured I should offer *something* in exchange for the great time I had trying to throw together a story in time for the deadline last night!

    Well, that, and for the existence of the image in question.

  22. @john – have you talked to blizzard about making the unicorn pegasus kitten mount available in game. with blizzard selling it and half the money going to the lupus alliance?

    last time they did something like this, they generated a ton of dollars for the charity.

    plus, a unicorn pegasus kitten mount would be epic.

  24. John, thanks again for running this contest. I used to enjoy writing quite a bit, but I haven’t tried writing anything creative in about 15 years. Once I had this story in my head though, I had to get it out. Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s not. But at least it’s written down. (I happen to think it’s pretty good, but I’m biased.) Now I need to find a good way to post it online for anyone that might be interested.

  27. Joe @ 9 —

    “pussicornasus”

    Still wrapping my brain around that one. Trying to avoid going there.

    Cool story.

  33. I tried to submit yesterday but I was not able.Is there any way to submit a story today?

  45. Thanks very much for the opportunity to submit a story. It was great fun, and I look forward to purchasing a copy of the anthology and helping out with the fund-raising effort.

  48. Hal @ 46 —

    I read your story. There were two parts that I really liked. The first part was your story. Did I say that I liked it?

    The second part I liked was your introduction. This is the part that I liked.

    “I’ve never written fan fiction, and haven’t read much of it to get a sense for the range and scope. … It’s the kind of thing that takes years of practice to get character development, voicing, and plot development out of rambling mode and molded into something that others might want to read.”

    That part was gold, I tell you. Keep on writing, please.

  49. I tried to post this morning, but I think Web gremlins must have eaten the post (I suppose I could have gotten shunted into the moderation queue, but I’d think that would have cleared by now). So we’ll try this again:

    My story is What’s Opera Season, posted on my Web site; I’ve also linked a LiveJournal entry for comments from the story page.

  53. Mine can – and should – be sung to the tune of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

    I’ll post it on my blog soon and report here when I’ve done so.

  54. Mine was equal parts Minus, Cthulhu mythos, and Clash of Titans, with a dash of Alien.

  55. As an aside –

    My wife wanted to contribute a bit to the thread here. She is both an amateur writer and a longtime Lupus survivor who would certainly not have survived this long without the last 8 years of new autoimmune drug developments.

    Some time ago, the sun sensitivity (particularly acute in her case – she’s gotten severe sunburns indoors from fluorescent lighting…) caused her to come up with a few lines comparing lupus sufferers to Vampires. This led to the T-shirt:

    “Spontaneously Combustible:
    Do not expose to Sunlight.
    Do not expose to Holy Water.
    Severe garlic allergy.
    If found at crossroads with stake through heart,
    do not resuscitate.”

    Not all of these literally apply to her – she in fact loves garlic, and doesn’t burst into flames when exposed to holy water (the unlucky / foolish clergy, however….). However, sun sensitivity requiring SPF60 indoors in most public buildings is pretty good.

  59. Aaaaand I lost.

    Well, it hasn’t been announced or anything, but I strongly suspect misspelling the name of one of the main characters is likely cause for disqualification.

    Sigh. Wish I noticed before I sent in the story.

  60. George @54, wow, it’s really got to be sucky to have to worry about SPF while indoors!

    Thanks for sharing! I like the T-shirt, but not so much the actual discomfort that inspired your wife’s creation. Sorry to hear.

    One (well really more than one) definitely wonders if folks suffering similar symptoms in history contributed to sections of Vampire mythology.

    (Garlic is yummy!)

    Deb

  61. I had a lot of fun writing my little opus. My daughter-in-law has lupus, and it was my daughter who sent me the contest link. I hope that the chapbook produces a lot of cash, awareness, and support for lupus research.

    I’ve posted my entry on my LiveJournal blog.

  71. Did anybody else get an automated message a couple weeks ago saying their submission was too late even though they’re quite sure that it wasn’t? I even got a confirmation email saying that it landed in the right box at 809am on 6/30. I was so sad!

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