WEbook Blog: A Writer's Resource

WEbook Giveaway: The Twitter Chapter

You may have noticed (although it seems like a lot of people didn't) that you can also win a copy of John Corey Whaley's award winning book, Where Thing Come Back, by throwing down a hashtag on twitter. 

It's our first Twitter book giveaway, so help us wrangle this newfangled tweet machine: Send out a tweet that includes the hashtag #congratsJCW and you will be automatically entered to win a copy of Where Things Come Back. 

Don't forget, you can also post a comment on this blog post, and double your chances of winning.

So what are you waiting for?

The High School Writing Contest Winners

Like we said in the challenge description, high school is a time rife with struggle, new experiences, and the desire for things to be different. Almost all of the entries to this challenge tapped in to those dramatic elements in some way—and it was a pleasure to read through them. For some WEbook staff, our high school years occurred…some time ago. Yet these entries had us right back in those hallways, among those lockers, and sitting in those desks.

It wasn’t always pleasant. But it made us feel something.

Winners!

Corruption by Eloquent_MJ

Besides tight and specific writing, this entry delves into the myth of high school. The perception of how things "should" be. A lot of budding youths believe in that myth, and a lot of them wind of disillusioned. It's a sad truth, but it is the truth.

closure by RawkinParadox

We loved the symbolism of the character's names in this entry. A high school romance ending not with a bang, but a whimper, the author captures the quiet, lingering pain of first heartbreak, suggesting the important growing experience it often can be. 

Getting To Know You by Nekrostelos

Talk about your twist endings! This one started out as a traditional, albeit well-written, high school romance...and then dared to go beyond sweet high school love. The shock at the end is delivered subtly - this is one that sticks with you. 

Stretching Fashion by JayneGrey

Not only did this entry take us back to high school, it took us back to the eighties. That's always a good thing. This entry also illustrated a key high school behavior: caring so much about one (insignificant) thing, that you lose total perspective on everything else. Whether it's a pair of jeans, a video game, or a girl's attention, things had a way of getting blown out of proportion in those years.

See Me After Class by J_Hucke

This entry tackles a difficult subject - domestic abuse - with courage and compassion. This one is also told through dialogue, and conveys the intense emotion of the situation powerfully, stopping just short of melodrama. 

Prometheus by KenWebb

Unless you've worked as a teacher, it's easy to forget they're real people. We're not trying to be mean, but it's easy to remember high school and think of teachers givers of tests and lectures, and not much else. But they were students too, once. They have good days and bad days. Regrets. Mistakes. They have whole lives that most students never know, hear, or care about. This entry made is remember that.

Honorable Mention

Corndog by simonmabee

Congratulations to the winners! You will receive your PageToFame coupons shortly.

If you didn’t win, chin up. There’s another writing contest afoot, a love is in the air. The “OK Cupid” writing contest is open for submissions. So, dig into your romantic side and write a love scene. 

 

 

The High School Writing Challenge

High school is a prime setting for all kinds of fiction—YA, literary, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. Some of major classics of these genres all take place in the halls of different high schools around the world. Why is this? Well, a lot goes on in these formative years. Children begin the long and slow process into becoming adults, a lot of “firsts” occur, romances blossom and die, and people struggle to pass calculus quizzes.

It’s a time rife with struggle, yearning, and new things. And this month’s challenge is about tapping into those feelings and themes.

Write a 300 word scene that takes place on the campus of a high school. The content of the scene is entirely up to you, but the best entries will evoke a larger theme about high school life. The theme, too, is up to you.

The deadline for this writing challenge is 10:00 PM, EST on December 31, 2011. WEbook will choose six winners and award them one free entry to PageToFame, our flagship writing contest. 

To enter the challenge, start a new chapter in this writing project. Enjoy!

And don't forget to check out the winners from last month's challenge.

 

 

Winners of the BBQ Challenge

So, uh, this is kinda awkward. We did the whole "something going on underneath the surface" theme for this BBQ challenge. And the contestants totally went with it. It's just that...well...there was a lot of cannibalism. Don't get us wrong, we're all for Cormac McCarthy and The Road, it's just that there were a lot of BBQ's where people got eaten. We're not judging, but we had to comment. 

Winners!

The Invited Stranger by ctalaman

Great atmosphere, descriptions, and underlying theme going on here. But what really won us over was the voice. It was sarcastic, dark, but not without some levity. Ctalaman had us at "reteller of unfunny things." We know of people who fit that description all too well. 

Dessert Storm by simonmabee

Very Brian Jaques-esque. We're all for legendary figures, especially when they're squirrels that have something worth dying for. 

Over Done by Jvd9

A couple no longer in love may not be the most original underlying theme in the world, but when it's described this well and you throw in a bit of a twist at the end, we're all for it!

The View from Spooner Hill by JulieDaniels

With kids these days, it seems like they carry on conversing in an invisible and digital world of texts, tweets, status updates, and emails. Thumbs can do an amazing amount of communication. But the real world is always there, lurking above the touchpads and mini screens. JulieDaniels gets that. 

Apocalyptic Tamarind by J_Hucke

Yeah this was a cannibalism one. But we liked it. Had a bit of that McCarthy spice in it to boot. Solid descriptions of the post-apocalyptic BBQ as well.

The Police Benefit Barbecue by ErikModi

This entry really evoked a larger world. A PI/demon hunter, werewolves, vampires, and a police BBQ that sounds like it's about to get serious, it's all fantastic. Well done.

Congratualtions to the winners. You shall recieve your PageToFame coupons shortly. 

The Revenge Challenge has just wrapped up, but stay tuned for the next writing challenge, coming soon.

The Picture + Sentence Challenge Winners!

We gave you a picture of a boat. Hanging out on some land. That's a little strange--you don't see a land-boat every day. And you writers, you craftpeople of words, did the rest. You turned it into a narrative. A story. Damn awesome job.

Here are the winners of the Picture Sentence Challenge!

Subject Zero by AmenziliaPoppy
This is one of the most engaging interior monologues we've read in a long time. We don't have details about who Ursa and Crow are, what they're doing, whether they're friends or enemies, but the parts we can see are interesting. And we wish we could read the rest of their story. 

MMORPG by Atrees
We'll be honest. There are those among the staff that have played some WoW. We're not going to say how much. But we'll put it this way, we've pwned some people in the arena. Pwned them hard. Anyway, what we're saying is we know what it's like to get sucked into an MMORPG and feel that blur between game and reality. This entry reminded us of that, and that was a good thing.

Depths by Thomnus
A lot of good things were happening in this entry. But a set of characters that are "looking for something that we could steal to pacify the silent screaming of the boredom in our hearts" is a badass line. There's ennui, recklessness, other rebellious stuff. Nice. 

Quest's End by DragonflyGray
This was a great interpretation of the photo. We get the feeling they've been on a LONG quest. Walking, fighting, getting lost in swamps, and all under the cryptic guidance of finding "the vessel that rides on a sea of grass." Quests rock. Here's a good motto to take home with you: "When in doubt, send everyone on a quest." Live by that. 

We Will Remember by NyteZ
Great writing going on here. Vivid descriptions, unspoken emotions, and painful memories. But the paragraph that won us over was nestled between all of this--as the narrator reflects on the old fantasies she used to play. Battles brought to life by wooden swords, chocolate melting in the sun, and negations with vanilla ice cream. We dig it. 

Noah's Ark by tonydonell
This is a true story. We showed this to a dude on our dev team and he snotted coffee out of his nose and onto his keyboard because he was laughing so hard. It was funny, but his nose was burned pretty bad because he's one of those guys that drinks boiling hot coffee as if it's no big thing. Like, normal people would let his cup cool for 10 minutes but he just gulps it down like it's a big gulp slurpee. Totally true story.  

Honorable Mention

Sandbox by silverskull39
Kids totally do this. They're all mid-fantasy in the sandbox, and there are all kinds of crazy things going on (like midget murders), but the kids still build that bridge between what is real and what is fake. Crafty ole' silverskull39 knows this, and didn't forget it. 

Winners, you shall receive a coupon to PageToFame shortly. Use them responsibly. 

Even better, the next writing challenge is up and ready. Grab your pen, and your vengeful spirit. 

The Picture/Sentence Writing Challenge

The August writing challenge pays homage to high school creative writng classes. You know that English teacher, the one who runs the school literary magazine, recites poetry on a whim while walking the halls, and wears a beret 40% of the time? This one’s for him:

The Picture/Sentence Challenge

Check out the picture on the left (bigger version here). Take a minute to study it. Absorb the story it evokes. Now read this sentence:

“We found the boat in late afternoon.”

For this challenge, writers are tasked with finishing the “scene” created by this picture and sentence. The first seven words of the scene must be “We found the boat in late afternoon.” The next 343 words are totally up to you (that was our clever way of laying down a 350 word limit).

Go in any direction you want—fantastical, dark, light, whimsical, gritty, funny, YA-ish,
Hemingway-esque, akin to Faulker. You could even go J.K. Rowling all up on this beast. 

The deadline for this challenge is 10 pm, August 31. To enter, start a new chapter in the Picture/Sentence writing challenge project.

WEbook will pick 6 winners and award them free entry to PageToFame, our flagship writing contest. We'll also highlight each deal on the blog and see if anyone tries to buy it. If they do, we'll tell them it's a pretend deal and that'll pretty much be the end of it.

Good luck. Enjoy!

—WEbook

 

 

The Alpha Omega Writing Challenge Winners!

Lot of darkness out there this time. Lot of doom. Destruction. End-of-days type stuff. That’s cool, though—we pretty much forced the hand of darkness on this one. We knew what was coming. We were prepared.

The Alpha-Omega Challenge received 167 submissions!

 

That’s like, almost the record (The Flash Fiction Challenge pulled in 180, but who’s keeping track?).

There were some solid writing-skills brandished in this challenge. Strong myth-building. Superior world-destruction. We’ve never had so much fun reading about the end of the world over and over again. So, without further delay…

The winners of the Alpha Omega Writing Challenge!

An Old Man's Guilty Pleasure by DragonflyGray  

Why it won: Ok, some might say that the fairy in the glass orb is borderline on being a “world.” We’ve got two return volleys. 1.) Nobody ever writes about wizards doing quirky (and a little bit pervy) things with their magic. But you know they totally would. You know Saruman was doing the same damn thing up in Isengard right before Gandalf rode in all, “the One Ring is back.” You know he was! 2.) There was a world destroyed. The wizard’s private (semi-pervy) world he made for himself away from his wife and whatever wizard-responsibilities to which he was beholden.

Lastly, the grease smudge from his nose was a killer detail. It’s one of those tidbits that seems small, but really brings the scene to life, and keeps it alive. Well done. 

Starless by Aftab

Why it won: Talk about setting a scene with some vibrant imagery. The first paragraph of this entry put pictures in our minds. Clear, mostly cool toned pictures. There’s something at once unique, somber, and beautiful about a pair of lovers drifting down a river, creating a world as they go, and then slowly having it decay and die.  And there are some lines in this one that you just want to read over and over again, like this: “We’d been on this raft all our lives, Shauna and me, born on the briny deep.”

A Quiet Garden in Hiroshima by Kai_Valentine

Why it won: This entry caught our eye because of the perspective. Now, this certainly isn’t the first piece of fiction to go “Tree POV,” but man did KV follow through with some evocative images. Crisp runoff, waste from a castle, oil leaking from a vehicle. The steady progression of manmade pollutants culminates in the splitting of the atom—releasing untold energy and laying waste to the ancient and wonderful parts of the earth. Tragic, deep, good.

Dave's World by Dnall07

Why it won: The perspective was original and made for a quick read. But to be honest, we didn’t see this one as a winner until the last three lines. Leave them there to die?! That is cold-blooded sadism! But the thing is, when it’s just a game—a simulation that can be duplicated over and over again—why not leave two souls to die? What’s the difference to him? This really encapsulated the numbness and disconnection that world-destroying often involves.

But more than that, when we were done reading, we couldn’t help but think of those two survivors. What if it’s a man and a woman? What if they don’t give up? What if they endure? We wanted them to. We really did.  

Carl, Destroyer of Worlds by JulianAR

Why it won: There wasn’t a lot of humor in these entries (for obvious reasons) but this one made us laugh. Pretty hard. Even after a few reads we were chuckling. Ohhhhh, Carl. Always coming in at the last second with a (possible?) dinosaur-killing meteor and then coming up with the dynamite idea like giving people hands. Nice work, we use our hands constantly. Also, even before Carl’s entrance we were digging the names of the creators (Beast-Path was the personal WEbook fav) and the contrast to the “ - names” with Carl just made everything that much more hilarious.

A World Without Harmony by chomson

Why it won: First and foremost, this was just a great scene. Well established without being exposition-extreme, vibrant, and full of growth and movement. Each character changes with every sentence. They’re never static or neutral. That’s really key, both for micro-scenes like these and for longer works (maybe even more so for that old 700 page novel). Make stuff happen!

And we dig turtle creators. If we were gonna pick who would name the world, it’d be Turtle. Sorry if you were with Bear or Eagle, that’s just how we feel.

Honorable Mentions

These two entries both had tons of stuff working for them as well. Give them a read—you’ll see what we mean.

The Pond by OdinofAzgard 

Another extract from "The Mind-Boggling Space" by MTGradwell

Congratulations to the winners. You shall receive your PageToFame coupons in the mail shortly. Grab a digital tent next to your digital inbox. 

The next challenge is still open, but not for long. So the 100 of you who haven’t submitted yet should get on that. This one is funky and culturally relevant: The Daily Deal Writing Challenge. 

The Daily Deal Write-up Challenge

You know those daily deal sites like Groupon, Living Social, Woot? Do you also know how all those deals have that clever/ironic/pun-filled write-up? Ever wanted to write one of your own? Now is your chance! Your chance is right now! Take it.

You Create the Deal

It can be anything. It can fantastical like, “Half off semi-decent person’s soul,” or nonsensical like, “trade in a family heirloom for a bucket of golden nails,” or something totally normal like, “$10 for $20 worth of beer and nuts at Twisted Swifts Brewery.” Make it your own.

You Write the Write up

300 words. Make it a clever, funny, witty, pun-filled pie. Give some deal details and prices but tell a story, set a scene, throw some color up on your deal. Throw it loud. Unlike the writers of the actual deals, there are no content restriction and no reason to hold back your creative war-horse.

People Try to Buy Your Imaginary Deal

This probably won’t happen. In fact,  it definitely won’t. We just need a third headline because headlines always work better in 3’s.

That’s it. Deadline is 10 pm EST on July 31, 2011. If you need to do some field research, sign up for some of those daily deal sites and peruse away for a few days.

To submit, start a new chapter in the Daily Deal Write-up Challenge. It’s waiting for you.

WEbook will pick 6 winners and award them free entry to PageToFame, our flagship writing contest. We'll also highlight each deal on the blog and see if anyone tries to buy it. If they do, we'll tell them it's a pretend deal and that'll pretty much be the end of it.

—Webook 

The Alpha Omega Writing Challenge: Build a World, Break it

We’re going to keep the description of this challenge brief. We realized the last description was a little novel-esque, and you guys probably didn’t sign-up to read a novel during your writing challenge time. So here it is, short and sweet:

Create a world. Then destroy it. All in 300 words.

The recent rapture thing that was supposed to occur a few weeks ago, combined with the impending 2012 doom got us thinking about end-of-the-world stories. There are a lot of them. That got us thinking about creation myths. There are a lot of those, too.

So, we thought it’d be fun/useful to have everyone develop one of each. After all, every story has a beginning and an end, so this is, like, applicable to the greater craft of writing.

A few particulars:

• The TOTAL word count limit is 300 words, but you don’t need to divide that count evenly between your creation and your destruction sections. Creation can be 200 words, destruction can be 100. Or, creation can be 5 words and destruction can be 295. It’s totally up to you.
• You can create an Earth creation/destruction myth, but you don’t have to. You can do one for a puddle or an ant colony or Mars. Basically, you can define a “world” however you want, which is where a lot of the innovation in this challenge can be…innovated.

A suggestion:

• If you’re considering an extremely violent/dark/morbid end of the world, ask yourself if doing so adds substance to your entry, or just shock value.

The deadline for the Alpha Omega challenge is 10 pm EST on June 30, 2011. As far as we know, there are no scheduled ends of the world between now and then, be we didn’t check all that carefully.

To enter the challenge, start a new chapter of The Alpha Omega Challenge. You can revise your entry anytime up until the deadline, so it never hurts to submit early and get some feedback from the WEbook writing community.

WEbook will pick six winners, award them free entry to PageToFame—our flagship writing contest—and give the ultimate winner a choice between end of world item #1 and end of world item #2. 

Good luck, 

—WEbook

The Steampunk Challenge Winners

Thanks for your patience while we did the whole judgment thing. We have journeyed through lands of steam—full of airships, turbines, cogs, and robots. It was a lot of fun. Thanks for letting us tag along. No more dilly-dally, time to announce the winners.

Oh, quick dilly-dally. The Twitter Story Writing Challenge is still open and ready for your submission. Soon, another challenge will rise, but try the Twitter thing. You might like it.

WINNERS! IN BACKWARDS ORDER ENDING ON DOCTOR FANTASTIQUE'S CHOSEN ULTIMATE STEAM WINNER!

The Test by angelb35  

Why it Won: One word: movement. From the first sentence all way to the end, there’s a sense of things happening—whether it’s a noisy, bustling world of magic and steam, or the creation of a bot from the inside of Alice’s mind, this entry is on the move, and we liked where it's going. This may seem lofty, call us crazy, but you know the opening of Great Gatsby when what’s-her-face is laying on the sofa or whatever and her dress is billowing and everything in the room is alive, until someone-or-other closes the window and everything falls back to earth? This entry reminded us of that except the window never gets closed.  

The Frontier by krymsonkyng

Why it Won: Because writing good dialogue with a unique, believable voice is really hard. And krymsonkyng did it. Perfect timing, perfect rhythm. We felt like you get an actor, maybe the guy who played Mr. French in The Departed, and he could just tear this scene to pieces. Moreover, there’s a world here: a frontier, opposing forces, survival strategy, and brand-named steel horses. 

Secondary moreover (and this is a big S.M.) we don’t know if the narrator is telling the truth. Everything he’s saying might be a lie. He might be a total coward. He might have killed his friend in the frontier land. We just don’t know—but we dig that, the not knowing. 

Glittering Salvo by NyteZ

Why it Won: Mystery. There was a bigger plot going on here and we desperately wanted more details. A revolt in the city! Over what? People being partially eaten by construct monsters! Why? There seemed to be so much going on with these characters, and all of it affected them in a deep, serious way. We didn’t get all the information we wanted (500 word limit curse you!) but we got enough to fill in with our minds the rest of the story. And we liked it.

The End of Steam City by Narain

Why it Won: Because it boiled the essence of Steampunk down to the description of single man in an alley. Military discipline but no military experience, bulges that could be tools or weapons, darkness, grit, shadowy streets, and the smell of urine. But despite all this, we’re left with a sense of hope. The man is ominous but whatever he’s whispering, it seems like it might be the last bit of light in the dirty world that Narain created.

Jonah's Heart by Aftab

Why it Won: Because the writing is amazing, the story about this family was whimsical and yet touching at the same time, and because clockwork whales are awesome. It was like a Steampunk fairy tale with biblical undertones and—again—awesome clockwork whales. Great stuff. 

And, of course, the final winner, dubbed by the big DF himself. 

Aulus Fractus by eupolis

Congratualtions, eupolis, you are the honored winner of the Steampunk compass. Use it to navigate youself onward through life. Or as a paperweight.

Winners, you'll get your PageToFame coupons shortly. Everyone, don't forget about the Twitter Story Writing Challenge. It's out there waiting for you, just a click away.

See you next time....

—WEbook