2009 Writing Contest: The Forgotten Era

*Note, I came up with this before I found out about onlinewelten's competition, just didn't get around to posting it until now (Darn you midterms!). I think their competition is a great idea, though a bit creepy in its timing!*

I'm sure many of us are excited about the prospect of the upcoming novel trilogy. While some might say this is the ultimate in nerdy fanboyisim, I look forward to reading them. At least the first one, to see if it's any good!

However, it seems like there is a nice way to include the community in this idea. I'm sure there are other genres that have done this, but over the past year or so, I've taken a liking to the big compilation books in the Star Trek universe, like Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers, and the Mirror Universe compilations, and even in the fantasy genres such as Myth Told Tales (A collection of short stories set in the M.Y.T.H. series). For those of you that are wondering what I'm talking about, these are big, fat books - the one I'm looking at right now as an example, ST:SCE Aftermath, is 624 pages long, and it has 6 separate and distinct stories. Think of it as several television episodes in one book. Each story is about 150-250 pages long. It is prudent to point out the example I'm using above is rather long, and also uses a large type font. By contrast the Myth collection has 3 stories and is only 122 pages long, according to amazons webpage for it.

What I propose is that Arenanet could hold a writing contest, similar to the way they host the holiday art contests, where they have people submit their short stories. The best are chosen based on:

- What fits with the lore - Nothing like Xx Head H U N T E R Xx flying around shooting people with lasers (you know what I mean!), it has to fit within established events and the people of GW and Tyria.
- Writing style - no storees rit in lik dis
- Applicability - has to do with Guild Wars, and something that adds to the overall world of GW.

Basically, weed out the bad entries. Pick eight or so of the best stories submited, and publish them as a 4th book after the novel trilogy. I'm sure that there a fair number of budding authors in the community that would love a chance like this.

What originally got me interested was this thread - End of Days: The Retiring of your Characters - a relatively self explanatory thread from late 2007 where peopled shared their stories about the eventual outcome of their characters. What interested me was how many people had made stories, backgrounds, personalities, and futures for their GW characters - I know to a certain extent I have. I think it would be very interesting to see what people want to really talk about. For instance, some of the stories might be about the fall of Ascalon; who was there when Adelbern sacrificed himself and turned Ascalon into a haven of the undead, who was there leading the refugees through the shiverpeaks to the relative safety of Kryta afterwards, who it was that did this at that time, and so on. There are a lot of interesting stories, I'd like to hear them!

If they did this, they'd have to release a general timeline of events that happen between EotN and GW2. Like when exactly Ascalon falls, when Cantha becomes united, when Kryta forms their republic, when the Asura start spreading gates, when the dragons wake up, and so on and so forth.

Just something I thought I'd bring up. What do you guys think?

P.S. I think this is the first suggestion thread I've started that hasn't had to do with the holiday festivals in some way!

Sounds cool, but the big question is, what would be a reward?

The reward would be having your work published, I'd think.

I liked the idea, although your story would probably be edited substantially. Maybe Anet could host a short story contest, just to test the interest and quality of writing.

Leave writing to professionals. I really don't think Anet wants to read crappy High School papers that would earn a 'C' from their English teacher. Having an idea that is good is FAR FAR FAR different from putting that idea in print. There may be a few people capable of putting a good story together, but either they are already paid writers, or they have missed thier 'calling'.

Although I love reading, I doubt I'd read anything published for GW unless the author was one I at least had heard of. I'd feel bad for the poor Anet employees that got stuck reading the crap that would be submitted.

I completely agree, Magma. Though they wouldn't be forced to read them the entire way through, usually those sorts of writers reveal themselves within the first paragraph (or page at least) and it would be a simple matter of filing it in a small plastic can next to the desk and moving on to the next entry. I'm sure they get some simply atrocious entries for the Art contests as well, but that doesn't mean they have to spend four hours with each and every one looking for every artistic nuance encapsulated within the art work.

And you're right, I would be wary of reading books written by non-published authors. But, if we limit ourselves to known authors, how will we ever find new books to read in the future when all of the known authors nowadays are not around anymore? This might be a way for the next Robert Jordan or Terry Pratchett to introduce themselves.

And the reward would be, of course, getting your work published and distributed along with the novel trilogy. Though they might give out a graphics card, a mouse or two, and maybe a couple of minipets if the mood should strike them; it's really up to them.

Although GW2 is a long ways off yet, it takes most professional writers with a staff of researchers and editors available years to write a book of 200+ pages. If this was something Anet was going to do, they would have wanted to start it a LONG time ago to give people time to work on it. A writing contest is fast and easy for most people to enter, but if they won and were selected to write a novel..... they'd need months/years to complete the book.

And personally, I've been published (poetry) and can tell you that if my work was not read from the first word to the last, I'd sue the contest holder. Tossing something in the trash may be easy to tell from the first paragraph, but at the same time, the first paragraph may suck big time, and the remainder could be the diamond in the rough. Especially true for 'amateur' writers without an editor to help.

No, no that's not what I meant at all. This wouldn't be a short story competition to find a writer for the entire 4th GW novel, the short stories themselves make up the book. What I was thinking was 50-100 pages from each participant, and then out of the many entries submitted, they find the best 8 (or so) and then publish them together into one big volume. You're right, it would take months or years to complete a single, good novel, but that's not what I'm suggesting. Again, I'm not asking for full length novels, just short stories. In one night I can read, about, one of those short stories in the compilation examples I cited in my original post. Where as it takes me about 3 weeks to go through a Robert Jordan or David Eddings novel. It's really just a matter of formatting that's hard to describe; even though the stories themselves in the collections I mentioned are about 100+ pages in length, the type font is a little bigger and the spacing is a little larger. They make for nice, short reads that are like episodes on a TV program, while a traditional novel would be more analogous to a movie (or 2).

As far as timing goes.. well, GW2 isn't supposed to be out until 2011-2012. The official novels aren't listed anywhere, which means the first one is at least a year out. Probably by the time this compendium would come out, after the trilogy, it would more than likely be about two or more years from now. I'm picturing they would announce the competition in, say, September, accept submissions for the next 5-6 months, then they go through, pick the best, send out the rewards, then a year later (after the official trilogy comes out) publish a 600~ page compendium book that has the best stories they chose.

And I certainly didn't mean any disrespect by what I said about filing the subpar entries into the nearest trashcan. However, I think you can see my point; if they read something that's obviously bad, or not acceptable, then they don't have to continue with it. If it is acceptable, then they keep moving it forward. They keep doing this until they get to the final entries. As a submitter to all of the art contests thus far, I don't expect them to do anything other than this to my art entry, if it's obviously not as good as 'these' entries over here, than I wouldn't be angry with them for moving on from my entry to the ones they think are better. That's all I would ask as an entrant into this competition as well.

I like the idea, really, and it's a lot easier - and tolerable - to read through a short story than to read through attempted novels. It's one thing to feel obliged to read through a short story and another to feel obliged to read through an entire book.

2347 Charr are now living on Mars =D , I like the idea but i mean its not original

Hence the numerous examples I cited.

It's a good idea, but what I'm wondering is, what's the point now of writing any post-EOTN fan fiction if the official novels are already going to cover that time period? And how do they plan to cover 250 years in 3 books, anyway?

I think fan tributes have been published for other genres before? I would think that the end result of this is more of a fan tribute and a way for fans to feel like they are contributing. You don't necessarily need to create the lore, but you can definitely have a character use the lore that's already present. Basically, you're taking the setting and major events in the setting and using it, not crafting something entirely new. At least, that was the impression I got.

Whatever book comes out of this will be published after the official three anyway - it wouldn't make sense to publish it before, now would it.

I meant in general, what's the point of any post-EOTN fan fiction now if the official novels are going to cover that time period? Not just this possible compilation.

At first, I thought this was an actual contest from you, not a suggestion. *note to self: read fully first*

@Axwind - FOR FUN! There will be official lore coming out, yes, but we 1) don't know what it will cover and 2) don't have to cover the major stuff, we can write about the small things. And of course, we can always end up writing about something that the novels won't cover, or can write about the past *that would be sweet too* and give ideas to the Lore Team in ANet.

Who moved this? This isn't a lore discussion, it's a contest suggestion for Arenanet...?

And Axwind, how are 3 novels going to fully cover everything that happens in a 250 year time span? It sounds like it's going to be rather exciting times for Tyria. These aren't meant to be large, overarching storylines, they're meant to be short, fun ways for the fans to contribute, and for the world of Tyria to be expanded upon in a guided manner.

I think the game is a great example of this; our characters go through some really huge adventures in the main GW storyline. But what about, say, Gwen? How did she escape from the Charr? Or Saul D'Alessio? How did he end up turning back the Charr and worshiping the Mursaat? The four campaigns and expansions cover all of that, at least superficially so why go back and cover those stories in the BMP?

These short stories would be a way for the world of Tyria to be fleshed out, beyond the adventures of <insert name of novel heros here>. And if they can do so by having fans contribute to it instead of just official authors, so much the better.

I would like to add that I think the characters' classes would colour the way they see the world, and having different takes on the land of Tyria would be interesting. Take the Wintersday festivals - presumably a necromancer, associated with Grenth, would see it differently from a healing monk, associated with Dwayna. I really doubt these perspectives would be limited to only festivals. I'm not sure how the official authors would see it, but I'm pretty sure all the fans have a different idea of how each class relates to the GW world. That is something you probably won't see in official lore.

Well I just don't want to start writing a story about some established characters only to have the novels do something entirely different with them that conflicts with what I've written and basically makes it feel like it was a complete waste of time for me to write it.

Very true. I think Arenanet, if they were to hold this competition, would have to make some very specific guidelines about who and what you can write about, and how you can do write about them.

I meant in general, O14, not just this competion. Sorry if that was confusing.

Axwind: that's why it's called fanfiction. People like the 'what might have beens', and having new canon info dumped on them doesn't actually faze people. All that actually does is make them slap a "this is an alternate universe" on the fic.

...and I'm curious, really. What would the novels do with my characters? If my character chooses to perceive the world this way, then what can the Official Hero Of The Official Novels do about it to ruin it? Maybe it's a perception thing. If you are writing specifically to add new lore to the game, or if you're writing for a competition and they simply neglect what you wrote - well, yes, I would be justifiably pissed off.

If I write something based on old game knowledge and two years later it conflicts with some newly-released lore? That's the way of it. It doesn't make the writing any less. Storyline conflicts keep jumping in and overriding things that have already been written. It wont' be just GW. Comics are very guilty of it. The FF7 fandom is rife with it since the release of Advent Children and the subsequent games. Whether or not you feel that your writing based off the old lore is a waste of time is - well, up to you. End of the day, you're writing fanfiction. If you're doing it just for a competition, that's your motivation. If you're doing it because you enjoy exploring the world and thinking about things that way, that is also a motivation. The latter is less likely to feel cheated by your hypothetical situation, though.

Yeah, generally I write it because I just like to do it. I've never written for a competition before. But I always liked to do it in a way that, in the official canon, it could have actually happened. I do understand what you mean about new canon coming later that contradicts existing stories - I'm a longtime FF fan and fanfic writer myself, so I've experienced that firsthand. I guess I just got a little attached to the story I'm writing now, and I didn't like the idea that it might not be able to have happened in the official lore. Jumping the gun a bit, I guess, since so few details have been released about GW2 and the timeline in between. I guess I'll try not to let it get to me. Thanks!

Yeah, I can sympathise too. Nobody likes to feel like their work just got thrown down the drain. On the bright side, 250 years is a lot to cover with 3 books, so I'm certain GW lore will have a lot more flexibility than, say, FF7 canon once you add in all the compilation stuff.

It probably will at that, glac. I just hope the books don't mention Gwen, since she has a significant role in the story I'm doing and my take on her future would probably conflict with Anet's if they did do something with her.

I completely disagree. There are so many people out there who are fantastic writers but have different jobs and don't have the time to write professionally. A lot of fan fiction that I've read has been very well written, and I don't usually read in the short story format so it makes I nice change too.

There will be a lot of bad ones of course, but there will also be a few really great ones which they will hopefully publish on the website and then we can all give them a read!

By the way - do you know if we can submit English fan fiction to the website gw2.onlinewelten.com?

Will

No, has to be in german.

Grrr. I wanted those mini pets!