Character #WritingContest

Sorry about the delay!  All of the entries were so good that I wanted to invest some time into doing something neat for the reveal, which has taken a little longer than expected to put together.  The results will be posted tomorrow!

No problem, was just wondering :)
Looking forward to the reveal :D

At long last, the winner of the Stonewall Character #WritingContest has been chosen!  To our writers: over the last three weeks I've truly enjoyed reading all of your amazing entries multiple times over many cups of tea and many more glasses of wine.  Your submissions have really been enthralling to read, pulling me right into the story and letting me share in the emotion that you put into writing them.

Having to pick one winner out of this collection of amazing talent was really difficult for me; I first tried to score each entry in three different areas: originality, creativity and lasting impact on the reader, but when I found that four or five entries had tied in the rankings, I realized that I'd have to base my choice on feelings.  The winning entry ended up being the one that had the writing style and words that resonated with me the strongest.  I'll concede that it's a very subjective way of arriving at a winner and in future writing contests (we'll be looking to do more throughout the year), I'll bring in more judges to balance everything out!

Since I enjoyed reading your entries so much, I wanted to do something special that would attract as many readers to your stories as possible.  Click on the button below to reveal the contest winner and to be taken to the index of everyone's submissions!







The winning entry will be contacted to select their choice of prize package as listed on page one of this thread!  Everyone else who took the time to submit an entry will be awarded THREE Stonewall Credits for use in the fleet's Stonewall Credit Store!  

Thank you to everyone for your entries and I really hope to have you all participate again in the next writing contest: to be announced!

I enjoyed reading all of your #WritingContest entries so much that I wanted to take the time to tell you what I loved about each of your stories!  Thanks for sharing your talents with me and the entire Stonewall community!

• @LarsAKALordZandor: It was awesome to read something from outside of the Star Trek universe.  Although I don't know anything about Skyrim, I had all of the pictures of your toons open and each time your story referred to one, I would pull up the image so I could imagine all of the characters as you'd written them.  The screenshots added a great touch to an epic adventure story!
• @Jacien: You write with such elegance; it's like you're referencing a thesaurus for every second word... or your vocabulary is just much larger than mine, lol.  The idea of imagining a new ending (or beginning) to a story that has already been told is probably the most creative idea anyone has had...  I want to know what happens next!
• @TLara: I felt the coldness of space that you were trying to convey and it sent a chill up my spine!  I can think of no crueler fate than having to exist in the vacuum of space for what would feel like an eternity, and the descent into madness that would surely follow.  It was cool how you injected your character's backstory into one of the most memorable moments in Trek history!
• @GXV3: Your story was so tragic that it evoked real emotion in me as I read it... I totally mis-guessed your toon's relationship to the one character and you had me completely fooled until the big reveal at the end.  I've never given parenthood any thought IRL, but when I was done reading, I sat there staring at my screen, actually contemplating it.  It was such an awesome read and I think that you should really write for these contests more often!
• @Niko: I love reading tragedies... the death of M’Freya's parents was very powerful and it was neat that the tragedy became her source of strength and the catalyst to her joining Starfleet.  I'm also super intrigued by the idea of a Vulcan/Caitian coupling, lol... I'd like to be a fly on the wall during that first date.
• @NicholasJohn16: This was really the most depressing story that was submitted, lol... and I LOVED every word of it!  I'm a huge sap for gay romance stories (I may have a rather large collection of paperbacks along that theme), so I naturally enjoyed reading yours.  I'd also always just pictured everyone on-board ship doing something during a battle and I was particularly intrigued by your character literally having no purpose during that crisis.  We've all felt helpless in relateable situations like that before, so I felt that it was a great character development segment of the story!
• @Rayne: All of my toons being good little Starfleet recruits that tow the company line, it was really interesting to think about what my characters would do if they morally objected to Starfleet's course of action and had exhausted all possibility of resolving it diplomatically.  Would they have Rayne's strength to go rogue, or would they fall silent?  I thought about each of my character's likely reaction for some time after reading your story!
• @skyggen957: I absolutely loved this story and I can't put my finger on exactly why.  I think that the dichotomy that exists within Aegnor mirrors me on some level that I'm not fully conscious of and it intrigues me; I think I see a bit of my real life self in your character.  The words that you used in your writing seemed to be perfectly chosen to tell your story.  Really enjoyable!
• @Teknomancer: Now this was truly a fun read... it was interesting to follow a character who is motivated by something so different than most people's characters.  It's interesting to experience what could easily be an adventure had by any Starfleet crew, but to view it through the eyes of someone motivated solely by money.  It made for several good comedic moments that made me laugh out loud, but I was left wondering... was the Deltan in the holosuite male? :D
• @Iconoclastix: An interesting hypothetical set of circumstances that could set the stage for a good episode arc!
• @Duriansol: I can relate to this story; this is how I feel I should start dealing with most problems on my ship!

Click the button below to see an index of your entries, some artwork that I did for each of your stories and to see which entry was selected as the winner!

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@Voleron thank you so much for the artwork on my best selling novel, it looks amazing.
and congrats to the winner!!! i wont spoil who won until everyone clicks on your big button.

it was a really fun experience conjuring up a story in my head. thanks for putting it on for us.

(Book club side-note:.. going by what you said in saint Nicks review.. have you read "Lancelot and the wolf" by Sarah Luddinton ?
that falls under the m/m romance.. an Arthurian adventure, I was hooked on it and the best part is, its completely free on amazon (kindle edition) you can download it to a amazon kindle app and read it off your tablet maybe.
we should get a list of everyones best reads on here soon for our community tastes.)

Awesome, I'll check it out; sounds like one that I'd like!  If you start the thread, I'll totally share my favorite m/m books to the list! 

Quote by Voleron

• @Teknomancer: Now this was truly a fun read... it was interesting to follow a character who is motivated by something so different than most people's characters.  It's interesting to experience what could easily be an adventure had by any Starfleet crew, but to view it through the eyes of someone motivated solely by money.  It made for several good comedic moments that made me laugh out loud, but I was left wondering... was the Deltan in the holosuite male? :D

Love the custom artwork on all of the entries, and I won't spoil the winner either! They're all great reads, and this was fun...I may continue the "episode" for the next writing entry, once I figure out what it's actually about. :P

As for the holo-Deltan, I deliberately left him a bit vague, but the adjective "chiseled" is generally used to describe a buff male physique. There are exceptions of course, but that's what I was hinting at. I didn't want to get too descriptive overall, instead letting the reader's imagination fill in the blanks in the scenery. But yes, I had a hot Deltan guy in mind while writing the scene. And we all know the Deltan reputation for sheer sexifulness...why else would the program have been so expensive?  LOL

Thank you so much for choosing my story! I have to say I wrote mine without first reading the others, and when I did read the other stories submitted after posting mine, I thought.. gulp.. do I need more content - these guys have so much incredible detail in their stories.

But I think the story about Aegnor references a lot of issues ongoing in the world right now - the American elections and partisan bickering, the increasing personal discoveries of many people of their authentic inner self vs a kind of socially accepted self and the practical choices they have to make in their jobs and personal lives in the face of that kind of struggle, even to a certain extent a tiredness in the face of this struggle and hence the success of TV shows of a benevolent aristocracy such as Downton Abbey, The Crown, and House Targaryen in Game of Thrones. When choices become so overwhelming and the understanding of self is so poor relative to the spectrum of choices, sometimes it feels as though it's just easier to turn over the decision making to someone you trust. The conclusion is about making what Neelix calls a third path in the Fork, making lemonade out of lemons.

Incidentally, I'm Kalen1072 on STO, so that would be the prize pack I would love to have.

It was great fun to write the story (and about something else than STO for once :p )
Congratulations to the winner!