Aphelion

Don't know if I'll get a story in for this one -- gotta think on it some -- but here's my idea for the Outsider -- THERE'S some creepy mind-control for ya, ah?

Oh, yeah -- and it came out of an abandoned gold mine!

TaoPhoenix wrote:
"What voice do you read your favorite books in, in your mind's eye?" (Lester, this has tangential relation to my comments for your ongoing novel... maybe one reason I like expository passages is because they sound in my head like either Ian McKellan or Optimus Prime, or a crossover. Lester, did you recall that I use to use a special voice software module to create my own quick audio books?)

It's also fascinating to think of what we envision as the "background tracks" for our tales.

Maybe that's why I don't like exposition -- to me, it doesn't sound like much of anything, except maybe my own voice, which I'm not fond of (speaking, anyway; I don't mind hearing myself sing). I do have definite voices for my characters, though, and I enjoy hearing them in my head.

I'm not much for having background music in my stories, either. I certainly don't listen to any while I'm writing; I consider it distracting. I do imagine the background sounds, smells, visuals, etc., though, but they're dimmed during dialog. I think if I was going to have a voice for the narration, I'd like to use Patrick Stewart. He could read a shopping list and make it thrilling.

I just wanted to make sure that anyone reading these posts realizes that these challenges are run by Mark and not by Aphelion. They appear here, but are not affiliated.

That being said, so long as they do not claim to be or appear to be from the Aphelion editorial board and as long as they can be viewed as serving some interests of the Aphelion community, they violate no rules. In this case, they do indeed seem to be creating some enthusiasm.

I hope that enthusiasm continues to carry over in other areas.

Storyboarding

I love that concept! from Jay Hill.

I don't know if I can get one in, but I'll try. I must really say that I love this one!

Mark,

I received several complaints via PM that alleged that you were posting these challenges just to further your own interests on your own site, just like implied in another thread, i.e. "poaching" the stories. In examining them, I did not find the challenges to be "poaching" because they did indeed seem to be generating interest in Aphelion, and I said so. If it was just to further your own site, I view that much the same as spam, in which case I would have banned you from the forum.

I did not ban because your challenge was not in violation.

However, in examining them, I felt that it was not clear enough that they were run independently from Aphelion. This is not an ego thing. It is instead a liability issue, to my thinking. If someone were to feel that one of your challenges in some way violated their rights, it makes it a lot more difficult to go after Dan as publisher if it is clearly not one created by the editorial board.

So long as one does not spam, is civil (that is, no badgering, no hate speech, can keep discussion toned down to pg-13, etc.), and does not pretend to be operating on behalf of Aphelion, you're pretty much free and clear to do it and talk about it in the forum. We don't have many other rules.

Any member may create a writing challenge, and I have said so on numerous occasions. I was not an editor when I started them six years ago, but as an editor now, I felt I needed to post what I did to be as fair and impartial as I could be.

Mark, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Nate has made clear what the problem is (a legal liability issue for the board). Disclaimers have already been posted, so everything seems copacetic.