FLASH CHALLENGE: January '08

[kailhofer]

The "Time Travel" Challenge:

A staple of speculative fiction is the tale of a time traveler, suddenly deposited in another time, another place. This being can experience anything. Maybe the traveler unravels history as we know it, or instead repairs it. Perhaps he or she will fall in love, or start a war, or become trapped in some potential future. One can never tell.

This month, I challenge you to create your very best time travel story.

We don't have enough entrants of both sexes to make this required, but nonetheless I encourage you to make your main character the opposite sex as you are. That was something I did when I thought up this challenge and the example story. It was meant to be an exercise in characterization. However, we just don't yet have enough diversity.


REQUIREMENTS: (1) Your piece must have a time traveler in it; (2) There must be something "accidental" about your traveler's arrival. I'm leaving "accidental" deliberately vague; (3) 1,000 words or less; (4) This is a Rated 'PG-13' challenge; (5) The characters and setting must be new, or not previously published in Aphelion; and (6) Give your story a title and include a byline for when I post the list of authors. Do not bother sending me a bio. I won't use it.

If, in my judgment, any requirement is missed, I won't post the story for voting. Sorry, but rules are for everyone.

HOW TO ENTER: Stories should be submitted to me by PRIVATE MESSAGE, and NOT posted into the thread. If you've never sent a PM, all you have to do is log into this forum and click the 'PM' button at the bottom of this post. That will take you to a special message board, a kind of Aphelion-only email, where you paste your story into the body of the message and then send it to me. You are responsible for doing your own formatting, and for the sake of uniformity, leave an extra line between paragraphs, just like when you see them in the 'zine. I'm allowing different colors for now, but I'm not going to allow changed fonts or sizes, artwork, or any other embedded or external links. I want all the stories to display the same on everyone's computer. DO NOT send a regular email to me--I don't want to risk a spam filter blocking someone's hard work.

NOTE: ONLY REGISTERED MEMBERS who have posted at least one message may submit a story. Without that one post, the system will not let you send a PM. So if you wish to join the challenge, post a hello or introduction, or just put your two cents worth in on any of the discussions going on anywhere in the Forum. We'll be glad to meet you.

DEADLINE: Stories should be in by 10 p.m. Central Standard Time, Thursday, January 24, 2008. The stories will then be posted for voting. Voting will close at 10 p.m. C.S.T. on January 30.

VOTING: Stories will be posted "blind"--without the author's name on them. This is to make things as fair as they can be, without favorites to be played, and allows for anyone to enter, from newbies to editors. Names won't be on the poll for voting, and all the story titles are literally tossed into a hat and chosen at in random order. When I close the poll after the voting week, I'll post a list of the stories and who wrote them.

If you feel a second story deserves a vote, you may legally vote again as a guest, but you'd need to do it from a separate network, say from a library or your workplace. Votes are tracked by IP address only, so a guest vote from your same network will change your previous vote to the newer one. Voting for yourself a second time is just tacky, so don't do it.

WHAT YOU WIN: Pride and the knowledge that your story was voted the best against strong competition--there are some outstanding stories each time. Writers get improved short fiction skills, increasing their chances in the marketplace, without the lengthy investment in time a longer story would take.

This is new territory for everyone, but the editors have stated they were willing to publish the monthly winners in the annual "Best Of" issue, currently slated for February. Many thanks to them for that.

GUEST ACCESS: Guest votes will be allowed again, so feel free to tell friends and neighbors about the contest and encourage them to read all the stories.

An example of what may be done follows.



Example story, not eligible for entry:


[right]995 Words[/right]

[center]Lila's Date

By
N.J. Kailhofer[/center]



"One more to go." Lila wiggled her freshly painted toenails. She hoped Bill would appreciate the shade. The toilet seat lid was making her butt flat, and her bathrobe wasn't very warm.

6:30. "Making good time." When she finished primping, plucking, and curling, she'd only be an hour late. Bill would still be at the party when she arrived.

She felt the vibration in the lid before she heard the noise. It was like motors or industrial machinery, but far off and muffled, like through the side of an inner tube.

The hairs on her arms stood up straight.

The whole ceiling erupted into white light, so bright she could hardly look.

She heard a male voice, then laughter.

"Hello?"

A man in a suit fell through the ceiling, landing face down in the bathtub.

She screamed, scrambling up on the seat.

He didn't move.

After thirty seconds or so, Lila felt embarrassed at her 'girlie' pose and jumped for the door. She ran down the hall to her bedroom where her purse was. Grabbing out the pepper spray with her right hand, she returned to the bathroom. She grabbed the plunger from behind the wastebasket and held it like a club in her left hand while she looked the man over.

"Pinstripes?" she asked herself. "Who wears that?"

The ceiling was back to its normal color.

Lila prodded him with the plunger. "Hey, buddy!"

He groaned.

She jabbed him much harder, and he woke with a start, struggling to his knees and grabbing at the big lump on his forehead. His right eye was swelling.

"Oh, that's quite a goose egg," she mumbled. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

He looked around himself then, as if noticing his surroundings for the first time. Lila felt the man's good eye trace up her long legs and past her hips. His inspection lingered for a moment on her chest before glancing up to her face.

He turned away, as if embarrassed. "Y-You're... not dressed."

Lila glanced down. Nothing was showing, but she drew the sides of her bathrobe tighter anyway. "Who are you?"

"My name is Anders." He had a nasal voice. "Where am I?"

He was young. She wondered if he was even twenty-one. "You're in my bathtub. How'd you get here? The ceiling turned all white and then you fell through."

He looked up at the ceiling. "Martin! He was playing at the controls."

He turned back to her, then averted his eyes again. "What year is this?"

"2008. What kind of question is that?"

He goggled. "My god! Seventy years!"

"Martin!" he yelled to the ceiling. "Martin, it worked! Tell Nikola!"

"Hey!" Lila tapped him with the plunger. "Keep your voice down. Skip back to the point where you tell me what the hell you're doing in my bathroom."

He sat on the edge of the tub. "Martin and I work for this inventor. He made this machine, and, well… we were playing with it while he was gone. We weren't supposed to, but we got this bottle of gin and we were drinking. I didn't know exactly where I was going."

Lila frowned, putting her hands on her hips. "You're trying to tell me you're a time traveler."

He shrugged. "Our boss said that was one of the things it could do."

"And how were you supposed to get back?"

"He was going to give me three minutes, then open the doorway again."

Lila thought hard about it. "There's no hole in my ceiling, and I saw you fall with my own eyes, so I believe you. Anders, what if that door doesn't open again? You could be trapped here, without anyone. If this was at random, that door might never come back."

He blushed. "Well, it wasn't completely at random. Martin said you had nice gams--"

She smacked him with the plunger. "Why, you little pervert! Watching me in the bathroom from the past!"

Lila stopped. "You thought I was pretty?"

He glanced at her, then his eye darted away again. "Martin was the one looking. I had to be by the opening to go through."

She was quiet for a moment. "Would you like to go to a party?"

He turned pale. "I-I wouldn't want to miss my chance at getting back."

She glanced at the clock and slid the pepper spray behind her back. It was now or never. "If what you say is true, the door will open again in a few seconds. How about a kiss before you go?"

He jumped to his feet, nervous. "I-I wouldn't presume... I mean, I've imposed enough."

She stepped closer. "Come on, no strings attached. It's your only chance to kiss a woman from the future."

Just then, the ceiling erupted into brilliant white light once more. A voice called out, "Well, how was she?"

"Martin!" Anders jumped for the ceiling but couldn't get high enough. "Rotate ninety degrees and lower six feet!"

The voice called again, "But how was she?"

Anders looked back at Lila. He cleared his throat. "Uh, unprepossessing. Hurry!"

Lila started. "What?! I was a crossword champion. I know what that means!"

She grabbed at the pepper spray, but the can tumbled into the sink.

The brilliance shimmered away again, then reformed as the wall next to Anders.

She grabbed the can and spun.

Anders leapt, disappearing through the wall of light, which winked out of existence an instant later.

Lila fumed then looked at her oversized nose and crooked teeth in the mirror. "I may not be the prettiest girl at the ball, but Bill's going to notice me tonight, darn it. Even if I have to scratch out the eyes of that trollop he married. Three years of waiting for one's boss is enough."

It occurred to Lila as she put on her third coat of lipstick that she might have been on the receiving end of history's first crank call.

[center]The End[/center]

[kailhofer]

Just a bit of trivia:

There were 52 pieces submitted for the flash challenges in the eight months since it started. Throwing in my examples, that's sixty flash stories that might not have otherwise seen the light of day. Sixty "snack-sized morsels of twisty goodness", as Robert would put it.

I think that's just cool. Way to go Aphelionites!

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

This month's left-field creative spark:

"There must be something "accidental" about your traveler's arrival."

...

Jennifer was never a talented musical student. However, her art was worse, so this was the best she could do to fill the Misc Requirement in Culture to finish her bachelor degree from the University of Trantor. Try as she might, she never hit the right notes in the pieces she played.

One day she came across the strange musical instrument first used by the Mule back in the days he was building the Empire. Her odd technique matched the odd instrument, and she found herself transported in a flourish of black notes into the far past...

Sharps or flats? :question

[kailhofer]

Isn't it sharp forward and flat back?

I can never get that right.


-- david j.

Only when playing with knives. :)

Nate


PS-Dave already his entry in. Where's yours? ;)

[Robert_Moriyama]

Draft? What be this thing you call a "draft"?   ::)

- Jaimie "My Life is Full of Approaching Deadlines" Elliott

Obviously, JB finds that the words flow better after a few beers.

;D

[kailhofer]

Reminder: Thursday night, Jan. 24, is the deadline to submit entries.

2 in so far. Good luck!

Nate