Shadowrun Fiction Request, official site request Options

[tisoz]

[winterhawk11]

Hey all,

Figured I'd jump in here to clear up a couple of things. I've taken over the post of SR website fiction editor (Elissa's decided to step down for a bit), so hopefully I can answer any questions that you have.

1. This is not a "contest," per se. There isn't one winner. Potentially, if we get a whole slew of kick-ass stories, there's a good chance we'll use most/all of them at some point. We're looking for fiction to post on the official Shadowrun website on an ongoing basis.

2. There's been a lot of confusion regarding the core character thing, and I'm in the process of putting together a document that will address that. Basically, there is a core group of characters who will be featured throughout SR products--as shadowtalkers, in the opening fiction vignettes, etc. As soon as I can get it finished and approved by Rob, I'll be posting a list of these (along with a one- or two-line description of each) on the fiction website. However, you do not have to make these characters protagonists (or antagonists!) in your story. All we ask is that you include one or two somewhere in the story--perhaps as a contact your character talks to, someone they do biz with, someone they work with, etc.

3. The two-step submission process helps us to weed out ideas that won't work for what we're looking for. We'd rather tell an author we can't use his/her story after reading a synopsis than have had that author go through the trouble of writing something we can't use. It also protects both you and us legally.

4. The part about preferring established authors doesn't mean that a new author's idea and story won't get the same consideration as a seasoned freelancer or established author. It's just reality that it's easier to work with someone we're already familiar with, but that doesn't in any way mean that we're not receptive to "new blood." That guideline was copied from the freelancers' guidelines--it's a lot more important to know who you're working with when you're counting on them for a piece of a multi-author book than it is when they're writing a short story. Bottom line--if you're good, we'll notice, whether you've submitted to us before or not. It's not an either-or thing. If an established author and a newbie both submit great ideas/stories, we'll very likely use them both.

I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, post 'em and I'll try to answer.

[SL James]

Omitted, because no good can come from what I post.

This post has been edited by SL James: Mar 5 2006, 10:14 AM

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[tisoz]

[warrior_allanon]

Hawk the only problem i see with doing that is that your using other peoples characters, and honestly i think thats about the most difficult thing for any writer to do decently because they are not your characters. You know my writing from over on the writers forum and honestly how hard do you think it would be for you to do wolfgar or TC justice, I honestly wouldnt know what to do with ocelot or hawk, nor with M's Duck or Tracker. it would be to much for me to write an adventure using them and do them justice.

[winterhawk11]

[SL James]

Frosty?

Sweet.

As for help, I would assume E would also do her part since she has a title and all

[winterhawk11]

[SL James]

Ah. I missed that. Oh, well. It's not like I had good will capital to spend anyway.

But now that I'm looking over the revised guidelines and the list of posters, I am slightly intrigued and slightly apprehensive, specifically with regard to the posters. For example, I never thought Kane was a pirate. IIRC, his original appearance in the SR2Comp was as the archmunchkin psycopathic street sam, and he seemed to have little regard for the pirates and their egos in Cyberpirates!. The other one is Puck, which I don't entirely understand since I would expect that he is not particularly welcome on Shadowland. Then again, I never understood the person he became in System Failure. I always thought that he was basically like the Puck in Sandman, the one who another faerie refers to as, "that giggling-dangerous-totally-bloody-psychotic-menace-to-life-and-limb" in #19. He was a sick, sadistic evil villian who got off of torturing people - at least until SF.

Anyway, interesting list.

[Ancient History]

Kane? Where've you been, man? Aside from the racing team and the blimp, Kane is supposed to be running because his mate's stuck in an unnamed military prison on the wrong side of the Texas/Aztlan border.

Besides, he has to be a pirate. The whole rivalry thing with the Gingerbread Man was hilarious.

[SL James]

Yes, but it was a shadowrunner vs. pirate rivalry.

[Ancient History]

I think Kane just resented anyone comparing themselves favorably with him.

[Demonseed Elite]

[SL James]

...

Why didn't you just write that in SF? Ever since I read SF I've been thinking to myself, "did they put a gun to DE's head to get this Puck?"

[Demonseed Elite]

Those are my writing notes, most of which never end up in print. Some of my notes on Puck were actually developed/written down after I completed my writing for SF, which is another reason why they aren't in there. My notes are a constant work in progress, whereas I've still got to meet deadlines when it comes to what is in the book. Sometimes those deadlines get really tight and I don't have the time to think over and revise what I write as much as I'd like to.

For instance, the paragraph about Puck on page 50 of System Failure makes me cringe now, because in hindsight I don't like it at all. It's too hand-wavey and out-of-character. At the time I was writing it, I was mainly just trying to get that section done, because I had major revision work to do on the Matrix 2.0 chapter. When I started writing "Hello World" I didn't know about SR4 or technomancers, so that whole section had to be taken back to the drawing board.

I would love to rewrite that small bit on page 50, but I can't. Instead I keep the notes for my future reference, in case I get to work with the Puck character again. Of course, he's not my character alone, meaning those notes don't necessarily mean anything if another freelancer (or even someone submitting web fiction) takes another route with him.

[SL James]

Oh, god. I tried to write something within the frame of the webfiction rules, and I think it's technically impossible. Especially the part about integrating the core characters. I mean, jesus f-ing christ, they are almost all the very definition of "not street." Having Fastjack appear in a submission, outside of a vague mention, is as stupid as tossing in Lofwyr (which is verboten according to the guidelines). I mean, seriously: Man-of-Many-Names? Smiling Bandit? You've got to be kidding me. I can't think of any of these characters who would show up in a street-level game, or anywhere outside of either shadowtalk (natch, since they are "core shadowtalk posters") or dedicated stories. My fresh-faced, just out of the Barrens runner(s) are never going to run into, see, or have any direct encounter with any of these people. At best, they might be mentioned in passing, but that doesn't even count as a cameo. It'd be such a nonsequitur that it'd be like last year when Steve Martin just walked onto the set of Weekend Update on SNL for a cameo. Why was he there? It was a cameo. It didn't need to be explained. What, they're going to walk into a bar in Seattle and see Fas... no. Smil... no. Man...no. Pu... no. Uh... hm... (and those aren't even including the ones who have almost no reason to be in Seattle).

Oh, oh! The Matrix, right? Sure, but then it goes back to it may as well be shadowtalk, otherwise it's like "Hey, look, Fastjack just passed us by on the way out of Shadowland." IOW, what's the point? Exactly what character development comes from having seen FJ leaving Shadowland at 1:45:23 GMT on February 2, 2070, or running into one of the few characters who aren't antisocial meatworld recluses at a bar? Character development implies that they do something, but anything they do is almost invariably going to be a Deus Ex Machina role. Let me put it bluntly, you cannot create a core cast of world-class global core characters, demand they be inserted into webfiction, and yet insist that all the submissions be "street level." It doesn't work that way. Street-level criminals don't work with the Neil McCauleys (RL or the one in Heat) of the world, and if they run into them it's happenstance and utterly meaningless that they do (and don't pull that Waingro shit either, because he was a plot element for their story. He didn't matter. His character could have been anyone, and was based on someone totally unrelated to the real McCauley's crew. Since the stories aren't about FJ or any of these character, it's irrelevant).

*pthbbt* on that.

Would I like to do a piece about Puck? Hell, yeah. But it would be about Puck, and that's not going to ever approach the vicinity of "street," not least of all because that constraint does a horrible disservice to the character.

[winterhawk11]