Iron Quill: The Clockwork Giant

[edonil]

Hey everyone, and welcome to the new round of the Iron Quill! As usual, we've got some great story ingredients for you to all try writing with. I hope you liked the musical interludes, the first is by Vernian Process, the second by Abney Park, both excellent steampunk bands. Just want to thank all the past and current participants, and encourage people to try their hand at writing stories of their own! I was able to leave some feedback for our authors last round, and I hope that was useful and am excited to see what they come up with this time!

As usual, for both the newbies and veterans alike, here's the rules:



The Rules:
1. The list of participants will be brought together in the starting thread as people sign up. Participants may sign up at any point in time, by posting their interest in this thread, or by posting up a story. The Mystery Ingredient will be announced in the starting thread for each round. When you post up your story, please include the name of the round in the title.

2. The Mystery Ingredient will be two of four things. The Ingredient may be a character, a phrase, an item or a more generic theme. The Mystery Ingredient should be used in each entry, but doesn't necessarily have to be literal. Be creative here! (As an example, the Character: The Black Knight could be an armored knight in black, or a villain with a code of honor. It's up to you as the writer to interpret!)

3. All entries must be set in the universe of Malifaux, or a recognizable Alternate version thereof.

4. Entries should be no more than 1,500 words in total, and should be complete self contained stories. Try to stick to this length as much as possible, a reasonable overage will be allowed at the Judge's discretion, but stories that are too long by the deadline will be disqualified. If your initial draft is too long at first submission but, through author feedback, is brought to the word count, that's fine.

5. Participants will have three weeks to complete their entry and post it on the forums in a new thread using a format that identifies easily that the story is an entry and what round. For example: Iron Quill Round 1: The Dark of the Night (or something).

ON EDITING:

All stories can be edited as much as people would like. If a story is going to be modified to such an extent that it no longer matches the original story, please start a new thread.

WIP will not be necessary in the title, but it is requested that any story that isn't completed have it at the top of the post. When the story is finished, please remove WIP from the post.

Edits can be made up until the deadline, but any edits made on the deadline or afterwards will disqualify the entry from the competition. (As an editorial note- please don't make me do this.)

6. The winner(s) of each round will be determined by a blind score from a public and a private poll. The public poll will be a thread created in which anyone who reads the stories can vote. The private poll will be for Judges and Authors who have weighted votes they can hand out. Each Judge/Author can award each of the following to different stories: 3 votes, 2 votes, 1 vote. At the same time, the Judges/Authors are requested to leave criticism and feedback. These polls will be open for one week, at which point the winner of the round will be announced. Any Judge/Author votes that have not been submitted by that point will be spoiled. You cannot vote for yourself.

Most Improved Award:

Now that we have some competitions in the bag, I want to start a 'Most Improved' award for each round. When you give me your weighted votes (or any readers who want to join in on this one), name the author you think has improved the most this round, either from last round or from the beginning of the competition.

7. When you put up your story, put up a post in here saying so. That way, we have a central location that is being updated as time goes on, which lets people subscribe to the thread and keep track of what's going on. I'll have a central list here as always, but please take the time to do this, it'll make life easier for me and other writers to give you feedback when we know the story is up before the round end.

MYSTERY INGREDIENTS: Continuing from the last round, you've got four options to pick from. Pick two or more of these. Because of this, you're going to need to put in your entry, either at the beginning or the end, which Ingredients you used. And with that out of the way, here's what you're all waiting for anyway:

Theme: In the Shadow of Giants
Character: The Clockwork Girl
Line: Nobody panic, I know basic stuff! [if you use this line, feel free to replace 'stuff' with something story specific]
Item: Severed Thumb

Starting Date: January 13, 2014 00:00 EST
Ending Date: February 3, 2014 23:59 EST

Authors:
ScrewedUpDice
mephiston
StormLordXIII
Hateful Darkblack- In the Shadow of the Giant Black Mountains
ThePandaDirector
Grue- The Ballad of Ladyface
Ashenlion- A Chain of Clockwork

Edited January 22, 2014 by edonil

[ScrewedUpDice]

Sign me up.

[edonil]

Welcome back!

[mephiston]

Ok this time I will write, even if I have to tie myself to the computer chair!

[edonil]

Good to see you again, mephiston!

[StormLordXIII]

I'm in! What a cool mix of themes for this round!

[Hateful Darkblack]

Super good!

Here's my entry: In the Shadow of the Giant Black Mountains.

[edonil]

...I hope you don't take this the wrong way, Hateful Darkblack...but I might hate you a little now. :-P Good lord I wish I could write at that pace, lol. Thanks for the link, I'll try to get you some feedback before the end of the week.

[Hateful Darkblack]

...I hope you don't take this the wrong way, Hateful Darkblack...but I might hate you a little now. :-P Good lord I wish I could write at that pace, lol. Thanks for the link, I'll try to get you some feedback before the end of the week.

Thank you! And I'm flattered.

[ScrewedUpDice]

Well, I'm impressed, and slightly scared. Well done for getting a piece up so quickly Hateful Darkblack.

I'll take up the speed challenge, and get my story written in, being realistic, the next two day. Expect it Wednesday night, UK time.

[ThePandaDirector]

*Two stars glisten under a ragged hood. The stranger leans forward, flickering light casting panda eyes in sharp relief, and pushes a pile of worn tokens towards the centre of the table. The stranger holds his position for a moment, and declares with a smirk*

I'm all in :-)

[edonil]

Panda! \o/ Welcome back my friend! Good to see you.

[ThePandaDirector]

You know when you plan a story, and in your plan the opening is nice and short, but when you start writing that short nicely planned opening, it ends up being over 800 words? I know I do ;-)

[ashenlion]

Hello everyone!

I haven't introduced myself yet, (still poking at the forums trying to see what works, I'm not sure how that quick reply thing works with my computer, or more likely I am a noob XD ). In any case, I'm really enjoying some of the stories I've been reading in my off time. Hopefully the things I write wont cause people the compulsion to scoop out their eyeballs with a spork (but if they do, do let me know so I may indulge in schadenfreude)

Oh yeah, here it is - A Chain of Clockwork

[ScrewedUpDice]

I've put up my WIP story in the previously vacant Cog Fight post. Sorry for the delay, go see what you think.

[ThePandaDirector]

Here's my story.

I'll be sure to post feedback on everyones' stories, hopefully next week.

[Brewmaster]

Well, let's see about throwing my (totally bigger) hat to the ring : Eyes on the Prize.

[mephiston]

When is the deadline? Ohhh, still have time

Hope to scribble this weekend.

[StormLordXIII]

Hi all,

 

Sadly I was caught up with another writing project this month and cannot contribute to what looks like a really interesting round! That project is done, so at least I should be able to contribute next time! Best of luck to everyone, can't wait to read what's been written!

 

 

[mephiston]

Gah.... foiled again. I have a character in mind, just can't seem to work a way in with this set of ingredients.

[The Grue]

I apologize for not doing anything with my story apart from submitting it. It appears my net was of the capped variety and we are able to escape that company but beyond at work I have been unable to get onto the internet. I know that my story is disqualified and that is fine, I appreciated the oppurtunity to write. Hopefully by the next Iron Quill I should have my net sorted out and should be able to write, edit and change my story in time of the next deadline.

 

As always,

The Grue