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Demi-professional writer and all round geek.
Huh, not the prompt I wanted to win but I suppose I can Let It Go :D
*Crickets*
I'll... see myself out.
*Crickets*
I'll... see myself out.
Huh 750 words exactly on the first draft. I may be getting a little too practiced at these contests.
Huh, I actually finished something. That hasn't happened for half a dozen write-offs or more. Now to edit... for all of half an hour before I have to go to bed. XD
Huh, biblical fanfiction. Didn't expect that today.
Anyway, continuing a grand tradition started by Dante this story inserts Pony and Unicorn into the Garden of Eden story. Personally I really liked the content of this story, its funny, irreverent and doesn't fall into the usual trap of being too preachy to get anything done. Pony and Unicorn are also well defined and fit remarkably well into the narrative, though they don't really have much impact on how everything seems to shake out in the end.
Actually, that's probably my biggest critique in the end. Fanfiction I firmly believe is an additive thing, throwing new characters and events at a well established setting to see how things change. I'm not sure this story does that, or rather, despite the new characters it changes neither the message or eventual outcome. While there's a level of value to writing in the bridges, it struggles to be interesting when the audience begins knowing the ending.
All in all, a fun slice of life in the Garden of Eden but without being much more.
Edit: Oh, and while I remember. No Pegasus? Was she off playing with the Greek gods?
Anyway, continuing a grand tradition started by Dante this story inserts Pony and Unicorn into the Garden of Eden story. Personally I really liked the content of this story, its funny, irreverent and doesn't fall into the usual trap of being too preachy to get anything done. Pony and Unicorn are also well defined and fit remarkably well into the narrative, though they don't really have much impact on how everything seems to shake out in the end.
Actually, that's probably my biggest critique in the end. Fanfiction I firmly believe is an additive thing, throwing new characters and events at a well established setting to see how things change. I'm not sure this story does that, or rather, despite the new characters it changes neither the message or eventual outcome. While there's a level of value to writing in the bridges, it struggles to be interesting when the audience begins knowing the ending.
All in all, a fun slice of life in the Garden of Eden but without being much more.
Edit: Oh, and while I remember. No Pegasus? Was she off playing with the Greek gods?
The Unsung Bollard of Roger Wilco - The hero of the Space Quest games gets a bollard named in his honour. No one seems to notice nor care, despite his best efforts.
Cerial - The dyslexic suicide society gets off to a bad start when someone brings in a bowl of cornflakes.
Bats - Fluttershy unveils her newest way of draining blood from innocent ponies, by asking nicely.
Wait, original fiction round? Dang, okay...
BRuts - Somedays you just find yourself murdering people because its a habit, you know?
Compianions - Yeah, I'm not sure why anyone thought making sadistic AIs was a good idea either. Fortunately we managed to flog them all to some Western themed park.
Egg Sum Deus? - The secret to immortality is found in a dim sum recipe. Who would have guessed?
Morluck - The luckiest bastard in Alpha Complex has the best day of his life, much to the misfortune of everyone around them. (I can't have been on the only one to pick up the Paranoia vibe from this one :P)
Imploding Doom - Tompson's cupboard mysteriously implodes one day. He learns a valuable lesson about never inheriting anything.
Breastly - ... I got nothing.
The View Though the Window - A man spends the story trying to see out a window. At the end his wife opens the curtains.
My Fiend, My Obsession - On reflection betting your soul on an underground street wrestling league match was a terrible idea.
Cerial - The dyslexic suicide society gets off to a bad start when someone brings in a bowl of cornflakes.
Bats - Fluttershy unveils her newest way of draining blood from innocent ponies, by asking nicely.
Wait, original fiction round? Dang, okay...
Compianions - Yeah, I'm not sure why anyone thought making sadistic AIs was a good idea either. Fortunately we managed to flog them all to some Western themed park.
Egg Sum Deus? - The secret to immortality is found in a dim sum recipe. Who would have guessed?
Morluck - The luckiest bastard in Alpha Complex has the best day of his life, much to the misfortune of everyone around them. (I can't have been on the only one to pick up the Paranoia vibe from this one :P)
Imploding Doom - Tompson's cupboard mysteriously implodes one day. He learns a valuable lesson about never inheriting anything.
Breastly - ... I got nothing.
The View Though the Window - A man spends the story trying to see out a window. At the end his wife opens the curtains.
My Fiend, My Obsession - On reflection betting your soul on an underground street wrestling league match was a terrible idea.
>>007Ben
Absolutely, though it doesn't all need to be practice. There's a lot of little things you can do to make things easier for you. Here's a few I use.
1) Preplanning - You might not get the prompt before the start of play, but they can be extremely broad and fit a wide variety of stories. Having a few broadly sketched out and picking an appropriate on the weekend is a good strategy to shave a few hours out of prep time.
2) Actual planning - The level of detail people go into with plans varies a lot, I rarely do more than sketch but at least hit all the major scenes and characters. It all pays for itself, regardless. You lose less time to thinking mid story and it cuts down on the editing load as everything that should be in the story is there on the first pass.
3) KISS - 2-8k sounds like a lot, but its about half a dozen 'scenes' at best before things become hopelessly rushed. That means events can't be too complex or you'll never be able to explain them in detail, nor can you have too many characters or they'll blur into one. Just remember, less is more and ending early because you finished your plot is almost always a bonus.
4) Manage your Ambition - The Write-off is a great place to float new ideas and try out new things, but these can be a double edged sword. A complex idea that falls apart mid-way through is one that will score very badly, while something less ambitious but well executed will be far more consistent.
I'm beginning to see a disturbing trend in my fanfics. I seem to be having trouble putting together coherent stories within the time limit. Is this something that comes with practice?
Absolutely, though it doesn't all need to be practice. There's a lot of little things you can do to make things easier for you. Here's a few I use.
1) Preplanning - You might not get the prompt before the start of play, but they can be extremely broad and fit a wide variety of stories. Having a few broadly sketched out and picking an appropriate on the weekend is a good strategy to shave a few hours out of prep time.
2) Actual planning - The level of detail people go into with plans varies a lot, I rarely do more than sketch but at least hit all the major scenes and characters. It all pays for itself, regardless. You lose less time to thinking mid story and it cuts down on the editing load as everything that should be in the story is there on the first pass.
3) KISS - 2-8k sounds like a lot, but its about half a dozen 'scenes' at best before things become hopelessly rushed. That means events can't be too complex or you'll never be able to explain them in detail, nor can you have too many characters or they'll blur into one. Just remember, less is more and ending early because you finished your plot is almost always a bonus.
4) Manage your Ambition - The Write-off is a great place to float new ideas and try out new things, but these can be a double edged sword. A complex idea that falls apart mid-way through is one that will score very badly, while something less ambitious but well executed will be far more consistent.
>>Ceffyl_Dwr Okay, wall of text incoming. Look away now those of a non-STEM disposition.
The math is a little iffy. On the face of things my source (Atomic Rocket) suggests that at 10% efficacy deuterium fusion would be between 8-10TJ/kg, or about 5,000 times the stated energy density. Cancelling through that would put the extra cost for the sandwiches at $2,000, which you might be able to get the crew to pay for if they chipped in.
This is a pretty crude way of working out the costs, though. For pretty much any journey of this kind of distance you're less worried about the raw energy and more worried about the delta/v of the rocket. Adding extra dry mass means that you need more fuel and more propellant, though we're using an undefined engine and dry mass so I can't say how much more of either you'd need.
The increase is probably unimportant, however, as rocket being described is a torch ship (a sci-fi staple consisting of continuous acceleration towards your target until the midpoint, then continuous deceleration) and such designs have insane levels of delta/v. So insane that for the most part it makes a mockery of the gram-counting that's a staple of our current space programs. For example, the delta/v requirement to transfer between low-Earth and low-Mars orbit for the route our current probes use is about 5.8km/s, a torch ship would take 2,990km/s!
Adding a quarter ton of sandwich ingredients to the dry mass would increase delta/v requirements (by some incalculable amount as we lack the raw figures) but that would just mean turning down the engine and slowing the overall transit by a fairly negligible amount.
How negligible? Well to demonstrate.
Mission time equals T = 2 * sqrt[ D/A ]
Where:
T = transit time (seconds) = ???
D = distance (meters) = 225,000,000,000 (Earth/Mars average distance)
A = acceleration (m/s2) = 4.9 (0.5g as stated)
Therefore:
T = 428,571 (about 5 days)
Now, also:
Delta/v = 2 * sqrt[ D * A ]
So:
Delta/v = 2,100,000 m/s (which doesn't match precisely with the number used above because I've taken a bunch of abstractions)
Now, lets be really, really generous and say catering for the crew shaves ~5% off this and puts us at a delta/v of 2,000,000m/s. Distance doesn't change so A becomes:
A = 4.44m/s
And T must therefore be:
T = 450,000
Approximately 21,400 seconds slower, or six hours or 5% of the original transit time.
Given the crew's about 300 and they presumably are hauling a lot of cargo then the actual impact is going to be significantly smaller and so the time difference even less, maybe as little as a few minutes.
TLDR: the small delay and the extra fuel would cost the company additional money, yes. But far less than the stated amount and if the company were interested in saving money they would be doing literally any other mission profile than a Brachistochrone transfer which is mathematically the most inefficient way of getting between two points in space.
The math is a little iffy. On the face of things my source (Atomic Rocket) suggests that at 10% efficacy deuterium fusion would be between 8-10TJ/kg, or about 5,000 times the stated energy density. Cancelling through that would put the extra cost for the sandwiches at $2,000, which you might be able to get the crew to pay for if they chipped in.
This is a pretty crude way of working out the costs, though. For pretty much any journey of this kind of distance you're less worried about the raw energy and more worried about the delta/v of the rocket. Adding extra dry mass means that you need more fuel and more propellant, though we're using an undefined engine and dry mass so I can't say how much more of either you'd need.
The increase is probably unimportant, however, as rocket being described is a torch ship (a sci-fi staple consisting of continuous acceleration towards your target until the midpoint, then continuous deceleration) and such designs have insane levels of delta/v. So insane that for the most part it makes a mockery of the gram-counting that's a staple of our current space programs. For example, the delta/v requirement to transfer between low-Earth and low-Mars orbit for the route our current probes use is about 5.8km/s, a torch ship would take 2,990km/s!
Adding a quarter ton of sandwich ingredients to the dry mass would increase delta/v requirements (by some incalculable amount as we lack the raw figures) but that would just mean turning down the engine and slowing the overall transit by a fairly negligible amount.
How negligible? Well to demonstrate.
Mission time equals T = 2 * sqrt[ D/A ]
Where:
T = transit time (seconds) = ???
D = distance (meters) = 225,000,000,000 (Earth/Mars average distance)
A = acceleration (m/s2) = 4.9 (0.5g as stated)
Therefore:
T = 428,571 (about 5 days)
Now, also:
Delta/v = 2 * sqrt[ D * A ]
So:
Delta/v = 2,100,000 m/s (which doesn't match precisely with the number used above because I've taken a bunch of abstractions)
Now, lets be really, really generous and say catering for the crew shaves ~5% off this and puts us at a delta/v of 2,000,000m/s. Distance doesn't change so A becomes:
A = 4.44m/s
And T must therefore be:
T = 450,000
Approximately 21,400 seconds slower, or six hours or 5% of the original transit time.
Given the crew's about 300 and they presumably are hauling a lot of cargo then the actual impact is going to be significantly smaller and so the time difference even less, maybe as little as a few minutes.
TLDR: the small delay and the extra fuel would cost the company additional money, yes. But far less than the stated amount and if the company were interested in saving money they would be doing literally any other mission profile than a Brachistochrone transfer which is mathematically the most inefficient way of getting between two points in space.
Right, guess its time for some retrospective. First of all, thanks everyone for your support on this story. I've been struggling to get anything written for a couple of months so its nice to get into the top ten with this one, even it it's just into the top ten. Thanks also for the comments: >>FanOfMostEverything >>ChappedPenguinLips >>Remedyfortheheart >>Not_A_Hat >>CoffeeMinion >>Xepher >>Trick_Question >>Shadowed_Song >>Orbiting_kettle >>Monokeras >>Kitcat36 >>Astrarian >>AndrewRogue >>TheCyanRecluse >>Posh
This was my second story written for the contest and only just squeaked over the finishing line. As such I'm aware there's more than a few spelling and grammar errors, though if we're honest, spelling and grammar errors are practically my MO at this point :P The basic idea for this one was to tell a 'morning after' story where the date was a disaster but the teller was trying not to admit it. It rather morphed in the writing into a bit of banter between Starlight and Trixie and Trixie, as usual, self-sabotaging to the best of her abilities.
A couple of people mentioned that the characters seemed a little off. I think in part this is because we don't have much canon or fanon for these two interacting but their roles in this story are also pretty generic. This story could have easily featured Rainbow Dash and Rarity without even having the change the final joke and that's a bad sign. This is, in part, due to the restricted word count as I cut a lot of the banter between these two to make it fit and the date really needed a lot more detail to work as its own story.
Still, I do think this one managed to be constantly funny and as these two are canon friends I've got to put them in a room together more often. Starlight's good natured jabs were my favorite thing to write this contest after Celestia's list of defeated foes.
To answer some specific comments.
>>FanOfMostEverything
Yeah, a flash back with an unreliable narrator would be a smoother way of doing this. Probably something for the short story contest though as this barely fit in the wordcount as is.
>>Not_A_Hat
The magic of friendshipping, everyone :P
>>CoffeeMinion
I'll admit that I've not been following this series that closely so my headcanon of Starlight is a bit off most likely. Personally I've found she tends to be witty, adroit and rather personable unless she actually has to make a serious decision, then it all goes to hell in a hand-basket. Kind of an anti-Twilight come to think about it.
>>Trick_Question
Good catch on the style change, I hadn't even noticed that myself.
>>AndrewRogue
Not depicted, my running around trying to figure out the acceptable rating on this site before the deadline ;)
>>Posh
Well, they bonded over their mutual defeat by Twilight Sparkle, you didn't expect her to get a fair hearing with this audience did you?
This was my second story written for the contest and only just squeaked over the finishing line. As such I'm aware there's more than a few spelling and grammar errors, though if we're honest, spelling and grammar errors are practically my MO at this point :P The basic idea for this one was to tell a 'morning after' story where the date was a disaster but the teller was trying not to admit it. It rather morphed in the writing into a bit of banter between Starlight and Trixie and Trixie, as usual, self-sabotaging to the best of her abilities.
A couple of people mentioned that the characters seemed a little off. I think in part this is because we don't have much canon or fanon for these two interacting but their roles in this story are also pretty generic. This story could have easily featured Rainbow Dash and Rarity without even having the change the final joke and that's a bad sign. This is, in part, due to the restricted word count as I cut a lot of the banter between these two to make it fit and the date really needed a lot more detail to work as its own story.
Still, I do think this one managed to be constantly funny and as these two are canon friends I've got to put them in a room together more often. Starlight's good natured jabs were my favorite thing to write this contest after Celestia's list of defeated foes.
To answer some specific comments.
>>FanOfMostEverything
I’d much rather see the date itself, then cut away from the front of the hotel to Trixie recounting what happened next.
Yeah, a flash back with an unreliable narrator would be a smoother way of doing this. Probably something for the short story contest though as this barely fit in the wordcount as is.
>>Not_A_Hat
The correct answer is obviously to lock her in the hamster-ball and roll her around until she capitulates and expresses her undying love for you.
The magic of friendshipping, everyone :P
>>CoffeeMinion
I wasn't as sold on Starlight, though; I struggle to think of her as being this well-connected or socially adept, regardless of her close association with the Mane 6.
I'll admit that I've not been following this series that closely so my headcanon of Starlight is a bit off most likely. Personally I've found she tends to be witty, adroit and rather personable unless she actually has to make a serious decision, then it all goes to hell in a hand-basket. Kind of an anti-Twilight come to think about it.
>>Trick_Question
Good catch on the style change, I hadn't even noticed that myself.
>>AndrewRogue
Trixie's depiction of sex is the funniest thing in this write-off I've read.
Not depicted, my running around trying to figure out the acceptable rating on this site before the deadline ;)
>>Posh
Besides how to house ungrateful, rehabilitated ex-villains in her luxurious friendship castle, with free room and board, while softballing lessons your way to justify keeping you under her roof?
Well, they bonded over their mutual defeat by Twilight Sparkle, you didn't expect her to get a fair hearing with this audience did you?
>>shinygiratinaz
Hmm, thought for the format. How about writers can opt into blinding out the artist's prompt? That way they only work off what's been drawn rather than subconsiously encorporating the prompt.
creative game of artistic telephone.
Hmm, thought for the format. How about writers can opt into blinding out the artist's prompt? That way they only work off what's been drawn rather than subconsiously encorporating the prompt.