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I wish I had heard about this sooner. They've been taking submissions since October, and the contest closes Dec 31. 30 days isn't really much time to bang out a good 10K story.

http://www.darkcrystal.com/authorquest/

The world of The Dark Crystal is a world unlike any we have ever known. Under the triple suns, the skies roil with cloud formations not seen in our skies. Seedpods spiral up and rocks scuttle off. It is a world where the wise and noble urSkeks have been split into two imperfect races, Skeksis and urRu; and the Gelfling Clans, the species most like our own, go about their lives not knowing what their future holds. This is a world waiting to be explored and expanded upon with new stories, new quests.

At The Jim Henson Company, we continue to be enthralled with the possibilities of this world and invite you to join us in our obsession. We have set up a portal to share what we know, a new website with all of the information about this place and these creatures: DarkCrystal.com. We invite you to use the resources, character descriptions, locations, and history on this site to join us in imagining the next Dark Crystal story.

Cheryl Henson
Founder, DarkCrystal.com

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Still, it'd be awesome to be an official writer in that franchise.

Just be aware that any submission instantly becomes the property of the Henson company, and they can use your work in any way, shape, or form for any purpose, without paying you, regardless of whether you 'win' the contest or not. Further, any ideas you do submit cannot be used by you in the future, you release all rights on submission.

Spec work has some pretty bad downsides for the potential authors.

As long as you keep that in mind,
It can be fun and interesting to participate in one.

Yeah, I saw that too. But considering that you're making a derivative work off of their copyright, I wouldn't really expect it to be any other way.

I wouldn't accept those terms for wholly original work, but for this contest, I find that I'm ok with it.

I'm not familiar enough or a big enough fan of the property to write something for it.

I really wished I would have seen this earlier. A month isn't much time to come up with characters, plot out, and actually write a 10k word story.

BTW, I don't know if I ever mentioned it on the board, but a few semesters ago, I changed my minor to writing.

The Dark Crystal is one of my favorite movies and would love a chance to add to its world. I too wish I'd seen this sooner, but I just finished a big project a week ago and don't have anything else to work on writing wise at the moment.

I'm going for it.

EDIT: Okay, upon reading more, I'll have to think about this. Didn't realize it was about making a novel and there's a lot about this world that I don't know. They've also been taking submissions for a couple months already. On the bright side, probably a lot of those will likely make classic fantasy and/or fanfic writing mistakes.

I have some of the same kinds of worries....my biggest doubt comes from the established canon from the Tokyopop and Archaia graphic novels--that'd be nearly $100 worth of research material to buy, and unfortunately, two of the books aren't even available on Amazon except through third-party resellers.

That said, I think engaging storytelling will win over someone even if a minor canon mistake is made. There's a 2nd round, where the top 5 authors are asked to make changes and resubmit--I imagine that this is where they'd ask you to punch up parts, etc, and work out any minor canon discrepancies.

The big plus, in my mind, is not only the cachet for being chosen as the official author of the next Dark Crystal book, but also the potential push it could have on sales of an author's existing catalog of work.

Tinwhistler said:

I have some of the same kinds of worries....my biggest doubt comes from the established canon from the Tokyopop and Archaia graphic novels--that'd be nearly $100 worth of research material to buy, and unfortunately, two of the books aren't even available on Amazon except through third-party resellers.

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You don't need that manga--it's set during the Garthim wars, which is later. The creation myth graphic novels are set much earlier. The basic information is already supplied on the Dark Crystal website.

They want this set during the Gelfling Gathering, which is about 100 years after the Crystal cracks. There's a helpful timeline on the website. I think the reason they want it set during this time is because little of their existing fiction covers that time period. When I first read your post, I thought they just wanted a story that takes place in that world, but it sounds like they intentionally want something involved with those events.

That's where I have some hesitation--I'm happy to write a story set at that time, with those events happening around, but because there's not a clear beginning or ending for that time, it's more peripheral than core. We know that the Skeksis had Gelfling guards at their castle, that one of those guards discovers that the Skeksis are draining essence from Gelflings (and Podlings). This leads to the Gelfling Gathering. Up to this point, the Skeksis were believed to be benevolent rulers. The discovery by this palace guard means the Gelflings need to figure out what to do, and their seven clans unite against the Skeksis.

Later on, the Gelflings create the Wall of Destiny, the prophecy wall seen in the movie. However, that's later. The site specifies they want the novel to cover the time of the Gelfling Gathering, before the formation of the Wall of Destiny. My guess is that its creation is covered in other Dark Crystal fiction, and since this novel would be canon, they don't want contradictory stories.

So with that in mind--yay, the clans unite! It might just be me, but that's not that exciting of an ending. I'd rather write a character-focused personal story that coincides with those events, and while those events affect the character-focused story, they wouldn't be the crux of it. I'm not sure that's what the Henson company wants, but that's what I'd have to offer. The Dark Crystal fiction has a lot of interesting stuff--their world and souls are founded in music, dammit. That's fascinating, especially considering that for a thousand years, that music is wounded by the cracking of the Crystal, and it's felt in every living thing. The world acts on a core of Harmony, so that some creatures can speak with animals, trees, rocks, not in words, but in music and music-oriented feelings. The Gelflings dreamfast--they share their memories at first touch. Despite being able to see why each other Gelfling acts the way they act, they still war with each other.

It's a world I've loved for a long time and I'm excited at the chance to make part of it. I'm gonna do what I do--if they like it, awesome for me. If not, I tried.

One of the links is an author resource on the Gelfling Gathering. I'm not sure if this stuff is just to inform or if they want authors to draw from it.

Spent most of my day off brainstorming. This is a challenge; I've thought of a potential storyline, but I don't know if it's enough to carry things for a novel. It should be enough for a short story though. I'm gonna try out some alternatives in the next couple of days because I don't want to lock my brain in a box just yet, but with so short a deadline, I really have to have it nailed down by the end of the week. Short draft the next week, longer draft on the road up and down from New York, final draft and revisions rushed around Christmas.

It's a lot in a short time, but in my opinion, the worst idea would be to do nothing.

Hopefully you can share it with us.

stienman said:

Hopefully you can share it with us.

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Eventually, hopefully.

But my wife and I just re-watched the movie tonight and I realized my story idea was too Game of Thrones-y. I'm gonna have to do more thinking.

I have my "one sheet" written up: the basic outline with the genre, plot, characters, and story beats. I know everything I'm going to write, in a broad, general sense, about the entire 50K story, from beginning to end.

Now, I just need to come up with my scene list and work on the first 10K words.

Anyone else going for it besides me and Tin?

I watched the movie again tonight.

My first thought: Man this movie had some shitty dialogue

Got my first 400 words out. If I can keep up this pace, doing 500-ish words a day (with big pushes when I have more free time) I should be done well before deadline.

Tinwhistler said:

I watched the movie again tonight.

My first thought: Man this movie had some shitty dialogue

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It's a mixed bag. The only thing I hate with the dialogue is that Aughra straight-up tells Jen what he needs to do, but the movie pretends that never happens almost by the very next scene with the same two characters, so he has to figure it out again through finding the Wall of Destiny with Kira.

Got my first 400 words out. If I can keep up this pace, doing 500-ish words a day (with big pushes when I have more free time) I should be done well before deadline.

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Good luck.

Once upon a time there were some non-muppet muppets who lived in a non-muppet muppet world. They did stuff. The big bug looking non-muppet muppets did the most awesome stuff.

Okay. I admit... I'm not that great a writer.

I'd love the chance to do this. But I'm not sure I'd have the time or the patience. Which is sad. I've always wanted to write something amazing. Plenty of ideas swirling around in my head. Just never the motivation.

Day 1, 1300. I'm gonna try to bang out a rough draft super-fast and then spend the remaining time editing, editing, revising, re-editing, etc.

Damn this is stressful. I really wish I had more time.

Good luck you guys. I hope one of you gets the book deal.

After week 1, I'm at 5000 words. I need to be finished by next Monday or Tuesday, because it's one thing to write a story, it's another thing to forge it into good art, and I'm going to need the rest of the month for editing and revising. I know they prioritized writing ability as lowest of their four-tier hierarchy, but they have to realize that part of good storytelling is the portrayal of events.

As it is, I've been doing too much revising already.

This is the sort of thing I'd really like to jump into. I love the property and want to do something creative with it.
However, I have no experience Writing (I have great stats, but little XP) and taking the time to do this justice would cause my life to wither right now, so I have to pass.

--Patrick

Second round of revisions done, still a couple hundred words over the limit. I think I'll have my wife look through it again before I start clipping and trimming any further.

It's not my best writing--I don't have the time to make it so--but it serves, and there's still 9 days to pretty it up a bit.

toothache last week knocked me on my butt for 3 days straight. I didn't get anything done but lay around moaning, much less any writing. I decided to bow out.

I had a couple thousand words done, but the schedule's tight enough I didn't feel like I could do enough revision before deadline.

That sucks--I wanted someone from here to win, so having both of us in would double the chance of that. I'm sorry that happened.

It's all on you QP

Final total at 9,993 words. Four steps of revision, proofread multiple times by wife and me.

Welp, here goes. Wish me luck, guys.

Good Luck!

Good luck!

Good luck!

Thanks, guys. If there are updates to be had, I'll let you know.

The five finalists were announced and I was not one of them.

Which honestly is an enormous relief, because I've been unable to focus on my own projects, or even read some of the books I've wanted to read, because so much of my mind was going "okay, crap, I sent in that story, and they said the finalists have to have a novel outline ready, and I don't have one, and the one I'm making sucks" et cetera. I would've been pissed at myself to make it into the top 5 and only have a garbage outline to present Henson company, having a chance and then blowing it. I'm confident each of the stories selected deserved it more, because they probably showcased new ideas, whereas I interpreted the Author Resources as the puzzle pieces with which we were supposed to make the picture of a story. It wasn't until after the submission that I realized that probably wasn't what they wanted and I should've focused more on my original ideas relating to the world of The Dark Crystal.

In any case, now that it's of no consequence, I'll probably post the story I submitted. Fair warning--it's 30+ pages in length and won't be concluded.

Now that that's off my shoulders, I can get back to plans for my next project and drafting letters for the current one. This contest really threw me off my routine and I know as an adult I should be up for that, but sometimes things just fuck you up even when they shouldn't.

I'm really happy that you gave it a go though.

Glad you were able to give it a go. Looks like not winning was a mixed blessing, but I woulda been super pumped for you had you been a finalist.

Shawnacy said:

I'm really happy that you gave it a go though.

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Thanks, Shawn.

Tinwhistler said:

Glad you were able to give it a go. Looks like not winning was a mixed blessing, but I woulda been super pumped for you had you been a finalist.

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I think in the end you had the right of it, that the last of six months was not enough time to craft a story for this. I ended up having to go with pretty much the first idea I had.

I thought I had a pretty good idea, but the timing was just brutal. Any hiccup at all meant being unable to do it properly. I ended up having that wisdom tooth pulled, and even then, I spent a week hopped up on vicodin because my jaw hurt so bad.

So, get this--my dentist didn't want to just pull the tooth because the roots went down right next to the big nerve that runs up your jawline. So he refers me to an oral surgeon who, instead of cutting it out (which was the whole reason for the referral) just pulls it anyway. And I'm anesthesia resistant. I felt like choking that guy out and throwing him out the window.

Insert "Christ, what an asshole" image here.

Tried pasting the story here and it broke the forum for me, so the best I can do is link to the "these names have been changed to protect the innocent AKA me" version that I'm putting on my site in three parts. Gelfling = Dreamkin, Skeksis = Vultris, Mystic = Wystrian, dreamfast = heart-mending. Changed clan names and a couple other terms, but none others that matter to those who've only watched the movie.

Song of the Sea, Part 1

Wow, can I be forgetful.

Song of the Sea, Part 2

And here I thought that was bad, a month later, my brain unbuckles and I realize I didn't post the end.

Song of the Sea, Part 3