All Challenges

2011

May

I have been thinking of the many excuses I give myself for not writing and so thought perhaps to incorporate those excuses into a writing challenge.
In the voice of your favorite character, give an excuse as to why they are late for work. I think this will work for any A/U.
You can tell the whole story of why they are late, or just give the excuse. Extra points for the ones that get worse as they go one. You know the kind: "My dog ate my keys, and when I went to get the spare I dropped it down the drain, and then my hand got caught in the drain, so I had to call the fire department and they broke the pipe and my kitchen flooded..."

April

Opening Hooks. For me, they could generally be summarized as openings that incited sufficient curiosity in the reader that they'd keep reading. My challenge is for you to take any of your stories - currently posted or WIPs and start it out with hook or hooks.

Obsession. What can you make me believe as a reader that one of the 7 is obsessed with (or at least passionate about). The thing that makes it tough is I want you to persuade me that one of the guys is interested or obsessed with something that has no basis in canon. I don't want to read about Vin being an avid hunter, JD collecting Texas Rangers (the lawmakers not the baseball team) memorabilia or Nathan having a huge library of medical textbooks. Is there something you think is plausible for one of the 7 to be obsessed with, that doesn't have a basis in the series. Can you sell it?March

Villains. Mag7 has it's share. Which are the worst of them? The best? Redeeming qualities? Most insane? Think about the villains, write about them, make them multi-dimensional characters.

Take a scene of a story you've already written and write another version from a different character's POV. It can be another character in the original scene (ie. their interpretation of what happened), or it could be from a different character's POV, as if an unknown observer.

February

Short stories for a short month. As an exercise, let's see if we can write classic (100 words exactly) drabbles.

January

Reading and reviewing the New Year's related stories, and an intensive writing weekend.

2010

December

A general "post something before the end of the year" challenge was issued, with the idea that the posted stories might be New Year's related

November

Choice 1: Autumn is a time of the senses. No matter where you live, the seasons change, nature changes, animals change, the clothing changes, decor changes, colors change...etc. It's a feast for all the senses taste, touch, smell, hearing, sight. So the challenge is to write a story incoporating the senses and the season...as many of the senses as you can. It can be any universe you want, gen or slash. However, if it is slash, the more "sense"ual, the better.

Choice 2: I think this one would come off better in a present day or future AU, but that's just me. if someone can see a way to put it in the past that's fine. Although Thanksgiving has been honored since before the USA was the USA, I am not sure when exactly it was declared a national holiday. And yes, I know there is a Canada Thanksgiving as well. This is sort of an anti thanksgiving. What if one (or more) of the seven just doesn't see anything to be thankful about, but because of a tragedy or near tragedy involving another one of the seven, realizes there is something to thankful for. Hurft comfort and angst to abound!

October

Choice 1: The seven end up in a ghost town, complete with legends of hauntings and ghosts and restless spirits. What brought them there and how do they feel about it? Who believes in ghosts or spirits, who's scared, who's not?

Choice 2: Pull out a WIP on a Friday, and spend a weekend finishing it.

September

Choice 1: Faulty memory. Forgetfulness. Swiss cheese brain. Give us a tale about one (or more) of the seven having trouble remembering things. Could be old age creeping up. Could be a bad guy decided to drug the water supply for the whole town and now no one can remember a dang thing. Bonus for using the phrase: "Et tu, Brute?"

Choice 2: Clusterfucks. Give us a series of unrelated small problems that snowball into one big clusterfuck. Bonus for using the phrase: "All I wanted was a little time alone."

August

Choice 1: Life's a Journey: describe a trip. It can be taken by any of the boys in any combination and any universe. It can be for business or pleasure; for happy reasons or sad - just take them from one place to another.

Choice 2: You Are What You Eat: describe a meal. Any universe, any combination of characters - from the Escorts wining and dining a client in a fancy French restaurant, to bacon and beans around the campfire in the OW, to dog stew in the Firefly universe.

July

Choice 1: Write something of any length, in any Universe, involving a picnic, going to a food event, summer social, barn raising, company bbq, family gathering, etc and mention favorite foods. For example, if your Chris doesn't cook, he can mention that someone special brought his favorite pecan pie. Or maybe the southern boys decide to treat the rest of them to some Jambalaya and collard greens and corn bread.

Choice 2: Hot guys without shirts. Run with it!

June

Choice 1: Displacement in time. Kind of like the Firefly idea of the Wild West in space...the clothes, weapons are similar (yet modernized), the settlements on other planets similar to the Old West towns with modern differences. How would our guys fit into a scenario of being Peacekeepers for a settlement/town with those weird differences, where guns are energy pulse rather than projectile etc.

Choice 2: I like challenges where three words or phrases have to be incorporated into the story...so your three words/phrases are:

May

Choice 1: You must start your story with "It was a dark and stormy night . . ." . Doesn't matter if it's serious, comedic, romantic, slashy or gen. That's your first sentence.

Choice 2: The other idea I've been kicking around has to do with a child arriving in someone's life and how they (the person) or they (the couple) or they (the whole gang) handle it/react to it/do with it. No. Little. Britches.

April

Choice 1: Include the IRS in your story. They've been around since 1862, according to their Wikipedia entry. You could make the guys IRS agents, make the IRS be (rightly or wrongly) after one of them for tax fraud, or include the IRS in the action plot.

Choice 2: Timed Challenge: "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!"
You don't need to use the line, but see what kind of messes the guys can get into when they're running behind. But make it quick, and try for a half an hour.

March

Choice 1: Write a scene or story in which two (or more) of the men engage in sex under dangerous conditions. The danger can be anything from risk of discovery in a public place to being caught in a natural disaster to a temporary lull/timeout from combat.

Choice 2: Write a story inspired by something creepy or disgusting or weird you saw on Discovery, TLC, HGTV, BBC, AEC, etc. For example: Hoarders, Toddlers & Tiaras [Glitz pageants for little girls], How Clean is Your House, Supernanny, Extreme Cuisine.

February

Choice 1: the theme is separation. Write about the events of the lead-up, or getting through the being apart, or the joyous re-union. (or, you know, some of us might write about the desperate angst of 'forever gone'. :)

Choice 2: Set the timer for 30 minutes, go look at this pic, and write whatever you like: Looking through the window

January

We took a break from new challenges this month to catch up on reading and commenting on posted stories

2009

December

Choice 1: The 12 Days of Christmas: from the one partridge to the 12 drumming dummers. Squeeze them into a fic.

Choice 2: Include these lines in a fic:

November

Choice 1: Participate in Mag7WriMo, NaNoWriMo or mini-NaNo

Choice 2: A pouch holding 20 gold Double Eagles ($20 gold pieces) is found. Write a story telling who finds it and what he/she does with it.

October

Choice 1: The Sporting Challenge: Write a story where two or more of the guys are participating in a sport or sporting challenge. They could be a baseball team, a cycling team, a basketball team getting ready for a big game (and yes, I *did* just go to a "high school" type story!). They could be getting ready for the intra-teams ATF competition, and fully prepared to breeze along on Vin's shooting skills. They could be playing a pick-up game after work. Note: one of them could accept a challenge and the other(s) could support, bet, etc.

Choice 2: The episodes challenge: "Working Girls." Watch Working Girls once or twice, and write a missing scene or episode tag. Aim for under 4,000 words.

September

Choice 1: Write a story featuring Mary and make us like her.

Choice 2: Write a story in which two or more characters have to 'switch roles' - i.e., someone other than Ezra has to be the gambler - and do it well, someone other than Buck has to seduce a hard-to-get woman and succeed, someone other than Nathan has to play doctor and succeed, someone other than Josiah has to conduct a religious service of some sort (a wedding? a christening? A Sunday service?) - et cetera.

August

Choice 1: Last summer, in a vacation trip across northern Arizona, I saw a road sign that said "Two Guns, One Mile" and it sounded like the perfect title for a "dimestore novel" type story. Write the story.

Choice 2: It's Summer, it's hot, and things are all drippy with sweat. Write a story where one of the boys has to suck (ice cubes, popsicles, ice cream cones... what, you were thinking of something else? Okay, maybe that, too *g*).

July

Choice 1: The Take-their-boots-off Challenge! Any situation that requires one (or more) of the Seven to remove the boots of another. It could be due to drunkenness, sex, hurt/comfort, exhaustion, after a fall in a cold river, a master/slave situation, or whatever strikes your fancy; let's just get those boots off!

Choice 2: The Documents Challenge. Write a story that consists entirely of written materials such as letters, telegrams, diary entries, (modern day text messages/email,) etc. Any combo of docs is fine; it can be all letters or diary entries or a mix of various types. The docs can be all written by one character or an exchange between two or more. The only specification is that the story must have nothing but documents (which, in the OW, Vin might dictate to someone, but still the only things we'll see are the written results).

June

Choice 1: It's summer and summer is for fun. Let's have a story that involves summer activities - swimming, hiking, boating, tubing, National Park visiting, picnics, bee stings, hot days, lazy afternoon naps, you know - summer stuff.

Choice 2: Write a story that includes one or more of these phrases:

May

Choice 1: Write a story with the words: "bitten," "forceful" and the phrase "Not gonna make it"

Choice 2: A story featuring one of the following: thunderstorm, hurricane or a blizzard

April

Choice 1: Write a sensual scene (can be graphic or not) where the guys are not at the same point in their romantic journey and where the scene brings them closer, yet may leave them pulling apart in greater conflict. Show us what happens when communication isn't always clear, and love isn't perfect.

Choice 2: Photo challenge This iconic photo of Hernandez, New Mexico was shot in 1941, but it could equally belong in the Old West, or in ATF and post-apocolyptic AUs. When did the guys arrive in this tiny town? Where are the inhabitants? Who is buried in all those graves? The image is here: Moonrise

March

Choice 1: Write about a situation where two of the seven have to agree to disagree. Something comes up that they cannot agree on no matter how much they fight about or discuss it. In the end, they disagree. Hopefully there is lots of manly cussing before they come to that understanding.

Choice 2: Write something out of your comfort zone. For example, Stan (I think it was Stan) nailed me on glossing over dark details, because they make me uncomfortable. In my Sons of Anarchy-M7 crossover, I gave minimal details in the gang bang scene.

February

Choice 1: The Bloody Valentine - one of the boys has to bleed. (Surprised? Really? What did you think the "E" was for?)

Choice 2: Smooching challenge - a kissing scene.

January

Choice 1: Get to know your characters better: Rewrite a scene from an existing/finished story of your own, only this time write it from the POV of a different character in the scene. OR from the POV of a character not in the scene but who is observing, or who could conceivably be thinking about the scene. Must be one of the 7 main characters, not a secondary or original character. Special bonus points if it happens to be a Christmas or holidays story. (When you post, don't forget to provide a link to the original story/scene).

Choice 2: Finish an existing WIP. More special bonus points if it happens to be a Christmas or holidays story.

2008

December

Choice 1: Fill In The Story Challenge: ONE PEACEKEEPER AMONG SEVEN

Just outside town, he paused in the slightly chilly, still air, sat on his horse, and surveyed the town in the slight distance. Smoke rose from chimneys and, nestled there in the valley after the flat grasslands, the town looked so peaceful. It was good to be home.

Home.

When had this place become "home"? How had he ever ended up here as one among seven peacekeepers?

Peaceful, yes. That's what it looked like but, honestly, he knew better.

Having some interesting information to tell the others about a certain visitor on the way, he flicked the reins and rode into town. With the commotion this would cause, this should be an interesting day...

Fill in the story to answer the questions it raises. Whose POV is it? What's the information they're carrying? Who's coming? Is it going to be a funny encounter? Angsty? Dangerous? Could it be filling in a gap in the past of one of the seven? A dark secret they've held? A humorous episode from their past?

Choice 2: Write a story using NO DIALOG, just all narrative.

November

Choice 1: Write a "scene you'd like to see" -- in other words, using any episode, rewrite an existing scene the way you would have liked to see it had you had the control.

Choice 2: Write 1,000 words minimum, first person, present tense--and as a tiny bonus challenge add-on (because I chuckled when Charlotte mentioned it and November is Thanksgiving month for some of us), include the words: horn of plenty.

October

Choice 1: Write a crossover fic. Any length. Doesn't have to be a 'fully-interwoven Mag7 characters and visiting characters have equal billing' story, but at the very least a story that involves the other show's character(s) in more than a passing fashion. I.E. don't merely drop our boys into another 'verse.

Choice 2: Write a story that begins with the following sentence: "The Pacific Ocean, he mused, was damned big."

September

Choice 1: take one of your least favorite fannish cliches and write it into a story, debunking it

Choice 2: use all three of these in a story:

August

Choice 1: Timed challenge: Set aside 30 minutes. Write. When the timer goes off, reset for 10 minutes and finish whatever it is you wrote in the last 30 minutes.

Choice 2: Length challenge: 500 words (or thereabouts) on one of the following themes:

July

Choice 1: Write a story using a well-worn plot cliche, but make it work! For example, the "trapped in a cabin in a snowstorm" first time story, or the "aliens made them have sex" straight guys fucking story. Pick your favorite or most hated plot cliche and give it a new twist so it works.

Choice 2: Write a story using these two words: "wellspring", "drought" and this phrase: "the battle of the Hellespont"

June

Choice 1: Write a story where the weather plays an important part in how the plot develops

Choice 2: write a story in which a pun is central to the story.

May

Choice 1: Tell a story that includes a backstory of how one of the seven acquired an item that we associate with him (Vin's harmonica or Ezra's flask or ring or gold tooth, Chris' guns or spurs or duster, Nathan's knives or the scabbard, Josiah's Bible or serape - et cetera . . )

Choice 2: Write a story using the following words and phrase: "map", "wagon" and "I'm not kidding . . ."

March/April

Choice 1: One day in the life of one character, told completely from that character's point of view.

Choice 2: Two words and a phrase, turn them into a story: "leather", "dawn" and "How'd he get into my bed?" (alternately "What the hell is he doing in my bed?") Work them into the story verbatim.

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