Pixiestixy wasn't the only part of the PL crew who thought about crafting a story for the
Creative Writing Contest. I've been writing
about video games for nearly a decade now, so I contemplated the opportunity to create my own lore, but thought better of it. It had nothing to do with time constraints or any reasonable excuse. It came down to sheer confidence, something I have never had in my right brain. Heck, I did actually give it a shot. I came up with a trio of plot ideas, but I didn't believe that I had the chops to flesh the story out for 3000+ words. With the little birdy in my ear yelling "stick to what you know" I dropped the ambitious project and returned to my comfort zone,
reporting,
dissecting and
analyzing other people's work.
Thank god that my affliction, being technical rather than creative, doesn't hamstring the whole populace or we wouldn't have 18 winning entries to the contest. In case you missed
the post on the official forum, the winners have been announced with Sarah Pine taking the crown for her story
In the Shadow of the Sun. According to Nethaera, Metzen himself had to make the decision in the end.
Being a Blizzard run project it should be no shock that we still can't read
any of the award-winning stories. At least
not in their entirety. Nethaera made no mention of the word soon, but Bornakk stated that no stories, winners or losers, can not be "legally" posted. This gives me some hope that the winning articles will get bound in some sort of physical release. Otherwise, I do not really understand the lengthy delay in their release. It would be great of Blizzard to launch the winning stories in a budget-priced physical form as a treat to the community. But we will have to wait and see.
Pine's story isn't one of the shorts on the excerpts page, but there are some quality ones across all three of Blizzard's properties.
Kuma's Song, a tale, or at least the excerpt is, about the horrors of AV, caught my eye as the most intriguing of the seven.
Where Loyalties Lie, a StarCraft piece also seemed particularly interesting. The collection promises to spread the gauntlet of emotion if the subset of stories are anything to go by. We have revenge plots, exploration, war, death, destruction, humor and remorse all represented. I can't wait to digest the rest of the content these unappreciated writers have created.
Which story did you enjoy the most from the selection? Would you be interested in picking up a budget-priced collection of the shorts? Any readers submit their own stories?
I'll take the plunge. I'll put out one of my creative story ideas for you to giggle and poke fun at. The favorite plot that I came up with was to be, at least largely, a joke piece, entirely based on boss mobs of various instances. Not just any boss mobs, but the boss mobs that are effectively
tank and spank. The story would be a collection of soliloquies where the bosses would speak about their strategies to defeat the incoming raid and ruminate over their continued failings. We'd be treated to colorful plans, elaborate schemes and complex strategies, only to see them fall apart due to personal issues like
anxiety,
stupidity, or other character flaws. As for linking the normally unrelated bosses together, the story -
One Hit Wonders - would be presented as if they were all in the after life, reminiscing their last minutes on Azeroth to each other.
I know open the floor to the Internet for comments and analysis.
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