I have TWO big announcements about the Word Weaver Writing Contest!

But First…

One of the kids in my Young Author’s Club was having trouble coming up with a character name for his story.

Oh, you didn’t know I run a Young Author’s Club for grade school kids?

Yep.

It’s a freaking blast, too. You should definitely try it (working with kids, not re-entering grade school – that’s just creepy). You know a lot about writing, so you have a lot to offer them, and working with young children (I allow kids in grades 3-8 in the club) is a lot of fun. They see the world differently and with much more innocence and possibility… It’s refreshing.

More on that later if you really wanna know about it.

Anyway…

The kid in the club has a character named John and he wanted a name that was more Old World sounding. Medieval-ish.

I explained that John is in fact a pretty old name. Like, John the Baptist, or John who wrote one of the Gospel books of the Bible, you know? That’s older than Knights in shining armor times.

But it didn’t sound old to him, probably because his name was John and he didn’t consider his name old since he isn’t very old.

Good point. All things are relative.

So as we were kicking around names, it occurred to me that

• character names are hard to think up

• we need a device to come up with character names

• I need a flash fiction challenge

Thus, I came to you.

FRIDAY FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE:

LET’S SPEND THE KNIGHT TOGETHER

1. Take the first two letter of your name (first, middle or last) and create a NEW medieval name with it, by adding knight-ish sounding letters onto the end.

(Yes, Lucy, I purposed substituted night for knight in the title of this post to get clicks and to get you to read this far. You probably skimmed, though, so we’re even.)

For example, my name is Dan Alatorre (If you didn’t know THAT, you really need to consider glasses – it’s right at the top of the page, for Pete’s sake) so I’d take the DA or AL and add some knightish sounding letters to make a knightish sounding name:

Da + Lancelot = Dancealot.

Uh, no. But we can trim that…

Dauncy

or, using my second name, maybe…

Alwayne

See?

I didn’t say I was any good at this. The knights of the round table had terrible names. Look.

• King Arthur. (Arthur? yawn.)
• Lancelot. (That may be the only cool one of the bunch, because a lance is a weapon)
• Gawain. (Ugh)
• Geraint. (UGH)
• Percival. (Make it stop)
• Bors the Younger. (You gotta figure he got picked on a lot at school)
• Lamorak. (I’m pretty sure that’s a disease)
• Kay. (Lady knights! Who knew?)

See? Awful. I mean, you can’t do much worse than Gawain. Or Kay.

Geriant??? Really?

I think a guy got arrested for that recently. He was being geriant around a school zone.

Dauncy actually sounds medievalish, he just sounds like… a lightweight. Like his outfit has too many feathers.

Okay, so you are not limited to adding Authurian second half names onto your knight name.

BUT

2. You MUST give your name a tag, such as Bors the Younger. So, My knight might be Dauncy The Younger, or Dauncy the Brave.

But as always, there’s a trick to it. (Otherwise, it’s not much of a challenge, is it?)

How to arrive at your tag?

Simple.

You have to use the first two letters of your other name (from your actual first, middle, or last name) that you didn’t already use. So, if I go with DA for Dauncy, I have to use AL for his tag:

Dauncy The AL… something.

Alcoholic?

Alabaster?

All Terrain Vehicle?

See? That’s where the challenge comes in. I might then switch mine around and go with Alwayne The Dangerous.

3. So you have 60 seconds to come up with the second part of the name, your knight’s tag.

I’ll have to trust you on the 60 seconds thing.

Being wordsmiths, that will be easy, right? After all, it’s not really YOUR name anymore.

so

Dauncy The Altruistic

Ta-dah!!!

And we’re off!

List your knight name in the comment section below. Extra points if you can make me laugh. (Dauncy The Alcoholic came close.)

Now, the reason you wanna do this is NOT clearly stated but heavily implied in a prior post. Actually, I only kinda hinted, but trust me, in a week you’ll be happy you played today. Probably.

Okay, enough goofing around.

Here is your update on the April Writing Contest:

This thing is REALLY taking off.

So far we have over two dozen prizes and six or seven great sponsors, with MORE on the way! There are cash prizes (actually Amazon gift cards) and the top winners will be featured here, interviewed, lauded from on high.

The contest starts on the first Friday of April but I have dropped in some helpful hints in this post and again today.  READ BOTH CAREFULLY. The hints are small but a LOT of you will appreciate them in a week. Probably.

So, get ready.

On the first Friday of April, I will announce the rules for our first quarterly writing contest. (We plan on doing three this year: April, July, and October. But this one will be the best.)

There will be ARE prizes!

Right now I’m talking to people about

• $50, $25 and $10 Amazon gift cards (UPDATE: I have provided those)
• signed paperbacks, by me and other authors/sponsors (you could be one of those. UPDATE: So far we’ve had half a dozen authors offer to supply us with five or more books each, paperback or eBook, to use as individual prizes or to bundle together for a bigger prize. YOU CAN STILL GET IN ON THAT! Contact me!)
• BOOK COVERS from real cover designers (UPDATE: we still need these, but one sponsor has connections with a school for cover design to allow us access to their artists. We could have quite a selection emerge from that! Stay tuned! But if you are a cover designer and want to be seen by thousands of prospective clients, contact me!)
• EDITING SERVICES (Ditto on that. We need these services donated as prizes. Please contact your editor and see what they will donate to our contest. They will be promoted to thousands of prospective clients and offered to do guest posts.)
• on and on.

YOU will have the month of April to enter an amazing piece of your own writing to our contest.

I will post all the details then, but if you have ever entered a writing contest, tell me some of the things you liked best about it. There’s still time for me to dd those aspects into ours. Probably.

Meanwhile, SHARE THIS POST.

More people participating means your work will be seen by more people. You want that.

Your friends need to know about this, and you’ll be glad later. Actually, I’ll be glad later. But that’s almost as good.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, SPONSORS!! YOU will be named and proudly on display when the contest starts!

WE NEED MORE SPONSORS, TOO!

• Editing services,

• artwork,

• cover designers

• and more!
  

ANY writer related service can be a prize.

• Proofreading.

• Writing software.

• Membership in a critique group

• One year membership in a writing association

• A free pass to a writing conference.

See?

Help me find sponsors so our contest is a big draw! It’s easy!

OR: BE a sponsor YOURSELF! 3 easy ways:

1. You don’t even have to ask anybody; you can buy a pass to a FWA mini conference or Scrivener or something and donate it yourself. They’re cheap, and it’s a write off for you.

2. Heck, buy and donate a $10 Amazon gift card. I’ll use it as a prize or bundle it with a few other Ammy cards for a bigger prize. Plus, YOU are then a sponsor, so you are entitled to all the accoutrements attached thereto, namely mucho love from me. Everybody wins.

3. Maybe get together with a few friends and buy a $25 gift card. This blog had given you $25 worth of value over the years. (My witty insights in THIS BLOG POST about doing signings alone was worth that!)

Who do you know? Which of these services have you used? Ask them!

More sponsors means more people participating means your work will be seen by more people. Again, you want that. A bunch of you contacting a few people you’ve networked with = lots of possible prizes for us.

Hell, I’ll take an ad for Canada Tire if they’ll donate a hundred buck in prizes. Or a hundred Loonies, whatever they use up there.

Oh, that reminds me: it starts the first Friday April and runs through April 30, but that really cuts out a week of April, doesn’t it? So one of these hints is: start writing now. You had a two week head start.

What should you write about?

Well, I don’t know. I didn’t say these were good hints. The first contest will not be limited to a genre, if that helps! So give us your best.

Gotta run! More hints will be dropped in via blog posts over the next 7 days, so check back often, and the BIG announcement comes on Friday!

Now, tell me your knight name!