This is the result of the 2005 Ralan.com Spectravaganza Contest.
This year I decided, with some advice from my good friend Jetse de Vries to make it a Clincher contest. In other words, only the final 500 words of a 2000-6000 word story could be entered. This proved to be a challenge for all the judges. Starting at the end is weird. All the characters are present, fleshed out and acting out a scene that has been foreshadowed and planned for since the beginning line. The trouble is; we didn't have that information. The characters, settings, motivations, etc. were unknown. It took at least two readings just to get "into" the ending. After a while we all got fairly good at it, but it is easier to judge a story by its beginning than by the end.
It's an interesting experiment though and I invite you to read the stories and judge for yourself how well we did. Each story is marked, near the bottom, at the place where the original entry, the Clincher, started. If you'd like to see what we judges had to deal with, try reading from there and see if you can understand what's going on, determine what the story is about, and tell how good it will be in its final form.
On of the reasons for starting these annual contests was to continue my goal of helping writers develop, both in their writing skills and in how they submit their work to the world (Submit Smart!). I think this Clincher contest has pointed out something important about how each part of a story—the beginning, the middle, and the ending—are equally important to the whole. No story can be great without all three being great.
Jetse also recommended that I make two of the winners of the 2003 and 2004 contests the preliminary judges. When I asked them, they both agreed immediately, even though it meant giving up a chance to win this year. That's above and beyond in my opinion. Eric M. Witchey and Robert M. Santa have my personal thanks and admiration for life. They did a great job.
Finally, I needed a couple of final judges. I tried to find them via e-mail with no success. When I attended my first WorldCon in Glasgow last August, I had several things on my agenda. One of them was finding those judges. Alas, I kept getting "I'm sorry, but..." even in Scotland. Everyone was busy, and of course time was getting short. Then I asked two of the busiest (and best) editors in the business and both Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov's Science Fiction, and Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, said yes. That says something about their commitment to all writers, new and experienced.
My undying thanks go to all the judges for helping out this year. I hope you'll go to the Judges page and read about them and click on the links to their work.
A big thank you also goes to the artists who donated original, custom illustrations for the five winning stories. Three of these artists, M.W. Anderson, Jesse Bunch, and Teresa Tunaley, have donated work in each of the three years the contest has existed. Catherine Marché participated last year as well as this. And a young artist, Emily Viergutz makes her debut this year. Their work is worth more than I can say. It lights up this web site. I can not say thank you enough. The artists' photo, bio, and links are at the end of each story, after the authors'. I urge everyone to support these five fine artists, and if you're in a position to buy artwork for a publication I recommend them highly. All have performed expertly—and delivered under the deadline!
My final thanks goes to everyone who entered the contest or donated money—or both (yes, several people both entered and donated). Your support and generosity has again made it possible for Ralan's SpecFic & Humor Webstravaganza to continue on into the next year. May it be a successful one for us all!
~Ralan
