Halo Fanon:The Weekly

The Weekly is an upcoming community project in the form of a series of micro-fiction contests, inspired by the discontinued Community Writing Competitions on Halo Waypoint. Each week, users can challenge themselves to write a short (few hundred words, usually) prose response to a prompt chosen at the start of the week by the competition's judge. At the week's end, the judge selects a winner to receive a shiny new Weekly Winner eraicon on their entry's page, and the entry will then be displayed on Recent Changes for the next week for all to easily see and read.

The project was conceived in response to a long-standing downturn in prose writing on the site, in hopes of encouraging more prose by presenting a painless, easily-attainable length as a target instead of a hopelessly-long novel length. The ideas the writers incorporate to hone their craft under such constraints might then become the seeds for events their own characters go through, or even be worked into whole other long stories.

How To Participate
At the beginning of each week, a new prompt will be posted on this page, including a maximum word count, for users to write in response to. Working with in the length and topic restraints (which could have to do with theme, or subject, or writing style like "only dialogue"), users then write their response and create a new page on which to post it. Remember to include a Writer Template (" ") at the top and categorize it "The Weekly" ("  ") at the bottom. A paragraph at the top can be added to introduce the piece and context for it without going towards the word count, so long as there's a horizontal line (" ") between to make set them apart distinctly.

Then, simply add a link to your entry's page in the scrollbox for the appropriate week for it to be counted. The judge (User:Ahalosniper) will then read the entries at the end of the week, verifying they fit the prompt and word count, and pick a winner for the week. Bear in mind, the judge's decision may be based on subjective judgements, but good spelling, grammar, and punctuation go a long way towards impressing by presenting a professional and easy-to-read appearance. Winners will then be given a unique Weekly Winner eraicon and displayed on the Recent Changes page.

Users can also visit the talk page to suggest prompts and topics for future weeks.

Week 1: FIRST!
Prompt: For the first time trying this out, why not have something that matches thematically with something new? In 300 words or less, write something that details a first time for a character, whether it's the first time a character takes a life, or comes face to face with the Covenant, or something more personal. An (ineligible) example is provided to give you a guide to how you should format when adding an entry. Have some fun with it! Cutoff for this challenge is the night of Saturday, January 16th, 2015.