Judge Eric

A few weeks ago I sat as one of the judges in the finals of the Talecraft Storywriting contest in Powerbooks Greenbelt. It was a first for me and I was so honored to have been in the jury alongside two publishers, Dean Alfar of Philippine Speculative Fiction and Kenneth Yu of Digest of Philippine Genre Stories. I felt unworthy, really, having only DAYO as my credit. 

Anyway. To the uninitiated, Talecraft is a story creation card game. Its aim is to help writers generate ideas for stories. A player  must create a story from the cards he randomly picks from the stack. There are three sets of cards -- Genre (romance, historical, suspense, etc), Archetype (tomboy, hero, villain, etc), and Key (keywords or plot points). Once he has all three cards, he is free to use his imagination (he is, in fact, left only to his imagination) to create any story with those givens.

Talecraft is genius. Writers, regardless of the format or medium they're working on (film, print, etc) would do well to keep it handy. After all, one of its main aims is to help combat mental block.

There were 9 semi-finalists and they were all fantastic. Sa totoo lang, nanliit ako sa galing nila magsulat. From the nine we chose 5 to advance to the final round in which each finalist was asked to pick a new set of cards. They were then given only 5 minutes to create a new story on the spot based on their cards. 

All three of us in the jury were unanimous in our picks for the 1st Place winner. It's a short, elegant tale about Joan of Arc (cards: Genre -- historical; Archetype -- tomboy; Keyword -- mirror) from 15-year old Jose Renato Evangelista.

Here's the first part of Jose's fantastic semi-final entry entitled "A Day at the Park". To read the rest of the story and the 4 other Top 5 tales, and to know more about Talecraft, please visit http://talecraft.komikasi.com

A Day at the Park


Jose Renato Evangelista (1st Place)

Miranda doesn’t understand what has just occurred. She stands there dumbfounded, cradling a bundle of cloth in her arms. She takes a breath and tries to put her thoughts into order.

It was a beautiful day. Not to be cliché, but the sun was shining and the birds were singing and everything in the world seemed like it was in its right place. So Miranda went to the park, as one does on a beautiful day like this.

She skipped merrily to the park’s center, where a charming stone fountain had been erected so that people may enjoy beautiful days while sitting down on a bench and take pleasure in the tranquil sound of flowing water. There was but one person there to sitting at the fountain that day, however: a tired-looking woman, gently rocking an infant in her arms.

“OHMIGODITSSOCUTECANIHOLDHIMPRETTYPLEASE?” Miranda, loud and giggly, exclaimed to the woman.

“Go right ahead.” Replied the woman; a glint of something in her eyes.

“What’s his na—” As Miranda looked up to meet the Mother’s face, she realized with gripping horror that the woman was already halfway to the exit, and with baby in hand Miranda wouldn’t be able to catch her.

“HE’S YOUR PROBLEM NOW! SO LONG SUCKER!” The Mother cackled maniacally and gave a little jump, all while managing to sprint her way to freedom.