************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** One of the oldest online pastimes has been the "Never Ending Story." The format hasn't changed much since the days when kids ran single line bulletin board systems (BBSes) on Commodore 64s, 300 baud modems, and pirated software: one person posts a few opening paragraphs and others follow up the narrative with their own prose. No matter how a story starts, all quickly degenerate into improbable tales of Heavy Metal singers running around a Star Trek universe. Literature it ain't but Never Ending Stories can be mildly amusing, especially if you're taken with dreaming up exotic ways of disintegrating Sammy Hagar. The fun eventually stops when someone contributes a plot killer like beaming a nude Captain Kirk over to a Klingon ship. There are some limits. The folks at Amazon Books (www.amazon.com) have recently attempted to update the Never Ending Story concept, even though the format has traditionally produced some of the worst writing imaginable. The mega-book seller has contracted John Updike to write the beginning and ending of a murder mystery. The bothersome middle section is left to budding online writers. Each day, netizens are invited to submit a few sentences. The winning submission for that day gets added to the collective tale and the daily winner is awarded $1,000. Not bad. Unfortunately, the contest is open only to citizens of the United States. Even with that restriction, I'm not sure how Amazon Books is going to handle the volume of submissions once the word gets out. There are 20 million net users in the United States. All but four of those believe they're better writers than Updike. Do the math. Best of luck, Amazon! If you're willing to work for a bit less money and write a few more words, Troma Team Video is hosting a script writing contest. Troma Team Video has made such fine '80s era films as /The Toxic Avenger/, /Surf Nazis Must Die/, and /Class of Nuke 'Em High/. Troma Team is coming out with a new /Nuke 'Em High/ instalment, updated for the '90s, and they want the fans to write it. Each week, from user submissions, Troma Team adds another two pages to its script. The winner gets $50 and a sense of pride knowing he or she has managed to write dialog in keeping with Troma Team's cinematic sensibilities. In fact, the Troma Team requires you to write just like them. Winning entries have to work one or more provided lines of dialog into each submission. Think you can work "Plain and simple, robotics are the wave of the future." or "What if VALLEY OF GWANGI was the real world, and our world was a movie which the people in VALLEY OF GWANGI were watching, in-between lassoing dinosaurs?" into a semi-coherent scene about high school life? If so, head to www.troma.com/contest.html. If you're one of those twisted types that actually likes writing for the fun, and you don't insist on cash for your time/ideas, you can find an interesting twist on the Never Ending Story format on a newsgroup called alt.dragons-inn. You assume a persona in one of many swords 'n' sorcery "worlds" hosted on the newsgroup and contribute to an ongoing plot. Just make sure you read the group FAQ at dragon.io.com/inn.html before you join.