Title: SPACE VIGILANTE (ONC 2021)

Genre/Sub-Genre: Science Fiction

Story Link: Click here.

Status: Completed

Written By: Wuckster

Tag Used: novella, onc2021, opennovellacontest2021, science-fantasy, scifi space, spaceships, vigilante

Summary:

Lenny Legend works for the Intergalactic Government's Anti-Vigilante Agency. He's the best in the business, but he may have bitten off more than he could chew when he gets mixed up with the notorious and certifiably insane Captain Marmalade and his crew of misfits.

Cover Copy:

Review:

Leonard Mungle aka Lenny Legend, member of the Intergalactic Government's Anti-Vigilante Agency, is supposed to infiltrate the legendary Garth Wendell Sorensen's team of vigilantes. Of course, despite a special set of skills uploaded to Lenny's brain especially for this job, nothing goes to plan. Sorensen, who insists on being called Captain Marmelade and claims to be a time traveler, hires Lenny after he proves his suitability by blowing up a bingo parlour. Fleeing from the police in the dumpster of a garbage truck, they are rescued by Captain Marmalade's ship, the Flying Fist of Righteousness. But Lenny's troubles have only just begun. The big mission of the Vigilante Team led by Captain Marmalade is to kill the president of the intergalactic government.

Told from Legends perspective, the author gives us a wild and twisted space adventure. His world building is creative, his characters are quirky, and the story has several twists. The characters surprise us by being full of crazy and creative ideas and don't shy away from doing the unthinkable.

If you're looking for a funny and fast paced science fiction read, this story is a must.

Reviewer: Sukmasih_

Interview:

Is science fiction your go-to genre?

Not exactly. I've always been fascinated by space and I have definitely written a lot of stories with sci-fi settings (or at least sci-fi elements), but really I seem to be drawn to escaping the everyday mundane realities of life on Earth as we know it. This can take the form of aliens and spaceships, but I'm also known to write about ogres, elves, or talking chickens. Anything fantastical and out of the ordinary is interesting to me.

Where did you get your idea for this story?

Many, many years ago I had a vague image in my mind of a crew trying to infiltrate a spaceship by posing as a dance troupe. I never did anything with it. Never plotted out a story, never fleshed out the characters, never came up with who these people were or why they were doing this. It was just sort of this weird idea that I mostly forgot about, but I guess it's been kind of circulating in the back of my mind. I was reading the prompts for ONC and I only got as far as #6, which was about being part of an anti-vigilante agency but having everything changed one day by a group of vigilantes. Suddenly my weird idea came back to me and I realized maybe this is why these people are disguising themselves to sneak aboard a spaceship. They're on some sort of mission for vigilante justice. Because of the prompt, I knew the protagonist had to be a member of an anti-vigilante government agency and that's how Lenny Legend entered the picture. I also knew whoever the leader of the vigilante group was had to be a bit of a strange individual to come up with a plan like that. This was reinforced by the prompt because it basically stated this was no ordinary vigilante group. From here Captain Marmalade took form. Once I had the two main characters and the basic premise in place, the ideas just started to flow quickly and the story revealed itself to me pretty easily.

How long does it normally take you to write a story?

It depends on how long the story is and the circumstances of its creation. If somebody's asking me to contribute a story to an anthology on Wattpad or something, I tend to feel a sense of obligation to get it done. If it's a short story I can knock it out in a couple of days usually. But when I'm just writing for myself, I'm not always the most disciplined and I can sometimes drift away from working on a story for a while. I have managed to finish three book-length stories and I'm currently slowly working on a fourth. It seems to take me at least three years to finish a novel, although I expect I could do it faster with a little more motivation. It was interesting participating in ONC because this is the first novella I've ever written and as such it's longer than a short story, but significantly shorter than a novel. I had the motivation of meeting the deadlines, to keep me going. It seemed like I was able to knock out about a chapter every time I sat down to work on it, so that kept it moving pretty quickly.

What was your greatest challenge while writing this story?

The greatest challenge was probably just bringing it to a conclusion on time and within the required word count. I did not have the story planned out when I began writing and didn't know exactly where it was going or how it would end, other than I had established immediately that they were at some point going to end up in a detention cell on a space station disguised as a dance troupe. Left to my own devices, the story would have sprawled more and they certainly would have gotten into more wacky escapades before the climactic scenes took place. When I noticed I had already surpassed the halfway point of the word count, I realized I needed to get them onto that space station quickly and then figure out whatever was going to happen once they got there and start wrapping things up.

What did you enjoy most about writing this story?

It was honestly a lot of fun to write. Captain Marmalade just immediately became this larger-than-life character who was goofy and deeply weird. I had no idea what he would do at any given moment and it was fun to find out as I wrote. It was also fun to see the madness unspool through Lenny Legend's eyes and hear his thoughts and comments on it.

Do you have any advice for other authors?

I would say try to keep things entertaining for yourself. I feel like if I'm bored writing it, then most likely readers are going to be bored reading it. For me personally, I like to keep myself open to twists and turns I wasn't expecting. There's definitely nothing wrong with meticulously planning everything out, but I enjoy being surprised sometimes by where things end up heading. The only thing is, it's important to make sure you're keeping track of what you've written already and that you're not contradicting anything you wrote earlier. Unexpected twists are great, but you have to remember you're writing a complete story and everything has to flow logically every step of the way from point A to point Z. I try to go back and re-read earlier sections of stories somewhat frequently just so I can remember what's been established so I can stay consistent and also try not to leave plot holes or unresolved threads. If I stated early on that someone has a milk allergy, I don't want to have a scene later where they're eating an ice cream cone.

Would you connect yourself or anyone you know with Lenny Legend in any way?

I didn't base him on anybody in particular. I'm sure some elements of myself ended up there, but at the same time he has some character traits that are very far from me. The prompt stated that he was successful at his job, so I imagined maybe he was just a little bit cocky. But he also had to meet a group of vigilantes that would change everything as per the prompt, so he couldn't be so skilled at his job that he was incapable of getting in over his head and he couldn't be so set in his ways that he couldn't change.

Are you a fan of vigilantes or would you rather work with an anti-vigilante agency if you had a chance?

That's an interesting question. I think we've been conditioned through popular stories to root for vigilantes. Pretty much every superhero is a vigilante. Then there's a ton of action movies where someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis is single handedly taking down legions of bad guys and we're undoubtedly supposed to be rooting for them. There's something deeply appealing about the idea of criminals who have escaped the hand of justice getting what's coming to them. But if you think about an actual real life vigilante, it's not a super appealing idea to me. How well are they really doing their research? What are they basing their decisions on? What kind of training do they have? The last thing we need are a bunch of angry goobers running around confronting anyone they don't see eye to eye with. That sort of thing already happens all the time in online comment sections. We sure as heck don't need to add weapons to that mix. It's not like I think "the law" is always 100% correct or good either, but vigilantism is a slippery slope that could quickly lead to anarchy and chaos. I don't think I would personally choose to work for an anti-vigilante agency as I am completely unqualified and would probably get myself killed more or less immediately. I think I'm more of a neutral party sitting on the sidelines.

What do you like most about Lenny?

I think at the end of the day, he's really not a bad guy. And in a way, there's nothing particularly exceptional about him either, which makes him a good stand-in for the reader. He's relatable. I think the anti-vigilante agency is just a job to him. His whole life and identity isn't necessarily wrapped up in it. And while he's been good at the job in the past, he's definitely never gotten himself into a situation like this before. It was fun to see how he reacted to a situation that was increasingly getting out of hand.

How did you feel when you made it into the ONC shortlist?

Terrible. Nah, just kidding. Obviously I was happy to hear the news. This was my first time participating in the ONC, so I didn't actually know what exactly all this longlist and shortlist stuff was all about when I started out. I tried not to worry too much about it and just focused on getting the story written. I figured whether I win or lose or whatever, it would be a victory in itself to have another story completed and that's the way I continue to look at it. This story wouldn't have existed if I hadn't decided to participate, so I'm glad that I did.

Interviewer: ElectricEmpress