A Fish Out of Water

There are many awkward people and many awkward situations in Star Trek, especially when a character is confronted with a person, behaviour, or situation to which they are particularly unsuited. The current BF event, Shore Leave, presents a unique opportunity for one or more of your characters to be a fish out of water while on vacation. Think Picard on Risa, or Picard with children (or Picard pretty much anywhere except the bridge of the Enterprise), or Worf on Risa, or possibly anyone except Riker or Jadzia on Risa.

But what this is not, is comedy. Whereas many of those examples have an air of amusement they all speak to a deeper emotional arc of the character, be that a difficulty with family, an obsession with duty, an uneasy sense of identity or an absence of belonging, or another insecurity that weighs upon your character.

The challenge of this competition is to start with a seemingly conventional moment of awkwardness and then to use that opening to expand the story to reveal part of your character’s innermost turmoil.

Criteria

• Stories should be submitted directly to the BFMS, and your entry should be a link to the published story. Stories should be at least 1,000 words and no more than 2,000 words.
• Stories will be graded in accordance with the Bravo Fleet Fiction Rubric, which marks on the following criteria: Language, Style, & Mechanics; Adherence to Canon; Perspective; Characterization; Originality; Use of the Prompt.
• This story must be created after this competition opens and before it closes, so as not to reuse any existing stories. This will be judged based on the publication date of the story within the BFMS.
• Your story must be a single-author post, not a joint post.