Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

[Swank]

@Swank OT a little but it speaks to my earlier point : Speaking of House of Leaves… This is a typical page from the masterpiece:

It’s full of footnotes and number-y things let alone science which are hell on toast for a dyscalculiac like me, but then it is an existential horror…

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Well, that got me to read the wiki on that and Ergodic literature - Wikipedia

Which sounds a lot like the experience of reading Wikipedia and following links in a non-linear fashion. And it sounds like academic works, which it pillories.

But I'm also reminded of:

Where there are multiple ways to end up on the same pages, which is interesting in part because you can get to those pages through long paths or short.

In the end, I'm not sure if there is something extra to be gleaned from non-linear formatting like ergodic lit other than a sense of being active in the assembly of the story.

My thing is more the idea that there are multiple ways to understand the information in a story: You can happen to know the reference, choose to live with the ambiguity of not having an explanation for a minor meaning, store the term in memory and wait for context to define it further on, or simply appeal to an external source. I have an odd memory, so I do 1, 3 and 4; usually.

Where egodic lit is still very user friendly is in having all references contained in the medium. You aren't required to watch a video, open a bible or actually learn unfamiliar math. In that sense it is a parody of learning. Which is probably the point.

 

[Luiglin]

@Swank OT a little but it speaks to my earlier point : Speaking of House of Leaves… This is a typical page from the masterpiece:

It’s full of footnotes and number-y things let alone science which are hell on toast for a dyscalculiac like me, but then it is an existential horror…

View attachment 89141

@Phyrebrat Is the existential horror the result of reading all the footnotes?

@Swank keep going with the 75s and 300s. Use them as you wish. I've found them very useful in making me tighten up my word usage - you certainly can't be verbose. These days though, I'm here to have fun. I had a pre-Xmas 21 slump that was more to do with day job work pressures than anything else and nearly gave up on the Chrons altogether. @Dan Jones and @Phyrebrat's podcast changed my mind. Most of my stuff is not votable - if that's a word. I tend to write stupid stories about a Dark Lord character that not everyone gets or likes. However, I like writing them and unless I get banned by our venerable Mods or @Brian G Turner, I'll continue to do so

 

[MatthewKusza]

Hello! Newbie Writer Here! Open to learning as much as I can! I know I am a competent writer, but how do I become a good writer? LOL That's the million dollar question. Whoa, I sound like Dr. Evil. Wait! That's the trillion dollar question! That's better.

So, here goes....anyone have some feedback for my April 75 word story?

Pressing Concerns

“Gold!”

The barbarian tromped heedlessly forward.

“Padraig, wait!”

The thief cursed watching a flagstone sink.

“Stop!”

Padraig froze.

“Ness? What’s wrong?”

“Pressure trap.”

“I stepped on it?”

“Yes.”

“Bah! Nothing happened!”

“Don’t move!”

Something clicked as Padraig lifted his foot. Tumbling backwards, Ness escaped the falling portcullis. She scowled through the grating.

“We’ve discussed this! Let me check first!”

“Can you open it?”

“Probably.”

“Uh oh! Ceiling’s dropping!”

“Good thing I work well under pressure.”

I will try my best to return the favor and offer any insights to other authors asking for it on this thread. Of course, I can only give advice/feedback as an avid fantasy fiction reader and sci-fi geek! My writing skills are still at the padawan level.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Hello! Newbie Writer Here! Open to learning as much as I can! I know I am a competent writer, but how do I become a good writer? LOL That's the million dollar question. Whoa, I sound like Dr. Evil. Wait! That's the trillion dollar question! That's better.

So, here goes....anyone have some feedback for my April 75 word story?

Pressing Concerns

“Gold!”

The barbarian tromped heedlessly forward.

“Padraig, wait!”

The thief cursed watching a flagstone sink.

“Stop!”

Padraig froze.

“Ness? What’s wrong?”

“Pressure trap.”

“I stepped on it?”

“Yes.”

“Bah! Nothing happened!”

“Don’t move!”

Something clicked as Padraig lifted his foot. Tumbling backwards, Ness escaped the falling portcullis. She scowled through the grating.

“We’ve discussed this! Let me check first!”

“Can you open it?”

“Probably.”

“Uh oh! Ceiling’s dropping!”

“Good thing I work well under pressure.”

I will try my best to return the favor and offer any insights to other authors asking for it on this thread. Of course, I can only give advice/feedback as an avid fantasy fiction reader and sci-fi geek! My writing skills are still at the padawan level.

Matthew, I think this calls for exactly the same answer that Swank got above. It feels like a fragment of a longer story. Just as we didn't know what Swank's pilots were really up to, we don't know why your characters are messing around with a portcullis. And therefore we don't really care. Not all 75-worders manage to have a beginning, middle and end (although some do). But a sense of context should be included and some kind of conclusion or closure. Writing action scenes like this is good practice - but the story lacks a feeling of completeness.

 

[Swank]

Hello! Newbie Writer Here! Open to learning as much as I can! I know I am a competent writer, but how do I become a good writer? LOL That's the million dollar question. Whoa, I sound like Dr. Evil. Wait! That's the trillion dollar question! That's better.

So, here goes....anyone have some feedback for my April 75 word story?

Pressing Concerns

“Gold!”

The barbarian tromped heedlessly forward.

“Padraig, wait!”

The thief cursed watching a flagstone sink.

“Stop!”

Padraig froze.

“Ness? What’s wrong?”

“Pressure trap.”

“I stepped on it?”

“Yes.”

“Bah! Nothing happened!”

“Don’t move!”

Something clicked as Padraig lifted his foot. Tumbling backwards, Ness escaped the falling portcullis. She scowled through the grating.

“We’ve discussed this! Let me check first!”

“Can you open it?”

“Probably.”

“Uh oh! Ceiling’s dropping!”

“Good thing I work well under pressure.”

I will try my best to return the favor and offer any insights to other authors asking for it on this thread. Of course, I can only give advice/feedback as an avid fantasy fiction reader and sci-fi geek! My writing skills are still at the padawan level.

Perhaps predictably, I am going to disagree with Christine and say that the set up is clear - this is a scene out of something like Conan. You're substituting archetypes for character development to get to the entertaining part. I think that can be okay for the same reason a joke can have a priest, a rabbi and a lawyer to stand in fresh characters.

And you are doing a humorous piece. So maybe there is more of an issue of whether you have really gone all in to make it a satire of these kind of characters and situations.

Generally, your piece is almost all dialogue, which is another reason it reads primarily as joke. Given that, how good is the punchline? Or, in terms of fiction, how good is the humorous payoff of the climax and resolution?

Maybe half of the short form 75-100 word stories are light humor, so there's nothing wrong with doing that. They get votes. I would look to put more punch in it and wrrite more of it as non-dialogue to draw the reader into this world and provide humor/interest though other channels - like funny description or absurdist observations. The basis of humor is confounding expectations that you've set the reader up with.

Of course, if humor isn't your goal, then you ought to play it straight through to the end.

 

[Astro Pen]

Hello! Newbie Writer Here! Open to learning as much as I can! I know I am a competent writer, but how do I become a good writer? LOL That's the million dollar question. Whoa, I sound like Dr. Evil. Wait! That's the trillion dollar question! That's better.

So, here goes....anyone have some feedback for my April 75 word story?

Pressing Concerns

“Gold!”

The barbarian tromped heedlessly forward.

“Padraig, wait!”

The thief cursed watching a flagstone sink.

“Stop!”

Padraig froze.

“Ness? What’s wrong?”

“Pressure trap.”

“I stepped on it?”

“Yes.”

“Bah! Nothing happened!”

“Don’t move!”

Something clicked as Padraig lifted his foot. Tumbling backwards, Ness escaped the falling portcullis. She scowled through the grating.

“We’ve discussed this! Let me check first!”

“Can you open it?”

“Probably.”

“Uh oh! Ceiling’s dropping!”

“Good thing I work well under pressure.”

I will try my best to return the favor and offer any insights to other authors asking for it on this thread. Of course, I can only give advice/feedback as an avid fantasy fiction reader and sci-fi geek! My writing skills are still at the padawan level.

Hi Matthew.
I will try to give you my actual 'reader experience' (after a couple of observations.) rather than a detailed analysis because that is what really happens once voting opens

Ok first thing to remember about these competitions is that they are being read in a block of 30 or 40 stories. In this they differ from a freestanding story, which readers will come into with a clear mind. This means that readers come in a mood and humour to some extent primed by what they read before they reached yours.
In some ways it is a mini 'slush pile', and sometimes skimmed, such is human nature. That is why the opening line must hook.


"Gold!" Well that covered that well enough,
So now I am looking for the flavour
"The barbarian tromped heedlessly forward."
The use of the word barbarian said 'fantasy writer' to me, I'm sci fi writer so enthusiasm drops a few percent but persevere.
'Flagstone' and 'portcullis' confirm that shortly after.

Having got to the end I feel I have read a short section of a 1980s computer game. I almost expect our protagonists to pull out a token to escape the descending ceiling. ("you have a lamp, a sword, an escape token and a key" press shift E to escape)
The joke at the end was probably a bit obvious, and felt to me a little "I'm at 68 words and I've got to get 'pressure' in here somewhere."

big PS Of course I got zero votes myself so definitely not the final wisdom on this but hope this reader perspective helps. Meet you for commiserations in the bar.
Astro

 

[paranoid marvin]

Hi Matthew and thankyou for entering the Challenges.

There's sometimes a fine line between what feels like an extract from a larger work and what constitutes a story in itself. I think that an extract on its own works as long as it's a 'story within a story'. For me 'Pressing Concerns' felt like a story, but one that didn't really have an ending, so I can understand Christine Wheelwright's viewpoint also.

I did get a little confused with some of the dialogue. I think that this can sometimes happen when the same character speaks twice in succession, which I assume is the case with "Padraig, wait!" and "Stop!". I also thought it a little strange that the barbarian would standing on a flagstone that was sinking, yet not realise it. I also think that you could have a more natural conversation between the two, which could also help to save on word count

I agree with some of the comments above that this is standard fantasy/d&d fare, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it needed to go somewhere different rather than just follow the expectations of the reader that the agile thief will save the clumsy warrior. I think that you need to challenge the reader's expectations and leave them with something memorable. There are several ways that the story could go that would give a more conclusive, and perhaps more satisfactory and memorable ending; perhaps Ness gets Padraig to toss her the gold, then walks away to leave him to his fate. Or perhaps he stands on the pressure pad , laughs at Ness' concerns because nothing has happened to him and then turns round and finds that the portcullis has landed on her head. Perhaps he stands on the pressure pad on purpose?

You could set up a memorable scene by cutting to the chase and getting the portcullis to come down and the ceiling to start to descend in the first 20-30 words. That would then give you a frenetic 45-55 words as the reader wonders how the situation will play out.

Your story definitely has potential , and there's also room for a good fantasy action story in the Challenges. Good luck with your future entries.

 

[JS Wiig]

@MatthewKusza the only real issue I had was the formatting made it difficult for me to determine who was speaking and acting at various points. Perhaps keeping the same character’s dialog and action together on the same line could help?

 

[MatthewKusza]

Matthew, I think this calls for exactly the same answer that Swank got above. It feels like a fragment of a longer story. Just as we didn't know what Swank's pilots were really up to, we don't know why your characters are messing around with a portcullis. And therefore we don't really care. Not all 75-worders manage to have a beginning, middle and end (although some do). But a sense of context should be included and some kind of conclusion or closure. Writing action scenes like this is good practice - but the story lacks a feeling of completeness.

Never thought of it that way. Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to see what I can do with the next 75 word. Context, help reader engage. Got it.

 

[MatthewKusza]

Perhaps predictably, I am going to disagree with Christine and say that the set up is clear - this is a scene out of something like Conan. You're substituting archetypes for character development to get to the entertaining part. I think that can be okay for the same reason a joke can have a priest, a rabbi and a lawyer to stand in fresh characters.

And you are doing a humorous piece. So maybe there is more of an issue of whether you have really gone all in to make it a satire of these kind of characters and situations.

Generally, your piece is almost all dialogue, which is another reason it reads primarily as joke. Given that, how good is the punchline? Or, in terms of fiction, how good is the humorous payoff of the climax and resolution?

Maybe half of the short form 75-100 word stories are light humor, so there's nothing wrong with doing that. They get votes. I would look to put more punch in it and wrrite more of it as non-dialogue to draw the reader into this world and provide humor/interest though other channels - like funny description or absurdist observations. The basis of humor is confounding expectations that you've set the reader up with.

Of course, if humor isn't your goal, then you ought to play it straight through to the end.

Thank you for the feedback. Yes, I do tend to bring humor into these smaller pieces. I tend to verve close to dialogue, probably influence of writing group I'm in. But, yes, I see need to have a balance. I'm going to keep trying month to month and participate in these improvement threads.

 

[MatthewKusza]

Hi Matthew.
I will try to give you my actual 'reader experience' (after a couple of observations.) rather than a detailed analysis because that is what really happens once voting opens

Ok first thing to remember about these competitions is that they are being read in a block of 30 or 40 stories. In this they differ from a freestanding story, which readers will come into with a clear mind. This means that readers come in a mood and humour to some extent primed by what they read before they reached yours.
In some ways it is a mini 'slush pile', and sometimes skimmed, such is human nature. That is why the opening line must hook.


"Gold!" Well that covered that well enough,
So now I am looking for the flavour
"The barbarian tromped heedlessly forward."
The use of the word barbarian said 'fantasy writer' to me, I'm sci fi writer so enthusiasm drops a few percent but persevere.
'Flagstone' and 'portcullis' confirm that shortly after.

Having got to the end I feel I have read a short section of a 1980s computer game. I almost expect our protagonists to pull out a token to escape the descending ceiling. ("you have a lamp, a sword, an escape token and a key" press shift E to escape)
The joke at the end was probably a bit obvious, and felt to me a little "I'm at 68 words and I've got to get 'pressure' in here somewhere."

big PS Of course I got zero votes myself so definitely not the final wisdom on this but hope this reader perspective helps. Meet you for commiserations in the bar.
Astro

Thank you for feedback! Your description of how we read to vote makes perfect sense to me! I'm really fascinated with the whole concept of short word counts. We think of poetry being short often, but not prose to this extend. At least not your average reader I would venture to say. But, I'm attracted to idea of writing a snapshot of a scene etc. Perhaps, I need to look also at what surrounded that scene, what got them there, why is this scene appealing to tell etc. Thanks again. I'll keep trying! LOL.

 

[MatthewKusza]

@MatthewKusza the only real issue I had was the formatting made it difficult for me to determine who was speaking and acting at various points. Perhaps keeping the same character’s dialog and action together on the same line could help?

Yes. Of course. Definitely want to make sure my readers have effortless time navigating dialogue. Thank you for the feedback!

 

[Aknot]

This month I aimed for something that would be as close to a “full” story as I could get. Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.


From its inception, all it had known was chains. It raged and fought to no avail. Guards teased and tormented, laughing at helpless fury. But their strict rules turned to routine and routine to mistakes. A fatal mishap and they ran and screamed and begged and died. But it was still caged. It tore at steel and plate. Broke what still stood until it was truly free: unrestrained in the cold grip of space.

 

[Parson]

@Aknot, I'll admit to being befuddled by this. I had a difficulty understanding what was in chains. "From its inception" sounds like a construct of some sort, biological because of the chains --- but (I ask myself) are we talking about literal chains? maybe it's a program being confined by its firewalls? The actions of the guards teasing and slipping up are clear enough and certainly a likely development. But what was the fatal mishap? Did they get too friendly with the construct. Did they shirk their duties and wind up killed in some other way? At the end when the construct is still in the steel and plate cage, I'm fairly confident that we are talking about some sort of physical construct; but then it tears free and is in outer space, where I would think that a biological entity would die, but it doesn't seem to be threatened. And I am left questioning again.

I'm sure the problem is with me, but I just couldn't understand what was really going on.

 

[Swank]

@Aknot, I'll admit to being befuddled by this. I had a difficulty understanding what was in chains. "From its inception" sounds like a construct of some sort, biological because of the chains --- but (I ask myself) are we talking about literal chains? maybe it's a program being confined by its firewalls? The actions of the guards teasing and slipping up are clear enough and certainly a likely development. But what was the fatal mishap? Did they get too friendly with the construct. Did they shirk their duties and wind up killed in some other way? At the end when the construct is still in the steel and plate cage, I'm fairly confident that we are talking about some sort of physical construct; but then it tears free and is in outer space, where I would think that a biological entity would die, but it doesn't seem to be threatened. And I am left questioning again.

I'm sure the problem is with me, but I just couldn't understand what was really going on.

I wonder if that ambiguity is intentional, because I like that about the story.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

This month I aimed for something that would be as close to a “full” story as I could get. Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.


From its inception, all it had known was chains. It raged and fought to no avail. Guards teased and tormented, laughing at helpless fury. But their strict rules turned to routine and routine to mistakes. A fatal mishap and they ran and screamed and begged and died. But it was still caged. It tore at steel and plate. Broke what still stood until it was truly free: unrestrained in the cold grip of space.

I don't think this is terrible. But the most successful 75 word stories give the reader something to think about, at least for a few seconds after. Maybe it is a twist in the ending, or an unexpected opinion, or a small moral message, or just the pricking of an emotion (humor, sympathy, loss, indignation) - just something to take away from the story. Something that persists after the act of reading is over. I didn't really get that from yours. As a suggestion; I can't help thinking of a monster trying to get through bars, trying to - the reader assumes - escape. But at the end of the story it becomes clear that it was trying to get back into its cage, unable to handle freedom. There is a something a bit more impactful in that, and the reader goes away asking what the downsides of freedom might be. Just a thought.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Hi Aknot, I did like your style of writing , and it reminded me a little of Alien3. But this feels more like an overview of a story rather than a story itself. It could have worked well in maybe the 300 word challenge, but I think was too ambitious to cram it all into 75 words.

I agree that it also needed a little something to make it stand out from the crowd and leave a memorable impression on the reader. A creature/entity/thing attempting to escape a prison, and being successful in doing so, might work over the period of a movie or a novel, but isn't sufficient for a short story whether 75 or 300 words long. Christine mentions a good alternative ending above; perhaps in the end it was a human trying to escape from alien captors?

As I mentioned above, I did like the style of writing and the air of mystery, so there are plenty of positives for future entries.

 

[JS Wiig]

@Aknot at first I had difficulty understanding what was going on, but after a couple readings it made sense. Story wise I didn’t have any issues; I thought it had a good beginning middle and end, and good prose. Maybe a bit of formatting to break up the block of text?

With respect to the challenge, the story didn’t have anything that really grabbed me personally or was otherwise outstanding in the broader field.

Overall it’s not something I would be disappointed in. Keep at it!

 

[Aknot]

@Parson While 75 words means cutting back on a lot but ease of understanding the story I want to tell is of course important. Thanks for letting me know your thoughts.
@Swank Yes, I had an idea of what the thing was but I wanted it to be open for interpretation. Glad you liked that.
@Christine Wheelwright @paranoid marvin @JS Wiig Appreciate your comments and you all seem to point to the same lack of that extra “something “ that has you pondering the story after reading it. Will keep it in mind ahead.

 

[Wayne Mack]

This month I aimed for something that would be as close to a “full” story as I could get. Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.


From its inception, all it had known was chains. It raged and fought to no avail. Guards teased and tormented, laughing at helpless fury. But their strict rules turned to routine and routine to mistakes. A fatal mishap and they ran and screamed and begged and died. But it was still caged. It tore at steel and plate. Broke what still stood until it was truly free: unrestrained in the cold grip of space.

I like the tone; it comes across as horror and kept me interested in reading. To me, though, the end disappointed. I felt that I was being being set up for the big reveal (very common in 75 worders), but the final phrase revealed that the creature was in space. The creature's location was not a concern of mine as a reader, so ending with this phrase seemed arbitrary. I think the story would have been stronger without the last seven words and would have been a progression from being chained to free. That would feel like a complete story arc. One minor nit was the use of "laughing." The sudden jump from past tense to present tense felt out of place and pulled me out of the story as I tried to understand why it didn't say "laughed."

I hear a good sense of tone in your writing and I would be interested in seeing something in longer form from you. The 75 word challenges do not allow much room to explore anything beyond a basic premise, which makes it difficult to present more involved ideas, so just have fun with them and explore your ideas.