Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

[TheDustyZebra]

Ahh, but that was where she swore she would never date him even if he were the last man on earth -- a powerful promise, which she kept!

Actually, I considered that one of the more brilliant ideas for a post-apocalyptic promise. It's one of the classics of all time. And, of course, one which I wish I'd thought of first!

 

[Glitch]

Ahh, but that was where she swore she would never date him even if he were the last man on earth -- a powerful promise, which she kept!

Actually, I considered that one of the more brilliant ideas for a post-apocalyptic promise. It's one of the classics of all time. And, of course, one which I wish I'd thought of first!

I did consider that. But her saying she would never date him sounded more like a statement of intent than a promise.

Those sort of statements are never intended to be put to the test.

 

[Warren_Paul]

Hey everyone. I'm curious to get people's feedback on my story too. Where it worked, and where it didn't.

I'm also curious if anybody actually got the references, since I've seen no mention of them yet.

Thanks.

***​

That Darn Zombie Novel



We promised to love each other forever, through sickness and health, for better or worse. True love transcends every boundary, even a zombie apocalypse.


“Honey, dinner‘s ready.”

Jack started awake, spotting the novel in his lap. "Zombies ate my Iceberg"? It was just a dream.

He sat down at the kitchen table, and looked up at Rose. “I love you”

“Love you too.”

The ship rocked. Her jaw fell off, and landed in his stew.

*​

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Yep, got the titanic reference, didn't really understand how it tied into a zombie apocalyspe. It made me smile, but there were just so many great stories in there. The commas before the ands jarred a little, too, made it ever so slightly jerky.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

B]hope[/B] -- as a story it didn't do anything for me, as I tend to mark down obviously funny pieces in every challenge, but I thought the dialogue itself was fine. I don't even share Abernovo's concerns about the second paragraph, as that read all right to me, too.[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure I understand this - surely writing good humour is an art form in itself and requires the very best writing skills? The notion of penalising out of hand for it seemed a little surprising to me.

 

[Culhwch]

I get where TJ is coming from regarding 'funny' pieces (inverted commas as humour is such a subjective thing...). I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I imagine she meant she operates in the same way as I do, in that I tend to think it's far harder in the space of seventy-five words to convey drama than comedy, and as such a comedic piece has to very special to come into consideration for me. Thus I'm a harder marker on the lighthearted, comedic pieces than I am on the serious, emotional, dramatic pieces.

But them I'm a hard marker all around, so no one gets an easy ride...

 

[hopewrites]

thanks very much for the support! personally I think humor is harder than drama, but that might be because the people I have experience with in the real world dont get my humor as well as the people here do, so I'm loth to practice with them and feel comfortable practicing here. so thanks to everyone here for that too.
I had all this great exposition about the war and telling their story from a legend POV but in the end it was way to many words and the best parts got cut out and turned into a title leaving only the meat of the legend told from their point of view.

without disagreeing about the comma after imagination, why would I put it there? and would i leave the one after Charles if i did? I almost wanted to end the sentence after Charles making it the ejaculation, and the following clause more of a frustrated sigh, before her determined stalking off with hair flip.

 

[The Judge]

Cul is right as to my thinking. Writing humour consistently over a novel or even a long short story is hard, but to my mind it is much easier to put a funny slant on a piece as short as 75 words than it is to convey loss or despair or wonder -- you don't even need a proper punchline. And it's all to easy to make the pieces nothing but extended jokes, which for me isn't the purpose of the Challenges. I can appreciate the hard work that, say, Ursa puts into his pun-filled 75 worders, and I never dismiss them out of hand (I have voted for funny pieces in the past) but humorous entries have to be exceptionally funny or very good as stories to appear on the Judge-o-meter as a result.

 

[Ursa major]

I think I mentioned, way back around the time of the first 75-word challenges, that the word length lends itself to a shortish joke with a punchline.

It's also true that short poems, where readers will accept altered word order and compression, fit well with the challenges.

The trick, though, is to place profundity behind the puns or rhymes. This is why I often find myself putting Paranoid Marvin's poems high on my list (and, sometimes, voting for them) even though I generally dislike poetry. Yes, they're often funny, but they also seem to strike at the heart of some issue.

As an example, the skin-deep jokiness of his April 2012 entry barely hides a deep bitterness beneath, a bitterness that encompasses more than just the topic in hand, but also the human condition (particular man's attitude to war). Which is why it got a vote from me (and would have done so even if I'd had only the one vote).

 

[Hex]

I really liked your piece, hope -- though like Abernovo I caught up a little on the second piece of dialogue.

I think humour is so individual it rarely appeals widely in the way that, for example, despair can (sort of the opposite of Tolstoy's comment on happy families in Anna Karenina).

Sometimes the challenge stories can almost all be very dark -- the first one I read was 'Crime and Punishment' and I remember feeling more and more depressed as I read the entries (and not just because of the excellent quality of the writing). I suppose that one didn't lend itself to humorous interpretations.

 

[Aaron Stone]

Realize now my dark, dramatic 75-worder was caught up in the masses, and did not stand out at all. Was gonna' go for a more lighthearted piece, but one didn't have enough "Promise" (<--- this is me pointing out an unintentional double entendre), and the other was more Apocalyptic than POST-Apocalyptic, really. Both were attempts at fancy/gimmicky formatting. Let me know what you think.

Consolation Pizza

​

“Damn! I hate cold showers.”

​

Dad groans. “That’s the least important problem, Vee.”

​

Electronics don’t work anymore – cuz of the whole nuclear war thing.

​

No oven meant no pizza.

​

“What’s for dinner?”

​

I turn to Dad. “Ravioli, cold as Vee’s heart.”

​

“I heard that!”

​

“You were meant to.”

​

“I swear, you’re dead when I get out, Jason.”

​

If I could just have one hot pizza, the end of the world wouldn’t be so bad.








Kablooie

​

“Aw, darn it. Hit and sunk.”

​

Death laughed. “You’re finished, old friend.”

​

“Not if I have anything to say about it. ‘E seven’ – whoopee!”

​

“Great, now you’ve done it.”

​

“Where was that?”​

…​

I turned to Death. “Death, where was that.”

​

“That was Earth.”

​

“Uh-oh. This is not good…”

​

“I told you we shouldn’t play with real nukes.”

​

So Life and Death made a pact: they would never, ever, ever tell God about it.​

 

[TheDustyZebra]

without disagreeing about the comma after imagination, why would I put it there? and would i leave the one after Charles if i did? I almost wanted to end the sentence after Charles making it the ejaculation, and the following clause more of a frustrated sigh, before her determined stalking off with hair flip.

I keep trying to think how to answer this question, and coming up with the same thing my son says when asked to explain how he knows the answer to a math problem, "because it's the right answer."

Yes, you would leave the one after Charles, because one on each side separates him from the "imagination" -- what you are saying is, "Charles, you have absolutely no imagination" (which wouldn't be a bad way of sidestepping the extra comma), but when you put Charles after the part that is addressing him, it needs a comma on each side. I'm afraid I have no wonderful explanation like Ursa could undoubtedly give you, so you'll have to take my word for it -- or not.

It would also work if you ended the sentence after Charles, as you said, so it would be "You have absolutely no imagination, Charles! That's always been your problem. I'm going to live with the horses."

Aaron -- I confess that I didn't really understand your posted entry, but I really like your second one here, "Kablooie". It would probably have gotten a mention from me.

 

[hopewrites]

ok that works for me. I'll try and remember to put them in right next time. thank you

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I'm sorry -- I really should be able to articulate the reasoning for something like that, and not just go around saying it's so. I did have something brilliant for it, but I can't remember it today and I have a sneaking suspicion that it was in a dream last night and probably didn't make any actual sense at all!

Perhaps Ursa or TJ will come along and rescue me....

 

[HareBrain]

I prefer it without the comma before Charles. Although it's more normal to have one before, it's not more grammatically correct; it's just how people tend to write. I normally put them in myself, but in this case I think it reads better without, as it comes out in more of an exasperated rush.

 

[hopewrites]

OK well that's good. Exasperated is what I was going for, and if the words themselves weren't almost tripping over eachother in a rush I probably would have coma bracketed Charles to show his flexibility in the sentence (not sure I'm wording that right but hope you get my gist.) Thanks to both of you for the support and help, and yes it is helpful, thank you thank you.

 

[Ursa major]

I'm afraid I have no wonderful explanation like Ursa could undoubtedly give you, so you'll have to take my word for it -- or not.

Perhaps Ursa or TJ will come along and rescue me....

* Wonders why TJ isn't around when you need her.... *

Actually, I have no idea, though I disagree with HB that it reads better without it. But if forced to suggest why, I think it may relate, very vaguely, to something about the handling of phrases in sentences. Look at the the previous sentence and, in particular, the words, very vaguely. One could remove them without altering the meaning of the sentence. It's the same with the next sentence, where one can easily remove the words, in particular.

The word, Charles, in Hope's sentence could be discarded. It isn't part of the main meaning of the sentence, as can be seen when one moves the indication of who's being referred to into the narration:

She turned to look at Charles. “You have absolutely no imagination. That’s always been your problem! I’m going to live with the horses.”

And so, if pushed, I'd say that the name, Charles, needs to be separated from the rest of the sentence with a comma, because it's a disposable part of that sentence. Possibly.

But I will agree with HB that this is a convention, whether or not it's based on grammar. And a convention that's followed in just about all the books I've ever read, which suggests that if one is to abandon the convention, one had better do so with some obvious purpose in mind; otherwise the reader could very well suspect carelessness or, worse, ignorance of what they might see as basic grammar (even if it isn't).

 

[HareBrain]

if one is to abandon the convention, one had better do so with some obvious purpose in mind

I think reflecting how the character speaks is a good enough purpose. Inserting a comma after "imagination" introduces a pause, which markedly alters how the speech "sounds". Doing so just to follow a convention that doesn't even have a basis in grammar seems a bit silly.

 

[Ursa major]

I would agree with that HB.





(Though I'd still prefer it if that comma was present.)

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Oh, good, Ursa doesn't know, either!

I thought it came out in an exasperated tone even without knowing that the words were supposed to be tumbling together. The book I just finished reading uses dashes to run a character's words together, which he does when he's stressed out: "Don't-do-that-you-don't-know-what-might-happen!" I don't think that was at all what you were going for.