Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

[The Judge]

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

She was swanning around buying books and eating expensive cakes, that's why...


It is a grammatical rule to put commas around the name/title of someone who is directly addressed.

That's it, really.

From wikipedia

Vocative

Commas are placed before, after, or around a noun or pronoun used independently in speaking to some person, place or thing:

• I hope, John, that you will read this.

The only reason I've seen is the one Ursa advances, which is that it's effectively a parenthetical snippet which can be omitted.


EDIT: I've just looked up my Oxford English, and it's of no help. It refers to the comma and the vocative but only as part of a larger issue, saying it's used "After a participial or verbless clause, a salutation, or a vocative" [my emphasis] but the only example it gives is ""My son, give me thy heart" so it doesn't address what happens when it appears in the middle of the sentence.

 

[hopewrites]

TDZ the dashes sound like cliped words thru clenched teeth to me, so without having a better reason to know why I agree with you that that is not what I wanted, I agree that's not what I was going for. I also agree that Charles is omitable from a grammatical perspective, but emotively he is the explitive and I left out the first of his commas to keep her frustration clear and bring the dialogue that shouting tone without using all caps since its not shouting volume.

Re: the Charles' dialog. I struggled with that quite a bit, having to cram most of his character building into it by staying true to his onetrack drive and sleezyness without loosing his intellectual intagraty and stay under the word count... I think he lost all natural flow in editing. So I'll watch that in future too.
Really appreciate all the help, thanks Ursa and TJ for further clarifying the commas

 

[HareBrain]

Hm, seems it is a grammatical rule after all. I'm man enough to admit I was wrong, and indeed I relish such a new experience. Nevertheless, in dialogue, I would personally use punctuation to try to reflect how the speech is meant to sound.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm with you, HB. If we follow punctuation rules slavishly in dialogue we're ignoring the fact that people, when they speak, don't. They have their own syntax, and dialect that may defy such conventions. the locals round here have their own punctuation rules, I'm sure of it....

 

[Hex]

Mmm... relish.

 

[Ursa major]

Hm, seems it is a grammatical rule after all. I'm man enough to admit I was wrong, and indeed I relish such a new experience. Nevertheless, in dialogue, I would personally use punctuation to try to reflect how the speech is meant to sound.

I would agree with that HB.

And now I can finally agree with this HB.


In the case of dialogue, isn't the tendency to add punctuation, putting in, say, pauses where the grammar doesn't necessarily require the punctuation mark? In the case of Hope's sentence, the main reason I would have included the comma is that it aids in emphasising the name of the person whose lack of imagination is being criticised.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

It is a grammatical rule to put commas around the name/title of someone who is directly addressed.

That's it, really.

So the answer is, "because that's the answer." My son would be impressed.

 

[Ursa major]

But isn't that true of all structured communication? Many of my ex-colleagues spent much of their time at international standards bodies - ITU-T, ETSI, etc. - defining the formatting rules for various inter-system messages (mostly for use in telecoms). It didn't matter, in terms of logical structure, where in the header most of the information would go, except that everyone had to agree on one location for a given field (and its size, and the meaning of the various field contents). Or, where set field orders weren't used, the meanings of the field headers (which either had a set number of bits/octets following on to contain the message, or an indication in the field header how long the field might be, usually in octets).

The important thing was that everyone agreed on the message header (for instance), not why it was the way it was. Grammar is like that. We use conventions to help us understand what the other person is saying or writing.

English uses word order to indicate what word has what significance; some other languages have markers on the words, indicating which are the subject, object and indirect object in any given clause or sentence. And other conventions indicate which is the main verb in a sentence, or which group of words make up , say, a dependant clause.

 

[StilLearning]

Hey all, I'm posting mine from April, any feedback appreciated!

Hope

“Push”


Outside the window Earth, burnt, hangs in the sky.


“Push!”


Too much radiation. Too little gravity. We mine ice to drink, living rat-like underground.


I crush his fingers. “I am bloody pushing!”


This colony is a desperate promise, as yet un-kept.


“One more..!”


I’m howling. Then... total silence.


Please. Not again.


“What’s happening?“ I shriek.


Spluttering coughs. A tiny voice wails.


The tears of joy on his face.


“What’s her name?”

 

[Tisiphone]

So, still a fairly newbie at posting for the 75 word challenges, and having received a few mentions/shortlistings this month I thought I'd ask for some feedback to help me with the June entry. Appreciate any comments you may have.

Blinded by Life


She lived in shadow, without sight
Unable to communicate.
No knowledge of colour.
A world of her own.
Damaged.

Yet, the little witch within,
Had the power to make me see
With renewed vision.

Her smile like sunshine rays,
Eyes glowing like midnight fireflies,
Lips like cherries,
Enticing.

Her vitality, overflowing,
Her innocence, pure and simple,
Her inextinguishable love.

And when she cast her spell,
I fell.
Enchanted; utterly and completely
Releasing me from darkness.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Tisiphone, I couldn't see any reference to science fantasy. It was really hard to get it in there - I think my own nod to it, the dancing on Jupiter, the impossible flowers, were too vague - but without any reference I didn't select. I liked the poem very much, though.

 

[Tisiphone]

Thanks Springs - essentially the words were from my heart - my little grand-daughter is blind and although she is the one who cannot see or understand colours she has opened up my eyes to so much more in life. I take your point about the science fantasy - so I have to think more carefully about how I could have added the science fantasy link.

 

[Brev]

Tisiphone, I'd agree with Springs about the science fantasy element. There were lots of excellent entries this month that maybe didn't get votes because they didn't quite catch the genre. For me the 'challenge' is about combining both the theme and the genre, and when it comes down to one single vote I always bear that in mind.
It might also be worth mentioning that your entry is a beautiful piece of writing, but it took me several reads to really appreciate it. I think that with the Challenge the quality of writing is so strong that you have to hit the mark off the bat - first read.
Other than that I can't criticise it, a strong entry from a strong month.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

So, still a fairly newbie at posting for the 75 word challenges, and having received a few mentions/shortlistings this month I thought I'd ask for some feedback to help me with the June entry. Appreciate any comments you may have.

Blinded by Life


She lived in shadow, without sight

(as Brev mentioned - initially conflicting - sightlessness doesn't immediately imply living in shadows - blackness yes, but to have shadows you have to have knowledge of light.)

Unable to communicate.

(sight is not required for communication so this needed to be explained - presumably deaf and dumb and no sense of touch)

No knowledge of colour.

(but back to light again instead)

A world of her own.

(practically impossible, given her situation)

Damaged.

Yet, the little witch within,
Had the power to make me see
With renewed vision.

Her smile like sunshine rays,
Eyes glowing like midnight fireflies,
Lips like cherries,
Enticing.

Her vitality, overflowing,
Her innocence, pure and simple,
Her inextinguishable love.

And when she cast her spell,
I fell.
Enchanted; utterly and completely
Releasing me from darkness.

The rest is less conflicting and pretty good stuff - However, I always question underlining as a method of emphasis - especially in verse. The reader, IMO should be able to get the feelings of a poem without being told what is important.

Plus as others have said the only reference to fantasy is 'witch' -which is a bit tenuous in meeting the 'spec'

Hope I helped

TEiN

Regarding the entries this month. IMO very few attempted to satisfy the brief. This is something I've noticed is becoming more prevalent in recent months. I realise that the votes cast could and should be influenced by the adherence to the subject and theme but, is that what people actually do, or do they just vote for what they think is the best story?

 

[The Judge]

Regarding the entries this month. IMO very few attempted to satisfy the brief. This is something I've noticed is becoming more prevalent in recent months. I realise that the votes cast could and should be influenced by the adherence to the subject and theme but, is that what people actually do, or do they just vote for what they think is the best story?

Yep, I'd noticed this too, TEiN, as I've mentioned several times when I've come to register my short list. Since such stories are getting votes, I'm not sure if voters are forgetting the point of having a genre for the Challenges or it's simply that we have different views of what the relevant genre comprises.

StilLearning -- I've no real comments about your piece from the other month, save that it reminded me forcibly of my 300 worder from last year! A good workmanlike story, but for me it didn't have the spark to push it into my shortlist when there were so many others of quality.

Tisiphone -- as the others have said, for me it fell as it wasn't to my mind remotely science fantasy. And although it was lovely, it felt a bit cliched in places (eg lips like cherries) plus I'm very old fashioned when it comes to poetry and insist on rhyme and rhythm schemes -- this dratted new-fangled idea of free poetry, ie prose chopped up into short lengths, isn't for me. (*wanders off muttering about modern verse...*)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Hmm, it's an interesting one, about the genre, and this was a hard genre to get in. So, I'll ask if mine came across as science fantasy ie was there enough of the fantasy element, or did it just seem sci fi-ey? I did wonder at the time....


A jasmine, black as space - from Jupiter, where she danced the night with Dad.

A blue delphinium; for earth, for her boldness, for her exploration through space.

A Martian sand-drop for love; red, rust-red.

A white venus-flower for my birth; a yellow Saturn-bell for yours.

We lay her galaxy of flowers, and release her body into space; free-spinning flowers the pattern of our mother’s life.

 

[mosaix]

Regarding the entries this month. IMO very few attempted to satisfy the brief. This is something I've noticed is becoming more prevalent in recent months. I realise that the votes cast could and should be influenced by the adherence to the subject and theme but, is that what people actually do, or do they just vote for what they think is the best story?

I have to agree with you here, TEIN. To a certain extent I think one of the reasons for this is that the themes have tended to become less specific and more open to interpretation than in the early days and the genres, for me anyway, more obscure.

I'm not saying I always succeed in satisfying the brief myself, but I do try and think I'm slowly improving in areas that have been foreign to me in the past.

As for voting, I always try to read the entries in a single sitting and start out convinced that the theme and genre will be a major influence on me then, about an hour later, I'm on the point of voting and suddenly remember that I've forgotten them all together! I think I get carried away with the quality of the writing.

Maybe the importance of the theme and genre needs to be re-emphasised but it's there in big letters at the start of each challenge so it difficult to see how this could be done.

 

[Hex]

I really fell down on this one on magical realism -- my edits lost the genre-specific bits.

I think science fantasy was really tough to judge because it's used to describe so many things (science fiction with a fantasy element, science fiction that hard science fiction people don't feel is sciencey enough...) -- it was fun though.

Presumably if voters are the people who judge the challenges there's no way past it -- for some people genre is more important than for others, and people will understand genre in different ways. It's that or make it part of the rules, with disqualification in the same way as entries that don't meet the guidelines. But I don't think that's a good (or realistic) idea.

 

[mosaix]

It's that or make it part of the rules, with disqualification in the same way as entries that don't meet the guidelines. But I don't think that's a good (or realistic) idea.

This has occurred to me as well, Hex. But I think we'd be getting more into the field of a competition rather than a challenge so I agree that it wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[The Judge]

It's not at all feasible for us to disqualify on grounds of theme and genre not least because it can be very much in the eye of the beholder. It's unpleasant enough having to remove pieces for going over word count -- that's usually clear cut but can still cause upset and possibly resentment. Anything more subjective would open a real can of worms and potentially destroy the mood of the Challenges. Besides, having to approve every story would eat into our biscuit-eating time in the Mods' Staff Room.

I think it is an idea for us to remind everyone about the importance of theme and genre when it comes to voting, though, and we'll try and remember to do that when the polls open -- though experience tells us that not everyone reads what we post...


springs, your piece was lovely, but for me it wasn't space fantasy enough. I was also in two minds whether it told enough of a story, though that was less of a consideration -- although the flowers might have been in chronological order (ie meeting man, exploring space, realising loves man, has children) I think it would have strengthened it immeasurably if it had been clearer. On nit-picky points I didn't like the "yours" because why is the narrator saying this to his/her sibling? Also, I couldn't get the last line to make sense and I wasn't sure if a word was missing -- are they laying her in the flowers before launching her? Or are they laying them down somewhere? Or perhaps a different verb is needed? The repetition of "flowers" in that line might have been best avoided eg by using "petals" or something. And for the middle lines I'd have used either colons or a dash like the first line, not semi-colons.