Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

[mosaix]

It seems being busy and not entering for a couple of months has been very detrimental to my 75 word story skills...I only got 3 listings this month and I think quite a lot of the story got lost in cutting down, then again, people may just not have liked it anyway, all comments on it welcome.

Hi, Kylara. I was hoping you were going to explain it.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Kylara,

I had to read it several times before I could find a link to SFF and then on reflection, I thought I may have been finding a link where there was none. It seemed high on concept but not really story; something I have done a few times myself (I'm not sure mine has a 'story' per se, this month! And I only got one mention, so you're doing well.)

Sometimes (okay, often) I come up with my premise, which ticks the boxes of the criteria, but after editing down to 75 the links are lost. Two years ago my friend read one of my entries and said something along the lines of, 'You know the story and the links, but you're making leaps the reader can't see.'

Thereafter I realised it was an important part of the process to read the entry as if you don't know any backstory. It's really hard to do that with your own creation, isn't it?


pH

 

[Kylara]

Hah well it is good to know that it was so wide of the mark and thus my fault! And parson I was happy with my mentions but just annoyed as I thought I had been getting quite good in the last few I participated in - the months off have not been kind! (ps I loved yours this month, and if I had had time to do more than just vote it would have been in my shortlist)

Right. So. It was supposed to be about lizards - that got cut and the whole camouflage idea was based upon the idea that there was an inside habitat and there was an "outside" that was dangerous. The inside habitat was very boring and made up of browns and greys and blacks, neutral dark earthy colours and thus anyone born with a colour change ability or a brighter skin would be unable to survive in the habitat and would be sent outside where everything was brighter (and more dangerous). (the dialogue of "who needs anything other than" was supposed to come across as mocking...) The MC was one of the habitat camouflaged creatures but longed to be outside with the danger and the outcasts but could not get past the security door that kept those with habitat camouflage outside and decided whether those with different camouflage could stay or had to go. The MC ended up getting a skin changing potion style thing on the black market to change from habitat camouflage to outside camouflage - effectively making themselves an outcast.

I was playing with themes of identity a little - the MC was trapped not only by a habitat designed for safety but by their desire to be outside in the perhaps misguided hope that outside was better - so much so that dramatically changing their outside appearance would allow entry, but the door, being a one way portal would never allow them back inside and in fact they would be unable to ever change their skin back once outside...

I think most of that got lost though :/ it started out well at least!

(and springs, the dialogue strikes again! My apologies

 

[jastius]

kylara, i liked your story... had no idea it was about a lizard type though.

I guess I am opposite of most people in which when I read a story I make the assumption that it is following the format specified and it is up to me to make the links.
what I saw in your story was a young woman being repressed by her society in not being able to move past a certain life milestone because she did not fit in. could not fit in. and was therefore unable to continue with her life. but whatever she came up with to assert that she fit in the machine would not accept her until she paid the ultimate price and gave up her flesh ... thus causing the machine to not recognize her and her to be able to pass and get out of there. I thought it was something to do with the new airport security cameras and body recognition software they are installing at street level and touch of minority report where citizens are always constantly tagged and scanned mixed with a bit of demolition man, the underground horde desperate to get into the upper world.

 

[mosaix]

The inside habitat was very boring and made up of browns and greys and blacks, neutral dark earthy colours and thus anyone born with a colour change ability or a brighter skin would be unable to survive in the habitat and would be sent outside where everything was brighter (and more dangerous). (the dialogue of "who needs anything other than" was supposed to come across as mocking...)

Ah, now I understand. I thought the brown and black was some kind of racial thing.

 

[Parson]

And parson I was happy with my mentions but just annoyed as I thought I had been getting quite good in the last few I participated in - the months off have not been kind! (ps I loved yours this month, and if I had had time to do more than just vote it would have been in my shortlist)

Thanks so much for the kind words!!

Right. So. It was supposed to be about lizards - that got cut and the whole camouflage idea was based upon the idea that there was an inside habitat and there was an "outside" that was dangerous. The inside habitat was very boring and made up of browns and greys and blacks, neutral dark earthy colours and thus anyone born with a colour change ability or a brighter skin would be unable to survive in the habitat and would be sent outside where everything was brighter (and more dangerous). (the dialogue of "who needs anything other than" was supposed to come across as mocking...) The MC was one of the habitat camouflaged creatures but longed to be outside with the danger and the outcasts but could not get past the security door that kept those with habitat camouflage outside and decided whether those with different camouflage could stay or had to go. The MC ended up getting a skin changing potion style thing on the black market to change from habitat camouflage to outside camouflage - effectively making themselves an outcast.

I was playing with themes of identity a little - the MC was trapped not only by a habitat designed for safety but by their desire to be outside in the perhaps misguided hope that outside was better - so much so that dramatically changing their outside appearance would allow entry, but the door, being a one way portal would never allow them back inside and in fact they would be unable to ever change their skin back once outside..

Wow, I'd missed that so far it wasn't even funny. But it is a very interesting premise and now I can see how this fits into the social SF or was it F category.

 

[I_Voyager]

Hey all. I definitely wouldn't mind some criticism on my three stories.

Off The New Assembly Line (August, Change, Social Sci-Fi)
I took one look at the entertainment unit and decided.

“$689.” he said,

“No problem. What a world we live in.” I marveled.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she”?

I smiled at it. Its tan-gold skin quivered; it moaned and reached out to me.

Its golden eyes glistened, widely tense, and caught the electro-carbon walls glow. I salivated for it: a lonely hypothalamus, a genuine need, warm flesh and a functional torso.

[FONT=&quot]And those beckoning arms…[/FONT]

The Negative Hertz Bridge (September, Listening, Alternate History)

In 1904 CE people first heard the quartz radio. In 5000 BCE, there in the mountain Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

His Lord spoke through the quartz: “Lay not thine hand upon the lad!”

Grathyx lost his signal. “Negative hertz bridges the divide of our space,” he lamented to his assistant, “But our words hardly bridge the barrier of their ignorance.”

 

[The Judge]

Voyager, can you edit your post, please, and remove the October story. We don't allow current pieces until the Challenge is over, so that no one is swayed by any critique/explanation before voting ends. As and when voting is over you can put it up again. Thanks.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'll crit the first two.


Off The New Assembly Line [/B](August, Change, Social Sci-Fi)
I took one look at the entertainment unit and decided.

“$689.” he said, for me, dialogue punctuation is a biggy , here it should be "$689," he said. That would have been a rule out for me right away.

“No problem. What a world we live in.” I marveled.
again, a comma before the speech mark, also I think marvelled has two ls.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she”? question mark before the speech mark

I smiled at it. Its tan-gold skin quivered; it moaned and reached out to me.

Its golden eyes glistened, widely tense, and caught the electro-carbon walls walls' - the glow belongs to them glow. I salivated for it: a lonely hypothalamus, a genuine need, warm flesh and a functional torso.

[FONT=&quot]And those beckoning arms…[/FONT]

So for me on this one, grammar and spelling were the big rule outs, but I also didn't get enough of a sense of it being a standalone story.

The Negative Hertz Bridge (September, Listening, Alternate History)

In 1904 CE people first heard the quartz radio. In 5000 BCE, there in the mountain Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

His Lord spoke through the quartz: “Lay not thine hand upon the lad!”

Grathyx lost his signal. “Negative hertz bridges the divide of our space,” he lamented to his assistant, “But our words hardly bridge the barrier of their ignorance.”

This one I liked better, but again I needed a sense of the story to be more complete. Dialogue punctuation on that last line is still not quite there, though - have a look in the toolbox, there is stuff in there about it.

 

[The Judge]

I guess you've not seen my earlier post yet. I'll pull the October piece for you, in case you don't get round to it before the time for editing elapses.


August: I had a several nit-picky issues with this piece, and three or four major problems. Nit-picks first:

“$689.” he said, -- punctuation wrong -- should be “$689,” he said.

“No problem. What a world we live in.” I marveled. -- this is probably also wrong punctuation, as I imagine you mean the "marveled" to act as a speech tag. If so, again a comma after "in" not a full stop. But other people might mark you down for using a non-standard tag (he said, gasped, croaked etc are all fine, but he smiled or smirked and non-verbal tags get people annoyed hereabouts...)

Its tan-gold skin quivered; it moaned and reached out to me. -- in two minds about that semi-colon.

widely tense -- I think I get what you're aiming for, but it didn't work for me, not least as I couldn't see why she would be tense (I couldn't work out if she were sentient)

caught the electro-carbon walls glow. -- missing apostrophe -- wall's or walls' depending on how many are glowing

I salivated for it: a lonely hypothalamus, a genuine need, warm flesh and a functional torso. -- I don't know if you intended this to sound creepy, as it really did to me, but more importantly I couldn't understand the lonely hypothalamus bit.

These things might sound petty, but when the field is so strong, any error is enough to winnow out a story. I have voted for pieces which have errors of this kind, but the writing has to be tip-top or the story incredible for me to do that. So I think it is a case of checking thoroughly before posting, and if you're not sure of punctuation, look it up.

Anyway, the bigger matters. As a purely personal issue, the feminist in me revolted at the concept and at the narrator's use of "it" not "she" so the piece was fighting uphill against my prejudices. More importantly, there wasn't enough of an actual story there for me -- ie nothing happens except the narrator buys what I assume is a sex toy. I need to see some movement in a piece, some consequence. Also, for me there was no change shown, as required by the theme -- if you'd made it clear he'd taken an entertainment centre in for upgrade, that would have been a different matter, but I couldn't see that here. The last line, too, I didn't think added anything to what had been said, so giving extra stress to it with its own paragraph and the ellipsis seemed a mistake.


September: again a couple of minor nit-picks, but two or three larger issues.

In 1904 CE people first heard the quartz radio. -- I'd have put a comma after 1904, especially as you have one after 5000 BCE.

In 5000 BCE, there in the mountain Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. -- I'd have comma'd after mountain, but not after hand

Those wouldn't have affected my marking, as I can see they're optional commas, but

to his assistant, “But our -- would have resulted in a lower mark. Either full stop after assistant, or a lower case "b" for "but".

The real problem I had, though, is that the final para didn't make sense to me and had nothing to do with the rest of it. We've no idea who this Grathyx is or what he's doing there -- clearly listening, but why? I also didn't understand what he said -- it sounded very good, but in terms of actual meaning it left me behind. To me, you needed to integrate this guy with the Abraham story better, or at least make it clear what was going on. And again, to me it wasn't enough of a story as a whole, with a beginning, middle and end.

In addition, I couldn't actually see where the alternative history was, save perhaps in the use of the radio before its original invention, but that didn't change history, just gave an apparent explanation for the angel of the lord stopping him, which to me isn't the same thing. For me, you would have needed to show something different arising from true history, and something that has consequences, dire or otherwise.

Hope some of that helps.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I didn't get the sex toy element - I do now it's pointed out - but was uncomfortable at some of the imagery without knowing why. If I had, as with TJ, it would have been a rule out for me. Not that I have a problem with sex toys but the depersonification and objectivation of a woman wouldn't sit well with me.

 

[I_Voyager]

Thank ye very much for the criticism, and for removing the October story. Yeah, I didn't check the thread 'til just now .

I'll just add a little clarification for the choices I made throughout the story. These aren't the grammatical errors of course, which I'm glad to have pointed out. I was once told I write conversationally. I think this impacts my grammatical instinct.

My first story is certainly meant to be creepy. The hypothalamus is the center of the brain largely responsible for pleasure and sexuality. I attempted to say that this was a genetic redux of "human", to have all but its sexual ability removed. Since he thinks of her as an entertainment unit and a sex toy, he thinks of her as an it. I'm definitely aiming for creepy/immoral as society and technology always toes the line on such things. Can creepy ever really be moral? I'm not sure if she's sentient in the same way we are but only having a sexual process certainly underlines her 'herness'. So her eyes would be widely tense in constant need or desire, her only neurological constant.

It certainly has no meaningful conflict or beginning, middle, end progression. The character walks in, makes his pick and purchases. But my creative drive seems to revolve around tools and tool use. I feel that characters/people and plots/circumstances derive from tools, technologies and systems and can only be explored correctly of the technological/scientific context is correct. So, for me, 'change' must mean changing things from their current state into new states by using technology and creativity. I allowed for a society to exist which can freely change the human genome and I applied that creative ability against the social drive to buy and sell desires, the black-market nature of man.

As for the other story, I did end up having to make sacrifices to conform to the word limit. What I would have liked to do following "5000 BCE" was mirror the first sentence with something like "in 5000 BCE, man first heard the negative hertz frequency" or some such thing.

Original quartz radios vibrate at a certain positive frequency and we tap into the frequency of the quartz electronically to decode a radio signal into a sound. My thought was, what if the vibrating frequency of the quartz was a negative digit instead of a positive digit? What would that do to the technology?

Probably nothing, but in this instance I allowed for a radio transmission without the limitation of distance. Perhaps then some alien scientist may focus in on our planet and send/recieve signals from our quartz. But primitive man hearing those voices in the quartz might instead fathom that they've heard the impossible voice of god. Indeed it didn't establish an alternate history, but I interpreted it still as an alternate history. Our history as we know it (like the emergance of Abrahamic faiths) stems now from the interfierance of alien technology and words instead of otherwise.

I hoped the name "Grathyx" sounded alien enough that he would be thought of as an alien. I hoped that by having him speaking to a research assistant, I made him out to be a scientist. Since scientists and research assistants didn't exist in 5000 BCE, I hope it'd be enough to say "aliens".

This one is a stand alone story, although I'd like to have had Grathyx's influence be noticably more. But the alien hears the beginning of a murder on some primitive distant world, tries to stop it verbally, but loses his signal without knowing if he saved the child or not.

 

[I_Voyager]

I didn't get the sex toy element - I do now it's pointed out - but was uncomfortable at some of the imagery without knowing why. If I had, as with TJ, it would have been a rule out for me. Not that I have a problem with sex toys but the depersonification and objectivation of a woman wouldn't sit well with me.

I can see how it wouldn't be obvious at first. I did less so try to objectify women, as to write about someone who was. Though there's no reason why this culture wouldn't do the same thing with the male body! Nor any reason why a man would only buy the female varient of the sex toy (or even such a toy designed with 'human' in mind). That part of the story was less the focus of my creative effort than the idea of a genetically modified human with only a sexual process being purchased as a sex toy in a way which wasn't entirely moral or positive.
And thank you for the grammatical critique from earlier!

 

[Remedy]

I am not so great on reviewing the grammatical side I,V, but what springs and TJ have said on that is so valuable. Having put a piece up for review last week, I realised how many errors are possible to make (and be spotted ) - this will greatly alter some people's enjoyment of your story. So polish and tweak then leave it alone for a bit and return with fresh eyes, you may find one or two more errors.

As to content - I was left a little lost and confused on the first read through of both, which can be good if people re-read and then it clicks - but if it doesn't, your work could be dismissed. It can look like you were trying to be too clever, having said that, in my blissful ignorance, I enjoyed the read.

As to the subject matter on the first, I was surprised that it would turn people off to it. You displayed a character who objectified women, I don't think that should reflect poorly on you, the writer. The fact that your writing produced a strong reaction in the reader should be seen as a positive, your writing stirred emotions and encouraged a reaction. I like that.

Good luck with the 300, I look forward to your entry

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Off The New Assembly Line (August, Change, Social Sci-Fi)
I took one look at the entertainment unit and decided.

“$689.” he said,

“No problem. What a world we live in.” I marveled.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she”?

I smiled at it. Its tan-gold skin quivered; it moaned and reached out to me.

Its golden eyes glistened, widely tense, and caught the electro-carbon walls glow. I salivated for it: a lonely hypothalamus, a genuine need, warm flesh and a functional torso.

[FONT=&quot]And those beckoning arms…[/FONT]

I don't share the automatic aversion to the subject matter, but the switch between "she" and "it" for the same thing puts me off. The punctuation and dialogue tags have already been covered, so I'll just add my agreement there -- the nit-picky things become even more important when there are only 75 words. Every single word is a huge part of the story, in this, and when there are 42+ stories and only one vote, the tiniest thing becomes an elimination factor.

I have to say that I didn't (as you agree) see a story in this one, but just a snippet of someone's day, to no great consequence.

The Negative Hertz Bridge (September, Listening, Alternate History)

In 1904 CE people first heard the quartz radio. In 5000 BCE, there in the mountain Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

His Lord spoke through the quartz: “Lay not thine hand upon the lad!”

Grathyx lost his signal. “Negative hertz bridges the divide of our space,” he lamented to his assistant, “But our words hardly bridge the barrier of their ignorance.”

This one confused me. I think, given your explanation, you would have been better off to lose the first sentence and have more room left to explain the "negative hertz" concept better. Starting off with 1904, first quartz radio, then going on to say someone heard it in 5000 BCE, it wasn't clear what you meant. I was able to see that someone was using the radio to be the voice of God to Abraham, but it was confusing.

I see that it came in at 69 words, which left you some room even without losing the first sentence -- I'm undoubtedly prejudiced, but I believe in milking everything out of that word count that you possibly can, and leaving words on the table is a mistake. (Some people do fine with it.) I have entered every 75-word Challenge since the beginning, and I have never used less than 75 words (nor more, thank goodness). One must be very, very careful with that, count three times forward and backward, by hand, and check with a moderator before posting if you have any questionable hyphenated constructions, but I like to get the most bang for my buck. (I did shake in my shoes for your first story's word count, until it appeared that those two hypnenated things would be allowed to stay.) If the lack of a vote comes down to something confusing in your story, and you had more words that you could have used, that's just frustrating. Of course, it's still possible to be confusing in 75 words (ask anyone about some of mine), but at least you've got it all out there.

I do think both of yours are intriguing ideas, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with in the future!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I should have been clearer - if the matter seemed to have a purpose or moral, I wouldn't have minded. But because I couldn't divine a wider story I found it objectifying. IVoyager's explanation helps with my understanding, I think a sense of the wider - um, applications? - would have helped.

 

[chrispenycate]

Well, I was turned off by the confusion between quartz oscillators, cut to specific fixed frequencies, and crystal radios, where the crystal (not quartz, galina, lead sulphide) is a rectifier (or 'detector) for a wide range of frequencies, tuning being done with a inductor/capacitor network.

Mind you, I don't really expect that too many people would pick up on this .

And, while I'm not averse to time inversion, with a sine wave would the result be negative Herz? And any audio signal can be reduced to a sequence of sine waves by Fourrier analysis.

So not only is Isaac stretched out with his cat's whisker stuck into lead ore, the external voice comes out backwards, and even if the aliens have learnt to speak aramaic from an English radio broadcast, I don't expect them to be speaking it inverted.

Um, don't worry about me, nobody listens when I start speaking tech.

 

[I_Voyager]

I don't share the automatic aversion to the subject matter, but the switch between "she" and "it" for the same thing puts me off. The punctuation and dialogue tags have already been covered, so I'll just add my agreement there -- the nit-picky things become even more important when there are only 75 words. Every single word is a huge part of the story, in this, and when there are 42+ stories and only one vote, the tiniest thing becomes an elimination factor.

I see that it came in at 69 words, which left you some room even without losing the first sentence -- I'm undoubtedly prejudiced, but I believe in milking everything out of that word count that you possibly can, and leaving words on the table is a mistake.

I think then a major consensus is to be a lot more focused on the grammar, understandably. I am quite thankful for those criticisms, and a few of them hit me with a "Wow, I can't believe I did that..."

As for the word limit I believe I'm being a little cautious. Just because my first story came so close to toeing the line I decided with my second story (and this current one) to cut it off with a few words to spare. I may try to take a risk next time

I should have been clearer - if the matter seemed to have a purpose or moral, I wouldn't have minded. But because I couldn't divine a wider story I found it objectifying. IVoyager's explanation helps with my understanding, I think a sense of the wider - um, applications? - would have helped.

Well, I was turned off by the confusion between quartz oscillators, cut to specific fixed frequencies, and crystal radios, where the crystal (not quartz, galina, lead sulphide) is a rectifier (or 'detector) for a wide range of frequencies, tuning being done with a inductor/capacitor network.


Um, don't worry about me, nobody listens when I start speaking tech.

Actually, that was quite wonderful! My knowledge is jack-of-all-tradesy, and I tend to focus on philosophy and the broader statements of science rather than the gritty details, much to my detriment! Lately I've been utterly focused on genetics, neuroscience, quantum teleportation, 3D printers and political philosophy. But I haven't had a good shot at incorporating those themes into a 75 word story

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Okay, this little one got me loads of shortlists and lots of mentions but that didn't translate to votes. As I quite like the idea (and think it was ambitious in 75 words) I might expand it at some stage. So, what worked, and what was it just didn't give it that little edge of being special enough?

Cheers
Jo

THE TIME-TRAVEL CONUNDRUM


"Mum," Aisling said. "Santa can't fly around the world like that. He's not real."

I froze. She'd lost so much childhood: days out ruined by tantrums; no sleepovers; everything run to Aidan's locked-in, autistic needs that the doctors said couldn't bring joy.

"Of course Santa can," I say.

"Prove it."

Aidan hands me paper and mutters, "Quantum maths."

I smile. "Aidan's done the maths. He's never wrong."

Her eyes light up, faith restored.

 

[alchemist]

It was my second favourite. I went "awww" and thought it one of your best. Probably the only thing which counted against it was the lack of Sci-fi. TBH, I had some small thing against all of my shortlist and it was almost a toss-up.