Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

[Arkose]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Thank you for your advice. I figured grammar might have been my pitfall. I am working hard to improve my grammar, so hopefully next month's will be better.

Parson: I'll work harder on making things clearer. The "hero" was a dog, named spot, while the ogre was his owner.

 

[digs]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

I have to admit, TDZ, that the last line did confuse me a little. I wasn't really sure what was going on there, and I think the tone jarred a little with what we'd heard from the anonymous judges before (earlier they seem very grave, but the end has almost a childish excitement). But the rest of the story was really striking, and played out well. It was clear to me that he wasn't returning to his own childhood but playing the role of his own victims (that's an excellent concept by the way).

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

TDZ, I didn't understand the last line at all. Now it makes sense.

Arkose, I did catch on to yours at the last line. Until that point I thought it was fantasy, but by the end it was clear to me that it was simply a dog's view of his owner throwing a stick.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Yeah, my second tester said that the last line didn't make sense (even when explained) in context of the first line where they told him that the victim was very important to the timeline. We must correct the timeline, then we're going back to do it again and again, does not make sense. I was thinking of it as feeding him a line to make him want to do it, to go back into the important life that was cut short, but it's really hard to convey all of that in 75 words. Hence the "challenge".

 

[Brev]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

My alternate ending would be, "Let's get him again, to replace his next victim!"

Would that have made it make more sense to anyone?

Thoughts?

I liked your entry, but agree with TE and digs, the last line confused me slightly, I was unsure whose voice it was. The alternative would have been clearer.

 

[Brev]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

So, I have a similar request to TDZ.
I fear that my entry may have fallen too far along the show-tell scale and may require some explanation in order to be comprehensible.
But before I reveal what I intended, I'd like to know what you took from the story? Did it leave you confused? Did you get who was being punished and what said persons crime was?






Romans 12:19


As my consciousness faded, taking with it the choked cries of my family, and the bleep of failed machines, She came to me.
Enveloping me.
Leading me onward.
Whispering.
Sobbing, into my mind.


“I was the second, but will be the last. Flesh of my flesh, I come to bear witness, as He decreed.”
“For all my children.”
“To endure the pain of your coming, and the bitter anguish of your loss.”

 

[The Judge]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Arkose -- I also understood from the last line it was a dog with a stick. I share the others' concerns about the punctuation etc. A fun idea, but it needed a little more polish, I think.


TDZ -- I understood that he was being returned as a child to be abducted and killed by his older self (while knowing of his later self and therefore knowing what was to happen). I also understood from the last line that the "they" were about to do it again to him, though the revised version makes it a good bit clearer, certainly -- but for my taste, in both versions the exclamation mark is utterly out of place, as it signifies a kind of glee or excitement at the prospect which is abhorrent.

I don't know that I actively understood "they" were lying to him in the first line, so it might well seem a little confusing -- though as a lawyer I'm unsettled because that lie vitiates his consent, so the signing of the form then becomes irrelevant. I also didn't make the connection that the original victims were safe, as he was taking their places, though if I'd thought about it properly I should have done.

Overall, I was unhappy at a slightly sadistic feel to the piece -- which isn't only due to that exclamation mark. I understand it is the killer in a child's body, but nonetheless a child is still tortured and killed, and again and again. If you do expand it into a longer story -- and I think you could make a very powerful piece from it -- I'd like you to bring in a question mark over the ethics of doing it. After all, if "they" can manipulate time to introduce a child who was not there originally, and can prevent the real victims being killed and therefore change their history, why not simply stop the murders to prevent the killer becoming more depraved? (I'm not suggesting you could have got all that in 75 words, though!!)

And despite my caveats, another clever story, well handled. Well done.


Brev -- I have to confess yours is one of the stories I didn't understand at all. I didn't look up the title at the time, but even having done so now, it doesn't help me. I loved the feel of the first paragraphs, and on my first read through I was mentally preparing to add you to a prospective shortlist, then the dialogue floored me completely. I can't even work out how many speakers there are, let alone who they are and what they are talking about. Sorry.

 

[alchemist]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

I agree with everybody!

The above-mentioned changes to Arkose's story would have taken it from a mention to a shortlist for me.

TDZ - excellent idea and execution, until the last line, which still confuses me. As TJ said, the tone of the last line doesn't quite fit with Justice, in its strictest sense. There's too much glee in it. Still, an idea worth expanding.

Brev - I'm just lost.

 

[Brev]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Brev -- I have to confess yours is one of the stories I didn't understand at all. I didn't look up the title at the time, but even having done so now, it doesn't help me. I loved the feel of the first paragraphs, and on my first read through I was mentally preparing to add you to a prospective shortlist, then the dialogue floored me completely. I can't even work out how many speakers there are, let alone who they are and what they are talking about. Sorry.

I did wonder if the arrangement of the speech had caused confusion, and in hindsight I would re-arrange it slightly, but there is only one speaker.

She came to me.
Enveloping me.
Leading me onward.
Whispering.
Sobbing, into my mind.

With regard to the title, the idea was two-fold. One to point you toward the 'biblical' theme, and to show who was dealing out the punishment. “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

And no need to appologise, I'm a big boy.

Brev - I'm just lost.

And the fault is mine for being overly cryptic.

 

[alchemist]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

And the fault is mine for being overly cryptic.

Such is the nature of the challenge. It's hard to get complex ideas across in such a short space, and I've had to bin some of my best stories because of it.

 

[GreenKidx]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Hey Brev-

Like most everyone else, I was lost on the first 20 or so read throughs. But I believe the understanding finally came. I (eventually) understood the dying person to be all human sons and daughters of Adam and Eve and the one punished, the "she" to be Eve.

Was I even close?

*When I say sons and daughters I mean descendants.

 

[The Judge]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Ah. Definitely, if it's only one speaker, you need to put all her dialogue into one set of speech marks, unless interrupting it with something (ie action or a dialogue tag) -- splitting it as you did indicates at least two speakers. To my mind, it doesn't help by having the dialogue separated from the foregoing bit in the hospital, since the separation also indicates a change, when in fact it's a continuation.

I did click it was Biblical, the language use was enough for that, but the "I was second" suggested Eve to me, (as I see it does to GreenKidx) but the bearing witness made me think John the Baptist -- and why either of them should be leading the dying person onward, and to where, was a mystery (particularly when there was loss involved).

 

[Ursa major]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

By the way, Brev, if you really want the spoken paragraphs to remain separate, all you need to do is remove two characters, changing

“I was the second, but will be the last. Flesh of my flesh, I come to bear witness, as He decreed.”

“For all my children.”

“To endure the pain of your coming, and the bitter anguish of your loss.”

to

“I was the second, but will be the last. Flesh of my flesh, I come to bear witness, as He decreed.

“For all my children.

“To endure the pain of your coming, and the bitter anguish of your loss.”

 

[Brev]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Thanks for all your comments.
I wrote the speech that way, because in my mind it is spoken slowly, separately, sobbed by a anguished mind, as the dying man's soul is being led away, but I take your point that it only caused confusion.
I need to remember that the reader cannot see into my mind, and a good job too...

The person being punished was indeed Eve, the idea was that her punishment should be eternal. Original Sin was a 'biggy' and a couple of painful births not enough to appease a vengeful God. So 'He decreed' that she would also have to witness the death of every one of her descendants, till the end of time, hence her being the second and the last.

So, yes GreenKidx, you were there, which i'll take as a positive.

 

[mosaix]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Brev, you could always try running your stories past a friend or relative prior to posting. There's a danger that the author understands exactly what the 75 words is conveying but few others do.

 

[The Judge]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Good advice, mosaix. I always get the other half to read mine -- he never understands them on first read through, but at least then I have a chance of seeing where the confusion lies and how I can make things clearer eg this month by specifically using the terms "witch-finder" and putting Hopkins' name in the body of the story and not just in the title.

 

[Mouse]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Arkose, it was this line which confused me: "The ogre threw the staff and spot bit the ogre."

I stopped reading to puzzle over what 'spot bit' might mean. Until I read on and realised it was a name.

TDZ- I really liked yours and was understanding it... until that last line.

Brev - like others here have also said, I'm afraid I didn't get what was going on at all.

I have no improvements to offer to anybody. Sorry.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

I eventually understood that it was Eve who was being punished, Brev. She was the second and the fact that she had to endure the pain of all the childbirths tipped me off -- but not until you asked the question!

But there was something so plaintive in the words of the story, that even though (or perhaps because) I didn't understand it, I liked it enough to come close to voting for it.

And TDZ, I have to concur with TJ when she said:

Overall, I was unhappy at a slightly sadistic feel to the piece ... I understand it is the killer in a child's body, but nonetheless a child is still tortured and killed, and again and again.

My reservations about the story are partly because I know that most such people have already been "punished" in advance. That is, while most children who have been molested and abused don't grow up to be molesters and abusers, most of the monsters who do these things were abused as children. To think of one of them reliving the kind of horror that had made him a monster in the first place was troubling to me.

 

[Parson]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Brev,

I read the Biblical context, should have known it by heart. But never once did I catch on that it was Eve that you were talking about. Rousting about in this forum has convinced me that I am quite dense.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST

Rousting about in this forum has convinced me that I am quite dense.

I'm not sure if this is entirely appropriate from another man, but.....




SLAP!!!!!



Yes, I just struck a man of the cloth. But he downgraded himself.



Then again, I really wouldn't want to be hit by Kirby.....