Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

[Joshua Jones]

The Aliens .... Clever concept and one that's been dealt with before in S.F. (seems like most everything has). But like the Judge I was nonplussed by there only being "two." Now I suppose they are symbolic of the hundreds of people on the generation ship, but still two most easily reads as two. Also I found that I couldn't quite believe that everyone would feel that their trip had been in vain. There's a new world down there. It is filled with unbelievable technology, and it's populated by humans. They aren't aliens. They will be able to communicate. They will be able to share feelings. At best those feelings would be feelings of being cheated of creating a new thing, but upon reflection they would have to see that they were still going to live a new thing, maybe even a better thing.

The Gods were Angry .... I didn't see this one as a story at all. It definitely fit the idea of dry and S.F. or Fantasy and it painted a picture of a horrible fate and a horrible dryness. But why? What had angered the Gods? Were they justified or were they capricious? And then we have no real ending at all. He's angry and he shakes his fist at God. Sorry, but this did not seem like a story to me. It's more like a scene setter.

Thanks for the honest critique. It sounds like you shared the opinions of The Judge, so I will reference you to the above. Short version is I agree with your critique, and the original version dealt with most of these issues, but I think I made the rookie mistake of cutting out the wrong things.

Thanks again for reading and your critique! I hope what I posted in the challenge this month is a bit better than these.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I think I made the rookie mistake of cutting out the wrong things.

Oh, we all do that! I can't even count the times I thought I had written something crystal clear and it turned out that most of it was still in my head. The cutting room floor is quite cluttered around here.

 

[The Judge]

Yep, as TDZ has said, when we read our own 75 worders we know all the back-story, so it's clear in our heads what we mean. Until we can sort out the blasted telepathy thing, though, our heads is where all that lovely backstory stays unless we get it down in the piece itself! I always run my first draft past the Judicial Helpmeet, whose precise expression of dumbfoundedness at the end shows me just how incomprehensible the story is, at which point I have to make changes to get it to make sense. (Not always successfully, it has to be admitted!)

The 75 worders are unforgiving, and every word has to earn its place, but it gets slightly easier with practice -- and that knack of cutting a story in half while retaining the vital parts is invaluable when it comes to larger pieces, too. So it's a case of continual learning. You've started well, and I look forward to seeing more of your work.

 

[mosaix]

I think I made the rookie mistake of cutting out the wrong things.

A useful technique is to put the thing away in a drawer for a couple of days then take it out and read it almost as someone coming at it for the first time. It's amazing how the errors jump out at you.

When you read something that you've just written you're reading what you think you wrote not what you actually wrote. This is true of writing in general, not just in the challenges.

 

[Joshua Jones]

I was really amazed that I received as much positive feedback as I did in April's 75 worder. That said, my intent in entering these challenges is to improve as a writer, so I would like to solicit reviews and suggestions for improvement. Here is what I submitted:

Of Fun and Dwarves.
A pretty elf sat at the table. “Hi, I’m Enwen” she said warmly.
The dwarf snorted and glared. “Rigel”
“Ok, then…” she said. “Tell me about yourself.”
“Nutin to tell” he replied grumpily.
“Ok… do you have any hobbies?”
“Splittin’ skulls.”
“Oh…I see…”
“Time!” the moderator called. Enwen fled and was replaced with a dwarvish woman.
“Hi, I’m Arthira. What do you like to do?”
He laughed vigorously. “Scare speed dating elves!”

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

This is fine as a bit of very light comedy. I could suggest some changes in punctuation.

First of all, I would use the ellipsis very rarely. I see a lot of people do this quite a bit, and it tends to stand out. (I could say the same about semicolons.)

There is a standard way to use commas and periods in quoted dialogue. Here are some corrections. Compare to the originals.

"Hi, I'm Enwen," she said warmly.

"Rigel."

"Nutin to tell," he said grumpily.

(As a side issue, adverbs which tell how someone spoke, as shown above, should also be used very sparingly. In a short, comic piece like this it's not a big deal, but frequent use of them can be quite wearying.)

Verbs are always stronger. "The dwarf snorted and glared" is perfectly fine, for example, and stronger than "He laughed vigorously."

 

[Joshua Jones]

This is fine as a bit of very light comedy. I could suggest some changes in punctuation.

First of all, I would use the ellipsis very rarely. I see a lot of people do this quite a bit, and it tends to stand out. (I could say the same about semicolons.)

There is a standard way to use commas and periods in quoted dialogue. Here are some corrections. Compare to the originals.

"Hi, I'm Enwen," she said warmly.

"Rigel."

"Nutin to tell," he said grumpily.

(As a side issue, adverbs which tell how someone spoke, as shown above, should also be used very sparingly. In a short, comic piece like this it's not a big deal, but frequent use of them can be quite wearying.)

Verbs are always stronger. "The dwarf snorted and glared" is perfectly fine, for example, and stronger than "He laughed vigorously."

Thanks for the feedback. I was taught a different set of grammar rules for quotations, but I have confirmed that you are correct in modern usage. I also agree entirely with your assessment of the adverbs, and I plan to be more cautious in the future.

My use of the ellipsis presents a bit more of a challenge. It was intended to show that Enwen was trailing off uncomfortably in response to Rigel's comments, rather than, say, being offended or keeping a cool head. Do you have any suggestions on how to convey this apart from using the ellipsis or simply stating that she was uncomfortable?

 

[The Judge]

I'd certainly use ellipses for that kind of trailing off speech, but they're very obvious punctuation, so I think the problem here is simply their use four times in 75 words is too much, drawing too much attention to them -- punctuation should be mostly invisible, helping readers to read a piece without being so memorable, for whatever reason, that it takes away from the words and story.

I agree with Victoria's comments. The incorrect punctuation made me mark your story down (and I'd have put in a hyphen in "speed-dating" as it's become a modifier there, which didn't help), and the overuse of adverbs gave it rather a childish tone which can work in certain pieces but for me here clashed with the adult nature of speed dating.

There was also something about the way it's told which grated on me when I was reading through for voting, but I couldn't put my finger on it at the time. Re-reading it now, I think it might be the POV which feels a little awkward to me. I wonder if the story might have been more effective coming from Rigel's POV, rather than this somewhat distant omniscient? Also, it might have been better if instead of simply relying on "pretty elf" = non-aggressive/anti-skull-splitting you'd made her explicitly pacifist, or his skull-splitting was directed at elves specifically. In any event, to me you wasted a lot of words with fillers eg "OK then" which could have been better used to expand the story or deepen the comedy.

Overall, not a bad piece -- it was certainly a fun idea -- but the execution let it down for me.

 

[Joshua Jones]

I'd certainly use ellipses for that kind of trailing off speech, but they're very obvious punctuation, so I think the problem here is simply their use four times in 75 words is too much, drawing too much attention to them -- punctuation should be mostly invisible, helping readers to read a piece without being so memorable, for whatever reason, that it takes away from the words and story.

I agree with Victoria's comments. The incorrect punctuation made me mark your story down (and I'd have put in a hyphen in "speed-dating" as it's become a modifier there, which didn't help), and the overuse of adverbs gave it rather a childish tone which can work in certain pieces but for me here clashed with the adult nature of speed dating.

There was also something about the way it's told which grated on me when I was reading through for voting, but I couldn't put my finger on it at the time. Re-reading it now, I think it might be the POV which feels a little awkward to me. I wonder if the story might have been more effective coming from Rigel's POV, rather than this somewhat distant omniscient? Also, it might have been better if instead of simply relying on "pretty elf" = non-aggressive/anti-skull-splitting you'd made her explicitly pacifist, or his skull-splitting was directed at elves specifically. In any event, to me you wasted a lot of words with fillers eg "OK then" which could have been better used to expand the story or deepen the comedy.

Overall, not a bad piece -- it was certainly a fun idea -- but the execution let it down for me.

Thank you for your honest critique. The ellipses and filler words were somewhat deliberate to convey the awkwardness Enwen was feeling in that situation, but there seems to be better ways to communicate this to the reader. I didn't intend for her to be explicitly pacifistic, but more of an every-woman who is trying to meet people, assuming they will behave themselves in such settings. She wasn't expecting someone to be so blatantly coarse, deliberately making the conversation as uncomfortable as possible. So, I did intentionally include filler words and awkward pauses, because I was trying to depict someone who is trying to be pleasant and find a subject to talk about while the person opposite is making that as difficult as possible. But, again, there seems to be better ways of relating this to the reader.

Interesting idea with the POV. I may have to experiment with this in writing a revision of the story. It seems as though I could cut out Arthira entirely if I went with this approach, and leave the explanation of what Rigel is doing within his mind. Thank you for this suggestion, and again for your honest critique.

 

[Lumens]

I didn't intend for her to be explicitly pacifistic, but more of an every-woman who is trying to meet people, assuming they will behave themselves in such settings. She wasn't expecting someone to be so blatantly coarse, deliberately making the conversation as uncomfortable as possible.

That was quite clear to me. The setting made it clear I think. As long as you are playing with stereotypes that works fine, in my opinion.

 

[The Judge]

I didn't intend for her to be explicitly pacifistic, but more of an every-woman who is trying to meet people, assuming they will behave themselves in such settings. She wasn't expecting someone to be so blatantly coarse, deliberately making the conversation as uncomfortable as possible.

For me -- and clearly this is only my opinion and as you can see Lumens was happy -- the problem is that actually he's not at all coarse. He's uncommunicative and dour, but that's it, so to my mind her reaction is out of proportion to what he's actually saying. (If women never dated dour, uncommunicative men, the population would be halved! ) That for me is compounded by the fact his hobby is stated to be scaring elves (we'll perhaps ignore any hints of misogyny that it's only female elves he scares) not simply making them uncomfortable, but there's only the one line, and perhaps the glare, that's in any way scary, as opposed to boorish.

I was wondering how I'd write this -- not that the clever idea would have occurred to me! -- and I think I'd have made a lot more of him being apparently threatening eg with an opening like "Another victim approached. Rigel just loved pretty elves." and giving him a name like "Rigel ElfSlayer" to ram it home. I'd have ramped the tension up with seemingly menacing answers, with her fleeing even before the moderator calls time, and then deflated the whole thing with the revelation he's done it as an unpleasant joke. But then I do love surprise/twist endings, which I know aren't to everyone's taste.

In any event, don't worry too much. No story, no matter how well written, is going to please everyone, and you had a vote and mentions, so you're well ahead of the game!

 

[Luiglin]

I voted for the story as I enjoyed the whole premise. As with any story, either by established or new writers, when you get to fine editing you'll spot lots of errors or ways it could be less clunky.

If you enjoy writing them then stick with the off kilter ideas and refine from there.

As @The Judge points out you'll never please everyone (which I've found out) but if you're aiming at the comedy fantasy area you don't need to.

 

[Joshua Jones]

For me -- and clearly this is only my opinion and as you can see Lumens was happy -- the problem is that actually he's not at all coarse. He's uncommunicative and dour, but that's it, so to my mind her reaction is out of proportion to what he's actually saying. (If women never dated dour, uncommunicative men, the population would be halved! ) That for me is compounded by the fact his hobby is stated to be scaring elves (we'll perhaps ignore any hints of misogyny that it's only female elves he scares) not simply making them uncomfortable, but there's only the one line, and perhaps the glare, that's in any way scary, as opposed to boorish.

I was wondering how I'd write this -- not that the clever idea would have occurred to me! -- and I think I'd have made a lot more of him being apparently threatening eg with an opening like "Another victim approached. Rigel just loved pretty elves." and giving him a name like "Rigel ElfSlayer" to ram it home. I'd have ramped the tension up with seemingly menacing answers, with her fleeing even before the moderator calls time, and then deflated the whole thing with the revelation he's done it as an unpleasant joke. But then I do love surprise/twist endings, which I know aren't to everyone's taste.

In any event, don't worry too much. No story, no matter how well written, is going to please everyone, and you had a vote and mentions, so you're well ahead of the game!

Great ideas, thanks for the suggestions! I am also a fan of unexpected endings, and I definitely see how those suggestions would have improved the story substantially. As I said, my goal is to improve as a writer, and fantasy and humor are two weaknesses in my writing. So, again, thank you!

 

[Joshua Jones]

I voted for the story as I enjoyed the whole premise. As with any story, either by established or new writers, when you get to fine editing you'll spot lots of errors or ways it could be less clunky.

If you enjoy writing them then stick with the off kilter ideas and refine from there.

As @The Judge points out you'll never please everyone (which I've found out) but if you're aiming at the comedy fantasy area you don't need to.

Thanks again for the vote and the encouragement. This was actually my first attempt at a humorous story and perhaps third attempt at fantasy, so I anticipated, before posting, that I would have significant room for improvement. Typically, I write hard/semi-hard SF focusing on themes which are much more serious, so I wanted to stretch myself here.

In that light, do you have any suggestions for improvement for me? I love accolades as much as the next, but I am hoping to enter an international writing contest and publish some works in the next year or so, and I want to be at the top of my game.

Thanks again!

 

[Luiglin]

Improvements? Erm... I'll try but I'm learning as I go myself.

Unless you have the word space keep the humour simple and even if you do be careful.

Don't over egg the joke.

Remember, the majority of the time the humour is due to the fact that the characters are being serious. It's a like a traditional double act, they're your straight guy, what they do, say or situation they're in is the funny guy.

Look at everyday occurrences and twist them slightly.

Have a read of authors like Terry Pratchett and PG Wodehouse. The humour is often in the subtlety.

Don't be afraid of bad puns. While not everyone recognises a good joke, everyone recognises a bad one. That's why Xmas crackers are full of bad jokes.

 

[The Judge]

I voted for the story as I enjoyed the whole premise.

I think this point of Luiglin's is well worth emphasising. If the premise of a story greatly appeals to someone, he can usually forgive all kinds of problems such as dodgy punctuation or spelling mistakes -- I've voted for stories which weren't perfect in such matters since the story itself overrode my nit-picking objections.

Regarding humour, even when not talking about underwear, HareBrain's stories usually have a streak of humour running through them and he's a vote-grabber, so it's well worth going back into the early years of the Challenges, reading his entries and analysing them, as well as Luiglin's own Dark Lord pieces, of course.

Re fantasy, I actually don't think there's such a difference between that and SF, save there's no technical jargon in the former (though there's precious little of it in SF when I happen to write it!). One thing I do, though, is to try and ensure the fantasy is an integral part of the story, not simply an add-on. So, for instance, here with your speed-dating, to my mind the fantasy isn't wholly integrated -- you've used elves and dwarves, but really the story could have been humans without much difference eg a coarse man of one nationality who enjoys frightening prim women of another (though then both misogyny and racism would rear their ugly heads in a way avoided by using fantasy species). I try, not always successfully, to write something that only works in a fantasy scenario, eg magical happenings, clockwork flying machines, supernatural beings. I don't know if many others take that rather purist approach, though.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I am late to this discussion and wanted to agree with a lot of what has already been said, and expand on the ellipses thing.

It's important to distinguish technique from style or author voice. What I mean by that is it would be hard to argue that the use of many ellipses in a piece is an author's style - although I suppose it could - as opposed to weaker technique. It's a topic close to my heart as I have a tendency to hopelessly overuse semicolons, dashes over parentheses, and italics. This is getting better in my work, but was an easy habit to get into, and a difficult one to break.

The only one I argue over is my use of italics, which I would say could be put down to my own particular style as I like to use them when a character directly thinks an aside.

Also coming on to Luiglin's point about his reasons for voting for you, it's clear that votes can come from anywhere and for any reason. Or even be withheld for any reason (I won't vote for fan-fic challenge entries that rely on previous knowledge of a franchise or story to work, and rarely vote for comic stories). So it can be misleading to measure your writing skills against your vote tally.

However, the 75 worder is harder to come by votes as we are allocated 1 per challenge as opposed to the 3 for the 300 worder. In that regard you have done well with one vote.

pH

 

[Luiglin]

(I won't vote for fan-fic challenge entries that rely on previous knowledge of a franchise or story to work, and rarely vote for comic stories)

I was serious this month. Too subtle by the looks but at least serious

 

[TheDustyZebra]

So it can be misleading to measure your writing skills against your vote tally.

Could we possibly have that tattooed on your forehead?

 

[The Judge]

votes can come from anywhere and for any reason. Or even be withheld for any reason (I won't vote for fan-fic challenge entries that rely on previous knowledge of a franchise or story to work, and rarely vote for comic stories).

*Wobbly lower lip* But but but... You didn't vote for it, but you said you liked my Space Opera story where SF and period drama TV series were merged together and Rygel from FarScape had to play Downton's Dowager Countess. Was you fibbing to me?

So it can be misleading to measure your writing skills against your vote tally.

Remind me to quote this when I deliver next year's Challenge Statistics and a certain Special Someone complains his name doesn't appear.