Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

[Phyrebrat]

I agree it's a fine line to ding that balance between oomph and gimmick and resolution.

I think of it as an unfinished scale. Imagine starting on C, going through all the c-Major notes, but missing the top C. It would hang.

Now, I think sometimes we want that open-end in a story but it's hard to justify an open-end in 75 words.

I like to aim for ambiguity in my 300 words, but not my 75.

pH

Ps. Thanks for the replies Joshua & TJ. I don't want to come across as precious or unable to take a joke.

 

[Luiglin]

Agree with @The Judge, with only 75 words you have to hit the ground running at full pelt with the opening line and then break the sound barrier with the last line.

Having never one or got anywhere near winning one I may not be the most ideal candidate to take note of though.

@Phyrebrat my recent mention of a certain feline under the seat was meant to be a p!$$ take of myself rather than any further attempt continue the discussion. If you took it otherwise then I apologise. Again it was all intended for genial pub banter

 

[Dan Jones]

Imagine starting on C, going through all the c-Major notes, but missing the top C

Depends if the underlying chord is a Cmaj7 or not.

*Runs away*

 

[Phyrebrat]

Punch for Dan? Who ordered the punch for Dan?

pH

 

[Joshua Jones]

I agree it's a fine line to ding that balance between oomph and gimmick and resolution.

I think of it as an unfinished scale. Imagine starting on C, going through all the c-Major notes, but missing the top C. It would hang.

Now, I think sometimes we want that open-end in a story but it's hard to justify an open-end in 75 words.

I like to aim for ambiguity in my 300 words, but not my 75.

pH

Ps. Thanks for the replies Joshua & TJ. I don't want to come across as precious or unable to take a joke.

No worries; I didn't believe you to be either. A look at my vote totals will reveal I often fail to communicate my intentions, so I assumed that I took the joke too far and responded accordingly.

For the record, I have not, nor anticipate ever, being irked, much less offended, by the voting preferences of another. This forum is not some form of depraved reality show where there are financial or mortal consequences to not getting votes. As such, I see getting votes and mentions as an affirmation of the quality of the story, and a lack of votes as an invitation to improve. I would much rather bomb here, where there are no consequences, than to an agent, or worse, on a published work.

So, yeah, no worries. I have a weird sense of humor and it often falls flat.

 

[Stable]

I get in relation to some of my 75 worders...

Chocolate icecream?

 

[Parson]

@TheDustyZebra and @The Judge ..... I now see exactly what you are talking about and agree whole heartedly. I needed to have the entire story set in the story and not starting from our time and working toward then. (Not that, that was something I was working toward.) I just didn't see clearly that was what I had done. I really like the suggestion about telling the story from someone who was in the Church of Murphy's point of view. It would have made the story so much better. Thanks everyone for all your feedback. It was hugely appreciated!!

 

[Stable]

I'd love some feedback on last month's 75er.

Unrequited ​

I love you, I said. Let me stay and play with you until your joints grow stiff and your hair falls out. But he couldn’t hear.

I don’t know why I felt such affection, more than I felt for other toys. He couldn’t talk or walk, or anything really, but he was mine.

One day he walked. Soon after he talked. He grew, while my hair fell out and joints became stiff.

Then, he left.​

​

To me this was a toy talking about a baby. I don't know how well that came across as I remember Parson's review seeing a different story.

Cheers Chronners!

 

[Parson]

You are right. I did not understand that this was a toy talking about a baby. I understood it as a fantasy where a human (child?) give his/her own life to a toy. For all of that I felt it was an effective story it just lacked some of the "pop" of those that I liked best. So for me it was a matter of taste, not one of poor execution or anything like that. I think I needed a name or some identifier to help me relate to the main character. Which would have also helped a great deal with my lack of understanding the story.

 

[Hugh]

I liked your story and did "get it" (not something that I can say is the case with every story in some months). It's just that the other entries were unusually strong.

 

[Cathbad]

My interpretation was a doll, going through time with its owner.

That said, however, I didn't think the story did well expressing that. It seemed rushed - but probably because of the epic purpose I gave to the story (and the fact we only have 75 words).

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I understood the intent, although I think "he couldn't hear" may have misled people who didn't. I had to figure that bit out.

Perhaps a third-person telling using the child's name would have satisfied some of the above concerns?

 

[The Judge]

I'm afraid I didn't understand it at all.

As Parson did, I thought it was being related by a human about a toy. It wasn't so much the "couldn't hear" (since I figured a toy wouldn't hear), as the "more than I felt for other toys" which I interpreted as any lawyer would, namely that the "other" means "of the same kind" as the stated object ie in the same way if I said "I like her more than other cats" you'd know the "her" was also a cat, not a dog, here the object of his affection was also a toy. Now knowing you mean the narrator to be a toy, that line really doesn't make a great deal of sense of me -- unless you were deliberately being ambiguous I think you'd have been better off with something like "more than I felt for my fellow toys" making the narrator's own toyishness clear.

Because I though the narrator was human, the whole second half of the piece rather lost me. I thought the toy might be vampirically taking the narrator's life, but it didn't really seem to fit, so after a third read I rather gave up on trying to understand it. Sorry.

 

[Ihe]

I also didn't understand it that way, and only had a wrong general notion of what the story was about. The bit that says "but he couldn't hear" is probably the main culprit, as one assumes you're then referring to an inanimate object. If you'd said "he couldn't understand", then maybe it wouldn't have been as confusing.

Other than that, I'd say that having filter words like "know" and "felt" usually dilute the power of a line, and if we're talking about a measly 75 words, the whole story weakens as a result. "I don't know why I loved him" or some other strong verbs might've given a little more weight to the feelings involved. But overall, knowing now what it was really about, it wasn't a bad story.

 

[Danny McG]

TBH there's a lot of the stories I don't 'get' the deep meaning or intent of.
I don't mind at all if I fail to grasp some underlying truism;
I'm a reader - entertain me!

 

[Joshua Jones]

@Stable, I had you as one of my finalists, but I actually interpreted your story differently than those above. I thought the narrator was the parent of the child, who grew from a dependent, toylike state to independence, and the parent, who is now aging, reflecting on his/her isolation from the adult child. I remember considering your intended meaning, but I rejected be because of the point @The Judge brought up about "other toys". I at first thought it may be something Pinocchio-eske, then maybe what you suggested, but eventually settled on "toy" being something allegorical related to infancy, and the rest fit together.

So, I would agree that a clearer identification of the narrator would be helpful. The only other thing I would add is that the ending seemed a bit abrupt to me. I recognize that this can be effective in some settings, but with the lead up from the preceding paragraph, it left me expecting something more to be said. That could just be me, though, so take this comment with a moderately sized shaker of salt.

That being said, competition was fierce last month, so I am not sure the changes would have altered the outcome much. As soon as I read The Judge's story, I knew I was going to vote for her unless someone really surprised me (which @Teresa Edgerton came REALLY close to pulling off). I believe this story likely just fell victim to the month more than anything else.

 

[Stable]

Thanks all. I generally believe that the reader's interpretation is the "correct" one as the author can have too much going on outside the story - and that doesn't count. So in this one it seems I was far too ambiguous. It could probably have been fixed/improved by naming the child and/or toy like @Parson and @TheDustyZebra suggest, but maybe I was just trying to be too clever for my own good.

@Joshua Jones That was actually the spark of the story for me - watching my own sproglet rapidly developing from a wailing bundle into a tear around tyke. It's a little sad, as much as I'm looking forward to the walking, talking and etc.

 

[Joshua Jones]

Thanks all. I generally believe that the reader's interpretation is the "correct" one as the author can have too much going on outside the story - and that doesn't count. So in this one it seems I was far too ambiguous. It could probably have been fixed/improved by naming the child and/or toy like @Parson and @TheDustyZebra suggest, but maybe I was just trying to be too clever for my own good.

@Joshua Jones That was actually the spark of the story for me - watching my own sproglet rapidly developing from a wailing bundle into a tear around tyke. It's a little sad, as much as I'm looking forward to the walking, talking and etc.

I understand that one. My girls are 4 and 2. Everyone says it, but they really do grow up way too fast.

 

[Joshua Jones]

I came into this challenge (and, indeed, chose the topic) fully expecting not to win. I have never written in either available genre, and I had no initial ideas about where to go with the theme. Hence, one of the key reasons I selected these was to stretch myself, and I certainly did here.

I have a couple ideas of where I went wrong on this one, but I would love to have some feedback on how I could have improved this story, or if I should have scrapped it and gone a different direction.

Let the brutalizing of my story commence!

The Sacrifice

Cough, cough.

Exhausted, Emma dropped her hammer.

Cough, cough, gasp.

The machine’s engine began chugging. Sweat ran down her face; her body shook.

Gasp, cough.

Gently retrieving her child, Emma placed her in the machine and drew the knife. Her hand waivered for a moment.

Cough.

The child’s life pooled with Emma’s tears. The ritual was complete. “Mommy, I’m cold,” the mechanical lips said.

“I know,” Emma replied, “but, the fever can’t take you now.”

 

[Luiglin]

I came into this challenge (and, indeed, chose the topic) fully expecting not to win. I have never written in either available genre, and I had no initial ideas about where to go with the theme. Hence, one of the key reasons I selected these was to stretch myself, and I certainly did here.

I have a couple ideas of where I went wrong on this one, but I would love to have some feedback on how I could have improved this story, or if I should have scrapped it and gone a different direction.

Let the brutalizing of my story commence!

The Sacrifice

Cough, cough.

Exhausted, Emma dropped her hammer.

Cough, cough, gasp.

The machine’s engine began chugging. Sweat ran down her face; her body shook.

Gasp, cough.

Gently retrieving her child, Emma placed her in the machine and drew the knife. Her hand waivered for a moment.

Cough.

The child’s life pooled with Emma’s tears. The ritual was complete. “Mommy, I’m cold,” the mechanical lips said.

“I know,” Emma replied, “but, the fever can’t take you now.”

I liked the core idea but it was the italicised coughing lines that caught me on this one. I can understand why you used them but they seemed to jerk me away from the tale rather than keep me on track.