Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

I really struggled this month with getting an idea to stick. I started out with Maurice asking the Beast to kidnap Belle (but I didn't want to get into a political debate there...), then one of the little pigs on trial for the murder and consumption of Mr. B. B. Wolfe (it has been done too many times before), then finally coming to my "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" idea. Right after I copied and pasted it into the box, I had an idea about the "Little Star" being the Cassini probe crashing into Saturn, smashing into a cloud house of a Saturnian, but I didn't have time to develop it.

So, all that to say, I was moderately happy with my story, but I felt like it was overdone. Lost in the edit was the mother vowing revenge on the Zell, which would give another spin on the title.

Either way, I would love everyone's feedback!

The Cost of Provocation

“Daddy, what’s that twinkling up there?”
“That’s a little star, dear, way above us.”
“It looks like a diamond in the sky!”
“You are my little star,” the mother said. She kissed her family, off to buy dinner.
“Twinkle, twinkle… Daddy, look at all the stars!”

The woman sat, tears streaming, in a meteor crater from the Zell counterattack. Her little star was gone. She rocked back and forth, mouthing, “Twinkle, twinkle… little star.”
 
I really liked the story and it made my initial list of fifteen or so.

In order to winnow the list further I'm afraid I then decided to look carefully at the theme

The Real Story Behind Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales

and my interpretation (rightly or wrongly) was that the story should not incorporate elements that are clearly set in the future. Looking at your story again, I may have been unfair in that judgement.

I did like the story and thought it was powerful.
 
I adopted much the same criterion, Hugh, though of course that made it hard for those who went for the SF part of the genre, unless they used time-travel or aliens interacting with humans in our past. So, although I appreciated your story, Joshua, it got marked down as not obviously being the story behind the rhyme.

Setting that aside, there were two other major elements that didn't work for me, though these may be more questions of your style, I think, rather than this particular story. The first is the distancing effect of using "the mother" and "The woman" -- automatically an unnamed character becomes an archetype, rather than a real suffering individual, which for me created less emotional impact notwithstanding the tears streaming and the rocking back and forth (which I thought was a very good touch). I don't want sentimentality in stories, but I do want something a bit less cold and generic. The second aspect is one I've noticed before in your work, in that to my mind you overload backstory, sometimes to the detriment of the real story. There's no reason for this to have been a "counterattack" as opposed to an initial attack, but by making it a retaliation -- and giving a title which can only relate to that -- you're then making us ask questions about who, what and why, none of which have any bearing on what should be the main issue, ie the loss of the child and the way the verse has arisen, which serves to distract us.

And in nit-picky mode, I have to say I wasn't taken with the mother "off to buy dinner" not simply because she's doing something so typically seen as woman's work -- it's SF, subvert those stereotypes!! -- but because any strike from aliens must surely have devastated an entire area, and if she's only gone out shopping for one meal, she's unlikely to have gone far, so how wasn't she killed, too?! The word "meteor" also seemed out of place if this was an alien attack, unless the aliens can create meteors, and again you're raising questions which remove us from the true point of the story.

Having said all that, I can well imagine I'm alone in these cavils. You received a vote and plenty of mentions, so you've every reason to be happy with the piece!
 
Hugh said:
I really liked the story and it made my initial list of fifteen or so.

In order to winnow the list further I'm afraid I then decided to look carefully at the theme

The Real Story Behind Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales

and my interpretation (rightly or wrongly) was that the story should not incorporate elements that are clearly set in the future. Looking at your story again, I may have been unfair in that judgement.

I did like the story and thought it was powerful.
Click to expand...
No, I think that is a fair interpretation of the theme. Thanks for the feedback, and I am glad you enjoyed the story, though it did not meet the theme particularly well.
 
The Judge said:
I adopted much the same criterion, Hugh, though of course that made it hard for those who went for the SF part of the genre, unless they used time-travel or aliens interacting with humans in our past. So, although I appreciated your story, Joshua, it got marked down as not obviously being the story behind the rhyme.

Setting that aside, there were two other major elements that didn't work for me, though these may be more questions of your style, I think, rather than this particular story. The first is the distancing effect of using "the mother" and "The woman" -- automatically an unnamed character becomes an archetype, rather than a real suffering individual, which for me created less emotional impact notwithstanding the tears streaming and the rocking back and forth (which I thought was a very good touch). I don't want sentimentality in stories, but I do want something a bit less cold and generic. The second aspect is one I've noticed before in your work, in that to my mind you overload backstory, sometimes to the detriment of the real story. There's no reason for this to have been a "counterattack" as opposed to an initial attack, but by making it a retaliation -- and giving a title which can only relate to that -- you're then making us ask questions about who, what and why, none of which have any bearing on what should be the main issue, ie the loss of the child and the way the verse has arisen, which serves to distract us.

And in nit-picky mode, I have to say I wasn't taken with the mother "off to buy dinner" not simply because she's doing something so typically seen as woman's work -- it's SF, subvert those stereotypes!! -- but because any strike from aliens must surely have devastated an entire area, and if she's only gone out shopping for one meal, she's unlikely to have gone far, so how wasn't she killed, too?! The word "meteor" also seemed out of place if this was an alien attack, unless the aliens can create meteors, and again you're raising questions which remove us from the true point of the story.

Having said all that, I can well imagine I'm alone in these cavils. You received a vote and plenty of mentions, so you've every reason to be happy with the piece!
Click to expand...
I always appreciate your extensive and thoughtful critiques. I know I have said this before, but such critiques are one of the key reasons I continue to post stories here. I want to improve as a writer, and such feedback is immeasurably helpful in my progress. So, again, thank you for being "nit-picky"!

I hadn't thought about the depersonalization of the mother in this story by not naming her, but I certainly see your point there. What I was hoping to accomplish was to show the perspective switch between the two scenes by changing the title of address from "mother", which is relational, to "woman", where she is a statistic. In retrospect, I think this would have been better accomplished (as you suggest) by naming her in the first scene.

But, this also relates to the real point I was trying to make with the story, which comes to your second point. I was hoping to provide a little social commentary on the current war of words crisscrossing the Pacific, in that war often bleeds over to the civilians, and such provocation will likely lead to similar tragedies. Hence, the title and the counterattack. However, I certainly see your point about such things leading to more questions and distracting from the actual story, though I am not sure what I could have realistically done to avoid that without cutting back from the intent (suggestions more than welcome!).

Also, the points in your third point were completely legitimate. I could have easily had her going to work without loosing much (except the tiny emotional appeal of leaving to do something as an expression of her care for them and loosing them while gone) while subverting the trope and gaining a word at the same time. I did subtly nod to the fact that it was a widespread attack ("a crater" rather than "the crater"), and saw her surviving by happenstance, but it would be more plausible if she was working at a reinforced structure (say, a hospital) when the attack came. Now, I am absolutely guilty of the extensive backstory on the "meteor" line. I visualized the Zell attack being a detonation of a large, low orbit asteroid, which rained down chunks (the stars) on the surface. I am not sure how I could have worked that detail into the story, but it really doesn't make much sense to speak of meteors without it. Then again, without it being something like that, it looses the randomness of the attack, as a Zell would have to intentionally target a random hill with two occupants which has no strategic value. Again, any ideas of how to include this would be extremely helpful, but it may simply be a casualty of the word limit.

Anyway, thanks again for the review!
 
Hugh said:
-and my interpretation (rightly or wrongly) was that the story should not incorporate elements that are clearly set in the future.
Click to expand...

The Judge said:
I adopted much the same criterion, Hugh, though of course that made it hard for those who went for the SF part of the genre, unless they used time-travel or aliens interacting with humans in our past. So, although I appreciated your story, Joshua, it got marked down as not obviously being the story behind the rhyme.
Click to expand...

I guess I fell afoul of that subtlety too. It's a fair interpretation of the theme, just not something I'd picked up on myself.

As far as your story goes, @Joshua Jones, I must admit that when I first read it it fell afoul of my 'dead child' filter - it's becoming something of a trope for me in these 75s - not really surprising given the need to create emotional impact in such a small space. I've been guilty of it myself in the past and it's something I now try to actively avoid.

That said, when I did give it more time, I enjoyed it more. It's impossible to deny that it has power, but I did find the impersonal way it was written (that TJ already acknowledged) a little off-putting. Also, the ending didn't quite have the punch I look for in a 75. "Her little star was gone." has much more power behind it than the line that comes after. If you'd re-ordered them or simply omitted the final line, I think it would work better.
 
Joshua Jones said:
But ... the real point I was trying to make with the story ... I was hoping to provide a little social commentary on the current war of words crisscrossing the Pacific, in that war often bleeds over to the civilians, and such provocation will likely lead to similar tragedies.
Click to expand...
Ah. I belong to the Sam Goldwyn school of writing in that respect -- "If you want to send a message, call Western Union". (Apologies to those who've heard me repeat that chestnut umpteen times before!) Social commentary might intrude into a story of mine -- after all, my beliefs and prejudices will always be on display -- but I never set out to make a point; I set out to write something that someone might enjoy reading. Personally, therefore, I would never have gone along the provocation/counterattack route, and I'd probably have had some random fiery fantasy-beasties dropping out of the sky to polish the child off.

The only way I can think to get your message into the story would be an intro something like "The escalating war of words criss-crossed the galaxy. Cuddling Stella, I tried not to think of it. "Mummy," she said, "what's that twinkling up there?" But that's a third of your word count gone! You can certainly make word count savings in the rest of the story -- as ever, to me you seem overly liberal with your words (how do you have so many spare!!) -- but it would mean cutting whole sentences to cover that.

I visualized the Zell attack being a detonation of a large, low orbit asteroid, which rained down chunks (the stars) on the surface. I am not sure how I could have worked that detail into the story, but it really doesn't make much sense to speak of meteors without it. Then again, without it being something like that, it looses the randomness of the attack, as a Zell would have to intentionally target a random hill with two occupants which has no strategic value. Again, any ideas of how to include this would be extremely helpful, but it may simply be a casualty of the word limit.
Click to expand...
Good lord, you make me feel lazy and lacking in inspiration! I'm pleased if I can think of a basic story and get that crammed into 75 words.

I can't think of anything that would really work for this, as my first idea -- something like "The Zell detonated an asteroid. The falling meteor stars fell randomly, killing millions. Including Stella." -- is too clinical and can only be written from knowledge received long after the attack, so loses the immediacy and pathos of your ending.

Oh... thinking aloud here... what if she realises the falling "stars" are the results of the Zell's attack on the asteroid? If she's part of the military and/or an astronomer and she's at work but on the videophone to the child who is at home, that explains how she survives, and you could have her screaming at the child to get into the bomb shelter, only it's too late, and the videophone goes dead, leaving her with only the screen-saver, which is a picture of real stars. (You'd have to establish that in the opening line, though when the call from the child comes through.)

Of course, it's very possible that if you'd tried to get in that extra detail you wouldn't have got the vote and shortlistings you did. Unless you (ie one, not you specifically) draft several versions of the same piece and put them up after the Challenge is over asking for votes on which is best, it's impossible to say whether any changes are potentially for the best!
 
Shyrka said:
I guess I fell afoul of that subtlety too. It's a fair interpretation of the theme, just not something I'd picked up on myself.

As far as your story goes, @Joshua Jones, I must admit that when I first read it it fell afoul of my 'dead child' filter - it's becoming something of a trope for me in these 75s - not really surprising given the need to create emotional impact in such a small space. I've been guilty of it myself in the past and it's something I now try to actively avoid.

That said, when I did give it more time, I enjoyed it more. It's impossible to deny that it has power, but I did find the impersonal way it was written (that TJ already acknowledged) a little off-putting. Also, the ending didn't quite have the punch I look for in a 75. "Her little star was gone." has much more power behind it than the line that comes after. If you'd re-ordered them or simply omitted the final line, I think it would work better.
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Fair points, and I am certainly guilty of contributing to the trope. I really did hope that I would come up with a happy or humorous story this month. Hopefully I will get there next month...

I must have tried 16 variations on the ending, because I was stuck between wanting to keep the description of her grief and that line you referenced, said description not making sense (at least in my mind) without the words she was saying, and not wanting to put the "little star" statements right next to each other. I agree with you on the problem, but do you think taking out the words she was saying out would make the description seem awkward?

Thanks again for your review!
 
The Judge said:
Ah. I belong to the Sam Goldwyn school of writing in that respect -- "If you want to send a message, call Western Union". (Apologies to those who've heard me repeat that chestnut umpteen times before!) Social commentary might intrude into a story of mine -- after all, my beliefs and prejudices will always be on display -- but I never set out to make a point; I set out to write something that someone might enjoy reading. Personally, therefore, I would never have gone along the provocation/counterattack route, and I'd probably have had some random fiery fantasy-beasties dropping out of the sky to polish the child off.

The only way I can think to get your message into the story would be an intro something like "The escalating war of words criss-crossed the galaxy. Cuddling Stella, I tried not to think of it. "Mummy," she said, "what's that twinkling up there?" But that's a third of your word count gone! You can certainly make word count savings in the rest of the story -- as ever, to me you seem overly liberal with your words (how do you have so many spare!!) -- but it would mean cutting whole sentences to cover that.

Good lord, you make me feel lazy and lacking in inspiration! I'm pleased if I can think of a basic story and get that crammed into 75 words.

I can't think of anything that would really work for this, as my first idea -- something like "The Zell detonated an asteroid. The falling meteor stars fell randomly, killing millions. Including Stella." -- is too clinical and can only be written from knowledge received long after the attack, so loses the immediacy and pathos of your ending.

Oh... thinking aloud here... what if she realises the falling "stars" are the results of the Zell's attack on the asteroid? If she's part of the military and/or an astronomer and she's at work but on the videophone to the child who is at home, that explains how she survives, and you could have her screaming at the child to get into the bomb shelter, only it's too late, and the videophone goes dead, leaving her with only the screen-saver, which is a picture of real stars. (You'd have to establish that in the opening line, though when the call from the child comes through.)

Of course, it's very possible that if you'd tried to get in that extra detail you wouldn't have got the vote and shortlistings you did. Unless you (ie one, not you specifically) draft several versions of the same piece and put them up after the Challenge is over asking for votes on which is best, it's impossible to say whether any changes are potentially for the best!
Click to expand...
The Judge said:
Ah. I belong to the Sam Goldwyn school of writing in that respect -- "If you want to send a message, call Western Union". (Apologies to those who've heard me repeat that chestnut umpteen times before!) Social commentary might intrude into a story of mine -- after all, my beliefs and prejudices will always be on display -- but I never set out to make a point; I set out to write something that someone might enjoy reading. Personally, therefore, I would never have gone along the provocation/counterattack route, and I'd probably have had some random fiery fantasy-beasties dropping out of the sky to polish the child off.

The only way I can think to get your message into the story would be an intro something like "The escalating war of words criss-crossed the galaxy. Cuddling Stella, I tried not to think of it. "Mummy," she said, "what's that twinkling up there?" But that's a third of your word count gone! You can certainly make word count savings in the rest of the story -- as ever, to me you seem overly liberal with your words (how do you have so many spare!!) -- but it would mean cutting whole sentences to cover that.

Good lord, you make me feel lazy and lacking in inspiration! I'm pleased if I can think of a basic story and get that crammed into 75 words.

I can't think of anything that would really work for this, as my first idea -- something like "The Zell detonated an asteroid. The falling meteor stars fell randomly, killing millions. Including Stella." -- is too clinical and can only be written from knowledge received long after the attack, so loses the immediacy and pathos of your ending.

Oh... thinking aloud here... what if she realises the falling "stars" are the results of the Zell's attack on the asteroid? If she's part of the military and/or an astronomer and she's at work but on the videophone to the child who is at home, that explains how she survives, and you could have her screaming at the child to get into the bomb shelter, only it's too late, and the videophone goes dead, leaving her with only the screen-saver, which is a picture of real stars. (You'd have to establish that in the opening line, though when the call from the child comes through.)

Of course, it's very possible that if you'd tried to get in that extra detail you wouldn't have got the vote and shortlistings you did. Unless you (ie one, not you specifically) draft several versions of the same piece and put them up after the Challenge is over asking for votes on which is best, it's impossible to say whether any changes are potentially for the best!
Click to expand...
I really like that idea of how to include the backstory, as it also gives proximity to the death while keeping her daughter unreachable... Also avoids the accusation of sexism and explains why she is safe. Great idea!

And, I am really working hard at word conservatism. Hopefully I am not wasting as many words as before. But I also know I am still practicing this art, and it may be years before I have reached my own goals for this. But I also know I am a borderline obsessive world builder. I didn't explore the Cassini idea because I knew I wouldn't have time to outline the physiology, technology, and culture of a Saturn based alien society (other than plotting for the hexagonal storms we discovered to actually be "structures"), their hypothetical relations to the rest of the solar system, linguistic anomalies when translated to English... and whatever other concerns would arise in development. I think it is a side effect of working on a universe for 10 years now, though I like to convince myself that it is because I want things to make sense on examination.

Anyway, thank you again for assisting on my journey of self improvement as a writer!
 
My story, on the surface, appeared to be more SF and set in the near future so therefore couldn't give the REAL story behind a nursery rhyme.

However I plan to expand it for 300 word challenge at some point, then all will be revealed. It's from a parallel Earth some centuries ahead of ours.

What we get in medieval times and creates the nursery rhyme is psychic bleed through from an alien conquest of that poor parallel world.

These nightmares of death and destruction from 'elsewhere' inspired people back in our middle ages to create nursery rhymes.


:D
 
dannymcg said:
My story, on the surface, appeared to be more SF and set in the near future so therefore couldn't give the REAL story behind a nursery rhyme.

However I plan to expand it for 300 word challenge at some point, then all will be revealed. It's from a parallel Earth some centuries ahead of ours.

What we get in medieval times and creates the nursery rhyme is psychic bleed through from an alien conquest of that poor parallel world.

These nightmares of death and destruction from 'elsewhere' inspired people back in our middle ages to create nursery rhymes.


:D
Click to expand...
Well, MY story will be expanded to a 300 worder which puts your story and mine, as well as every 75 and 300 word story ever written (I will leave it ambiguous if it includes all fiction everywhere) into an elaborate multiverse structure where the characters are manifestations of abstract concepts (which have their own existence, separate but permeating the multiverse; it's complicated) and settings can spontaneously generate when an author in our multiverse (which is in a parallel reality phase to that multiverse, of course) imagines it. Oh, and standard storylines have different colors, but most of them are too profound for human eyes to process.

Of course, absolutely none of that will be expressly stated. The reader will have to figure it all out from a story where a bunny dies. Probably a baby bunny. Which was inspired by a picture of a kitten. And, it will have a twist ending involving Kipling.

(Btw, I think I get your point that I am overdoing it with the backstory. I am sure I will either get over my obsession or get fatigued by sinking that much work into it, but it will end one of these days either way.)
 
I'm curious about mine this time. Was it an unfamiliar story to most, being an American thing? Was it just not clear what was going on? I think I managed to keep to the theme of backstory rather than retelling, and fairly clear SF, and even without using time travel except by way of the time dilation thing. Where did I go wrong?


Ripped from Home


“Can we keep it?”

“Kids, where did you get that?”

“We caught it at the last stop. It was sleeping.”

“What would you feed it? Take it to school tomorrow, then we must bring it back. And that will be years later, on its planet. Its whole family may be gone.”

***

“Ok, kids, let it out!”

“Yay! It was so boring. And the slorts we fed it made those ugly whiskers grow. Goodbye, vanwinkle thing.”
 
I loved the idea and could "hear" the child's voice, but I found the story too bare without any setting or actions to give context to the dialogue.
 
I didn’t put this story on my initial long list. I am familiar with the story of Van Winkle. I’m not skilled in giving feedback regarding stories, and definitely not in how to improve them.

I think:

(i) It lost pace for me in the time lag before the last two sentences

(ii) There was too much new information in the last line with whiskers suddenly growing, slorts being eaten and the name Van Winkle. My limited brain got overloaded.

I suspect, as is usually the case in my own contributions, that it may have been more fun in your own head than in print.
 
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@TheDustyZebra .... I'm very familiar with the Rip Van Winkle tale. (my last name helps assure that) so that was not the problem for me. It seemed like the story was all in the last line. The concept was excellent, because it really did give a plausible real story to the myth, but I would have liked to see something of what was going on earlier in the story.
 
I liked your entry, @TheDustyZebra - I thought it was a clever and very plausible way of explaining the Rip Van Winkle story, so it definitely hit the theme square on, but at the end of the day I felt it lacked the emotional punch that some of the other entries had (even if it was an emotional gut punch driven by horrific punnery, in the case of a certain other story!). It probably would have made my "long list" if I'd had the time to compile one.
 
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