Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

[Joshua Jones]

And thank you as well, @mosaix. I think I understand what you mean; the story has to have an impossible or absurd element, but this element should make sense in the universe portrayed. In my universe, there didn't seem to be any rules. Is this more or less what you were getting at?

 

[mosaix]

And thank you as well, @mosaix. I think I understand what you mean; the story has to have an impossible or absurd element, but this element should make sense in the universe portrayed. In my universe, there didn't seem to be any rules. Is this more or less what you were getting at?

That about sums it up, JJ. You put it better than I did.

 

[Luiglin]

Having recently been a player in the RPG Weird West what I found the key to be was a setting slightly askew from the norm, mixing steampunk ideas with native American spirits and touches of the fantastic.

You can push the weird as far as you wish but there has to be a reason for it being that way. If that makes sense.

 

[Joshua Jones]

That about sums it up, JJ. You put it better than I did.

Well, me putting something better than you would be a first...

 

[Peter V]

I came up with two stories and chose my entry on the basis of five out of five work colleagues preferring it. I thought the other option in truth was much more "me" but I also preferred the story below, so it was an easy decision.

It did not fare very well. Some late listings and a stealth vote painted a slightly better picture but quite frankly, it bombed!

I am putting it here because I thought (wrongly quite clearly) it was probably my best 75. So (please) dissect and drive me to my knees in abject worthlessness away... (I am recalling the last time I laid my soul on the table here )


Angeni

Nate wondered why the Pawnee girl travelled with the circus sideshow. She wasn’t a freak.

Sitting by the Missouri on the night of the big show, she told him it was somewhere to call home. In the moonlight she looked fragile, almost translucent. She told Nate she died in 1848.

Next day Nate woke weak and aching but seeing her look so healthy, giving a little of his life seemed a small price to pay.

 

[The Judge]

As I mentioned in my post last night, I thought this Challenge was very hard and that most entrants -- myself included -- only nailed two of the three components necessary to fulfill genre and theme.

Joshua: For me, there wasn't enough of the circus/carnival theme in your story -- delete the word "circus'" and arguably it's not there at all, since "entertainer" however parsed could relate to any slave situation. If you'd had Maxwell erecting the big top, or cleaning out the dung-filled animal quarters or something of that kind it would have gone a long way to solving that problem in my view. For me, too, I'm in two minds whether you'd hit the weird Western aspect properly. I look at the genre as being the real West but with a twist of unreality which is accepted as normal, but I'm very narrow in my definitions, so that's probably of no help. I agree with Shyrka, though, about the disjointed aspect of your piece, characterised by both the interjection of the horse-eating and Elena's emergence as a deus ex machina to save the day. As it stands, I don't think it would have helped if you'd uncoupled the narrator and protagonist perspective, since even if you'd written she'd been taken to be trained to entertain the punters, it's a far cry from that to being able to kill the overlords and escape. Your comment about Maxwell being hung up on stereotypes, though, does reinforce a feeling I have that you sometimes overthink your stories and characters and so shoehorn in elements which aren't needed, at the expense of plot and clarity.


Shyrka: You just about had enough of the carnival/circus in there for me, though I think you'd have been better putting some circus-ness in the opening paragraphs eg by way of performers at the funeral, but there wasn't enough Western in there for me. I think it would have helped if you'd made the baddie a sheriff rather than a chairman, as the latter is too universal to be helpful in setting, and Carruthers as a surname is so very upper-middle-class late Victorian/Edwardian English it actively pointed away from the Wild West. I didn't worry about the characters' relationships, as I saw it as carnival-folk looking after each other, but for me it also fell down as not having a better backstory/story line hinted at, and a more logical reason for the baddie to want to go there. You've suggested at there being some kind of brothel, but surely he must know there's a creature with tentacles there, plus he's killed one of their people, so why is he so pleased at getting an invitation to visit? It didn't make enough sense as a plot somehow. As you know, though, I really loved the last line, and you nearly got a special mention for that alone!


Peter, I'm not overlooking yours, which I did like, but I've got to go and get something to eat, so I'll give my thoughts a bit later.

 

[Joshua Jones]

As I mentioned in my post last night, I thought this Challenge was very hard and that most entrants -- myself included -- only nailed two of the three components necessary to fulfill genre and theme.

Joshua: For me, there wasn't enough of the circus/carnival theme in your story -- delete the word "circus'" and arguably it's not there at all, since "entertainer" however parsed could relate to any slave situation. If you'd had Maxwell erecting the big top, or cleaning out the dung-filled animal quarters or something of that kind it would have gone a long way to solving that problem in my view. For me, too, I'm in two minds whether you'd hit the weird Western aspect properly. I look at the genre as being the real West but with a twist of unreality which is accepted as normal, but I'm very narrow in my definitions, so that's probably of no help. I agree with Shyrka, though, about the disjointed aspect of your piece, characterised by both the interjection of the horse-eating and Elena's emergence as a deus ex machina to save the day. As it stands, I don't think it would have helped if you'd uncoupled the narrator and protagonist perspective, since even if you'd written she'd been taken to be trained to entertain the punters, it's a far cry from that to being able to kill the overlords and escape. Your comment about Maxwell being hung up on stereotypes, though, does reinforce a feeling I have that you sometimes overthink your stories and characters and so shoehorn in elements which aren't needed, at the expense of plot and clarity.


Shyrka: You just about had enough of the carnival/circus in there for me, though I think you'd have been better putting some circus-ness in the opening paragraphs eg by way of performers at the funeral, but there wasn't enough Western in there for me. I think it would have helped if you'd made the baddie a sheriff rather than a chairman, as the latter is too universal to be helpful in setting, and Carruthers as a surname is so very upper-middle-class late Victorian/Edwardian English it actively pointed away from the Wild West. I didn't worry about the characters' relationships, as I saw it as carnival-folk looking after each other, but for me it also fell down as not having a better backstory/story line hinted at, and a more logical reason for the baddie to want to go there. You've suggested at there being some kind of brothel, but surely he must know there's a creature with tentacles there, plus he's killed one of their people, so why is he so pleased at getting an invitation to visit? It didn't make enough sense as a plot somehow. As you know, though, I really loved the last line, and you nearly got a special mention for that alone!


Peter, I'm not overlooking yours, which I did like, but I've got to go and get something to eat, so I'll give my thoughts a bit later.

A fair review, as always. Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Cat's Cradle]

I’m very grateful for having received votes and mentions this month. I usually just move on to the next challenge, but mosaix asked for an explanation of my story, and I hope folks won’t mind if I post that explanation here … I hope it’s not rude to ask for comments/suggestions, when the story did so well.

I honestly was surprised (though again thrilled!!) that I received votes this month, because I was bummed out after posting my story, by its execution. I quickly had what I thought was a good idea, and wrote it up. And because I had a very busy few weeks ahead of me, just posted the story after culling to get it out of mind (if I don’t post quickly, I keep thinking about my stories endlessly). But an hour after the edit window closed, I realized I should have made a few little changes. So here are the corrections I made to the story on November 2nd, just for my own records. Mosaix, I wonder if it makes more sense, now? And to anyone who might consider commenting - do you think the second version is better than the first? Thanks!


Last Words

“Darned heart’s … beating wrong. Oh Lord–”
I grab the chairback, stopping her rocking; the old woman quietens.
I release the rocker to its motion.
“Darned heart’s–”

The ringmaster leads me past other exhibits: a snake-bitten Comanche chanting his death song; a gut-shot cowboy’s final pleas.
“They don’t feel pain?”
“They no longer suffer, Eustace.”
“You’ve bought the morgue’s inventory. Please - leave town tonight.”
We stop before a battered schoolmarm.
“Eustace, I’d die before marrying you.”


Some last words (hah-hah) - Eustace is the undertaker, and he sells bodies to the carnival’s ringmaster periodically, when the circus swings through town. The circus somehow reanimates the corpses, and they are magicked into repeating their final words, and reliving their final moments, as a sideshow/freak show exhibit. (The old woman had died of a heart attack, and these are her final words, that she'll repeat for the audience.) And Eustace asks the ringmaster to leave town that night because he killed the schoolmarm in a fit of anger after she rejected his proposal … and if the carnival stays in town, all the townsfolk will hear her last words, and know he killed her.

edit - sorry this is so long! Here is the original, for comparison:

Fifty Dollars in Gold Per Head

“Darned heart’s … beating wrong. Oh Lord–”
I grab the chairback, stopping her rocking; the old woman quietens.
I release the rocker; its motion resumes.
“Darned heart’s–”

The ringmaster leads me past other exhibits: a snake-bitten Comanche, chanting his death song; a gut-shot cowboy, his final pleas.
“They don’t feel pain?”
“They’ll never feel anything again, Eustace.”
“I’ve emptied the morgue. Leave town before nightfall.”
We pass a young schoolmarm.
“Eustace, I’d die before marrying you.”

 

[mosaix]

Thanks for posting and explaining, CC.

You’ve bought the morgue’s inventory.

I think the change to this line and the title, especially the title, would have been the key to me finally understanding it.

The only improvement I can suggest is for you to somehow get the 'please leave town tonight' after the schoolmarm delivers her line. i.e. making it obvious that her line is the reason. Also 'must' instead of 'please'? But both of those are going to be hampered by a word limit.

 

[The Judge]

Peter: I rather liked your story and it hovered on the brink of my shortlist for a while. You had the three elements of circus, western and weird in place, which was good, and the only thing I actively didn't like was the wrong tense in "she died" -- to my mind it should be "she'd died" (though the tenses in the last line also bugged me and I'm still not sure you've got them right). Overall it gave out a pale and interesting vibe which perfectly fitted the subject, but which on a second read made it feel a bit too flimsy as a story for my taste, and she seemed too saccharine. Re-reading it again now (perhaps because I've just started to read My Cousin Rachel!) I'm wondering if she wasn't nearly as sweet as I thought, and she actively sought out gullible men like Nate from whom she would feed in order to prolong her dead-life. If that is the case, and it's not just me being perverse, that is a great plot, but it would need to be made clearer, perhaps, for those of us who only read on the surface. I didn't understand the title, so that didn't help you I'm afraid. Having looked it up now, I see it's apt but it's not something you can depend on voters doing, so it's always a gamble.


Cat's: I got your story, as you can tell from my vote! I'd guessed he'd supplied the ringmaster with dead people before for his exhibits, and that he'd murdered the school teacher for rejecting him, though I hadn't gone the last step and realised that's why he needed the ringmaster gone that night. I have to say I prefer your original version, and the proposed changes didn't grab me in the same way, particularly not changing the command of "Leave town before nightfall" in the original. I also liked the original title, which helped make sense of the transaction for me, and showed how venal he was in a way that "You've bought..." failed to do. I can see why you'd want to change "young schoolmarm" (though the "young" told me she was much younger than him and unlikely to have died of natural causes), but I don't like the "battered" in the new version, as on first read I took that as a synonym for old, not beaten-up, so actually for a moment I thought I'd got it wrong and he hadn't murdered her at all! Perhaps "strangled" or some such would make the murder clearer if that's what you needed. Anyway, great story and well written!

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Thank you both. These challenge stories are all I write and I'd spent the month thinking I'd written a stinker (albeit one with a good central idea), and just trying to forget the thing. So I'm really happy, TJ, that you liked it! And mosaix, thank you for your thoughts (and I'd wondered about changing the last line, as you suggested).

Okay - now I will forget this story, and look forward to our reigning champion's December choices.

Peter V - TJ is much better at critiques than I, so I'll just say that I really liked your entry, and its ethereal feel.

 

[Parson]

@Joshua Jones .... I'll say what others have said. First, it did not seem like a story but rather odd bits thrown together. Second, it didn't feel "Western" to me, more like something from "Dinosaur Island."

@Shyrka .... Your story was definitely WEIRD! and somewhat circus/carnival but I could not discern a Western note to it.

@Peter V .... I rather liked your story. It had a kind of sad background that often appeals to me. I guess if fell for me in that it seemed more like a mood piece than an actual story.

@Cat's Cradle .... The Judge is better than almost all of us, and certainly better than I at critiques, but I thought the story you posted was much the better of the two. I'm afraid we are on very different wave lengths if you felt that the revised version was the clearer. But until your explanation I never got a whiff of the mortician selling bodies to the circus. I thought that the main character was a part of the circus. I guess I should have thought more deeply.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Thanks for your thoughts, Parson! I think I'm often guilty of trying to squish too much detail into 75 words, at the cost of clarity of meaning. I'll try again, though, in two days to write that one perfect little story (and maybe take a day or two before posting, just to make sure things make sense!).

 

[Peter V]

I rather liked your story and it hovered on the brink of my shortlist for a while. You had the three elements of circus, western and weird in place, which was good, and the only thing I actively didn't like was the wrong tense in "she died" -- to my mind it should be "she'd died" (though the tenses in the last line also bugged me and I'm still not sure you've got them right).

Thank you for your response and insight TJ. Strangely I missed the error and no one else pointed it out but now that you have it seems obvious and I am kicking myself. Regarding the last line, I am not completely happy with it myself. Several better versions refused to be culled to hit the seventy five so it resulted in a compromise.

Overall it gave out a pale and interesting vibe which perfectly fitted the subject, but which on a second read made it feel a bit too flimsy as a story for my taste, and she seemed too saccharine. Re-reading it again now (perhaps because I've just started to read My Cousin Rachel!) I'm wondering if she wasn't nearly as sweet as I thought, and she actively sought out gullible men like Nate from whom she would feed in order to prolong her dead-life.

I was looking for an "otherworldly" feel and opted for a degree of sentimentality in the tone over outright horror, as much as anything because it is quite a reversal for me. In seventy five words you can only say so much and Angeni's motivations and morals can obviously be what the reader wants them to be... unless further information is forthcoming. Here is my take (and maybe would be how it goes in a full on short story): Angeni has been dead a while but even when alive felt something of an outcast. The Pawnee nation was in decline, not only from the predation of white men but also from incursions by other larger and more aggressive tribes of native Americans. She was separated from family some while before she met her fate; raped and murdered by a cowboy. The nature of her death and its spiritual location created her spirit being. She is ultimately looking for somewhere to belong and the circus freak show fits perfectly. At first she would have consumed her victims entirely, mostly out of revenge but soon realized that taking a little, from more people would prevent alarm and ultimately retribution. Feeling like she belonged and sharing the company of good people like Nate has softened her over time but whether there is any real forgiveness there, or it is merely self preservation, even I do not know. You will have to ask her.

didn't understand the title, so that didn't help you I'm afraid. Having looked it up now, I see it's apt but it's not something you can depend on voters doing, so it's always a gamble.

I knew the title would almost certainly mean nothing unless someone looked it up - a part of me actually hoped people would but the realist in me knew it was unlikely, particularly if they are reading all entries en masse. I stuck with it because it was the right title for me and I have to accept that sometimes obscurity might count against my entry. My three hundred word offering was called "Up the Garden Path" - maybe in reference to the monstrosity that came stomping up the path in Masie's garden but it was mostly because Masie was not what she seemed and I was effectively leading my readers up the garden path - although I am not sure if the saying is used in the US as it is in the UK. I do like to be a smart-arse

So thank you again for taking the time to give me feedback. I am pleased that overall you liked it and your constructive criticism will (hopefully) help me with future efforts. And please accept my apologies for this rambling reply.

Peter

 

[Peter V]

Peter V - TJ is much better at critiques than I, so I'll just say that I really liked your entry, and its ethereal feel.

Thank you CC.

Reading your explanation of you tale... Its brilliant and once you state the obvious... well its almost obvious

 

[Peter V]

@Peter V .... I rather liked your story. It had a kind of sad background that often appeals to me. I guess if fell for me in that it seemed more like a mood piece than an actual story.

Thank you Parson. My last line was lacking somewhat and certainly did not do me any favours

 

[The Judge]

Peter, I'm pleased I half-guessed she wasn't as sweet as Nate pictured, but I could kick myself I didn't think of it when I was re-reading the entries last night, as the ambiguity might have kept you on my shortlist. If I'd written it -- not that I have the imagination for something so clever! -- I'd definitely have given a broad hint about what she's doing, though, but I can understand why you went for sentimentality rather than horror (and experience suggests the former gains more votes than the latter, so it's a good move all round!).

Re your last line, it wasn't a rambling reply. Never apologise for being interesting and thoughtful!

 

[Peter V]

If I'd written it -- not that I have the imagination for something so clever!

Your Honor, your work is without doubt imaginative. And frequently beautiful.

 

[Shyrka]

@Peter V - I did like your story and considered it for shortlisting but ultimately felt that it didn't really go anywhere - on the face of it, it was a well-written and pleasantly melancholy story but it lacked a final punch. Her being dead could have been "the big reveal" but I get why it wasn't - it works nicely being told in the matter-of-fact way that it is. The other twist you could have leveraged, the fact that she feeds on life energy, etc., also felt rather diluted - Nate comes across as all rather mild-mannered, not surprised or shocked or infatuated, just quietly accepting of the fact she's taken his life essence. Perhaps that's partly because it's all told 'after the fact', rather than in the moment, but I can't say what I would do to change it exactly - I really liked the mood of the piece and trying to tell it in a more immediate manner might spoil that. Perhaps with a more shocking/punchy last line I would have ranked it more highly.

@Cat's Cradle - I voted for this one! I don't think the alternate version is better necessarily - both work, but the submitted version works better for me. As The Judge mentioned, the 'young schoolmarm' works better than 'battered schoolmarm'. There were a few stumbling blocks, mostly due to word count limitations, I'm guessing. The line - “I’ve emptied the morgue. Leave town before nightfall.” doesn't quite click for me - the two sentences feel a bit too disjointed - they don't flow together conceptually, though the leap is possible. The alternate, “You’ve bought the morgue’s inventory. Please - leave town tonight.”, is better in that regard, but still a little wonky. I'd also agree it makes it more obvious who Eustace actually is. I also prefer the submitted title - there's a lovely biblical 'devil's bargain' about it that helped evoke the scene nicely for me. Whilst 'Last Words' might be more apt, it doesn't inspire my imagination in quite the same way. All of that said, what ultimately compelled me to vote for this one was the (frankly awesome) concept and the sting of the last line which overrode its minor flaws in my mind.

 

[Shyrka]

I think we wound up falling into the same trap in different ways. I really like your concept, but I had a hard time following the relationships to figure out who is who and why they care. I assume JoBeth was Ronson and Shauna's sister? Or perhaps Shauna's lover? Or we're they all carni-folk who are looking out for one another? The relationship confusion was the big hiccup for me.

Interesting. They were intended to be all carni-folk rather than specifically related. The 'family' of the carnival, I suppose, was where I was aiming. I'll confess it never occurred to me that that might be an issue.

Shyrka: You just about had enough of the carnival/circus in there for me, though I think you'd have been better putting some circus-ness in the opening paragraphs eg by way of performers at the funeral, but there wasn't enough Western in there for me. I think it would have helped if you'd made the baddie a sheriff rather than a chairman, as the latter is too universal to be helpful in setting, and Carruthers as a surname is so very upper-middle-class late Victorian/Edwardian English it actively pointed away from the Wild West. I didn't worry about the characters' relationships, as I saw it as carnival-folk looking after each other, but for me it also fell down as not having a better backstory/story line hinted at, and a more logical reason for the baddie to want to go there. You've suggested at there being some kind of brothel, but surely he must know there's a creature with tentacles there, plus he's killed one of their people, so why is he so pleased at getting an invitation to visit? It didn't make enough sense as a plot somehow. As you know, though, I really loved the last line, and you nearly got a special mention for that alone!

@Shyrka .... Your story was definitely WEIRD! and somewhat circus/carnival but I could not discern a Western note to it.

Yeah, I knew almost as soon as the voting started that I'd neglected the Western theme. I feel I often suffer from that - in my head, it all makes sense because I can see the bigger picture but it's very difficult to look at it with 'fresh eyes' and make no assumptions. Thank you for confirming my suspicions.

Chairman Carruthers was intended to be a big-wig dignitary type. Making him a Sherrif is a good suggestion, but perhaps lacking the 'refined gentleman' element I was trying to get across. It would have helped tie it more to a Western theme, though.

For reference, and my own satisfaction, the core concept was that Carruthers murdered JoBeth after some failed relationship and used his power/influence to cover it up so no one knew who had killed her. Obviously, this being the Weird West, the carny folk have other means of discovering the identity of the killer (thanks to Mama Jody, voodoo lady extraordinaire). Ronson, who is the hawker in the second scene (a fact that I just couldn't squeeze in under the word count, no matter how hard I tried), sends out a special red 'VIP' ticket for Carruthers. Thanks to his pride (he thinks himself untouchable) and insatiable carnal desires, this then leads him to his doom at Shauna's tender hands (or tentacles). Since JoBeth was just a normal carnival girl, he's not aware that Shauna is anything other than the same. The phrase 'wringing out' sprang to mind...

A lot of my inspiration for this came from the TV series "Carnivale", which featured brothel-like activities within the carnival as part of the unspoken attractions, as well as a whole chunk of stuff that would fit in perfectly into the Weird West genre.