Improving our 75 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST

[gracefully.falling]

Thanks to @Chris 1978 @Mon0Zer0 @DanielOwen and @Wayne Mack for the advice! It's very helpful!

 

[JS Wiig]

I appreciate any and all feedback on my Aug 2021 entry, reproduced here in its entirety for your convenience. Thanks!

The Legend of the Legend of Legends

“I can’t read this map, I don’t understand the symbols.”

“The legend is there, down in the lower right corner.”

“It doesn’t explain anything. I don’t understand those symbols either. It’s like a piece is missing.”

“It is. There’s another legend.”

“A legend for the legend?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. Where is it then?”

“We have to find it.”

“And…how do we do that?”

“Follow the map, it leads to the other legend. Duh.”

Sigh.

 

[Hugh]

I thought it was clever and I thought I understood it, but it did not enthuse me enough to rate it above other entries.

 

[DanielOwen]

I appreciate any and all feedback on my Aug 2021 entry, reproduced here in its entirety for your convenience. Thanks!

For my money, your story is neat and clever and self-contained, which are all good things, but there isn't much in it to bring the reader in. It's a conversation with nobody really speaking it. In a dialogue-only piece, you're relying on the speech to convey everything about the characters, the location and the situation to the audience; this dialogue doesn't convey anything much to me beyond the situation.

I'd suggest a bit of extra voice for the characters; speech patterns, accents or idioms to distinguish them, both generally and from one another. Every line of this could have been spoken by a different character and I'd have no idea. I don't even know now how many are in the scene - two is the default, but there could easily be more.

You could also show us a bit of the map. Instead of "I don't understand these symbols either", you could try, "what's this gargoyle symbol? This egg?" Same word count, but shows us that the map is unconventionally marked up.

It's a nice little piece, but right now it's kind of flat. There are quite a few places you could lose unnecessary wordage (eg. "Okay, where is it then?" could be entirely cut and not lose any meaning) and use the words to convey some description and character, which would both really help bring it to life.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

I can't add anything to that @JS Wiig , think you've just got some serious good advice -just to say I thought the story worked well, but felt there was more to be got from it

 

[Parson]

@JS Wiig .... it was a very clever idea, but to me it felt more like the set-up to a story rather than an actual story.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

As promised in the discussion thread, here's my entry for improving

First here's what the story was meant to convey:
The Duke has a quarrel with the Wizard, who turns the Duke into an ogre. This ogre then terrorises the town by demanding human sacrifices. Into this town strolls our Barbarian hero, who takes pity on the townsfolk and agrees to end the reign of terror. He does so by disguising himself as a maiden so that the ogre does not suspect anything. Naturally the hero wins, and by killing the ogre, he breaks the wizard's spell. This returns the Duke to his human form, who is grateful for being killed because of all the nasty things he did as an ogre.

Kajar and the Ogre
Ever since Duke Kedu's disappearance following his quarrel with the wizard Drawzi, Rego the Ogre had terrorised the town.
The day Kajar visited, the people told of human sacrifices and pleaded for help.
Kajar agreed, and, sword hidden beneath a maiden's cloak, waited on the sacrificial altar.
Rego soon appeared, but was surprised as the 'maiden' thrust a blade into him.
Equally surprised, Kajar watched Rego transform into Kedu. "Drawzi's spell is broken. Thank you."

Here's what's wrong
It's not obvious that the wizard turns the Duke into an ogre, although it is sort of implied (Duke disappears, and the ogre appears)
We aren't told that Kajar is a barbarian hero (unless you've read some of my other entries)
We aren't told how the spell can broken
It's not obvious that the Duke also dies at the end
How does Kajar, being a stranger in town, know that the ogre transforms into the Duke

I'm interested if anyone can write the story so that the thrust as outlined above gets across.

Thanks for listening

 

[The Judge]

I had no problems with the plot, MRG. I understood all of it save for one crucial point and in fact your story hovered on the edge of my shortlist for a while. As to the things you consider "wrong":

• It's not obvious that the wizard turns the Duke into an ogre -- not a problem for me, since I rather guessed it from the opening and it was clear at the end
• We aren't told that Kajar is a barbarian hero -- I don't think we needed to know he was a hero -- the villagers were so desperate they might have asked for help from anyone passing through with a sword
• We aren't told how the spell can broken -- not needed, and you couldn't tell us without giving the plot away
• It's not obvious that the Duke also dies at the end -- this I didn't get, and could have been made clear with something like "he said with his dying breath"
• How does Kajar, being a stranger in town, know that the ogre transforms into the Duke -- I assumed Kajar had visited in the past and had seen the Duke before, since there's nothing in the story about him being a stranger here. Indeed since it's told from his POV and he seemingly knows of the quarrel with the wizard, that reinforced the idea he'd been here before

The point I missed was that the Duke is dying when he speaks at the end -- I thought he was simply grateful for being returned to his true form. So to me it was odd that Kajar hadn't delivered a killing blow, which led me to assume the wizard had somehow protected the Duke from being killed, but then that didn't make sense within the story, when evidently the wizard was happy for the locals to be murdered as a result of his spell. So that was a bit confusing, and made me mark it down.

For me, though, the real problem was the story as a whole felt a little plain, plodding even, with no real spark to it. Something exacerbated by the flatness of the structure with the five paragraphs, all but one containing only one sentence. Having read your other post about how you deliberately wrote the story to come within the Three Act Structure, I wonder if that has served to cramp the story too much, and left it somewhat bereft of life. I'm not sure what you could have done to have given more of a sparkle to it, but I do think you were a little profligate with word use, and if you'd made it sharper, with shorter sentences, that might have given a different feel to the whole, driving it forward and giving it an energy which for me it currently lacks.

Not sure if that's of any real help!

 

[Provincial]

As promised in the discussion thread, here's my entry for improving

First here's what the story was meant to convey:
The Duke has a quarrel with the Wizard, who turns the Duke into an ogre. This ogre then terrorises the town by demanding human sacrifices. Into this town strolls our Barbarian hero, who takes pity on the townsfolk and agrees to end the reign of terror. He does so by disguising himself as a maiden so that the ogre does not suspect anything. Naturally the hero wins, and by killing the ogre, he breaks the wizard's spell. This returns the Duke to his human form, who is grateful for being killed because of all the nasty things he did as an ogre.



Here's what's wrong
It's not obvious that the wizard turns the Duke into an ogre, although it is sort of implied (Duke disappears, and the ogre appears)
We aren't told that Kajar is a barbarian hero (unless you've read some of my other entries)
We aren't told how the spell can broken
It's not obvious that the Duke also dies at the end
How does Kajar, being a stranger in town, know that the ogre transforms into the Duke

I'm interested if anyone can write the story so that the thrust as outlined above gets across.

Thanks for listening

I don’t agree that all those things were wrong. The only thing I didn’t understand was that the duke died at the end, everything else was either clear, a reasonable assumption, or not critically important. For me to ’get’ that Kedu dies, I would re-write the last line as follows:

Rego changed back into Kedu. “Thanks for breaking Drawzi’s spell - I can die in peace.”

 

[Wayne Mack]

As promised in the discussion thread, here's my entry for improving

First here's what the story was meant to convey:
The Duke has a quarrel with the Wizard, who turns the Duke into an ogre. This ogre then terrorises the town by demanding human sacrifices. Into this town strolls our Barbarian hero, who takes pity on the townsfolk and agrees to end the reign of terror. He does so by disguising himself as a maiden so that the ogre does not suspect anything. Naturally the hero wins, and by killing the ogre, he breaks the wizard's spell. This returns the Duke to his human form, who is grateful for being killed because of all the nasty things he did as an ogre.



Here's what's wrong
It's not obvious that the wizard turns the Duke into an ogre, although it is sort of implied (Duke disappears, and the ogre appears)
We aren't told that Kajar is a barbarian hero (unless you've read some of my other entries)
We aren't told how the spell can broken
It's not obvious that the Duke also dies at the end
How does Kajar, being a stranger in town, know that the ogre transforms into the Duke

I'm interested if anyone can write the story so that the thrust as outlined above gets across.

Thanks for listening

Using the three act structure within a a 75 word tale is an interesting challenge and I appreciate the approach. For me, I felt overwhelmed with the number of characters introduced in a short span. It wasn't until now that I realized that Drawzi had been introduced in the first line. I also did not feel that the story flowed. Perhaps because of all of the points being raised,, it read more like a series of bullet points. I also was perplexed at the use of quotation marks around the word maiden, especially as the story did not use any pronouns concerning Kajar. Upon seeing the quote marks in my initial reading, I went back and scanned over the previous sentences looking for a hint of gender. This also interrupted my flow of the story.

Some thoughts. In the opening line, the backstory about the duke's query could be omitted and the reference at the end could simply refer to 'the wizard' or even not at all -- the final words could simply be 'Thank you.' Also, the ogre could remain unnamed. This could eliminate two names for the reader to track and free up some word count. Rather than expecting the reader to have past knowledge of Kajar, consider having the hero be a girl from the village. This would build a greater level of empathy for the character as compared to having an unknown stranger arrive in the town.

In the shorter length pieces, it is often necessary to sacrifice some (a lot!) of subplot choices and go for simplicity. Sometimes having too much rich detail detracts from the continuity of the story. Trying to decide what to keep and what to jettison is what makes these challenges interesting. I do look forward to the ongoing saga of Kajar.

 

[Parson]

Mostly, I felt the story was lacking. I like what @Wayne Mack said: "Bullet points." Or maybe like a skeleton with no flesh on it. It didn't draw me into the story. I felt like a very unattached observer of the action.

Also I thought until reading the back story that Kajar was a woman. Another disconnect for me was the sword. It's probably just me, but if you say sword I'm thinking of something a yard/meter long, so I was stunned by hiding it beneath her skirt and confused how it could be drawn rapidly. (I re-read the story again and now I see it said cloak rather than dress so that relieves some of the problem for me, but the hiding and rapid enough drawing to be effective still sound unlikely to me.)

 

[Astro Pen]

To tell the truth, for me, your using an onslaught of 'fantasy names' was problematic:
Kedu, Drawsi, Kajar, Rego in the first lines. They carry no intrinsic character image, or even gender, just syllables.

"Which one was that?" - refers back,- "Oh yes, That's the Wizard."

That is where it slipped up.

 

[The Judge]

You clearly don't do cryptic crosswords, AP -- the new ones (not Kajar as far as I can see) are anagrams: Kedu = Duke, Drawzi = Wizard and Rego = Ogre.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

The point I missed was that the Duke is dying when he speaks at the end

The only thing I didn’t understand was that the duke died at the end

An example of editing losing some salient points.

Rego changed back into Kedu. “Thanks for breaking Drawzi’s spell - I can die in peace.”

I wanted to say something like this, but the word count was against me

Kedu, Drawsi, Kajar, Rego

I tend to use names so that if I have to refer to the character later on I can use the name instead of its title/species thus saving a word e.g. Rego instead of the ogre
Also, what might have been missed is the names, apart from Kajar, are all anagrams Duke = Kedu; Wizard = Drawzi; Ogre = Rego

But as ever, thanks everyone for the feedback.

I think what comes from it is that trying to cram three acts into 75 words is a bit of a challenge, but then, that's what these challenges are for
You should have seen the mess when I tried to cram The Hero's Journey into 300 words

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

You clearly don't do cryptic crosswords, AP -- the new ones (not Kajar as far as I can see) are anagrams: Kedu = Duke, Drawzi = Wizard and Rego = Ogre.

Ah. Beat me to it yer honour, just as I was typing my reply

 

[Astro Pen]

You clearly don't do cryptic crosswords, AP -- the new ones (not Kajar as far as I can see) are anagrams: Kedu = Duke, Drawzi = Wizard and Rego = Ogre.

Have you forgotten my "Orc Swords" story so soon?

 

[paranoid marvin]

I agree that you needed a better introduction. I understood with Rego, Kedu an Drawzi being anagrams (although Kajar puzzled me), but not only does the first sentence use up more than a third of your word count, it also throws a little too much information at the reader. Also there appears no relevance to the story of the anagrams; so I would either have incorporated it into a twist in your story , or used the words elsewhere. There also seems to be a huge leap between an ogre attacking a town and them leaving a human sacrifice on an altar!

Perhaps an alternative would be to have a dragon or wyrm instead of an ogre (which would tie in with a damsel being sacrificed) and perhaps have the protagonist as a 'sorceror' rather than a wizard, as that implies that he is evil/bad.

I also think that you made it too obvious that Kedu was Rego. The twist to your tale could have been that the villagers suspected the Duke of running away, but in the end it turns out he had been transformed into an ogre. An example of the start of your story could be:

Ragnod the dragon was terrorising the village. Folk blamed the sorceror Correros whilst pouring scorn on Duke Kedu, who had seemingly fled town after confronting him.

For anyone unfamiliar with your character Kajar, you could perhaps have used:

"Help us, oh mighty Kajar!" they pleaded of a fearsome warrior riding by one day.

 

[paranoid marvin]

For your last line (and if you wish to emphasis the death of Kedu), I think you could remove the 'equally surprised' and couldn't you use thanks to save a word, (or is thankyou allowed as one word?). I would also suggest 'curse' rather than 'spell'.

Kajar watched the dying Rego transform into Kedu. "Drawzi's curse is broken. Thankyou."

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Also there appears no relevance to the story of the anagrams

That's because there is none. I'm too lazy to think up fancy names (Not strictly true but there we are)
I like your alternates and the twist. I don't know why I went with an ogre instead of the more traditional dragon. I could probably have saved a word or two because everyone knows dragons eat damsels!

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

I would also suggest 'curse' rather than 'spell'.

Yes, agree totally. An example of not giving myself enough time to tweak the words
I'm one of those who normally like to write something, let it mature for a week, then reread and rewrite, but this time I only started a few days before the deadline