Writing Challenge Discussion — MARCH 2011

[Teresa Edgerton]

Re: Writing Challenge Discussion MARCH

Teresa: Would you care to enlighten us about that story of yours. "A little farther north?" All I can imagine is some Norse King I know nothing about.

The title of the story (at least the first part of the title) is the title of the source material. The story is partly based on Völuspá in the Elder Edda (also known as the Poetic Edda) which is a collection of Old Norse poems. Völuspá is supposed to be a seeress's description of the creation of the world and then her prophecy describing Ragnarök, the fall of the Norse gods and the end of the world (which was, according to the mythology, to be followed by the beginning of a new world).

Most of the poem is about various mythological figures, but there is a verse about "a wind age, a wolf age" during which fratricide, incest, and adultery also herald the crumbling of the world. There are different translations, and right now I can't find the one that I used, but I was previously familiar with the poem as a source of inspiration for Tolkien. (He took the names of his dwarves from it, and the poetry of the Rohirrim has something of the same feel to it.)

 

[Pyan]

pyan, I was one of your anonymous voters.

Wow. Thanks, GP, that means a lot to me....

Congratulations, J - a worthy winner...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Re: Writing Challenge Discussion MARCH

You are quite welcome, pyan. I was not only impressed by your handling of a familiar story, but by the fact that you made it into a sonnet!

I'm not sure, though, if Teresa is retelling a story from Voluspa - I saw it as more of a conceptual basis for a story about cycles of tyranny and death and the end of things.

I think I was composing my previous message when you posted yours. You're right, I wasn't retelling a specific story. I actually had a story, but when I was looking for references to fratricide I came across something about the increase in fratricides being a sign of the approaching apocalypse in Völuspá. I vaguely remembered part of the poem, and went looking for it based on the few words that I recalled. When I read it again, that inspired a few alterations. It was no longer just about a tyrant and the brothers who kill him (and then plot to kill the brother who replaced him); it became part of a cycle of violence and retribution as the world slides toward destruction.

 

[Talysia]

Congratulations, TJ! I'm looking forward to seeing what next month's theme is.

Many thanks to everyone who shortlisted me, too.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Congratulations to TJ, a well deserved win. As always I failed to pick the actual winner, but was close enough to voting for her... sigh.

This is the first month since I started that I did not get a vote, but I did not expect one - but before I get another slap - simply because I tried something different, and I don't think I would have changed anything about my story, except the title. (It was meant to be Преступление и наказание but I forgot to change it when I posted)

When I was about 12 we were in the school library choosing books for the week and I stumbled upon Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. Intrigued as I was at the time by my Russian heritage I decided to read it and was firmly told by my English teacher that I was far too young to read it. She was probably right, but it stuck in my throat, and bloody mindedness set in. So I took it. Read it. From cover to cover. And took great pleasure in telling her that the following week. The fact I did not understand it at all did not count!

But it all stuck with me, and the fact that Dostoevsky led such an interesting life and when I saw this months challenge I had no other choice... trouble was it was far to interesting for just 75 words....

The fact that I got three mentions though was an unexpected bonus, so thanks to Procrastinator for the third mention, and I would have thanked you earlier, but I uhhh kept putting it off.

 

[J-WO]

Congratulations, TJ!








(And you should all - all save for alchemist - thank J-WO; he saved us from another tie-breaker, as alchemist would have been my next choice for winner.)

No need to thank me, Citizen. Its all in a days work for...

ANTI-TIEBREAKER MAN!!!

*Flies off over Chrontham City*

 

[Moonbat]

Congratulations on the win Judge, only fitting that you should win the competition on crime and punishment.

Mosaix, I think I voted, I'm sure I did, you got 4 votes, so maybe one of them was mine.

We might have had more votes than entries as 3 of our regulars (myself included) failed to enter or were disqualified. It might have tipped the balance, because although I was annoyed at not posting in time I couldn't bring myself not to vote.

Ok, so here are my non-entries. I expect you'll all be blown away and profess that I would have gained 30-50 votes had I posted in time.

An unstoppable force meets…nothing!

The ship began to move, slowly at first but the exponential acceleration cycle had begun and the inertia field was holding.
Faster than a speeding bullet,
faster than an orbiting planet,
Faster than light. (We thought so, it was hard to measure.)
The energy required was infinite, our mass was infinite. And still we accelerated.
Hit the brakes! Still accelerating
Release the vacuum parachutes. Still accelerating
Hmmm, how do you stop something with infinite mass?


Ode to J Riff

His task was simple
His aim was true
He began writing
And completed on queue

When posting his masterpiece, he was tempted
By a false word count to add some adjectives,
Little did he know the count was in error.
His entry removed; lost forever.

Some say the adjudicators were harsh
Others say, ‘serves him right, he won’t be the last’
But unlike the rest his tale languishes
In the lost post realm, forever banished.


Faster than Light

Our crime was breaking the speed limit
Our punishment, being unable to stop
Fortunately the universe is bounded, twisted like a mobius strip
The darkness approached, we thought we would enter it
But as we reached the edge, we began again at the other side
But still accelerating, galaxies rush past
Never stopping, never slowing.
I’m getting dizzy!


Revenge is a dish best served a la carte

They say nothing can be that cold. There is no absolute zero. No complete lack of energy or heat. Even space, the harshest vacuum, is 2.7 kelvin.
Scientists have managed to cool an atom down to 0.45 nanokelvins
But she was colder than both.
A veritable cold black hole that no heat can escape.
An ice princess, even her rage was cold.

I guess I shouldn’t have slept with her mother! Twice!

Less victor more Victor

I returned to my chamber and slumped into my chair. It creaked beneath my weight; another cry for mercy ignored.
I was having trouble digesting the enormity of my situation, the repercussions of my actions.
My cries echoed through the stadium as a warrior’s triumphant rejoice.
The crowd outside answered with cheers of their own.
‘Victor! Victor! Victor!’
My pain reached a crescendo, I screamed in agony.
The Humans were repeating on me, again.


Curiosity Slighted the Sighted

Moonbat browsed through the labyrinthine threads that made up the time intensive forum that was Chronicles, searching for emboldened titles; those new threads he had yet to read, he stumbled upon a thread in the lounge.

‘Hmmm, what is a yiff?’ he wondered.

A quick Google search later.

‘OMG! People really do that? Sickos!’

Some sights can never be unseen, some knowledge can never be unlearned, and he has paid the price for his curiosity.


A Crime or a Punishment

She blames herself. He blames me. I blame God or Nature, whichever one is more accountable.
Some people believe in past lives and re-incarnation, they say I sinned in a previous life and this is my punishment.
Even if that is true, don’t I deserve a second chance, a normal life?
If I was offered this life again, even with the….with my….genes, I’d take it.
It’s not our achievements that define us, it’s the struggle.


I probably would have posted the final one, A Crime or a Punishment.

 

[The Judge]

Thanks for the congratulations, people! I can honestly say that this was wholly unexpected. But very, very welcome.

I forgot last night to thank Stormfeather and Ursa for their mentions, and Chris for his earlier -- then anonymous -- vote. The reason for my lapse is that after Teresa's further hint, I looked again for Voluspa (can't do the fancy accents), found a site with the original Norse, a translation, and a commentary, and I got very bound up in it. It was a real shock coming across some of the dwarf names, as Teresa has mentioned. And for anyone who hasn't followed it up, I'd urge you to do so. It takes a bit of effort, but well worth it.

I'll be back later with the end of year statistics. In the meantime, another thanks -- to J-WO. For being there...

 

[alchemist]

(And you should all - all save for alchemist - thank J-WO; he saved us from another tie-breaker, as alchemist would have been my next choice for winner.)

*shakes fist at J-WO*

Wait a minute; he wasn't the one who cast the vote...

*shakes fist at Ursa*

(although, if it wasn't for mosaix, i'd have voted for TJ)

Congratulations TJ and commiserations, Alchemist. Both fine stories.

Many congratulations to TJ also, for a fantastic story.

Thanks mosaix. That's two months where I've been one vote from a tiebreaker, but I'm getting there. Slowly slowly catchee chronee.

 

[The Judge]

Thanks, alchemist. I was actually fully expecting to come here this morning to find that you'd deservedly trounced me!

 

[Ursa major]

As to what my story meant, TJ, it's rather simple:

Seize the Day

Transgressing, I demanded foresight. Now I see three futures.

The first is a sadness: I remember tomorrow.

The second is a sorrow: I know how today ends.

The third’s a Curse. I live my life one day at a time. I will pass away tonight, to be resurrected yesterday, as I died tomorrow and returned this morning. I step through my past, learning nothing, knowing that I perish, finally, at the moment of my birth.

The narrator has tried to gain an ability to see the future, breaking the rules that forbid mortals this power. The punishment is that the transgressor is given what they ask for but not in the way they expected it.





In effect, the transgressor must live their life backwards from the point at which they transgressed. But unlike, say, that episode from Red Dwarf, they do not live it backwards a moment at a time, but a day at a time. They wake up, live the day as "normal", then when the day ends, they wake up on the previous day. The extra twist is that they can only remember the three things or groups of things.

• The first group contains the memory of the previous day, the one they have just experienced. If today is Tuesday 29th March 2011, they can recall the events of Wednesday 30th March 2011 (but nothing of 31st March and later).
• The second thing is that they know** the general pattern of what is going to happen today. If they try to change things, they will not see the results beyond midnight. And if their actions change, say, Wednesday 30th March, that will not change their memories of it. (And when they, inevitably, re-awake the next day - Monday 28th March - they will remember nothing at all of Wednesday.) the effect is that they have no idea whether their actions have any effect beyond "today"; they may not and they may even come to believe that they are living in an illusion. This may not seem too much of a punishment, but recall that their greatest desire was to see and perhaps change the future, something that is dangled before them, filling their most immediate memories, but which they can never achieve.
• They know the day of their death (the day they were born) and can remember the general sequence that gets them there (in the same way as we remember our past). Again, this may not seem to be the greatest punishment. However, they know there will be no afterlife, for them because before they were born - or, possibly, conceived - they did not exist at all.

So, basically, this is a horror story.

The one little bit of wordplay is Seize/Sees the Day.


I hope that helps, TJ.


** - This memory is detailed, but only on the day itself. If they have suffered the punishment for, say, 1000 days, their normal memories of this day would be those of something that occurred 2000 days ago, i.e. quite vague. This is equivalent to seeing something in a mirror: the distance (in space or in time) between you and what you're observing is doubled. EDIT: This is how I see the "sorrow" but, for reasons of space, the description of this part of the punishment was truncated to almost nothing, so there's no reason why anyone reading the story would know any of this. (I was hoping that people, in trying to work out what was happening, would gain an increasing sense of the horror of the situation.)

 

[mosaix]

I thought this piece was exceptionally well done, UM which is why it was on my short list.

That last paragraph must have taken some work!

 

[Ursa major]

Tell me about it, mosaix!

And thanks.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Ok, so here are my non-entries. I expect you'll all be blown away and profess that I would have gained 30-50 votes had I posted in time.

I thought they were all exceptional, Moonbat. The Ode to J-Riff really made me chuckle, I would have been hard pushed to choose one to psot from those nuggets!

And with that said here is my unused entry. I wrote it after I had already posted, and think it is possibly the better piece, but I don't think it would have changed my choice...

The Life and Crime of a Perpetual Small-time Offender

He had really done it this time. He knew he was always testing the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable, but it had been that little bit too tempting. The reward that little bit too good, worth the risk of breaking the law one more time.

Inevitably the authority had caught him. How could they not have?

“I told you not to do that,” Mummy admonished, “Now you’re going to the naughty step!”

 

[The Judge]

Ursa -- that was rather simple? *goes away and puts a cold compress on her forehead...*

Nope. Didn't understand any of that (except the basic living life backward bit). Nonetheless, it held me and it came within a whisker of getting my vote. So that must tell you something about the power of your writing.


Moonbat -- definitely that last story would have given us all a run for our money. Next month, don't forget to post!


Perpetual Man -- sweet little story, but for me the one you posted was more powerful.

 

[Ursa major]

Ursa -- that was rather simple? *goes away and puts a cold compress on her forehead...*

Nope. Didn't understand any of that (except the basic living life backward bit). Nonetheless, it held me and it came within a whisker of getting my vote. So that must tell you something about the power of your writing.

Thanks, TJ.

I do admit, as a reader, a liking for complexity, particularly when a lot of things are going on underneath the foreground story (which is one of the reasons I like GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire, even though I'm not generally a big fan of Fantasy). The complexity has to be deliberate and well done, though: I hate it when a simple story becomes complex purely because of the author's lack of skill in telling it.

 

[TacticalLoco]

Congrats to the Judge on a well deserved win!
An excellant tie into the theme.

Many, many amazing stories and many, many amazing authors.
I am really blown away by this group's talent level.

 

[Brev]

Congrats to TJ.

Here's the one i didn't post....

Just reward for a wicked life.


Peter sent me down.
The Devourer greeted me, pointing to three rooms.
“CHOOSE!”
In the first they stood on their heads over red hot coals, scalded and sore.


In the second they stood on their heads on spikes, pierced and cut.


In the third they stood, ankle deep in excrement, drinking tea.


“This one” smirked I, taking a cup.


“SO BE IT!” He bellowed.
“BREAK OVER SINNERS, BACK ON YOUR HEADS!”

 

[The Judge]

Here are the monthly figures:

As previously noted, a good month, marred a little by the number of entries which were over word count, and by certain people forgetting to enter at all! Nonetheless, 48 is average, and we had 6 new entrants join us -- and warm welcomes to Arkose, AunDoorback, Bob S. Sr, Lucky Lola, TacticalLoco and The Imp.

We also retained over half of last month's new intake, namely crys, evelinn, goldenapples, Heck Tate and pyan. Hello guys, stick with us!

We had 54 votes for the month -- and yes, for the first ever in a normal one-vote-per-person Challenge, that means more votes than entrants! Even allowing for our regulars who didn't post, this still means we had some secret voters here!

We just failed to get 150 total entrants for the year, falling short at 148**, and we dropped some regulars for one reason or another in March and now only 16 of us have competed in all 12 months. But those 148 have written a total of 570 posted stories overall, which is incredible. (Even more incredible if you count the pieces which had to be removed and the fact that we often have members with "spare" entries -- all this outpouring of creativity! )

** see, TEiN, this is what happens when I don't have time to bully... er... inveigle... er... invite new members to join us.


Some possibly interesting figures for the year:

January saw both the highest number of entries with 57 and the largest number of new entrants at 17 (if we ignore last April when we were all new).

We've never had fewer than 42 entries, which is astounding. And never fewer than 6 new entrants in a month.

As noted above, we've had 16 people compete in all 12 Challenges and a total of 36 have competed in at least 6 (5 in 11; 3 in 10; 2 in 9; 3 in 8; 3 in 7; 4 in 6.) Good figures, and far better than we expected when we started, but it does mean we've a long tail, with 112 people who have competed 5 times or fewer (9 in 5; 3 in 4; 12 in 3; 25 in 2; and a whopping 63 have been seen in only 1 Challenge).

December raised the largest number of votes at 108, but since we had 3 each, that's hardly surprising! Otherwise, this month was the best with its 54.

And, perhaps understandably, the more times one enters the more likely it is one gets votes. Of the 36 people who competed in at least 6 Challenges, everyone had at least 1 vote, and most people a good deal more than that.

We've had 7 tie-breaks in the year (and only just missed on having 8!) but never with more than 2 people at a time -- I wonder if we can create the first 3-cornered fight next year.

The highest number of votes received for a story was in December when Stormfeather and Hoopy tied at 10, but the 3 votes we each had that month perhaps skews that a little -- the highest in a normal month was 9, received by Sephiroth in May. Of the 5 non-tying months, 2 were won by 1 vote only, 2 with 2, but HareBrain in June had the biggest margin of victory by 3 votes.


And it is HAREBRAIN who wins the overall points tally, with a magnificent 37 for the year! *sound of crowds cheering* Hoopy and Teresa put up valiant fights to finish equal second on 33 points.

The top ten continues: Mouse and The Judge 29; mosaix 27; Stormfeather 26; alchemist 23; chrispenycate 20; digs 19. And of the top 10, alchemist has the best average, since he raised his 23 in only 6 outings!

Then we have another 9 entrants who each gained at least 10 points in the year: Boneman, Parson and Sephiroth with 15; chopper, Culhwch and Hilarious Joke with 14; Karn and Perpetual Man on 12, and Mag the Mighty on 10 exactly.



Well, that's a complete year we've been doing this, all but a few days, and I think we all deserve a round of applause for our efforts in making this Challenge a success. BIG THANKS to Teresa for starting it in the first place, and for dealing with all the work involved, and equally BIG THANKS to Cul for setting up and dealing with all the polls.

And now for the second year...



EDIT: I got things wrong!! TDZ has pointed out my mistake. Hoopy only achieved 30 votes over the year, since I'd given her 3 belonging to HJ from May when she didn't enter. So HJ has 17, rearranging the order slightly there, and more importantly it pushes Teresa into sole second place and Hoopy moves to third place.

 

[Arkose]

Congrats HareBrain on winning the first year!