Improving our 300 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST!

[Kylara]

haha Mosaix I hate that rule! It is always so tempting to make it all so pretty I feel for you Fitzchiv, I am a descriptive lover of purpleness and beautiful words

 

[mosaix]

haha Mosaix I hate that rule! It is always so tempting to make it all so pretty I feel for you Fitzchiv, I am a descriptive lover of purpleness and beautiful words

Yep. Practically every month, when it comes to voting I rank a couple of entries quite well only to think at the last minute "Hang on, where's the story?"

 

[Fitzchiv]

This is the point where I admit to not reading the rules properly and putting the piece together in an hour in a rush to submit because I'd have no other time to do so!

*raps own knuckles*

 

[Mr Orange]

finally i have a bit of time to myself (back at work so looking for time to waste!) so i thought i would post my 300 worder for your measured and knowledgeable advice. i'll let you all comment and then explain what i was actually trying to get across and how i paired it down from the original 800 word offering

The Guardian


“Watcha doin’?”

“Nuffin’. “

“Is that a Crow?”

“Hell, Neesa! You scared it!”

“Who cares? Crows ain’t even pretty.”

“Yeah but they’re the only birds left, and they can go anywhere they want… See, it’s out beyond the pines already! It’s not stuck behind this stupid fence.”

“You mean they can go anywhere until they get eaten by a Beast. And this “stupid” fence keeps us safe. That’s why the Benevolents built it.”

“They don’t eat Crows, Neesa.”

“Hmmph.”

“Anyway, soon I’ll be old enough to become a Guardian and then I can leave this boring city as well.”

“You’re crazy, Tyler. The Beasts wiped out the whole world, and you wanna go hunt ‘em?”

~~~~~~~~~~​

A boy ran to the other side of the rusty fence and stared out. I stepped instinctively back into the shadow of the pines as the mangy Crows cawed overhead. I could tell from the faraway look in the boy’s eyes that he was destined for Selection. Then the poor fool would find out the truth about the deceitful Benevolents. And the city’s beloved Guardians.

Humans were a danger to other worlds. This was the Universal Benevolents’ non-negotiable decree. The Beasts were a grotesque fabrication, a way of forcing us into the fortified pens they built. The Guardians worked for the Benevolents, and the job was simple. Control the caged population and round up the remaining Free People for the work farms. Or they would die. We would all die for the atrocities our forefathers committed in the name of interstellar exploration.

Guardians. Benevolents. Both horrible jokes.

I spat into the dirt before turning from the fence and moving deeper into the trees.

“Time to go to work Tyler,” I muttered darkly to myself as the dry pine needles crunched underfoot.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I liked your story, Mr. Orange, and I believe it was on my shortlist. I thought it was a very interesting juxtaposition of the child and the man he becomes, the hope of the young one inside the fence for "protection" and the cynical knowledge he gains when he finds out what it's really about.

The lack of one comma did bother me -- "Time to go to work, Tyler,".

 

[ratsy]

I had a really poor showing on the last 300 word challenge. I am not as good of a writer as most here so I tend to do better in a 75 word challenge even though there is 1 vote. I can bust out an idea but fail to deliver on a 300 word basis it seems.

In this month's I wrote it like a journal from the scientists hand. I should have maybe labelled it as that, because when I read it, it really just seems like way too much telling. (Which i have issues with anyways)

Can you guys give me some pointers or comments on my entry?




Garden of Eden


Here I stand at a crucial time for the human race. My name is Dr. Hans Lumin and I am a geneticist who specializes in stem cell work. I was a young man back when there were still protests on our research. They said we were playing God and should be stopped. We didn't listen…but we should have.

We created organs from essentially nothing, revolutionizing the lacking organ donor supply. That was when we started having problems. The organs began to mutate a few years after creation. By this point we had replaced thousands of organs in our terminal patients, from lungs, to hearts, to kidneys.

The mutations started slowly; a chemical was released into the recipient’s brains causing them to lose sanity. They became cannibals, biting their neighbors, eating strangers and the mutation passed with their saliva. Before we knew what happened, it was a worldwide epidemic. We now are centralized in Lagos, a Nigerian port city. What was left of the military has built a wall around the city and we are stuck here.

We have found no way to counter the mutation from the saliva. But I have found a way to create life immune to it. I am going to play God, as I was accused of countless times in my life, this time to give humanity a chance at survival. Before me grows the first of his kind; I have named him Adam for reasons you can understand. We will create him an Eve and soon there will be a new generation of genetically superior humans to take back the world.

The ship is being built as we speak to take this generation away to a secluded island where they can repopulate.

I pray there are no apple trees to tempt them.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I usually really like yours and they're often in my shortlist, Ratsy. I think you have put your own nail on the head with this one - it was all telling and I struggled to get engaged with it.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I liked the concept -- an imaginative and yet scarily plausible explanation for the whole zombie thing, but the story was, as you say, too heavy.

However, I think as a journal it would be too succinct, encompassing the whole of the research, development, problem, solution, all in one whack, so even if you had labeled it as a journal it wouldn't have worked for me.

I would suggest that it could have been lightened up in the telling aspects, to leave room for a bit more direct fear.

Also, I didn't see any tangible connection to the picture, for the 300-word challenge. I don't generally question that the way I do in the 75, as inspiration is a nebulous thing and I have no way of knowing what connections might have been made inside of someone's head, but I can usually see that there was some connection -- this one was only a faint "rusty stuff = end of world" string.

 

[Mr Orange]

I liked your story, Mr. Orange, and I believe it was on my shortlist. I thought it was a very interesting juxtaposition of the child and the man he becomes, the hope of the young one inside the fence for "protection" and the cynical knowledge he gains when he finds out what it's really about.

The lack of one comma did bother me -- "Time to go to work, Tyler,".

thanks tdz. now commas and punctuation in speech is something i have had disagreements with people in the past... i tend to write speech how i see it being said, not necessarily grammatically correct. In my head Tyler said that line as a quick mutter, without pause...

 

[Mr Orange]

Ratsy i too struggled to see any link between the picture and your story

 

[jastius]

ratsy if you are doing your 300 as a journal, i would make it a series of entries. each very short entry listing the events as they happen and the journal being found by a crow flying down from the slagged ruins.. then last scene in the garden.. the crow comes and lands on the tree with the apples.. and the scientist's last words in the journal are he is locking away all his books so they can't repeat this.. then the crow coughs out a key.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

thanks tdz. now commas and punctuation in speech is something i have had disagreements with people in the past... i tend to write speech how i see it being said, not necessarily grammatically correct. In my head Tyler said that line as a quick mutter, without pause...

Yes, but the comma in this case doesn't indicate a pause but rather the posession of a name (I may not have phrased that correctly, I'm sure TJ or Ursa could put it better), so, regardless of idiom, it's correct to have it there. I'm all for suspending punctuation rules in dialogue to support idiom but I don't think this is one that does that.

 

[Mr Orange]

Yes, but the comma in this case doesn't indicate a pause but rather the posession of a name (I may not have phrased that correctly, I'm sure TJ or Ursa could put it better), so, regardless of idiom, it's correct to have it there. I'm all for suspending punctuation rules in dialogue to support idiom but I don't think this is one that does that.

hmmm.... but surely written speech should be written as it is spoken, not necessarily grammatically correct? otherwise if i put a comma in there, then i read it with a pause, which was not how i wanted him to say it....

 

[Ursa major]

What it means is that, in dialogue, you add punctuation to impose your idea of how the dialogue should be read; it doesn't mean that you abandon punctuation that you would usually use if it wasn't dialogue. The punctuation is usually there to make the meaning clear, or by tradition (i.e. to make the reading process transparent).


As it happens, I simply can't** make myself read the words, "Time to go to work Tyler", without either a slight pause between 'work' and 'Tyler' or a slight change (a lowering) in pitch. Without forcing myself, there's a slight pause and a lowering of pitch.


** - Well I can, but only if I intone the words or sing them, i.e. cases where different rules of how one uses one's voice apply.

 

[ratsy]

I was under the impression that the image is there as inspiration for a story. I didnt think we had t write a story based on the image. Am I totally crazy on this? If so then I have never written a relevant 300 word story. I try to stay away from the image exactly so I dont write the same thing as others. I am sure that inspiration means I could see that pic and if I thought about rainbows and lollipops from a rusty piece and a bird I could write it.

 

[Ursa major]

I was under the impression that the image is there as inspiration for a story.

It is, and no more than that.

I didnt think we had t write a story based on the image.

You don't.

Am I totally crazy on this?

No.


At the beginning of each 300-word challenge, it says:

THE CHALLENGE:​

To write a story in 300 words or less​

INSPIRED by the image provided below, and in the genre of ​

Science Fiction, Fantasy, or other Speculative Fiction​

 

[ratsy]

Thanks Ursa, but obviously people reading the story are judging it on how well it fits with the image. I guess I will just have to rethink how closely I am inspired by the image.

That being said, my story this month was not nearly good enough for votes regardless

I guess that is why they are called a challenge, and I look forward to the next one

 

[jastius]

I was under the impression that the image is there as inspiration for a story. I didnt think we had t write a story based on the image. Am I totally crazy on this? If so then I have never written a relevant 300 word story. I try to stay away from the image exactly so I dont write the same thing as others. I am sure that inspiration means I could see that pic and if I thought about rainbows and lollipops from a rusty piece and a bird I could write it.

sorry ratsy! didn't mean to .. well, okay what i was trying to suggest was that a journal entry is usually dated and the problems you saw were how to explain it is a journal and how to make it more of a story while being a journal... to that end my suggestion remains not to change your work in any fashion except to separate the events into different entries thus isolating the story framework in that fashion. i threw the crow stuff in at the end because... well, bad habits overtake me at times...
i possess an impulse to tell stories that overtakes me at times and i have to beat with a stick to get rid of.. wasn't trying to be a smart asp about it. i loved your story. i very almost voted for it.

 

[ratsy]

oh no Jastius I took zero offence. And thank you for saying you loved it

I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't wrong in thinking I didn't need to directly use the image for a 300 word story

cheers, it's friday!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Oh, no, I didn't mean that I judged it on the basis of the picture, either -- just that it happened to be one in particular where I couldn't see any connection. I don't knock off points (not that I give points, but you know what I mean) in the 300 on the basis of the picture, as I said -- inspiration is a shifty thing, and if you looked at the picture and were inspired to write a story, obviously you made the connection in your head. I guess I was interested in finding out what your inspiration train of thought was, there.