Improving our 300 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST!

[ratsy]

Ratsy, you slipped in there while I was dithering ...err... typing. I can't recall off the top of my head if I shortlisted you or not, but I can't imagine why not except maybe my list was already far too long and I started cutting. It really is a good story (I'll add it to my collection) and I can't think of anything I would suggest to change it. Some months are like that. I thought mine was fabulous, too.

Thanks TDZ, I was on your list but not a short-list. Your story was fabulous! I will admit something to you, and don't throw a shoe at me or lock me in a phone booth or anything...I've never seen an episode of Doctor Who.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I admit, it was a fun one to right. I also, both shamelessly and shamefully, admit to having to look up names for the girl. I chose Andra because its meaning, I felt, best fit the personality I was trying to convey with her.


Finn I chose just for the fun of it, and to be honest, does sound very Irish to me. I'm sure Alc or Springs might say something about that though.

It is Irish - Finn McCool ( there is an Irish spelling which Alc might know) is supposedly the giant who built the Giant's Causeway. And we had a dog called Finn when I was a child cos he was an Irish Water Spaniel. it's still a reasonably common name in Ireland - I've known a few Finns in my time.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

I like to think that I know just enough of U.K. and Irish culture to make an ass of myself, to be honest.


Most of what I know of any foreign culture comes from mythology...and when it comes to Celtic and Far Eastern, that knowledge is very scant indeed.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Thanks TDZ, I was on your list but not a short-list. Your story was fabulous! I will admit something to you, and don't throw a shoe at me or lock me in a phone booth or anything...I've never seen an episode of Doctor Who.

There's a solution to that, you know.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

We need to Davy Tennant him.

You go - you're closer.

 

[Remedy]

So I made the whole thing up, then?

Inside my head is a scary place....

Ok, so just to prove I'm not completely insane, here are the bits I saw all of that in:

Oooh, I second that TDZ Re: Phyrebrat's entry(which I loved)

I made a comment early in the 300 discussion thread:

Well I'll add some early comments about Phyrebrat's entry, which I really enjoyed: I found that a second read brought out a really nice handful of subtle gems missed in a first read. I like it when a short story keeps giving!

I had picked up on the same hints as the Zebra

 

[Phyrebrat]

To be honest Phyrebrat, yours was another on my longlist for the sheer beauty of some of the lines, but I couldn't quite work out what was going on, and I couldn't see the SFF/speculative fiction element. I suspected he might have been fee or some kind of water spirit or even a salmon-man (man-salmon), but equally he could just have been an ordinary man eg a gypsy visiting her, so since I'm fussy about stories hitting the genre it lost marks for me. Was he meant to be dead then? If you had made that, or whatever the SFF was, clearer, or if I'd been less slow-witted, you'd have been a strong contender for my third vote. (Though, if I'm being mega-fussy, there were too many lines which I saw as adding nothing to the story, which I'd have liked excised to make the plot itself stronger eg "in the chilly little village of Foile" and "my father's race at Brooklands" -- that could well be me missing the point again, though.)

Argh, me and TJ are on the same page today. I loved your first few lines, Phyre, they were just beautiful and one of the best intros I've read in the challenges. But I thought it didn't tell me enough of a story, and got a little rambling in places, which I don't think a challenge entry can afford. I had no problem with the open-ended ending, though, and those first lines will stay with me forever.

Thank you both for your replies. I note that I often get similar feedback on shorts that I pass by other non-chron friends. I find that when I am too close or embroiled in my own story, I make assumptions on things that are clear to others.

I was hoping that it was not too oblique or subtle a thing to deduce that the father had drowned the boy as unsuitable for his daughter, and that the deceased Sam came back each year to have a secret tryst with Delia. As to what he was, I wanted to leave it open to the reader. I wanted to suggest a mermaid (merman) or some kind of salmon as TJ says, but also wanted to bring a sense of a rotten corpse spirit caught in the tree with all the imagery. I think I should have kept it simpler. I could have cut the racetrack stuff and made it more explicit about the father.

Phyrebrat, I really (obviously) loved yours. I saw it as a young man who the girl's father killed to keep him from courting his daughter, because he was "inappropriate", and buried him under the tree (or threw him in the river and he was caught by the tree roots); every year his spirit calls to the girl and she goes to meet him there. As a side note, the title reminded me of a book I used to read as a teenager, Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes, where the ("inappropriate") boy tells the girl that he will meet her every year "quando los logartijos corren" -- "when the lizards run".

Yay! Thanks TDZ. If it were up to me, he would be a spirit, but I really loved the idea of migrating salmon (where I used to live there was a nearby stretch on the Avon estuary called The Run and the salmon used it every year. It was a romantic natural occurrence and really informed my story inasmuch as I wanted all the nature stuff to be poetic and colourful, and Delia's hum-drum life to be black and white and cold) so thought it would be nice to suggest some kind of mermaid.

Oooh, I second that TDZ Re: Phyrebrat's entry(which I loved)

I made a comment early in the 300 discussion thread:
I had picked up on the same hints as the Zebra

@Phyrebrat: I'm not sure you need any advice at all. The number of votes you earned is nothing to sneeze at. Some might say that this is a little too subtle, that the reader might not even be able to speculate about what is going on. (My own interpretation was that the man's return was somehow linked, in a mysterious way, with the life cycle of the salmon.) Personally, I liked the fact that this was suggestive and impressionistic rather than explicit.

Thanks Victoria. I didn't mean to sound ungracious with six votes. I think it's the most I ever received. I just wondered who went with the salmon and who went with the spirit. I'm really chuffed that you went with the salmon and that TDZ and Remedy went with the dead bloke. I just think I could have made it cleaner and more obvious. Thanks for your comments.

pH

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Yay! Thanks TDZ. If it were up to me, he would be a spirit,
pH

Is it not up to you, then?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Of course not, silly. When have you ever written a story you were in charge of the outcome of?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Ok, I'll be the first to jump with this one. Two votes, no mentions. What's the glaringly obvious stinkiness about this story that everyone can see except me? I had the idea before we even posted the Challenge, but didn't get around to writing it until late. It went through several drastic changes before it became what I posted, and I'm still not sure it conveyed everything I wanted, but it made sense to me.

With God on Our Side


The silence of the forest shattered as a beast crashed through the brush.

Shara ducked under a berry bush and tried to be invisible. It was just a villager returning from a hunt; just a neighboring farmer coming to trade; anything but the Headless One, stuff of fairy stories, stuff of nightmares. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out the hoof beats.

Everyone knew the tale of how the warrior (nameless now) had lost his head in battle, how he roamed the earth seeking revenge for his death. Where he appeared, band of warriors at his back, his opponents would be slaughtered. Some said he drank the dead men's blood; some said he had made a pact with the devil to kill ten thousand men for the return of his head.

Shara flinched as the beast crashed into view, but she dared a peek through her fingers as it passed. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, squeaking in fear. The rider had no head!

The sounds faded, and Shara uncurled and stood up. She had to warn the village! Dropping her basket, she dashed for a shortcut.
***

When the raiders arrived, they found the village warriors already assembled for battle. The opposing bands faced each other.

Out of the forest came a horse and rider. The stalwart combatants paled.

The Headless One rode out toward the village warriors. The village chief moved forward, and his defenders moved with him. The Headless One stopped in front of the chief. When his hand moved toward his sword, there was a rustle of readiness in the ranks.

Then he extended his hand, palm up.

The Headless One turned and, together with the village warriors at his back, rode out to slay the raiders who had taken his head.

 

[Mr Orange]

TDZ, very quickly, as my laptop battery does not have much life left, i lost shara's voice in the third para, the "twist" wasn't enough for me and i got a bit lost as to how the raiders that took a myth's head could be the same ones raiding that village...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'll join TDZ in the oh-go-on-what-was-so-horrid corner. Although I had two fab votes (ty TE and Boneman, must be all that editorial advice over the years....), and a fair few mentions in general this one seemed a miss. When I wrote it I liked the concept but didn't feel I ever got the oomph into it. I also had a happy ending which may be a first....

THE KEY OF LIFE

The Bronze Men stand in the Dead Wood, a line of shining statues. Papa’s there, too, half-mad and hidden, refusing to come home until he finds a key. Sometimes I help look, crawling over broken twigs and through dead rustling leaves.

“Why do you need it?” I ask. Mostly he doesn’t answer, but once he did.

“The man on the horse is a great leader.” He was deadly mad serious. “The others are his army, sent by the King. And everyone’s going to die unless I find his key.”

His eyes were steady, not mad. That frightened me, because there was truth behind his words: the Alymic army had burned our crops and taken our sow. They’d left the woods as dead as we’d be by winter’s end, under their rule.

“But it’s a statue.” I knocked the rider's hollow leg. “It can’t save anything.”

But Papa begged me to look and we searched until I saw the gleaming key under a rock. I snatched it up and took it to the man on the horse. There was no keyhole.

“Underneath.” Papa was insistent. “That’s where I took it from, may God forgive me.” His words hitched. “I thought they were coming to hurt us.”

I got on my knees and under the horse’s belly there was a hole, just big enough for me to insert the key.

At a soft whirr I rolled away. A hoof set on the soil. The leader’s sword swung into place, clickety-clack. His eyes were golden and cogged, his smile fixed: “To battle!”

His men formed up, a clockwork army who’ll fight through hunger. They’ll chase the Alymic away, and food will reach us, and we’ll live.

Papa puts his arm around me, eyes clear, and we turn towards home.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

TDZ, for me, I couldn't understand what the girl's actions had caused and why they were relevant to the villagers supporting the horseman. In fact, I couldn't understand the change of heart at all, which meant it didn't read as a complete story to me.

 

[HareBrain]

the "twist" wasn't enough for me and i got a bit lost as to how the raiders that took a myth's head could be the same ones raiding that village...

I felt the same. How had these raiders taken his head? My other problem with it is that no one really had to do anything. All Shara does is look; all the village's defenders do is assemble. On top of that, the split of the story into two, with Shara disappearing completely from the second half, didn't really work for me.

Springs, I liked the idea, but there was no hint of how her father had changed from being so certain these horsemen were the enemy to being certain they could help. And why had he chucked the key on the floor? The ending also wrapped everything up too neatly. If her father had defeated the horsemen so easily in the past, how is it so certain that they'll defeat the invaders?

 

[mosaix]

Ok, I'll be the first to jump with this one. Two votes, no mentions.

I'm sure you got a mention from me TDZ, you were on my short list. I liked the story but the writing didn't quite 'flow' enough, it seemed to be more a statement of events than a story.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Both of these stories are pretty good, with no blatant problems. Given the fierce competition of this particular contest, earning two votes is quite respectable.

I am in general agreement with the others.

In "With God on Our Side," what seems to be a protagonist is introduced, then disappears. The first half of this story is the best. The second half reads a bit more like a summary than a narration. Compare this to the vividness and personalization of the first half.

I admired the originality and imagination of "The Key of Life," but it seemed a bit too straightforward. We know what's going to happen as soon as we learn about the clockwork army.

 

[mosaix]

As far as my own story is concerned I was more than happy with the number of votes it attracted, but that doesn't mean to say there's no room for improvement.

I'd had the idea of a telephone conversation kicking around for a while and this seemed like a good opportunity. But right up to the point of posting there was something at the back of my mind that told me I could make it better. It was only after I'd posted (I was running out of time anyway) that I realised that I could have just written one end of the conversation (remember Shelley Berman?) and left the reader to imagine the other end. This would probably have given me another 100 words to play with and I could have put more detail into the story. Maybe I'll use the idea again sometime.

Whenever there's a nagging feeling at the back of my mind that something's not quite right with a piece, if I wait a while before posting (although it would have been too late in this case) then it usually comes to me.

 

[The Judge]

When I'm reading the stories I don't analyse them in any depth as to why they work for me or don't. As long as they fit with theme and genre for the 75 worders, or genre and I can see some connection with the image for the 300 worders (that's just me being pernickity), I go by feel, and how the story immediately impacts on me. So any analysis here in the cold light of day is something of a ex post facto rationalisation, not something I consciously thought at the time.

TDZ -- in fact as I read yours the first time I thought it was going on my short list as I liked the beginning with all the different legends that had grown up about the headless horseman. I did see the connection between both parts of the story, since (as I read it anyhow) it's the fact Shara has seen the HH which makes her warn the village so they are ready for the raiders ie without that sighting and warning, the raiders would have killed everyone. But somehow it didn't quite gel, and the ending left me unsatisfied. Looking at it now, I think there is too much left out. Why has the HH appeared to her**, why have these legends arisen, why is she afraid of him if he's a good guy who helps villagers, how could a village realistically oppose the raiders, why do they line up against each other, why do the villagers follow the HH if these legends imply he's evil...? I love the concept, but for my taste the two halves needed to be better integrated eg Shara still there narrating would certainly have helped, and I'd have liked more cohesion in the story with the legends reflecting more accurately what he actually does (I know you have the revenge and the warriors at his back, but for me it wasn't enough). Also for my taste it needs more energy in the second part, some real sense of fear among the villagers, shrieks of alarm from the women lined up with the men, etc -- I think part of the problem is you've given too much space to the opening so you've had to cut back the second half too much.

** Literally as I was reading this I realised the "short cut" was relevant -- he's not deliberately appeared to her, he's en route to intercept the raiders at the village, and she runs and gets there ahead of him. In a way, that creates a different problem, though, since her being there is a coincidence, so what was the HH planning? If she hadn't seen him and warned the villagers the raiders would have struck and gone before the HH arrived.

Springs -- again I liked the concept, but for me it somehow lacked a spark to bring it to life, and as with TDZ's now I look at it in detail, too many questions are up in the air. How the hell did he steal the key being the biggest one for me, but as HB says, why throw it away here, why the change of heart in the father, how long ago did it happen if he's gone mad, how does she know they'll defeat the Alymics and not join with them, and if the Alymics are so bad, why did they leave this pair alive? I didn't mind the happy ending (though the bronze captain's sword slicing through Papa's neck would have been good...) but it was too abrupt for me, and the change into present tense jarred.

mosaix -- as you know I liked yours, and I don't think having one side of the conversation would have helped improve it, and might in fact have created problems of its own. If I'm being pernickity (I am, I am...) there were a few too many clauses and even odd words that could have been removed without loss which would have tightened the story considerably, allowing for more detail if you felt it needed, and some of the punctuation was a tad iffy. In a 75 worder and only one vote you'd have paid for that.

 

[mosaix]

mosaix -- there were a few too many clauses and even odd words that could have been removed without loss which would have tightened the story considerably,

You're probably right, TJ. But I find, especially in the limited word challenges, that if I cut the wording too much then the dialogue gets stilted. Unfortunately, people don't talk the way authors write.

The real problem is that I like writing dialogue too much.

 

[Ursa major]

Some of us had stories that received only half the votes that TDZ's and Springs's received.

The reason I didn't vote for either of them was simply because some other stories connected with me better, not because either lacked quality.