DISCUSSION -- February 2015 75-word Writing Challenge

HareBrain said:
I'm afraid we've had to remove an entry for being over 75 words. As always, this is something we don't do lightly or happily. It's a shame to let hard work and a good story go to waste, so please be vigilant with word counts.
Click to expand...

Had a nasty moment there! I'd had some hyphenation queries before posting this month and thought I might have made a mistake!

Commiserations, whoever it was.
 
Time for more reviews...

@crystal haven - Committee Meeting - there's nothing wooden about this tree-mendous tale that highlights the dangers of being lumbered with lumber. Not only does it present the root cause of the problem of including troublesome telegraph-toppling timber in the annual parade, this tale isn't afraid to branch out and give us a magical ending that leaves us barking.

@mosaix - An Unfair Cop? - I like this inverted morality tale for it's warped warning; watch out, there's always a bigger fish, and he won't play by the rules any more than you will! I'd wager there's possibly something longer lurking in this short about psycho-lifters and nefarious cops who hide in plain sight against the madness of carnival.

@Phyrebrat - Penny's Last Gleaming - a dark, Grimm-style yarn that manages to compress its own mythology into a couple of paragraphs. The grim realisation of the fatalistic transaction, undertaken by that basest and most corruptive of human instincts - to look - is a horrible moment, and is finished with a glimpse at the netherworld that broods just beyond the sordid underbelly of the Carnival. For an understanding of the morbidity that mirrors the glitter and garishness of the fete, this is hard to beat.

@StilLearning - Unnatural Death Report - tonally a million miles from the story that precedes it, but funnily enough once we scrape away the superficial warnings about the dangers of drink-dialling, we can see the understanding of Carnival as a temporal opening, a rift in mortality that binds the mortal world to something else; a nether world that invites diabolical transactions that can only end in tragicomedy. This might be toilet humour, but if you lift the seat you'll find all sorts of fascinating stuff lurking beneath!
 
Howdy,
Victoria, thank you for the review, much appreciated.

D G Jones, thank you for the kind review, made my day.

Made my day up till they removed my story, I protest, some can get away with anything on this forum. When I returned after being under the weather for several months I was surprised at what was going on with the language used and down right dirty stories. I'm no prude, I've been around the block a time or two but if I wanted dirty talk there is always Craigs list. It was nice while it lasted and my hat is off to all the nice folks for reviews, listings, votes, they sure can make a gloomy day seem bright.
The email I received telling me that me story had been removed said they were not sure where I went wrong but I did go over the 75 word limit.

Bob Senior
 
That is indeed an unfortunate circumstance.


It happens, I'm afraid. I remember on the very first 300 we had my entry was pulled for going over count.

Have to be careful with contractions, you see. That's one place where it can really slap you.
 
Commiserations, Bob. It happened to me recently - you're in good company. But weren't you contacted first? I know I was and, once I checked, t'was a fair cop. Still stung.
 
Thank you for the review, D G Jones. Really made me smile. :)

And sorry about your story, Bob.
 
Probably the ampersand (&) which is a word, not a punctuation mark (actually a compression of 'et', and in French).

When I ran over it was by stupidity, due to copy/pasting from the wrong version of the edit.

And I see I have been amiss, not thanking Victoria nor DG Jones for their much-appreciated revues. Put it down to radiotherapy, please?
 
Yes, really tickled my sense of humour! Thanks, again.

I hope everything's okay, Chrispenycate. I've just read your post.
 
Howdy,
If you are going to police everything then police everything. I slipped up and could have used a , and would have been OK, I used a & and was sent directly to jail. Now I have pointed out that some people like to push the limits and use non-words like S#:T and B*:#H and get away with it. With that way of thinking & is not a word.

BOB SENIOR
 
I'm afraid I don't understand your argument, Bob. Those most certainly are words, and are counted in word counts, just as your '&' was. This was a pure word count problem, nothing to do with content.

If you take issue with the content of any stories, please let us know. It is something we do keep an eye on, and we do moderate accordingly.
 
I guess you could post in Feedback if you feel there's anything left to discuss.

I do understand it feels bad to have gone over the word count and had your story taken down -- it really isn't something we want to do, or something we do lightly (three of us counted the words to make sure) -- but the challenge is to write a story in 75 words or less (should that be fewer? I never know). Stories that are over 75 words don't qualify, and that's one of the things that makes the challenges fun, I think -- that we need to write our stories in such a small number of words. It's surprising to me how much more luxurious 100 words feels (and 300 is practically a novel).
 
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Bob, if you are complaining about asterisks and other marks that are used in place of letters in words that would otherwise be censored, I'm sorry, that is not the same thing as using the ampersand in place of a whole word.

You are not being singled out. Plenty of people have had stories removed for going over word count. This includes several of the moderators. We all regret that his has happened to you.

When it comes to content -- what you call dirty talk -- that was a situation that escalated over time, and it was making moderators uneasy because we strive to be a family friendly site (I am in complete sympathy with you there) but it was difficult to decide at what point we should be cutting it off, since anything that might be called censorship is not something we do lightly. There was a lot of discussion before we decided what to do. Once we decided, we did take action: announcements were made, letters were written. Reaching that decision took awhile, because it involved making judgement calls, unlike a clear-cut decision about word count. And we did it between Challenges, rather than halfway through, so that for each individual challenge everyone was playing by the same rules. If you feel that in this month's challenge we are allowing someone to break a specific rule that others are forced to observe in this month's challenge, let us know. Because if that were to happen, of course it would be unfair.

Cross posted with Hex. Sorry. (I take too darn long composing some of my posts.) I think everything has already been said. If we've missed anything, contact us privately, please.
 
Given the deadline, I thought I'd best get to writing. First draft: eighty-seven words. Edit, edit, edit, edit. Okay. Second draft: ninety-one words.

Some days I really hate this challenge...
 
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