Discussion -- April 2015 75-word Writing Challenge

[Kerrybuchanan]

Congratulations @Culhwch for an outstanding win. Great stories all round. I really enjoyed the theme this month and it seemed to me that everyone else did too, once we'd worked out what it meant!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Well done, Cul! I really struggled with this month. I'm not a tricksy writer and found it hard to understand what metafiction was.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Congratulations Cul. A well deserved win.

 

[Remedy]

Congratulations Culhwch! What a terrific story and a solid win

Well done, also, to TJ and Teresa for 2nd and 3rd... I thought we might have a tie breaker for a time.

Thanks to all those who mentioned my entry. Special thanks to High Eight for the vote - I had quickly regretted my attempt at metafiction and your vote served as quite an alarming and welcome shock - made my day!

This month I opted for the potential internal conflict of a Chrons member, preparing a 75 word entry. Juggling all the elements (which Culwhch managed deftly) into a whole story and meeting all criteria of the challenge can be a struggle, and I wanted to capture some of that. While I feel my entry was weak in terms of actual story, I hope there was something relatable in there.

I'm interested to know how many of us regularly use the entire 75 words, do we have stats for that?

Also, I like to read everyone's explanations of inspiration - so keep them coming

 

[Droflet]

Congrats, Cul, well done mate.

 

[Bowler1]

Congratulations Culhwch, a cast iron and convincing win.

Now can we have simple RAY GUNS next month?

 

[Moonbat]

Congratulations Culhwch, a very good opening story that was hard to beat and in some way challenged us all to be brave enough to even try.

 

[crystal haven]

Congratulations, Culhwch! I loved your story from the start.

I found this challenge really hard and nearly didn't enter, so thank you once again for the mentions - it does help boost confidence. I'm always amazed how people can come up with such clever and varied stories. I've enjoyed reading them all.

 

[The Judge]

Congrats, Cul! As soon as I read your story I guessed it would win, and only Teresa's last minute entry made me wonder if she might throw a spanner in the works. It reminded me a little of the ST:TNG episode where one of the hologram characters (Moriarity, I think) realises he's trapped in the holosuite and tries to escape.

Incidentally, with that colossal win, Cul is now equal with Ashleyne for the most votes in a one-vote-only 75 worder month. Well done, indeed!

Victoria, I love that denouement! (Though I'll pass over the Ursa-worthy puns in the final sentence...) I wish I'd known something was hidden in your story, as I'd have paid a lot more attention to try and unravel the mystery -- and it certainly a deserves special prize of its own. Perhaps we ought to institute a new award for the best hidden-within-the-story-secret, to be known as the Inspector Smithers Mystery Award!


Thank you so much for the shortlistings, Sancho and Ursa. I'm gobsmacked at the notice my piece received this month. Nothing much to say about its origins, though. The theme made me think of warfare, and the first line just popped into my head, giving me the setting as the WWI trenches and the fact they knew they were in a novel. Then I just let the characters talk, and the sergeant proved rather smarter than I expected. I'd already thought of bringing in the idea of a ghost story and MR James, and blow me a thread then went up about him elsewhere on the site, which I thought was serendipitous, so went with it.

 

[holland]

Spoiler

The astute reader will have noticed that of the five named suspects, only one was not said to be present in the drawing room. This was Beverly Chamley. Not only had she removed the last page of the novel, she had also removed her name from the dramatis personae found at the front of the book, thinking thus to escape the notice of Inspector Smithers entirely. Her sole mistake was her failure to notice that Tommy Lane was defined in this same list of characters as "the penniless lover of young Beverly Chamley." When Inspector Smithers realized this, he confronted Beverly, who was hiding (where else?) in the library, a mutilated copy of The Case of the Poisoned Earl Grey in her pretty little hand. Her motive, as should be evident, was her father's disapproval of Lane and his threats to disown her if they were to be married. Miss Chalmers was brought to justice and is now serving a life "sentence" in the "pen."

Wow, now I like your story even more!

And congrats to Culhwch, I don't think I've ever seen someone getting so many votes here, well done!

 

[Luiglin]

Inspiration? Well as soon as I got my head round metafiction it was straight forward to write the entry. I am shoehorning His dreadness into every 75 entry this year whatever the situation. The conflict part was icing on the proverbial Victoria sponge. I admit it is not to everyone's cup of tea but it is keeping me amused concocting the.

The end result should be a years worth of 75s as seen through the dubious eyes of the Dark Lord and his Minion

 

[willwallace]

A decisive win for Culhwch, congratulations. I must thank Ursa Major for the vote, It was a surprise to log on this morning and see that .
Didn't know what the heck metafiction was prior to this challenge, so I learned something new-hurrah!!
Looking forward to the next 75 worder.

 

[ratsy]

Congrats Cul! You did write a great story, and started the challenge off with a bang. Great job TJ and Teresa for the valiant efforts too.

I had no idea what to do this month..I mean, Meta-fiction? What the heck is that!! I researched it, and still didn't get it, so I wrote something a little different. I had no idea if it would take or not, but this was one of my best results in a long time. A list of mentions and 3 votes when the dust settled, so I was very happy so many liked the story.

I actually kind of feel like this memoir and I think we all see a little of ourselves in the idea. I do feel like we are our own protagonists and antagonists. We are the only thing holding ourselves back from achieving success, or happiness, or whatever it is we are striving to be. Instead of just existing, we need to take control of our 'memoir' and steer it. So my conflict was subtle, but it was an internal conflict within ourselves I was trying to convey.

I for one hope my living memoir doesn't end with ache and regret!

 

[mosaix]

Congratulations, Cul!

 

[BigJ]

Congrats, Cul. After reading all the entries yours was the one that stuck out the most for me (stuck out all month, I guess).

As for mine, I wasn't really sure if I'd hit the mark on the genre (a little iffy with the theme as well) and didn't know if it would resonate with those who weren't around when we had a challenge in the genre of tudorpunk, but it garnered a few mentions and a vote from Bob Senior (thanks, by the way) so I'm calling that a success.

Now to see if I can't get something in for the 300 worder at the last minute . . .

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I'm interested to know how many of us regularly use the entire 75 words, do we have stats for that?

Well, I always use 75 words, if that's any help. And I count them at least fifteen times, forward, backward and upside down, to be sure that doesn't come back and bite me in the rear.

 

[Remedy]

Well, I always use 75 words, if that's any help. And I count them at least fifteen times, forward, backward and upside down, to be sure that doesn't come back and bite me in the rear.

Think I've always used 75 too. Its when you write a wonderful 76 word story that this becomes torture!

 

[Cascade]

Congratulations Cul. I'm not sure if there was anyone who listed their favourites that didn't have your story somewhere on the list.

Bravo Victoria. I'll admit I missed all of that in your story. I will take it as a clear reminder that even though they can be read quickly, a 75er can often reward more careful consideration.

I really enjoyed this months challenge, and actually had three ideas, two of which actually got written into a story.

The first of those was told from the possible perspective of a piece of writing with the first line:

"I think I have offended her..." and ended abruptly with the page being ripped out presumably by 'her'.

The dark lord had already used a similar device though so I went back to the drawing board, and came up with a sequel of sorts. A story that seemed to try and rebuild a relationship after the offense and 'conflict' of the previous one. I was quite proud of it, but after posting and showing it to my regular reader she asked the now obvious (to me) question:

"Where is the conflict?"

To which I had to admit.

"Mostly in the previous story"

I was left with, (and I think Ashleyne nailed it) a defensiveness in my submitted story, but probably not much actual conflict.

Great challenge though and thanks again to all of those who offered their encouragement and comments and also to CC for the vote.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I rarely use less than the full 75 words. Much of the editing I do when I am writing a Challenge story consists of trying to think of that last word that will make the story better, or swapping words from different sentences in and out of the story trying to figure out which one I need the most or that adds the most. (Some words get taken out and put back in a dozen times or so, until I either get tired of doing that and decide the story is finished, or suddenly realize that I didn't have to sacrifice either word because there was another sentence I could rewrite and make room for both.)

The idea for this month's story, of course, came from that common complaint among writers, "My characters won't do what I want them to do!" (Which often means, "I made them too smart to get into the kind of trouble I have planned for them.") OK, I thought, what can the writer do to retaliate? Write the character out of the story. The result was actually pretty boring, but since it was the last day I was afraid I would have to stick with it, boring or not ... until the Martin angle occurred to me, and with that punchline I felt a lot better about the story. That, in turn, suggested his protest that he couldn't be killed because readers adored him.

I tried various titles. The one I used didn't start out as a title; it was a comment I made to myself after reading the finished story. Then I thought, why not the title?

 

[The Judge]

Just a reminder, since newer members might not be aware of it (I see it's not been used for some months now!) -- if anyone wants specific feedback on a Challenge entry, then once voting is over the story can be posted in the relevant "Improving" thread. The one for the 75s is here https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/529972/page-38

Cascade -- if you want to post the other entry, now voting is over feel free to put it here. (The danger then, though, is that everyone says "Oh yes, I'd have voted for that one" leading to depression that the wrong one was chosen!)