Discussion -- April 2015 75-word Writing Challenge

Culhwch -- The author creates an ever-increasing sense of foreboding in this tense story.

Ashleyne. B. Watts -- A sense of menace disguised as innocence fills this strange tale.

Cat's Cradle -- This unusual narrative suggests that human beings can never fully understand the rest of nature.

Luiglin -- This jeu d'esprit shows us that our creations are not always under our control.

Remedy -- The author manages the tricky feat of creating a story and uncreating it at the same time.

Bowler1 -- The reader is offered insight into the mind of the writer in this vivid story.

Cascade -- By examining the nature of a work of art, the author causes it to come into being.

holland -- With a wink at previous writings, the author demonstrates the god-like power of imagination.

Serendipity -- The intricate structure of this story resembles a Mobius strip.

ratsy -- The philosophical nature of this meditative tale causes us to examine our own life stories.

kerrybuchanan -- With sharp wit, the author examines the nature of life's disappointments.

willwallace -- Good humor and an appreciation for the classics fills this meeting of different media.

Juliana -- The author presents the appeal of fiction in this clever, multileveled story.
 
I think therefore I am. It is an existential statement that has become a go to comment. But just by thinking do we actually exist? Is the person who is typing this really sit in a chair typing away, or is he little more than a string of words appearing across a screen?

And what about you dear readers? I am sure you feel as though you exist, but to me you are just names on a screen providing me with the exquisite entertainment that springs from your imaginations – or could you just be the workings of my fevered brain, characters escaping from the network of letters, becoming people that write at me. Characters larger than life that have become life?

Look here we have Cul – telling a tale, but I cannot look away from the screen. Why would I want to? There might be someone there looking over my shoulder. And when you consider the company he keeps is it someone I would want to see? Has he become real? Or is it just a whisper of fantasy? And what of the writer? Is he telling the tale or is he someone else’s character come off the page? And then there is Ashleyne of the scary clown – It is one thing to speak with another’s voice, but to steal that very voice is even more disturbing. But what if the manner in which you steal it leaves you open to something else? You may have their voice in your mouth, but it is their words that are uttered!

What is this? A little Kitty, what a lovely young thing it is. Does it purr or scratch I wonder? Let’s see what kind of character it is. CC – One of the most important thing in writing is doing research so you get things right. Very important that. The lesson here is if you get it wrong, what a pickle you would be in if the character could correct you off the page. I do wonder if CC hears the birds talking to him all the time - if he indeed exists and does not correct me for being wrong….. At least he managed to finish his story. Unlike Luiglin – it seems he has fallen foul of his own creation, voice and words stolen away by a character that has a mind of its own. It makes one wonder. More importantly what was the last word going to be? Eh? You can’t leave me hanging like that? Helloooo? Are you even there anymore? What is really need at this point is some kind of help. A medicine maybe, just something that might be a Remedy – Now this is my point made real. Quite obviously the character emerging from the screen is the person we believe to be Remedy, when in fact it is little more than the fevered creation of someone else. Are we all? Who is writing the story? Could it be Bowler? – Well it seems it might be. Not only is there something bad making its way through the written word, but our Raygun wielding hero might actually have stepped into the story to save the day. But does that not make him a character? It’s all crashing down on me like some Cascade – There is always room for romance, it makes a lovely break from all the fear and horror. There is something rather charming in the notion of a poem left on a pillow, as a start rather than something to overt. A proper wooing. Unlike poor old holland – who finds that not only do his characters know one another, can be jealous of one another, but can take umbrage at the situation they have been put in, jealous of their fellows. Enough so to strike out at his writing choices, no matter how clever they may have been.

For anyone who sometimes reads my comments, especially when I try something a little different, and wonders just what planet I am on.

I do to.
 
Thank you for the review, Victoria! I love your story for this challenge...it's very well written, and the ending is very nifty!
 
:) Wonderfully unique method of reviewing, Perp! It reads like fiction, with a very strong narrative voice. Terrific! And thanks for the extremely interesting review!
 
Cheers for the reviews and Perp all he's said to me is 'talk to the hand' ;)
 
Right (or is that write?) I'm up.

As with my comments this month I have no idea where I am coming from.

If anyone has seen my mind please return it, C/o Perpetual Man, The Chrons....

I'd be very worried about my 300 worder this month....
 
Thank you very much for your wonderful reviews Victoria and Perpetuall Man :)
 
What a challenge, great idea, CC. A terrific range of quality stories that have blown a fuse on the innovation meter. This is going to be a really tough month to pick a winner. Well, I'm in, although I don't know if I nailed the genre. To those who have helped me with my writing over the years, try not to take this personally. Telford, expecting items to be thrown, hides behind couch.
 
Oh, telford...I hope your writing instructors will forgive you! :) Thank you for the kinds words on my selections. It's terrific to see so many stories in so early...I was worried the 'morning of' that I might have broken the challenge!

I've shamefully forgotten to mention that our mods gave me a wonderful assist with the genre choice...I had been looking at a smaller subject as a genre, and they correctly pointed out that my choice would fit nicely under the broader classification of Metafiction, and would add a world (or many worlds) of possibilities to our interpretations of the genre-choice. So thank you mods! :)
 
Many thanks, Victoria, for your kind and interesting words.

Oops, I seem to have in my so-called flash of inspiration conflated this month's theme with last month's... I hope nobody minds. I also hope people don't mind my borrowing of one of their props either... hasty, I was... said me tiptoeing away....
 
Quite often this site is ridden with puns, they have a life of their own and it seems that with some Serendipity – someone else is doing their best to slip into their work. Like viruses they worm their way into the readers’ brain, making you groan and giggle with a kind of insanity that can only be described as delicious. There are other characters, let’s call one ratsy – who may well see their existences told before them, written on the pages of the novel they have picked up. Perhaps though that life is one they do not like, and you have all those possibilities to escape. Of course if a life is the written word, then it may well be inescapable stretched out before you in black and white. But as an alternative to seeing your life laid out before you… “Kerry!” “Kerry!” Oh lordy, there is the other side of the coin, like being lost in a good book. So lost that no one can reach you, that the characters come a live, touching you becoming more real than the world around you – a bit like the characters here on the Chrons – but no matter how real, no matter how much they talk to you off the page, if you don’t like what they are doing you can always erase…

Here’s an interesting concept, did you know that there are some people out there who believe characters like Sherlock Holmes and James Bond are real people? Really! And young willwallace – taps right into that. Who is to say he is not right. If characters that are so well read that they become so popular they slip into the consciousness of the population, who is to say they do not become real, perhaps it is plausible that they may even meet as the traverse the globe… Of course in doing so they might have to make decisions, choose which path to take, just like Juliana – who sends us back to the days of our youths (well those of us who are old enough to have youths and not still be in them). Those wonderful books, Choose Your Own, or Fighting Fantasy where the decisions you made allowed you to complete the quest or get eaten by a dragon It is not hard to believe that such decisions could actually effect you in the real world. Should you wish to get lost in the wordy meanderings of a commentator from the start please go to post number 43 otherwise please continue to:

Victoria – Has shown us the perfect crime, or at least the perfect way to stop the murder being solved. It is a slightly mind warping solution, did someone just rip the last page out, or did the murderer do it? Who knows, either way it’s just frustrating. Which is probably the best way of describing the next one. Don’t know what the writer was thinking, but if anyone can locate his brain please contact Perpetual Man C/o The Chrons. Thank You.

And talking of writers losing their minds, there is a warning from johnnyjet – who is obviously well on the way to losing his ;) How else could he be verbally attacked by one of his own creations, leadi9ng to what looks like a much more physical beating from another. Close your eyes and take it like a man. Much like a turkey at a turkey shoot telford – offers us an interpretation where the characters actually follow a learning process, with terminal results. Sorry to all teachers who might have marked down a student, but this might have been coming.
 
As I fiddled with the colours on this bit Tywin slipped in his entry, so I'm not ignoring it. Honest. But will come back so it can lead the charge with the next batch.

All this talk of metafiction and characters interacting off the page reminded me of something from a long time ago.

Following the completion of his classic novel Under Western Eyes, Joseph Conrad, who must have put a lot of everything into writing it spent weeks wandering around his house talking to people who were not there - the characters of the book in fact. He was trying to explain why he had done what he had done, to apologise for the things they went through, and to anyone watching it was obvious that it was not a one way discourse, that to him at least, the characters were replying.

It all ended when he came down to breakfast one day and told his wife that 'he had been very sick....'

Truth it seems is just as strange as fiction, or indeed metafiction
 
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