DISCUSSION -- July 2015 300-word Writing Challenge (#18)

[Venusian Broon]

NB VB the %ages are based on the number of people voting, not the number of votes cast.

Doesn't mathematically scan with me when each person has three votes that might be cast. It's a bit like seeing a simple bit of grammar that is wrong and really should be corrected. (Don't you instinctively want to correct a "your/you're" error when you see it?) Should come to 100% otherwise it's meaningless. 110% and the such like is for sportsmen...

Using votes cast would mean that it would be correct for both the 75 and the 300.

Anyway I'm just being a math pedant...

 

[Ursa major]

The reason I was unhappy with what I produced is that the point of the story is that the daughter is herself a creation of the silversmith just as the bees and birds are, but no one realises. (His fear is that her secret will be discovered by her admirers whereupon they will take fright and destroy her as being unnatural, hence his wish to protect her by hiding her away, only to realise that that would itself destroy her, only more slowly.) I didn't want to give the game away immediately, so I only gave clues, eg by referring to her being "silvery" in confinement and "creating" her own children, though the biggest clue was in her name and the title -- eglantine is another name for the wild rose, which is also known as sweetbriar, so Eglantine = the Silver Sweetbriar. But having come up with the idea so late, I didn't have the time and spare word count to create more clues and avoid things which seemed utterly unambiguous (eg if I'd had more words to play with, I'd have avoided the word "daughter" and simply had her call him "Father", or if I'd thought about it just made her his "adopted" daughter *hits head against wall at being so stupid as to not see that sooner*), plus I might have produced a proper ending which made the twist clear. My fault for leaving it so late.

Apart from my ignorance that an eglantine is a sweetbriar, I had a growing** (pun intended) idea as to what you meant, although it only condensed into a complete realisation with

his daughter herself later learned the silversmith’s art and created children of her own.

which is, frankly, exactly the right point for full realisation to appear. So, really, there's no need to beat yourself up: I read your story more or less*** as you wanted it to be read. And it's why I voted for it.


** - The first clue was that the silversmith 'grew afraid' which seemed a bit extreme for someone wanting to protect his daughter -- as the story was a fairytale, I didn't read anything more substantial into the envoys vying for his daughter’s smile -- and the second (He fretted how to keep his daughter safe) reinforced the feeling that all was not as it first appeared. That his fears included omens of his daughter's imprisonment -- not the usual fate of someone desired (although it is known in other fairytales) -- was the third clue.

*** - If there was a "problem", it was

But as she grew in beauty, the people who came from every country gazed less at his silver creations than at his child

but this can be read two ways: 1) that his daughter was growing and maturing as a child of flesh and blood would; 2) that the silversmith was taking care to make his daughter appear as if she were normal and growing naturally. And the second reading is reinforced by

One bramble alone he let survive, growing against his workshop so he would never forget.

 

[The Judge]

Yes, VB, that's a problem if people don't use all three votes, but I actually prefer it this way, as it means bigger percentages against my name! I'd much rather have eg a generous 10% and know 1 in 10 voting members voted for me, than ...er... (10% times 3, no, divided by 3... er...) 3.33%?? .... can't do the maths here, but you know what I mean!


EDIT: Thanks, Ursa. Good to know I'd succeeded with at least one reader!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I said it early in the thread - I thought mine totally fell down on the spec elements. Originally there were 450 words and it was clear he'd used clever metal to make it so that it would collapse in the perfect fashion, and then I cut it down and lopped that bit out. so, um, oops. That being the case, I was delighted to get votes (I always am) and mentions.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Yes, that's a problem if people don't use all three votes, but I actually prefer it this way, as it means bigger percentages against my name! I'd much rather have eg a generous 10% and know 1 in 10 voting members voted for me, than ...er... (10% times 3, no, divided by 3... er...) 3.33%?? .... can't do the maths here, but you know what I mean!

I know what you are saying - fair enuff . But then to compare and contrast with the 75 worder you'd have to remember to divide that score by the 3, because in the 75 worder the number of votes cast = number of people vote. Which is all a bit clunky and not lovely!

(In this case this number is actually 2.93. Which is a number that could be different every 300 worder, depending on what the voters decide...)

However possibly the easiest solution is: for me to just ignore those numbers and keep a scrupulous clean and mathematics happy file of all the results of the results

 

[Juliana]

Well done Remedy!!! An excellent story.

Thank you JJ and Mad Alice for the mentions, and a big thanks to Ashleyne for the vote. And another thanks to everyone I've already thanked. I was delighted that my story got so many votes and mentions, since I haven't attempted anything in quite that style before. But that's the great thing about the challenges, getting to try new things. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't, but it's always fun having a go and pushing those personal boundaries.

 

[Droflet]

Juliana, with all due respect to Remedy, and the other great entries, when I read yours I thought it would take some beating. And it did.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Judging from the comments people so kindly left, the whole twist went completely unnoticed

I appreciated (in both senses of the word) the twist that Eglantine was made of silver. That, and the glorious use of language, was why I referred to The Silver Sweetbriar as a modern fable.

I would have loved to have half a dozen votes.

 

[willwallace]

Congratulations, Remedy . And thanks to those who mentioned my story

 

[Phyrebrat]

Well done Remedy ! I predicted a win for you very early on in the voting in another thread

the biggest clue was in her name and the title -- eglantine is another name for the wild rose, which is also known as sweetbriar, so Eglantine = the Silver Sweetbriar

Ah... I got the links between eglantine, wild rose and sweetbriar and felt rather clever knowing it, but I feel dumb not seeing the full link now you've mentioned it, as it's so obvious!

I said it early in the thread - I thought mine totally fell down on the spec elements. Originally there were 450 words and it was clear he'd used clever metal to make it so that it would collapse in the perfect fashion, and then I cut it down and lopped that bit out. so, um, oops. That being the case, I was delighted to get votes (I always am) and mentions.

I read that back a ways up in the thread and thought what is she talking about! For me the spec was delivered by the tone; no matter how prosaic the situation was in terms of repairing love; there was an ethereal sense of otherness about your story that made it feel like something magical or at the very least serendipitous was going on. I suppose we see what we want to see, but I had no problem.

Since I posted my thanks and votes, I find myself owing more to:

Moonbat, The Judge and Mad Alice for the various mentions, and to TDZ, johnnyjet and Ursa for the three late votes! I don't care that you didn't effect any changes in the status quo, TDZ, it was just so nice to have your vote. (It was a huge shock to get votes from Chrispy and Ursa, too!)

Regarding the three-vote system, VB, you just made my head hurt with all those sums. My take on it is that we should only have one vote or we have to use all three. I've not yet understood the logic as to why we have 3 votes in the first place, and when someone casts less than three (for whatever reason), it will make TJ's efforts in the Spreadsheet of votes less representative. It's lovely to be able to award three votes but I wonder if there's an argument for reducing it to one, now.

pH

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I don't think there's any way to either remove the percentages or make them something different, or to force people to use three votes, so it probably doesn't matter what we decide.

TJ, I did get that the daughter was a creation of his, but not the sweetbriar thing.

I wanted to write about a dryad who was imprisoned in a tree-cage to sit on display for humans, but somehow it just turned into a tree that thought it was the last of its kind in the concrete jungle.

 

[Cascade]

Congratulations Remedy.

And thanks to Droflet, Ti, CC, Glen, The Storyteller, littlestar, Juliana, Phyrebat, Moonbat for the various, listing mentions and almosts.

And of course huge thanks to Alchemist for the vote.

*** Just in case anyone is still chasing the thrill of more writing challenge excitement, our anonymous challenge in the Workshop forum has three more days to run. ***

 

[Ihe]

Subtle, Cascade. Subtle.

 

[Sancho]

Congratulations Remedy, well deserved and thanks to Mad Alice for the mention

 

[The Storyteller]

Congratulations Remedy on a very well deserved win! And thank you so much Tim James for the stealth vote! That was a big, very pleasant surprise to find as I went over everything I missed! And on the note of thanks, thank you for the mentions Alchemist, willwallace, Phyrebrat, The Dusty Zebra, Moonbat, Ashleyne. B. Watts, The Judge, and Mad Alice. (Also, you're welcome to those who said thanks for votes and listings from me!)

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Hi Glen! I just noticed your post. Thanks so much for considering my story worthy of a vote; I would have been included in wonderful company. CC

 

[johnnyjet]

Congratulations, Remedy! Well done!

 

[Fitzchiv]

Thanks to Victoria Silverwolf and Remedy for the reviews, as always it's enjoyable to read peoples thoughts on these.

Further thanks to Titanium PI, alchemist, phyrebrat, johnnyyet, TheDustyZebra and Mad Alice for the mentions. Stories about giant metal doom machine's ear hair is probably a bit of a marmite thing, so any acknowledgement is a boon ;-)

Finally, apologies to all - I thought I had registered my votes a day or so after entries closed, but to late I realised they hadn't saved. It would be unfair to reveal who I would have voted for, but I will say they wouldn't have altered any outcome, and would have merely been icing on three peoples already excellent cakes ;-)

Well done all,

F

 

[Mr Orange]

congratulations remedy, and thanks to anyone who mentioned me who i haven't thanked yet...

when i saw the picture the people in the middle background (is that a term?), seemingly unaware of the "growth" in front of them caught my attention. i had an underlying idea of using two voices in my story this time around and that's where the weed voice came from. Management popped up later and somewhat took control...

i then went and used two voices in the 75 word challenge as well...

i have so many voices...

in my head...

what?

 

[Sancho]

Congratulations to everyone on the great stories. I agree with Cats that this is the best month for quality that I can remember. It took me at least 3 days to decide who to vote for .

My thanks for the reveiws, comments and vote and thought that I would mention a couple of things about St. Peter of Tau Ceti e.
Little Star and Ihe both mentioned (many thanks) that it had the whiff of a longer story. This may be because a few months ago, I wanted to explore the idea of a non-techno person trying to live in a futuristic world. So I had started the back story of Leif, a modern version of an 80's surfie.

When I saw the picture for this challenge with all the happy people obscurred by a seemingly random array of pipes, it struck me that the pipes were holographic projectors, protecting people from seeing outside. Who better than St. Peter, an orthodox religious figure, to maintain the fictional gate between paradise and a decaying, dystopian world.
The main difference between the two characters is one seeing and creating a strict code to maintain this terrible secret. While this same secret appealed to the Leif's adventurous curiosity and the need to know the truth regardless of the consequences. Is this right or wrong?
Thanks to all your positive comments, I am building this into a short story to see if Leif...or Peter can find the answer.