NB VB the %ages are based on the number of people voting, not the number of votes cast.
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...
NB VB the %ages are based on the number of people voting, not the number of votes cast.
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 withThe 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.
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.his daughter herself later learned the silversmith’s art and created children of her own.
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 byBut as she grew in beauty, the people who came from every country gazed less at his silver creations than at his child
One bramble alone he let survive, growing against his workshop so he would never forget.
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 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.Judging from the comments people so kindly left, the whole twist went completely unnoticed
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
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.
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