DISCUSSION -- July 2015 75-word Writing Challenge

When I saw the theme, I immediately received an idea. My story may be esoteric, but...
 
I forecast some mysterious doings that are hard to foresee.
 
Still no horror as the part of the genres? - Phyrebrat will emit a groan.

I have an interesting...structure. I wonder however if I will be able to use it here. I shall have to ponder on it.
 
I know what the word deception means but I often look up the subject in online dictionaries to help spur some inspiration. I looked up deception and they all say - the act of deceiving someone - which isn't much use, so I looked up deceive and it says 'to cause to believe what is not true'
So I thought that the best story would be one that deceives my reader, but to other option is to have a character that deceives another character.
Then I realised that we often deceive our readers only to reveal the truth in the last line, someone did it really well last month with a planetary invasion but the POV was a Martian and the Earthlings were invading, I assumed the POV was a human until the last line.
Then I thought what if I don't reveal my deception, isn't that proper deception, but then no one would know, and the deception going unnoticed might not be considered a deception.
So would any deception be moot if I don't reveal said deception? or would I have actually deceived you guys/gals and can reveal after voting (where I might not get any because people wouldn't see the deception in my story) hmm, it's all getting a bit complicated. Maybe I'll just make a hat joke, everyone loves a hat joke.
 
Any mods around. My entry seems to have posted twice for some reason. Can one be deleted please. Cheers

Edit: not sure who it was but thanks
 
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An interesting theme this month, I'm actually not that sure where it will take me... my immediate thought was of Star Trek and Kirk's logic trap, but obviously can't use that.
 
Culhwch said:
Why can't horror be a subset of either science fiction or fantasy? Alien is horror and science fiction. Nightmare on Elm Street is horror and fantasy...
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I'm a big fan of what I class as dark fantasy. Not the vampire pap that's been foisted on us by the Twilight series but more Clive Barker (Weaveworld in particular) and in certain respects Stephen King.
 
Culhwch said:
Why can't horror be a subset of either science fiction or fantasy? Alien is horror and science fiction. Nightmare on Elm Street is horror and fantasy...
Click to expand...

Hey don't shoot the messenger :) I'm just standing up for Phyrebrat!

Although actually, I personally think of horror as a different genre from SF and fantasy - but then we'll get into one of those impossible genre definition discussions - one could say practically everything is fantasy in some manner depending on how loose your definitions are.

Did MR James write fantasy? No that doesn't feel right for me. He wrote dark horror and ghost stories. I'll leave it to @Phyrebrat (if he agrees with me) to define horror and its relationship with fantasy/SF better. :)
 
The problem for me is that I've rarely been scared or horrified by a book that was classed as horror. There was once but it was when I was 11 and read James Herbert's The Dark but that was more about my age.

What I class as good horror is stuff that leaves you feeling unnerved. For that I'd go to Lovecraft or August Derleth.
 
Venusian Broon said:
Did MR James write fantasy?
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No, but if he'd posted any of his stories in one of our "science fiction or fantasy" challenges, no one would have batted an eyelid. (Apart from out of surprise because he's dead, or amazement that he expected to get away with such an excessive word count.)
 
Nice choices, Kerry! I'm in. I really wanted to work on the 300 worder, so I just dashed off a little something...no werewolves, promise. :)
Nice stories so far, everyone! And Ashleyne--how was that possible?? :) You are a remarkably fast writer! :)
 
Well, they're called challenges for a reason, so I will come up with something or other.

Thanks, for having my six @Venusian Broon !

You're all right about what constitutes horror, but I tend to project my own definition of it and feel like if I wrote my usual style, I'd just be the one-trick pony forever. Besides, in the past we've had genres of 'dark fantasy' so if I wrote something that wasn't what I'd (purely subjectively) fantasy or sci-fi, I'd feel like I was copping out.

Regarding horror; I'm not into gore of any kind, or if the antagonist is just a disturbed psychotic. The horror I like has to have a supernatural or paranormal element that (in my again, subjective opinion) could actually be real. So, for me, that includes ghosts, spirits and demons but excludes werewolves, vampires etc. (Although Waterlogged is about mermaids, but they are only 2" - 12" long and are more ethereal and spirit-entity like, so conveniently get out of that whole fantasy definition by a self-serving loophole :p )

Anyway, these things are here to improve our writing. I use the challenges as exercises to improve my technique, not my creativity, so I'm game!

pH
 
It's been a while since I posted on the first day. But the first line came to me this morning and the whole thing sort of took off.

Luiglin, one of these days I'm going to want to see a commemorative 'Dark Lord' post with ALL of your stories together. They're always so much fun! :)
 
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