Discussion thread -- November 2015 75-word Writing Challenge

[Droflet]

This is a tough one. What truly constitutes absurd within this context? Drof shrugs and jumps in.

As usual they're all good, well written stories so it comes down to the personal subjective nature of the reader. Deep breath:

Honorable mentions: Luiglin Robert Mc Victoria TiTi Bowler A F Wells J Jet Clockworkbot (nice first entry) Ph StillLearning and Her Honor.

As usual one stood out for me from the first reading. Although I'm not all that fond of cats the gold goes to Glen. Clever take on the theme.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Thanks for the vote, Hope.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Ursa – An exercise in nothing, like a lorry driver lost on a roundabout at night, going around in circles, looking forever for an exit, but is actually something.

And there we go that is it. I hope that the reviews have not been too ummm absurd this month, I sort of had fun doing them and hope that you all had fun reading them and were adequately perplexed about what I was up to.*

A final clue, there may well be a tribute of some sort involved.

*Except for TDZ who worked it all out, of course.

 

[Bowler1]

I voted for Culhwch. I would have picked out other top entries to mention, but as I have a fatal to non-existent grasp of the absurd I didn't see the point this month, as it would have been absurd. All I need do now is win the challenge to finish off all the absurdness this month (me or Tim, I'm not sure, I haven't decided yet). All I need now is for Godot to arrive, I'm sure he'll be along any moment now.

 

[johnnyjet]

My Long List, Short List and **** Favorite ****

A Matter of Style - Victoria Silverwolf
Save the Cat – TitaniumTi
Iteration 13 - reiver33
A Staircase Mis-taken - Alex the G and T
Hamlet and Guildenstern Kick the Bucket – chrispenycate
**** The Voice of Doombar – HareBrain ****
PRISON OVERCROWDING? - Bob Senior
Let Bye Laws Be Bye Laws – farntfar
Red or Blue? - martin321
The First Time I Died – Clockworkbot
Brontosaurus' Quantum Thesaurus - David Evil Overlord
A Path Diverged in the Old Forest – hopewrites
Götterzweifelung (Doubt Of The Gods) - DG Jones
'And the non - believers shall dry on the path of life' - First Gnome 22:01 – ratsy
Mr White's Statement To Immigration Control – mosaix
Schrödinger's Menagerie – Moonbat
Highwayman – StilLearning
Taste the Difference - Travis Woodward
In A Hundred Years We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, Anyway – Culhwch
Reflection Has Closed the Road-The Judge

Lots of wildly absurd stuff to choose from! Tough to narrow this list down. Congratulations to everyone!

 

[Luiglin]

I must admit that I'm still with the The Dark Lord on this as I often just don't get absurdist fiction.

That being said having read through all and understanding some, my vote went to Titanium Ti.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Right, had no idea how to judge absurdest fiction, so decided to focus on 'the path not taken'.

Which meant I stopped many good stories in their tracks with a stern stare as I clearly had no idea, being dim and stupid on the last Tuesday of each month, what they were really going on about...

Anyway ones that stood out for me and waved, included: Ashylene B. Watts, Droflet, Bob Senior, and Phyrebrat

I would have given my vote to willwallace, but StilLearnings gripping tale of police chases and warehouses tickled my fancy. So I voted for it.

 

[Glen]

Thanks to all. My favourites:

• holland - only during November
• Luiglin - my Abyssal Dimness
• Robert Mackay - Heller
• Droflet - beep, beep
• reiver33 - Iteration
• Cat’s Cradle - to shout curses at bees
• David Evil Overlord - full of alternate worlds
• Culhwch - Radiohead concert...and none of this will matter, anyway
• The Judge - aurochs

I struggled with where to cast my vote. David Evil Overlord's amazing Brontosaurus came very, very close, but I felt in the end that Culhwch's view of the absurd was close to my interpretation, and the alternate path was wonderful.

 

[Ihe]

Ihe! I'm happy to see you back in the challenges! Nice story CC

Took me long enough!

The challenge this month was difficult to vote (and to write) for me. Maybe it's because I've been gone for a while, or I might simply be dense today, but many I couldn't make sense of, or connect with theme, or with genre, or both.

These are the ones that I liked, that I understood, and that I felt hit more or less the genre/theme nail on the head, or came close enough to hammer an unsuspecting thumb at the very least.

Likes, Faves and VOTE!!:

The Road Too Travelled- Droflet
Save the Cat- TitaniumTi
THE VOICE OF DOOMBAR!!- HareBrain
Forked- johnnyjet
The Saurian Survival- Saharren
Script changes- Venusian Broon
Still Waiting- Jo Zebedee
Taste the difference- Travis Woodward
Reflection has closed the road- The Judge
Pointlessness; OR Getting on my Wik….- Ursa major

 

[Perpetual Man]

I voted for Culhwch. I would have picked out other top entries to mention, but as I have a fatal to non-existent grasp of the absurd I didn't see the point this month, as it would have been absurd. All I need do now is win the challenge to finish off all the absurdness this month (me or Tim, I'm not sure, I haven't decided yet). All I need now is for Godot to arrive, I'm sure he'll be along any moment now.

Me? I`m touched, but I can`t win, I didn`t enter.

 

[Bowler1]

Me? I`m touched, but I can`t win, I didn`t enter.

???

Bowler1 goes and lies down for a while (this absurd stuff is giving me a headache).

Bowlers are simple creatures and can react badly when they are cornered, scared or confused. Their normal behaviour in a truly wild setting is to shoot first and ask questions (if Bowlers ever do) later.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Channelling the Haiku challenge:

Thanks for mentions, Ihe,
Hopewrites, Droflet, Johnnyjet;
Fingers crossed - more yet.

Happy dance -- two votes;
Thanks Luiglin and weichert.
You have made my day.

 

[Juliana]

My vote went to TitaniumTi. Extra points for quoting one of my fave Kipling tales (tails? ).

Shortlist: Luiglin, Bowler, reiver33, HareBrain, Ratsy, Willwallace, Mosaix, Jo Zebedee, Mad Alice, The Judge and Ursa.

Well done to everyone who entered... Here's to next month, when I might actually have a clue about what's going on!!!

 

[Perpetual Man]

Heavens above! I found this challenge really hard this month, not only to come up with something (if I had entered, of course), not only coming up with something different with the comments, but in choosing an entry to vote for.

As all the entries across the board were magnificent, but there was this whole absurd thingy - I found two different definitions of what it was and they were so different it left a lot of space in between.

So when it came to choosing who to vote for I ultimately went with the ones that I felt were absurd enough to appeal to me - and I just liked them on an instinctive level.

This gave me a short list of:

Luiglin
Clockworkbot
DEO
Saharren
TDZ
Ihe
Mad Alice
Gonk the Insane.

and once again I found two ready to fight it out for the vote, Drof and Phyre take a bow.

In the end I went with Phyre simply because it was just so absurdly pointless

 

[Parson]

To say that this was the most difficult challenge to vote on is the understatement of the year. --- Confession: I do not do well with the bizarre or absurd. I am a quiet orderly Parson. (Except when my beloved Vikings are playing, sigh!) Anyway.... I only really understood one story and so I voted for it. Highway Men by StilLearning.

Sorry about no short list. I had no way of comparing the stories.

 

[TitaniumTi]

A vote! Rejoicing.
Happiness, delight, dancing.
Thanks, Juliana.

 

[Mr Orange]

right, so i discarded a few stories that i didn't think were absurdist fiction, then realised i didn't understand the ones that did seem to be absurdist fiction. so in the interests of this month's genre, i think i'll vote for Donald Trump. because that can't be true... right?

 

[HareBrain]

A tough challenge indeed -- including the voting, since some of my favourites to read didn't seem to match the brief in one way or another. Luckily Cul's was one that did, so it got my vote. You can't go wrong with clown college.

 

[Dan Jones]

I'm pleased the genre choice made so many people get stuck in, and it was great to see so many new members chipping in with some good entries, too, and no fewer than 3 stories either directly or indirectly featuring Erwin Shrödinger!

I agree with Harebrain that a few entries didn't hit the brief for me, but I suspect that that is going to be a very subjective take on things when it comes to the voting, but there were a few that stood out for me throughout the challenge.

@Droflet
@reiver33
@Tim James
@HareBrain

Special mentions:

@StilLearning for a quite delicious reading of the brief, which had me smiling and applauding at the reveal. Absurd, but perhaps not Absurdist, it nevertheless was so creative and leftfield of everything else that I felt it deserved a little nod of the head.

@Phyrebrat, whose tale almost had me for its typically fine writing, but I couldn't get past the fact that surely it would be Ireland, not Iceland, declaring war on the UK - or are we literally taking Ireland along for the ride? Is that perhaps a metaphor for... ? Or was it just an Iceland/Ireland typo? Or maybe it doesn't matter? But the niggle remained, so it came a close second place.

Whereas from the first time I read it I thought @Starbeast's entry would be difficult to beat, and it remained my favourite right up to the end. Cruelly Kafkaesque, it gives a snapshot of the sort of grotesque pointlessness to everyday existence as captured in stories like Bartleby, The Scrivener, and The Overcoat. It seemed the most classically absurdist, and reflects the little choices we make every day not to break free of our little cocoons. Morbid, self-reflective and bleak. It has my vote!

 

[Saharren]

You all need to stop being so good at writing, it's hard to choose when everything is excellent.

Reflection has Closed the Road - The Judge

Highwayman - StillLearning (Voted for)

What's the Feathery Point? - Ihe

Schrödinger's Menagerie - Moonbat (Favorite)

Forked - Johnnyjet (Favorite)

Brontosaurus’ Quantum Thesaurus - David Evil Overlord

A Path Diverged In The Old Forest - hopewrites

Script Chages - Venusian Broon (Favorite)

Continental Drift: An Idiot's Guide to Leaving Europe - Phyrebrat

Mr White's Statement To Immigration Control -mosaix

A Matter of Style - Victoria Silverwolf

The Road Too Traveled - Droflet (Favorite)

The Voice of Doombar - HareBrain (Favorite)

Thanks for the mentions, Ihe and Perp! The original story had far too many details to actually fit into 75 words, but I'm glad that my edits seem to have done it some justice, at least. The fact that I had the wrong idea of what the genre actually was made me worried for a bit, but at least now I know to look up a genre to make sure I'm on the w... Did I nearly just put down write page?

*sighs and shakes his head* I need to leave the horrid puns for my old high school buddy. He's had almost twenty years to get used to em.