Discussion thread -- June 2016 75-word Writing Challenge

[Dan Jones]

For me fantasy is 'historically' based and concerns things we have 'lost' - magic, unicorns etc. Science fiction is 'future based' and concerns things we have yet to discover - space flight, time travel etc.

I'd broadly agree with that. Occasionally it's turned on its head; Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns trilogy is fantasy set in a far-future, nuclear-blasted Earth where we've "reverted" to the medieval.

 

[Cathbad]

I'd broadly agree with that. Occasionally it's turned on its head; Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns trilogy is fantasy set in a far-future, nuclear-blasted Earth where we've "reverted" to the medieval.

Ditto Brooks' Shannara series.

 

[Parson]

If you excuse the phrase, Parson, but SFF (and all literature) is a broad church

@DG Jones absolutely no offense taken. I've used the word church that way myself. In fact I rather like that church can be used in that sense.

I think hopeful endings are much more powerful than "happy" endings, and there's a profound difference between the two. A hopeful ending is something we can all aspire to as humans; the pursuit of happiness, as the American constitution has it. A chance to get on. A happy ending is something where everything is wrapped up a little too neatly, a little too Disney. Hope is extremely powerful, arguably the driving force behind the entire human race. It's actually the main theme to a sci-fi short I recently completed.

Bravo! well said. Happy endings are often sappy endings. But hopeless endings are worthless endings -- (I always ask myself after one of those, "Why did I bother reading this!") On the other hand endings that leave us hopeful are endings which ring true. As @hopewrites says, when we are at the bottom we still have a choice to struggle up or give up. To struggle up is the very definition of what it means to be human. In general humans have the desire to be more than the hand the life has dealt them. We see the stars and we ask, "Why couldn't we visit them?" Even when present day science has made that desire seem ludicrous.

A dark story is a true human story, but a story without hope is a nothing more than dirge.

This Sunday I'm planning on leading my congregation to think about "What makes life worth living." ---- I've done some research and there are some really cracked up ideas about this. I hope it will be thought provoking and possibly for someone life changing. But as you might have guessed, Hope, is one of the big things I believe make life worth living.

 

[Vaz]

Great discussion guys and gals.

The best reason I can give for writing dark stories is a quote from Stephen Kings' Night Shift anthology addressing the reasons on why he writes horror


"All of us seem to come equipped with filters on the floors of our minds, and all the filters having differing sizes and meshes. What catches in my filter may run right through yours. What catches in yours may pass through mine, no sweat. All of us seem to have a built-in obligation to sift through the sludge that gets caught in our respective mind-filters, and what we find there usually develops into some sort of sideline. The accountant may also be a photographer. The astronomer may collect coins. The schoolteacher may do gravestone rubbings in charcoal. The sludge caught in the mind's filter, the stuff that refuses to go through, frequently becomes each person's private obsession. In civilized society we have an unspoken agreement to call our obsessions 'hobbies.'."

 

[Cathbad]

The best reason I can give for writing dark stories is a quote from Stephen Kings' Night Shift anthology addressing the reasons on why he writes horror

Interesting choice, King. Don't his stories usually end with the evil being defeated?

 

[Vaz]

Except in The Shining, The Overlook hasn't been bulldozed ... yet.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Ashleyne. B. Watts -- The author takes us deep into the psychology of the darkest part of the human mind.

 

[Heijan Xavier]

Also, my line about the brother yadda-yadda ... was tongue in cheek to answer one word for shapeshifter and realm of fantasy

I appreciated the humour in the bizarre set of person to person connections. Were I a better writer, that would have been evident in my response. That's why I'm here though!

 

[Heijan Xavier]

This Sunday I'm planning on leading my congregation to think about "What makes life worth living." ---- I've done some research and there are some really cracked up ideas about this. I hope it will be thought provoking and possibly for someone life changing. But as you might have guessed, Hope, is one of the big things I believe make life worth living.

Doesn't the book of Ecclesiastes sum it all up?

(We may need to start another thread in the History or World Affairs forum.)

 

[Heijan Xavier]

I've been down the slippery slope of negativity.

It's far easier to slide down the hill then to climb up it.

 

[Parson]

Doesn't the book of Ecclesiastes sum it all up?

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

Ecclesiastes 1:2

This is not where I want my sermon to be going.

Actually, Ecclesiastes does a pretty fair job of summing it up. Everything that man strives after winds up being meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Ecclesiastes is filled with these things but occasionally a bright light falls upon the teachers eye and he sees that doing your best and following God are the best a human can hope for.

I'm going rather for 2 Timothy 4:7ff. with the major text verses 7 and 8.

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

(I guess we have wondered a bit far afield, but perhaps this is the last post on this thought.)

 

[Mr Orange]

Many thanks for the review Victoria. Delightful romp was pretty much what I was going for

 

[Dan Jones]

Happy endings are often sappy endings.

I love this, and will possibly nick it.

 

[Mr Orange]

I agree re. "hopeful endings" being the best compromise between sappy endings and depressing endings.

 

[mosaix]

I'm not sure if most of the 75ers have been 'dark'. Maybe I've not been paying attention. I don't think any of mine have.

Certainly there isn't time or space to develop character and so authors need some kind of 'impact' to make a story stand out.

 

[Dan Jones]

I don't think any of mine have.

You are pulling our legs, sunshine!

The challenge you won a couple of months back was about the ticking time bomb of the demographic usurpation of the human race! If that's not at least a little bit dark then I don't know what is.

Anyhoo, all this talk has given me inspiration for my entry...

 

[mosaix]

You are pulling our legs, sunshine!

The challenge you won a couple of months back was about the ticking time bomb of the demographic usurpation of the human race! If that's not at least a little bit dark then I don't know what is.

If that's what you mean by 'dark', then I plead guilty.

 

[Kieran Song]

Thanks for the review Victoria. You're one good-hearted lady!

 

[Perpetual Man]

As the steamboat pulled into the harbour at Elven Wood, the tall thin native glared at the Dwarven river pilot who handled the engineered monstrosity with ease.

“How y’doing?” the dwarf asked with rosy faced cheer.

“Get knotted,” the elf replied with liquid grace, reluctantly tying the boat to the jetty hoping the dwarf would be unable to undo the rope when it came time to leave.

“That’s the idea,” the dwarf chuckled taking a sip from his bottle of grog. “Ahve brought the latest missives from the Tower of the Chroniclers. Want t’ see them?”

The elf sighed, “Reading them is an honour; reading them with you is akin to having my bowels eviscerated and stretched from one end of the wood to the other.

“Ho ho ho,” the stumpy one laughed good heartedly and slapped the elf on the back with the friendly force of someone trying to dislocate the others spine, “Let’s begin!”

Glen – Now this here is a man with the right idea, progress, machinery that makes thing easier for the masses, makes money for those who put the hard work in, giving people more time to relax an’ drink, what could be better?

An arrow through the eye?

Chris – A wonderfully sculptured piece of work that is in all ways magnificent, not only in form is it exquisitely put together, but there is a subtext that these things might not be for the best of the community at large, especially when put together by subterranean gold-diggers.

He was talkin’ about gnomes you sanctimonious stretch of piddle.

Ray – Someone who understand the economics behind production, and understandin’ just what it is that the workers need. Increase in profits and productivity is a necessary acumen that borders on genius.

Sometimes I do not understand a word you say.

Ragandar – See? This story featuring someone who is only slightly lower on the evolutionary scale than a dwarf, touches perfectly on the emotional of cost of such industry. Yes, it might create things so quickly, but they are poor in comparison and the damage to the individuals is traumatic and demeaning.

Ah, it’s a frakking Orc, who gives a monkeys you elvish pranny.

Zen Dragon – Ah this could almost make me quite horny, y’know. The description is almost erotic, makes me long for home. Of course, it’s credited t’the gnomes, but I’ll let him off for the idea, building dragons, what imagination, eh? Where’s me notepad?

Industrial espionage now, is there any level a dwarf will not stoop to? Not that you have to stoop.

Kieran Song – Ah human, prepared to welcome the ‘advanced’ perversions as easily as a witch would welcome a wart. This perfectly shows the gullibility and intrinsic stupidity, prepared to believe in the pap they read when it in flies the face in all reason, leaving them to a fate they so richly deserve.

Bloody vampires as sanctimonious and uptight as an elf. More honest though.

 

[Bowler1]

16 Posts already and I've bearly had time to think, let alone get ink down.

This isn't good....

I'm not happy....

Who can I shoot????