Discussion thread -- July 2016 75-word Writing Challenge

Congrats Chrispenycate!!

Just looked back through the old threads to find out what this 'Apocalypse' business was all about... Now I'm really looking forward to next month!!
(no pressure) ;)

Thanks to Victoria, Shyrka and Calliopenjo for their reviews.
Again to Calliopenjo for the vote, and those who listed my story - hopefully I got you all with my 'Like'-ing.

My piece was pretty simple, ECHO made me immediately think of the annoying little game of repeating everything someone says. The hardest part was chewing up wordcount having him repeat everything!
 
Congratulations Chrispenycate.

And thanks to everyone who read and enoyed and mentioned my story. Huge thanks to Littlestar, BigJ, CC, HazelRah and Coast for the votes.

I am finding that my stories at the moment are often not particularly overtly Fantastic or SciFi and this one probably fell into that category too.

In my own mind any references to religion/ spirituality tend to take a story into fantasy. No disrespect to Parson or any others for whom that side of things is more 'real', I just find the unknowability of such matters to push all soties that touch on it to be speculative at worst.

In this instance though there was also a deliberate 'homage' to Robert Silverbergs book, the Kingdoms of the Wall. I chose an impossibly deep Canyon as an 'echo' of the titular wall in that book.
 
Congratulations Chris! I am happy for you. Your poetry is unique.

@Mad Alice thanks for the shortish finalist listing.

@Starbeast Thanks for the Honorable Mention

@The Judge --- I think I voted for the best story and it didn't matter that a mass murderer was treated kindly.

-----

As for my story it went through quite a metamorphosis. My original idea was to go with something along the lines of an acrostic for ECHO. My working acrostic was Electric Collection Hyperstatic Observation, which instead of being Hyperstatic, was in fact a part of the collection. My working sentence was "The old adage that observation effects the events went through her mind, but this was too cool an opportunity." In the end I went with a super power given to the observer, and I believe if I were to write more she would be a villain, which is very unusual for me.
 
Congratulations Chris!

Now I'm really looking forward to what is thrown at us next month.
 
Woo woo! Congratulations, Chrisp! Your finest entry for quite some time, and a deserving winner :)

My story was a probably-too-obscure-and-too-impersonal riff on Pink Floyd's "Echoes", but from the perspective of Dave Gilmour (Gil), after Rick Wright, the keyboardist, had died. In an interview with the Graun, Gilmour described the song "Echoes" as a musical conversation between him and Wright, but one he could no longer have after the latter had died; in practical terms he meant not playing the song again live. So Rick Wright appears, literally, as an echo of the past, mimicking the lyrics of the song, to show Gilmour that he can continue playing the music because they live on in each other.

Anyway, I got the dreaded 0-0 (no votes, no mentions), but as a hardcore Floyd fan I quite enjoyed my little piece of self-indulgence.

Oh, one last thing: I might have to apologise to @Ihe - it may appear I stole your inspiration, if not your execution, but I promise I didn't come across your story until I read them all through for voting :)

I'm really, really looking forwards to seeing what Chrisp comes up with for next month - don't hold back, Chris - give us both barrels! :devilish:
 
image.gif
:eek: Oh pants, I fell asleep and didn't vote! Couldn't decide between all you talented lot anyway!!!!!

Congratulations Chris on a worthy entry.
 
Well done Chrispy, thanks immensely for the vote @StilLearning I'm feeling particularly smug now :)

My story came from wondering what else could produce an echo, obviously sound, and that lead to light echoes and then just energy echo, and then I thought I'd base it in my silly universe and decided that other things could echo, including feelings. I toyed with the idea of a brochure for the canyon of smug but went with a simpler format.

I love the way that we are all pretending to be scared of Chrispenycate's possible choices but secretly we are all really excited by the possibilities. :) Come on Chrispy bring it on!!!
 
Just a word about the genesis of my story... which, like many of my others, grew out of the desperation one gets when the deadline is only hours away and my inspiration has decided to book into -- hide in -- a retreat (after providing nothing more than the text "little sir echo", a song so obscure that I couldn't, in the time available, find** its lyrics). On such occasions, I rely on dictionaries and encyclopaedia to give me a kick start.

This month, I typed echo (disambiguation) into Wikipedia and was first attracted to EcHO (a proposed European Space Agency mission to study exoplanet atmospheres), but got nowhere. Then I spotted Echovirus. What really caught my eye was why it was called an echovirus: echo was an acronym (enteric cytopathic human orphan) and I thought there must be something in those words that might allow a mix of science with a dab or two of horror. Certainly, the story wrote itself, which is handy when time is short. (And, to the great relief of my inspiration, I was even able to include a mention of Little Sir Echo....)


** - I don't use Google, so perhaps I was unduly hobbling my search.
 
DG Jones said:
Anyway, I got the dreaded 0-0 (no votes, no mentions), but as a hardcore Floyd fan I quite enjoyed my little piece of self-indulgence.

Oh, one last thing: I might have to apologise to Ihe - it may appear I stole your inspiration, if not your execution, but I promise I didn't come across your story until I read them all through for voting :)
Click to expand...
Don't worry about it. And just so you know, I didn't fare much better either (swiping lyrics from the Floyd is bad karma, it seems). And yes, mine was also a piece of total self-indulgence. I had crazy fun doing it at least.

PS: this month's been busy, I apologise for missing the voting and all those horrible, horrible puns.
 
I'm cross about my entry. I use Open Office and it counts open quotes as a word so I omit quotes to get the word count right and them add them when I post - but I forgot. Stupid but there is is. Lesson learnt.
 
Ah! I spent ages wondering why you'd omitted all the quotation marks, and I finally decided this was your way of showing that what we were reading was the later transcript of what had happened after the walls were listened to -- ie the conversation between the two was in the past and the murderer had indeed murdered the scientist, and the transcription for some reason didn't use quotation marks to differentiate between voices. Which I thought was an interesting idea. Just goes to show that sometimes it's possible to read too much into things!
 
Congratulations, Chris! Excellent & well deserved.

And thanks for all the mentions I received from Allen Teasdale, Cory Swanson, Azzagorn, Phyrebrat, Mad Alice, Moonbat, & Starbeast.
 
Congrats Chrispy!

This topic was a great one to write and read! There were a lot of great stories in this one! I was impressed all around!

And thanks for all the votes and mentions. I'm looking forward to Chrispy's choice and the next round!
 
Congrats Chrispy!!!!

@DG Jones I was going to join you in my first 0-0 but I got one mention on the last day..sorry buddy. Maybe next time :(
 
Congrats Chrispy.

I went for mournful depressive with a hint of lovecraftian madness.

Didn't work.

So back to awful puns next month. At least they make me smile and yes, I know what they say about people who laugh at their own jokes, but a I don't care :p :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
The Judge DISCUSSION THREAD -- July 2024 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 159
The Judge DISCUSSION THREAD -- 300 Word Writing Challenge #54 (July 2024) Writing Challenges 97
The Judge DISCUSSION THREAD -- 350 Word Writing Challenge #50 (July 2023) Writing Challenges 140
The Judge DISCUSSION THREAD -- JULY 2023 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 169
Ursa major DISCUSSION THREAD -- July 2022 -- 300 Word Writing Challenge #46 Writing Challenges 162

Similar threads


Back
Top