DISCUSSION THREAD -- June 2020 -- 75-Word Writing Challenge

My Not-So-Short List and ***Favorite***:

The Harvest - Cat's Cradle
Stilling the Scythe - Astro Pen
*** The Caretakers - Victoria Silverwolf ***
Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, farm boy – dannymcg
It's Not Unusual to Be Loved by Anyone – Stable
Lamb Becomes the Tiger, inspired by William Blake - Avelino de Castro
Non Pastorised – chrispenycate
The Birds and the Bees – Parson
Grass Wars - Vince W
Out of Eden - Bren G
The Cat Whisperer – elvet
Death by Chocolate - David Evil Overlord
Maintaining the Status Crow - Peter V
 
Some great entries (again) this month. As always, just entering makes you a winner. Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, farm boy. -- dannymcg gets my vote, elevet and Ursa were on my shortlist.
 
Starbeast said:
@dannymcg I like that title
Click to expand...
I saw it in a list of Star Wars quotes back on May the fourth, I remember thinking "you could write a story with that for a title" and less than a month later we got all pastoral!

Screenshot:-
Screenshot_20200625-210637.jpg
 
Short list:
@johnnyjet A perfect feeling of a quaint country town with an unusual secret.
@Luiglin A Disney-sweet scene, and then the troll!
@chrispenycate For the title and the unicorn.
Very close runner up @dannymcg Loved the twist at the end.
Vote: @Peter V Unusual farming, but still such a familiar scene. Humour, puns, it had it all for me.
 
Honourable mention for:

@Cat's Cradle
@Victoria Silverwolf
@Peter V
@David Evil Overlord
@Guttersnipe
@BT Jones
@Hugh

Vote goes to:

@AMB

I think this is the most times I have read through the stories trying to make a decision.
Very much a month where I needed more than the one measly vote.
Some were more Pastoral, some more Unusual. However unusual is maybe more subjective than other themes? People not of this forum might argue that all SF and Fantasy is unusual.
I went for @AMB because it has a crop in it, an unexplained corn circle and slaughtered kids, why! I need to know more.

For mine I wanted to add many more of the endless pit falls that always seem to plague colonisation stories we have all read. I just wanted it to go right for a change. Thats the joy of owning the story you can have what you want.
 
Like @Marvin I found the voting and shortlisting much harder than usual. My normal system is to scroll through noting those I'll shortlist and then fine tune on subsequent read throughs. On this occasion my first shortlist reached thirty before I gave up.

In the end I voted for @Cat's Cradle
with @Victoria Silverwolf and @Peter V as close runners up.

I managed to shortlist the following for one reason or another, in no particular order:
@Maya13
@elvet
@Bren G
@chrispenycate
@Marvin
@Ambrose
@Daysman
@johnnyjet
However there were at least ten others that could easily have made this list if I'd been munching on a different brand of muesli.

A request for @Calliopenjo: please explain your story. I'm still scratching my head.

As regards the choice of genre: when I first began entering this challenge some months ago, I was really surprised that no one chose "pastoral"as their genre for the next month's challenge. Really surprised. Then it began to dawn on me that maybe I lived in a specific SFF time warp in which pastoral was still a well-known genre. As you can see from @Parson 's link to the SFEncyclopedia it covers a wide spectrum of subject matter, and I hope others might consider it in the future.
In choosing "unusual" as the theme, I'd hoped that this would allow those who have a penchant for violent trauma in their stories to feel that there was still space for them.
I've really enjoyed the stories this month. Many thanks to all.

And many many thanks to @chrispenycate , @Starbeast and @Marvin for mentioning my story. A great delight. Many thanks.
 
Last edited:
So many great stories.... How to choose?

After much agonized scrolling back and forth and tearing of hair, my vote finally went to @Maya13. And even then, there were half-a-dozen other stories I could easily have voted for instead--I eventually just voted based on which story I personally would be most excited about expanding into novel length!

And even using that criterion to decide which way to vote was difficult....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
The Judge DISCUSSION THREAD -- June 2024 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 144
The Judge DISCUSSION THREAD -- JUNE 2023 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 158
Ursa major DISCUSSION THREAD -- JUNE 2022 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 167
elvet May / June 100 Word Anonymous Challenge 2022 Discussion Thread Workshop 119
Daysman DISCUSSION THREAD -- JUNE 2021 75-WORD WRITING CHALLENGE Writing Challenges 139

Similar threads


Back
Top