DISCUSSION THREAD -- October 2021 -- 300 Word Writing Challenge #43

Thank you, all!

In my post last week I mentioned that I don’t tend to come in to the Discussion threads once voting has started so I was wholly unaware how voting was going until Dan, in a PM about something else, said “Talking of challenges, you're looking good for a victory in the 300! I don't think you can be caught now.” Naturally, I castigated him for foolishly tempting fate and ordered him to perform some suitable propitiatory measures. However, what I didn’t realise is that it wasn't foolishness but a Machiavellian attempt to play with my mind -- making me suffer as I watched him relentlessly set out to hoover up votes and catch up and overtake me at the last minute. Fortunately, the good sense of voters meant his dastardly plan was foiled again!

As to which, many Thrush-singing Land of Contented Thanks also to HB (voting now? Next you'll be taking part again!!), Ursa and Aber for their lovely votes!

But while I'm naturally delighted to have done so well, I have to say that for me Sule's entry was the outright winner and I'm disappointed it didn't get wider recognition. It was a perfectly created story with wonderful use of the Swinburne poem -- go look it up and see how well it fits with the theme -- and a great understated ending.

We've been out all morning and haven't long been in, and we've got a Zoom talk on the Hogarth exhibition at the National Gallery coming up shortly, so I'll end here for now and witter on later about the origins of my piece and the French author, English poet and Greek myth I referred to when I posted the story a fortnight ago -- meanwhile I'd love to know if anyone did pick up the Easter Eggs I'd planted,


BT Jones said:
Can't wait to see what @The Judge comes up with for the next 300 topic.
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The 300 winner doesn't get to choose the next Challenge, but as it happens I have recently shared with the other mods a possible image for the January Challenge, so we might go with that. Or we might throw it open to hoi polloi to choose as we've done in the past. You'll all have to wait to find out!
 
Phyrebrat said:
Oh, whatevs xx
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And to think that I voted for him... ;)


Anyhow, all those members who wanted to talk about the entries, their own or someone else's, now's your chance to do so unencumbered by the others who worry about such things affecting the vote. No critiques or criticism, though. Ask questions, make observations about what you liked, but no hint of "This would have been better if..." -- if someone wants that kind of help, s/he can go into the Improving thread for it. (And there's no limit for the number of times one can post there, so don't worry about that at all.) If anyone wants more generalised help, not limited to this quarter's Challenge, ask for that here or in the Improving thread, whichever you want to use, and let's see what we can do.

Here at least is my explanation of French authors, English poets and Greek myth.

Taking them in reverse order, the underlying Greek myth was, as I think most people got, Charon, the ferryman who takes the dead across the River Styx to the Underworld, though actually my first idea was literal time-travel, but when Ian posted with that theme I moved onto thinking of the boat carrying passengers to heaven, and it was only after a good bit of cogitation that the ideas got twisted together. It was interesting to read what some members were getting from the story, but what I intended was the ferryman being the antithesis of Charon (which fitted in with the boat name, Norah C, being backwards) since his role was to find people on the brink of suicide and, in effect, bring them back to life and the living.

The English poet was AE Housman and his poem A Shropshire Lad:

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.​

The blue remembered hills, spires and farms all ended up on the cutting room floor when the initial story came in at over 450 words, so all that was left was the title, the "lost land" at the end and a pretty ineffectual “Shropshire”.

The French novelist was Proust and his novel, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu which is nowadays given the literal translation of In Search of Lost Time, but its original title in English was Remembrance of Things Past (bringing in another English poet, actually, since that's a quotation from Shakespeare's Sonnet 30) both of which fitted in with my ideas of memory and searching. The Proustian Easter Eggs were:
  • Madeleine is the small cake which evokes a memory for the novel’s protagonist
  • Charles is the first name of that protagonist
  • Swann’s Way is the first volume of the novel
  • In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is the second volume
  • The final line of dialogue explicitly refers to in search of lost time
And something that wasn’t an Easter Egg but which I’m conscious might have confused a lot of members, “The Backs” is an area in Cambridge where a number of the colleges back onto the River Cam. It would have been simpler just to say they were at university together there, but where's the fun in that?! :giggle:
 
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Congratulations to The Judge for a well-deserved win!

I honestly must say that I was overwhelmed by the amount of positive feedback my story received. While votes are the most easily measured, what really made my day were the compliments that were directed its way, and they are what I will cherish. I am grateful for the votes from paranoid marvin, The Judge, johnnyjet, Victoria Silverwolf, Cat's Cradle, BT Jones, and G.T., and for the mentions from pyan, therapist, Dan Jones, Phyrebrat, Elckerlyc, and Daysman.
 
Congratulations @The Judge. I loved that story.

But after your explanation I can see that it was all way above the country parson's head. I saw it as a kind of fantasy which the fates allowed a deserving woman a redo at love and a better life. Why she gets a redo is left unexplained and probably unknown in the story. --- I feel a bit of dunderhead now.
 
Not a dunderhead at all, Parson! You picked up the essence of the story -- that she's given another chance by something beyond her control or understanding. I didn't expect anyone to get all the allusions, and it didn't worry me if some people didn't get any, but I had fun packing them in there, while trying to ensure that the story was understandable on at least some level without them.

I've mentioned before that I love puzzles and cryptic clues, so I approached the allusions in the same way, as a bit like a hidden code. Actually, it's been a long time since we had a spate of puzzles in the 75s, with acrostics and anagrams cropping up, or things like different hairstyles hidden in the text. Perhaps we ought to start the craze again!
 
My story was based on the early beliefs / observations that there were canals on Mars moving water from the poles to arid regions. I combined this with H. G. Wells' story War of The Worlds in which invading Martians emerged from capsules fired by giant guns from the surface of Mars.

Thanks for the mentions / shortlists to @Wayne Mack, @M. Robert Gibson, @Dan Jones, @Phyrebrat, @Elckerlyc and @The Judge.

A special thanks to @nixie, @Pyan, @paranoid marvin, @Daysman and @Provincial for the votes.

As always, thanks to @Victoria Silverwolf and @Parson for the effort they put into the reviews.
 
Parson said:
Congratulations @The Judge. I loved that story.

But after your explanation I can see that it was all way above the country parson's head. I saw it as a kind of fantasy which the fates allowed a deserving woman a redo at love and a better life. Why she gets a redo is left unexplained and probably unknown in the story. --- I feel a bit of dunderhead now.
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Which can sometimes happen when a magician reveals their tricks! But The Judge's meanings and allusions required specific reading of certain text, knowledge and understanding; and this whilst we are also reading through 30+ other entries. So it's no wonder that you and I (and probably others) didn't fully grasp The Judge's meaning story. And who's to say that an air of mystery isn't a more satisfactory conclusion?
 
Well done The Judge for a fine story well told.

And also well done to Dan Jones and Betok_Haney for making it into double figure votes, which is a great achievement.

Thankyou again to those who voted, shortlisted and commented on my entry. As was mentioned, my intention was to attempt to write in a similar style to Lewis Carroll in whose work I am greatly in awe. I had no intention initially to end the story the way that I did, but with limited word count left I was left with no option but to wrap it up quickly; as it happens it ended up making more sense (and hopefully a better conclusion) than the one I had originally intended.
 
Well, I must confess that I was uncertain what the @The Judge story was about and where Madeleine ended up exactly. I got myself misled by Charon, totally ignoring that the name was in fact backwards. I have never read anything from Proust or Housman, so that didn't help either.
So, it wasn't the story itself but my failed understanding that it 'only' got shortlisted by me.

It were the bright, funny and unpredictable stories with a optimistic vibe that got my votes this round. Well done @AnRoinnUltra, @Betok_Haney and @paranoid marvin. As Sir Reginald Rigmarole already had earned a vote from me on an earlier occasion, @Dan Jones missed a vote this time by an fingernail.

My own story wasn't consciously based on anything, really. Except perhaps on a lack of inspiration. So the story ended up being mysterious, unexplained and a bit meh.
Before that I had the beginnings of a story about treasure hunting in the mud of the canals that had fallen dry after The Collapse. But after 200 words my Muse took a flight to Pluto, leaving me stuck in the mud. I couldn't come up with a satisfying conclusion.
 
With voting behind us, I'm going to briefly give my thoughts on the stories I voted for and shortlisted (now that I can safely say I'm not influencing anyone else's vote).

Bindlestiff by Victoria Silverwolf - The descriptions were crisp and visceral, and the characters real, especially the first-person narrator.
Gloriana Days by Rafellin - I thought this story of a bleak reminiscence was touching, and the last paragraph especially so.
What in the Boggins! by Ashleyne - I really enjoyed the strangeness of this tale, both from the villainous hunger and the heroic boggins. The depth of detail in its worldbuilding stood out.
Mr Boggings by Elckerlyc - I particularly liked the ending of this story, of a long-held wish remembered and finally fulfilled.
Preservation by Astro Pen - a quality story about an idyllic world about to lose its innocence. I particularly liked its use of a space colony struggling to remain in a pre-Industrial state.
View For Those Left Behind by Perpetual Man - the prose's beauty stood out: the descriptions were spectacular and the entire thing was breathtaking.
The Land of Lost Content by The Judge - I'll admit that some of what The Judge did in this went over my head, but I could still see the beauty inherent in it and thought it was a very well-crafted and balanced tale for such a small amount of words.
 
Well done @The Judge Another masterclass (y)

As for me? Well I missed out this month because I left it too late and when I finally got around to writing something it was turning into some sort of epic space opera, tentatively entitled Oblib Sniggab and the Spiders from Barj

No one knew where they came from, except it wasn't our solar system. The alliteration loving media dubbed them Space Spiders. They weren't, of course, but reports told of their spaceships launching a web-like material during attacks.
The outpost on Ganymede was the first to fall, closely followed by that on Titan.

And now, with their fleet heading towards Mars, only one man stood in their way. Oblib Sniggab, the bravest, most daring of all space adventurers.
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Note to self - next time, start out on a smaller scale :rolleyes:
 
The Judge said:
Thank you, all!

In my post last week I mentioned that I don’t tend to come in to the Discussion threads once voting has started so I was wholly unaware how voting was going until Dan, in a PM about something else, said “Talking of challenges, you're looking good for a victory in the 300! I don't think you can be caught now.” Naturally, I castigated him for foolishly tempting fate and ordered him to perform some suitable propitiatory measures. However, what I didn’t realise is that it wasn't foolishness but a Machiavellian attempt to play with my mind -- making me suffer as I watched him relentlessly set out to hoover up votes and catch up and overtake me at the last minute. Fortunately, the good sense of voters meant his dastardly plan was foiled again!

As to which, many Thrush-singing Land of Contented Thanks also to HB (voting now? Next you'll be taking part again!!), Ursa and Aber for their lovely votes!

But while I'm naturally delighted to have done so well, I have to say that for me Sule's entry was the outright winner and I'm disappointed it didn't get wider recognition. It was a perfectly created story with wonderful use of the Swinburne poem -- go look it up and see how well it fits with the theme -- and a great understated ending.

We've been out all morning and haven't long been in, and we've got a Zoom talk on the Hogarth exhibition at the National Gallery coming up shortly, so I'll end here for now and witter on later about the origins of my piece and the French author, English poet and Greek myth I referred to when I posted the story a fortnight ago -- meanwhile I'd love to know if anyone did pick up the Easter Eggs I'd planted,



The 300 winner doesn't get to choose the next Challenge, but as it happens I have recently shared with the other mods a possible image for the January Challenge, so we might go with that. Or we might throw it open to hoi polloi to choose as we've done in the past. You'll all have to wait to find out!
Click to expand...


I agree that sule's entry was exceptionally well written, and (as I mentioned previously) the use of 'show don't tell' in the last paragraph was executed to perfection. In many respects the story reminded me of yours, with both protagonists facing the prospect of a bleak future; except in the end Maddie chooses life whilst Noah chose death.

I think humorous and/or feel-good entries with happy/positive endings tend to fare better in the Challenges these days.

Oh and a quick shout out to StarBeast , who never fails to raise a smile in any story posted. I think you mentioned earlier in this thread that you were considering two much darker ideas? I'm not sure I can ever imagine such a thing from you.
 
I'm a little late (lots of overtime & battling a nasty cold), but I'm glad I returned to read the wonderful comments I've received for my October 300 entry. I must admit, I got misty reading the nice things people said about my story. Weeks ago I struggled against being very tired and sick, I was feeling nothing but grumpiness... However, something pulled me up from the inside and I walked toward the light of a warming Muse. I thanked God and pushed forward. I wanted to return with my lists because everyone wrote such amazing stories, I felt compelled to do it.

@paranoid marvin I always try to focus my moodiness and frustrations into my writing or artwork, rather than be hostile towards others. However there are times when I get an idea for a creepy tale and formulate a horror story for fun. But as you know, I tend to add humor into the mix.



 
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