Victoria Silverwolf
Vegetarian Werewolf
Two very amusing tales. I had to go with Pyan for a very clever idea and because I really, really hate messing with the clocks twice a year.
DISCUSSION THREAD -- NOVEMBER 2022 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge
- Thread starter Dan Jones
- Start date
Congrats, both, but I shortlisted ARU, so I've voted for him in the tie-break.
If anyone is interested in the origins of my story, after realising my WWI idea was going nowhere I was rather flailing round for an alternative with a point in history that I thought would be universally understood, but with its only explicit reference in the title, I think I may have shot myself in the foot. (Though the Judicial Helpmeet got it on first reading, which is always a rare event!) Anyhow, I was reflecting on the terrible events of Kristallnacht, also known as the Night of Broken Glass, when in November 1938 Jewish buildings across Germany and Austria were destroyed and Jews robbed, beaten and murdered. In my speculative history, people from the future have managed to set up communications with a rabbi some years beforehand, trying to persuade him to persuade his fellow Jews to leave for safety, but though they've told him of all that will happen, he can't bring himself to believe such evil will occur, so breaks the mirror which is their communication device, the broken glass on the floor mirroring the glass that will eventually litter the streets.
The structure I wanted was to have the story told entirely in questions -- which I found a lot harder in practice than theory! -- not only for the sake of the theme, but it seemed to me that answering a question with another question was something of a (perhaps apocryphal) Jewish characteristic. Breaking the mirror also reflected the kind of ancient Jewish tradition/superstition to which a rabbi might fall prey in his anxiety -- when Jews sit shiva they cover the mirrors in the house, and one (superstitious) explanation I've read is that evil spirits attracted by the death can be seen in mirrors, which therefore have to be veiled, to which I added another superstition that smashing a glass can ward off evil spirits. (A pity that in reality it was evil itself which did the breaking of so much glass and drew only more strength from it.)
If anyone is interested in the origins of my story, after realising my WWI idea was going nowhere I was rather flailing round for an alternative with a point in history that I thought would be universally understood, but with its only explicit reference in the title, I think I may have shot myself in the foot. (Though the Judicial Helpmeet got it on first reading, which is always a rare event!) Anyhow, I was reflecting on the terrible events of Kristallnacht, also known as the Night of Broken Glass, when in November 1938 Jewish buildings across Germany and Austria were destroyed and Jews robbed, beaten and murdered. In my speculative history, people from the future have managed to set up communications with a rabbi some years beforehand, trying to persuade him to persuade his fellow Jews to leave for safety, but though they've told him of all that will happen, he can't bring himself to believe such evil will occur, so breaks the mirror which is their communication device, the broken glass on the floor mirroring the glass that will eventually litter the streets.
The structure I wanted was to have the story told entirely in questions -- which I found a lot harder in practice than theory! -- not only for the sake of the theme, but it seemed to me that answering a question with another question was something of a (perhaps apocryphal) Jewish characteristic. Breaking the mirror also reflected the kind of ancient Jewish tradition/superstition to which a rabbi might fall prey in his anxiety -- when Jews sit shiva they cover the mirrors in the house, and one (superstitious) explanation I've read is that evil spirits attracted by the death can be seen in mirrors, which therefore have to be veiled, to which I added another superstition that smashing a glass can ward off evil spirits. (A pity that in reality it was evil itself which did the breaking of so much glass and drew only more strength from it.)
Much humble grovelling and also joy for the votes from @Hugh, @Bowler1, @HareBrain, @Elckerlyc and also the quick mention, @Phyrebrat. May you all be sprinkled with success and (possibly) lashings of hot mulled wine in the coming month.
I voted for @mosaix's Titanic mistake, as it tickled my alt-history fancy the best. Great 75er!
For completeness, the runners up I had marked were Phyrebrat, Elckerlyc, @BigJ, @johnnyjet, Hugh, @Parson, @Vince W and @chrispenycate
I voted for @mosaix's Titanic mistake, as it tickled my alt-history fancy the best. Great 75er!
For completeness, the runners up I had marked were Phyrebrat, Elckerlyc, @BigJ, @johnnyjet, Hugh, @Parson, @Vince W and @chrispenycate
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My skim-reading brain inserted a "by" in there!
Luiglin
Getting worse one day at a time
Ok folks, I assume everyone fully understood my entry but decided it was either rubbish or didn't meet theme/genre. I did think about sticking in the Improving thread as a prank just to see folks struggle with constructive replies 
For those barbarians out there without taste or decency, I here do provide a translation.
“This is not going to feed my child.”
“You daft person, of course it will. Quit complaining.”
“How’d you know?”
“Asked Mr Newcomen, didn't I. He said, ‘Aynuk, don't worry, it’ll be great. Going to revolutionise the world’… something like that.”
The contraption let loose a pig’s squeal and exploded in a cloud of steam.
“That’s broken.”
“Course, he could be a big idiot. Come on. You lift and I'll grunt.”
The Newcomen engine was the first practical use of an industrial steam engine. It was first used in the Black Country (I think near modern day Tipton) and heralded the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution. Leaving us with the mess of a planet we have today. In my version it never worked, neither did it's descendents and the world now would be a greener place.
The last line is a particular joke phrase of 'you work and I'll make the right sounds'.
This translates as:
If you're daft enough to come down here going home, your tea will be spoiled.
It was put up during some extensive roadworks at the time and shows that councils sometimes do have a sense of humour.
Edit: forgot to add, even more funny is that they got someone in Scotland to create it.
For those barbarians out there without taste or decency, I here do provide a translation.
It was not I, I did not do it, it never happened
The two stared at the contraption.“This is not going to feed my child.”
“You daft person, of course it will. Quit complaining.”
“How’d you know?”
“Asked Mr Newcomen, didn't I. He said, ‘Aynuk, don't worry, it’ll be great. Going to revolutionise the world’… something like that.”
The contraption let loose a pig’s squeal and exploded in a cloud of steam.
“That’s broken.”
“Course, he could be a big idiot. Come on. You lift and I'll grunt.”
The Newcomen engine was the first practical use of an industrial steam engine. It was first used in the Black Country (I think near modern day Tipton) and heralded the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution. Leaving us with the mess of a planet we have today. In my version it never worked, neither did it's descendents and the world now would be a greener place.
The last line is a particular joke phrase of 'you work and I'll make the right sounds'.
This translates as:
If you're daft enough to come down here going home, your tea will be spoiled.
It was put up during some extensive roadworks at the time and shows that councils sometimes do have a sense of humour.
Edit: forgot to add, even more funny is that they got someone in Scotland to create it.
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MANY CONGRATULATIONS @Pyan and @AnRoinnUltra
At present both of you are equally deserving of my vote, but I have to make a decision sometime...
And how wonderful! A stealth vote from the @Starbeast , and further listings from @Elckerlyc and @Venusian Broon . Many many thanks.
In my story, two of the lines' references may be obscure to anyone not familiar with “I am The Walrus”, but that’s the way they came to me.
Both semolina and custard appear in the lyrics, likewise policemen. The lines “Semolina Pilchard Climbing up the Eiffel Tower” refer to Detective Sergeant Pilcher of the London Drug Squad. He was notorious in the late 1960s for busting (and/or framing) umpteen musicians and others including Lennon, before finally getting his own comeuppance with a four year prison sentence in 1973 for perverting the course of justice.
At present both of you are equally deserving of my vote, but I have to make a decision sometime...
And how wonderful! A stealth vote from the @Starbeast , and further listings from @Elckerlyc and @Venusian Broon . Many many thanks.
In my story, two of the lines' references may be obscure to anyone not familiar with “I am The Walrus”, but that’s the way they came to me.
Both semolina and custard appear in the lyrics, likewise policemen. The lines “Semolina Pilchard Climbing up the Eiffel Tower” refer to Detective Sergeant Pilcher of the London Drug Squad. He was notorious in the late 1960s for busting (and/or framing) umpteen musicians and others including Lennon, before finally getting his own comeuppance with a four year prison sentence in 1973 for perverting the course of justice.
Many thanks for the mentions / shortlists @Vince W, @THX1138, @BT Jones, @Phyrebrat and @Hugh.
A special thanks to @nixie and @Venusian Broon for the votes.
My story was based on the 'not' sinking of the Titanic due to the timely intervention of a drunken crew member. I made two mistakes with the story. First, I posted the wrong version. The last line read:
How could such a thing be allowed to happen? Unforeseen course changes can cause collisions and put ships and their passengers’ lives in peril...
It should have read:
Unforeseen course changes can cause collisions and put ships and their passengers’ lives in peril. Who knows what might have happened?
Giving better emphasis to the 'question' element of the challenge. Unfortunately, by the time I realized I had run out of editing time.
The second mistake was not coming up with a better title. I tried for ages to come up with something relating to ice and maybe alcohol but failed miserably.
I'd be interested to know how many people saw / didn't see the Titanic connection. I toyed with including the year but finally decided to give the reader a bit of work to do. It's always a fine dividing line between either intriguing the reader or leaving them baffled. I'm comforted with the fact that for seven of you, at least, I seem to have got the balance right. On the other hand, every time I saw a comment along the lines of 'I didn't understand some of the stories' I thought 'there goes another vote'.
A special thanks to @nixie and @Venusian Broon for the votes.
My story was based on the 'not' sinking of the Titanic due to the timely intervention of a drunken crew member. I made two mistakes with the story. First, I posted the wrong version. The last line read:
How could such a thing be allowed to happen? Unforeseen course changes can cause collisions and put ships and their passengers’ lives in peril...
It should have read:
Unforeseen course changes can cause collisions and put ships and their passengers’ lives in peril. Who knows what might have happened?
Giving better emphasis to the 'question' element of the challenge. Unfortunately, by the time I realized I had run out of editing time.
The second mistake was not coming up with a better title. I tried for ages to come up with something relating to ice and maybe alcohol but failed miserably.
I'd be interested to know how many people saw / didn't see the Titanic connection. I toyed with including the year but finally decided to give the reader a bit of work to do. It's always a fine dividing line between either intriguing the reader or leaving them baffled. I'm comforted with the fact that for seven of you, at least, I seem to have got the balance right. On the other hand, every time I saw a comment along the lines of 'I didn't understand some of the stories' I thought 'there goes another vote'.
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I got the Titanic connection, mosaix!
As for the title, perhaps "Do you want ice with it?"!
As for the title, perhaps "Do you want ice with it?"!
Luiglin
Getting worse one day at a time
As @Phyrebrat agrees, local dialects are great. Something that confirms the beauty in all this is that it also applies to British sign language. I spoke to a signer recently from Newcastle who said he had trouble sometimes with signers from London, as their dialects and slang were different.
How coincidental— I’ve kind of shifted my job a bit so I’m working in a lot more schools for autistic young people. I’m currently teaching myself makaton (and trying not to turn it into voguing)
Christine Wheelwright
Well-Known Member
Many thanks to @Victoria Silverwolf and @Ian Fortytwo for the votes, and to @BT Jones , @Cat's Cradle and @johnnyjet for the mentions.
I struggled with the subject matter this time around before resorting to poetry (a medium that seldom does well, from what I've observed in recent months). Even then I probably missed the 'questions' theme and may have been a DNU for many readers (Did Not Understand). Oh well, onwards to next month's challenge.
I struggled with the subject matter this time around before resorting to poetry (a medium that seldom does well, from what I've observed in recent months). Even then I probably missed the 'questions' theme and may have been a DNU for many readers (Did Not Understand). Oh well, onwards to next month's challenge.
Wayne Mack
Well-Known Member
Two stories that both made me laugh. They are really so close that I'm going to say thank you to both @AnRoinnUltra and @Pyan. Anyone who really needs to see the one that I gave a slight nudge to can check the poll results. I thoroughly enjoyed both stories.
VRlass
Well-Known Member
Hey guys…
I forgot to vote. I was on 2 week holiday, and wanted to do this on my way back… but some monkey bit me and yesterday i spent whole evening trying to get a shot…
And I’d vote on Ronin for accidentally thinking of the same story i did.
I forgot to vote. I was on 2 week holiday, and wanted to do this on my way back… but some monkey bit me and yesterday i spent whole evening trying to get a shot…
And I’d vote on Ronin for accidentally thinking of the same story i did.
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Class, thanks for the kind words @Wayne Mack Ya can't beat a good penalty shootout to settle things
Managed to record some audio with a lad called Jay Starliper doing a solid job of Capcom, but will leave off posting so as not to influence voting. Nice to be on the podium for a change. Though the win is hearing someone enjoyed the tale
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Hope all's okay -there's a story right there!
I'm not sure whether or not my entry figured amongst the lists of stories that some people didn't understand, but if it did, that may be because, during the writing of it, the scope of its ambitions grew rather rapidly.
) in the title, where the date had not originally been the 26th of December, the 'Feast of Stephen', but it provided one of those lucky coincidences. I won't give the answer here, even in a spoiler, as it should be quite easy to work out, particularly if you know that the Great Wen is a name for London, one of the favourite destinations of "she".
** - I'll list the others in the spoiler below, giving people a chance to find them all themselves. (Aren't I generous...?)
- My initial intention was to include as many ways of asking a question as possible. Obviously, 75 words are not enough to actually ask questions in all those ways, so the idea was to mention/allude to those uses, partly (as little as possible) by using the question words themselves and, because that would seem like a list (and would be no fun at all), using homophones or hinting at them. Oddly enough, it was one of these words that suggested the PoV character, by putting the whence into Wenceslas**, which supplied:
- the first link to the genre, Wenceslas being a character from history.
- The second genre requirement was to be speculative, so just leaving Wenceslas in 932 (St Stephen's Day or not) was not an option. This is why (like some others) I went for the time travel option... which, like Wenceslas's name, gave:
- another layer, i.e. something else for the reader to work out.
) in the title, where the date had not originally been the 26th of December, the 'Feast of Stephen', but it provided one of those lucky coincidences. I won't give the answer here, even in a spoiler, as it should be quite easy to work out, particularly if you know that the Great Wen is a name for London, one of the favourite destinations of "she".** - I'll list the others in the spoiler below, giving people a chance to find them all themselves. (Aren't I generous...?)
Is -- <in the text>
Aren't -- <in the text>
Who -- <in the test>
How -- <in the text>
Whom -- Humans (for those with a North American accent)
Whose -- Hoosiers
What -- wattage
Which -- Witchcraft
Why're/why are -- Wire
When -- Great Wen
Where -- Wearing
Whence -- Wenceslas's
Whither - Withering look
Aren't -- <in the text>
Who -- <in the test>
How -- <in the text>
Whom -- Humans (for those with a North American accent)
Whose -- Hoosiers
What -- wattage
Which -- Witchcraft
Why're/why are -- Wire
When -- Great Wen
Where -- Wearing
Whence -- Wenceslas's
Whither - Withering look
But who...er... aped the other's story...?
Elckerlyc
"Philosophy will clip an angel's wings."
Looking at the stories that are now in the tie (amusing, but also ludicrous), it seems I think I took the topic too serious. I'm not sure if my story needs explaining, but I have sought for an alternative explanation why Hitler overreached himself with fighting on 2 fronts. My answer is Hitler visiting a questionable oracle with a question on how to move forward.
The date in the title (20 June 1941) is two days before the start of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Without that move The Man in the High Castle would have been a far more likely outcome.
The date in the title (20 June 1941) is two days before the start of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Without that move The Man in the High Castle would have been a far more likely outcome.
RobSanders56
Member
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Oops I missed the voting window. Thought I had longer. Sorry.
Also looks like mine got zero votes. Try harder next time.
Also looks like mine got zero votes. Try harder next time.
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