DISCUSSION THREAD -- October 2024 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge

Parson said:
I noticed this too. I wonder if there is something makes steam punk a likely vehicle for optimism? If there is it certainly escapes me.
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Whereas my story probably had the least amount of optimism of them all! What was I thinking?? :LOL: :LOL:


But I think that the steampunk-esque references are more a case of adhering to genre rather than theme. I must admit to have some confusion as to whether stories qualified as retrofuturism.

As for my vote, mosaix wrote a beautifully imaginative tale that weaved pictures in my brain. Runners up were Victoria for a conversation that I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at, and Starbeast for wonderful little story.
 
My longish Short List and *** Favorite ***:

Hope - Laura R Hepworth
Renaissance Man – Luiglin
They Paved Paradise - paranoid marvin
Prophets With Honor - Victoria Silverwolf
Here Be Comets… - mosaix
*** Aqualator – chrispenycate ***
The Weight of Brass and Sky – ColGray
The Infinite Optimism Drive - Christine Wheelwright
Persistence of Vision – Provincial
Welcome Home - The Judge
 
Not sure how much was actually retrofuturism but an enjoyable clutch of stories.
Vote to @mosaix Remembering boyhood Jules Verne there :)

list
@johnnyjet - Memories of Rizla rolling machines and the fresh scent of a new tin of golden virginia.
@chrispenycate - I worked with fluidic logic in the early 70's
@paranoid marvin - I'm a Joni fan
@Victoria Silverwolf - Clarke was more grounded in science than most. I never completely gave up on his idea of an 'elevator' to space, seeing it as a materials issue not a conceptual one.
 
My vote goes to @Ian Fortytwo for his inventive appreciation of the talents of white mice.

Personally I struggled with defining the genre and in the end decided that one had to find one's own definition. Reading through the stories today it's interesting to see the variety of interpretations...
These others caught my eye for one reason or another....
@paranoid marvin
@Guttersnipe
@THX1138
@Christine Wheelwright
@AnRoinnUltra
@Victoria Silverwolf
@Tremendinah Rectiferus X
@Cat's Cradle

And many thanks for the listing @Stable . Much appreciated.
 
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Vote for Cats Cradle and a close call for Johnny Jet, who I was surprised to see had no votes - if only I had more to give (we've all been down this path before, but it's one vote only and that's your lot).

I appreciate I was off theme this month, but I still liked my concept enough to ignore this minor issue and still post my creation. Now I'm off surfing on Jupiter and I'll see all of you in next months 75 worder where my greatness will finally be recognised (I think the recognized z version is too American for my liking, hence not used).
 
Mr B got my vote for 'Dare to live life...' because it captured something very positive: The time standing still/ all is well with the world euphoria of catching a great wave seemed to be embedded in the text. Not an easy thing to describe.

Almost voted for:

'Here Be Comets...' by @mosaix -A similar idea to 'Dare...' but a much different imaginary journey.

'Waiting for No-Show' by @Phyrebrat -The author's prose was off the charts for style and density -'courting sleep' does in two words what would take me a bucketfull of sentences.

'The Weight of Brass and Sky' by @ColGray -More serious writing skill on display, at least in my opinion '...clockwork dreams and obsolete streets dissolving...' does a lot of heavy lifting (scuse the pun).

Thanks all for all the stories, and to the reviewers for the consistent quality updates. (y)
 
My ‘short list’ consisted of Bowler1, Cat's Cradle, Christine Wheelwright, ColGray johnnyjet, Luiglin, mosaix, Provincial, Stable, Tremendinah Rectiferus X & Victoria Silverwolf. Still somewhat excessive, but I was running a fever (covid) and not spending as much time behind the computer as usual. The vote went to johnnyjet, who I must also thank for the vote, along with Victoria Silverwood, and thanks to Astro Pen, Ian Fortytwo & Provincial for the mentions.
 
Woohoo, Jonnyjet gets a vote, and I get a mention from the MIGHTY CHRISPY... life is good.

Now to catch a hundred mile high pipeline that goes on forever.
 
I did a quick and dirty chart of the votes received relative to the order of posting the stories. ie The order in which most voters will read them.
Quite revealing. nearly half the votes have gone to the first six stories posted.
It is quite stark, the first six have 12 times the votes of the second six!
I'll leave the reason for you to hazard a guess at. :unsure: But it may relate to modern attention spans.

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Astro Pen said:
I did a quick and dirty chart of the votes received relative to the order of posting the stories. ie The order in which most voters will read them.
Quite revealing. nearly half the votes have gone to the first six stories posted.
It is quite stark, the first six have 12 times the votes of the second six!
I'll leave the reason for you to hazard a guess at. :unsure: But it may relate to modern attention spans.

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Oooohhhh, I love a bit of analysis! Although I didn't plot out a histogram, I did bit of a totting up of the numbers and concluded something similar a while ago. Though I did find as well that being consistently in the last 3-4 stories also offered a slight advantage over time - that suggests to me that people don't just run out of attention after the first 5-10 stories, but that the stories near the beginning and the end make more of an impact for some other reason too. Maybe the first stories get read while the attention is still fresh, and the last few get a smaller bump of attention because proximity to the end point makes them more 'placeable' in people's minds? In any case, when I get time to enter, I am very happy to drop in somewhere in the last 1/3rd and accept that disadvantage - to me it's worthwhile win or lose because I get to read everyone else's stories (which are often of very good quality) once a month*. I view my own contribution as being something I enjoy doing and as being my 'payment' of sorts for getting the monthly drabble anthology (sub-drabble? Drabble's are 100 words IIRC). That may be why I try and go for something more amusing/slightly silly than dramatic, most of the time.

* According to films about London gangsters I have watched this is known as 'wanting a seat by the band , not a shot at the title', which feels in line with my view of things generally.
 
First off, great choices for genre and theme, Daysman. It was fun writing to those prompts.
Thank you to all of our reviewers this month, well done!

I found the genre and theme challenging to write to (in the good way), and in reading through the entries, I had the feeling that some of the stories missed either the genre, or the theme... there was one story I would have had as a finalist, but it seemed to me the theme was pessimism, rather than optimism. So, I enjoyed reading every entry, and apologies if I missed something when reading that would have allowed me to list a few other stories. Here are my shortlist, and finalists:

Shortlist:
Stable, Victoria Silverwolf, mosaix, AnRoinnUltra, Bren G, johnnyjet, Christine Wheelwright

Finalists:
ColGray, The Judge. I thought both of these were very well written, and very effective pieces, especially for 75 words. I voted (a few days ago) for ColGray, because it to me seemed just right in every way... a truly effective story, and such a nice dose of optimism. Terrific work.

I'm very surprised, and happy, to have received so many listing and votes. Thank you: Ian Fortytwo, Provincial, Stable, Hugh, and chrispennycate for the listings. Very grateful thanks to: Bowler1, StilLearning, Peter V, dgackst, and Yozh for your votes, wow!

Still plenty of time to vote. Good luck, all, the rest of the way, CC
 
I would also wonder if part of the reason is what is written. The first few stories are often written because someone has a great idea for a story with that genre and theme. And the last stories are often stories that people have been working on for a while. And at least for myself I know the story is better if I let it stew for a while.

I've also noticed that certain people tend to submit their stories at certain times and some of us have a better knack for flash fiction than others.
 
I am going to attempt to vote (Correction: I will now vote) but I'm still really fuzzy on what "retrofuturism" means. I've taken it to mean the kind of view of the future that people had in the past, but in reading the stories I'm assuming that I'm wrong about that, or that many others have their understanding of the genre. So, unlike many times, I'm not going to pay much attention to the genre, but a lot of attention to the theme.

Shortlist:
The Evolution of Optimism by @THX1138 because it had a surprising view of optimism and it had really great twist at the end.
Taking a Flyer by @Cat's Cradle for an abundance of cleverness.
Renaissance Man by @Luiglin because it's such a clever homage.
The Weight of Brass and Sky by @ColGray because it projects such hope and innocence.
The Infinite Optimism Drive by @Christine Wheelwright because it's such a joy to read and so hopelessly optimistic.

In my mind there was no better story than The Infinite Optimism Drive so @Christine Wheelwright gets my vote.
 
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