Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
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message 51:
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Heather
(last edited Oct 31, 2015 02:21PM)
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Oct 31, 2015 01:34PM
or to put it another way, "yes I know I deleted my comment that made your comment {'message 45' above} make sense, Master Bunning, hehehehehe! (if I hadn't deleted it)!" but "all's fair in war-games and war!" (I think that's how it goes, doesn't it?) :-) whoosh...
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750 words allows you to write three very short scenes, or two slightly longer ones - depending on how dialog-driven the story is.1000 words effectively adds another scene, possibly two. It's a very different beast.
Hopefully this isn't too early to add Feedback on stories. SPOILER ALERT to anyone who is still reading or hasn't voted yet.Jeremy- A Scarlet Blossom, Disremembered-intriguing twist on memory; felt it was a little hard to follow as most mind warp stories are
Richard B- Game Master's Play- fun but chilling; feels remote by design, but makes it hard for the reader to connect.
Jack McD- The Place Where Hope Goes- Especially nice opening sentence; bittersweet, well written;needs more connection to the reader- feels too remote
Dean- In Memory Yet Forgotten- eerie, emotional, well done
Heather- Fearful Symmetry- interesting but vague end lost me and lowered the impact
Paula- Scrolled on the green silk leaves- well written and thought provoking as usual but this seemed like the situation needed more air to make it clearer.
Karl- Mindwipe- well written with a nice conclusion. Interesting premise to have such a problem.
Jot- Watchtower- a wild trip into questionable sanity. Great emotional impact.
Ben- The Dark Side of the Earth: Jam, No Bread- while well written overall and had a good tension, it felt fragmented and thus confusing to me.
Marianne-Bingo- wonderful language lets you see the scene and keeps you waiting to see who wins; the end feels a little anti-climactic because it seems to come so unexpectedly
Chris Nance-Legacy- well written; a strange hope blooming from the fertile loam of despair
Kalifer- Rude Awakening- well written and compelling situation, but I'm not sure if we're experiencing a memory (robotic though it might be) and how if the situation is real, or a video game.
Andy G- To Arrive Where We Started- well written as usual, definitely lives up to its name. A secret writer's wish to go back to heighten the experience and get more on the page?
J.J.- Even Artificial Things- poignant, well written,
Richard W- The Lego Man- well written, interesting premise about creating a non-biological copy; seemed more like a fragment
J.F.- The Hundredth-I liked this story, but a few things kept me from completely engaging. As I read it, at one point I'm unsure of the Conyers' gender; it felt like to get the full impact it needed either more breathing room, or a narrower focused memory to make this its most powerful. I'd love to see this one fleshed out to a full length short story instead of flash.
Greg-Regeneration- this started out well, and somewhere in the middle I got a little lost. I'm not sure I can put my finger on it. Perhaps someone else sees what's holding stifling this and stunting its impact.
Carol S.-Forget-Me-Not- a wonderfully hopeful story which touches a tender spot in my heart. My father sent me Forget-Me-Not seeds the year before he passed.
Ron- The Last Lady in Waiting- this has wonderful story, but the remote POV kept me from connecting. I'm still a little confused by the last section. Perhaps it's my distracted mind.
Thank you all for doing creating such wonderful and diverse treatments of the theme. You never cease to amaze.
Thank you Sharon. The good tension is what I aimed for. Happy you felt it.
Mod
Richard Bunning
Chris Nance
J.J. Alleson
Richard W.
Greg Krumrey
Carol Shetler
Ron Jones
where can i find the rules? when is the deadline?---richard w.
Sharon wrote: "Hopefully this isn't too early to add Feedback on stories. SPOILER ALERT to anyone who is still reading or hasn't voted yet.Jeremy- A Scarlet Blossom, Disremembered-intriguing twist on memory; fel..."
Thanks for the critique, Sharon. I'm impressed that you commented on all the stories. I have yet to write any reviews (I need to step up).
I think this month has been one of my favourites just for story titles alone; and then the stories... wow! Jot, it may have no impact in the final outcome, but hope you saw my comment about having voted on the 23rd. I picked up just today that on the 25th you had me listed among the not yet voted.
If not, well to those I voted for - I tried!
Sharon, Your critique was very useful to me. I was warned by my writers group to leave off the last couple of sentences but I ignored them at my own expense. It just muddled a perfectly good story.
Mod
Kalifer wrote: "Sharon, Your critique was very useful to me. I was warned by my writers group to leave off the last couple of sentences but I ignored them at my own expense. It just muddled a perfectly good story."Yes, Kalifer, it would've done better to leave off those couple of sentences. You're such a fine writer, though, anyhow!
I don't know if this has already been discussed but I would suggest we might want to make this a closed group if possible. I've submitted to two publications that won't accept anything already posted on the open web. In other words, if you can Google the post, it's out of consideration for these publications. The old LinkedIn stories are OK because you have to be a member of the scfi-fi group to read them.
So just changing the titles doesn't do it, eh? Oh my. ;)
J.F.:Yes, a very good suggestion. I've been warned about this problem with public posting. Have you sent an email to Jot about this?
I thought it was a closed group already! I didn't realize that anyone can see, not just the group's existence, including a detailed description of what it is about (which is a good thing) but also, all that is posted within it (which is not so good!)Also re 'just changing titles' as a solution:
a title can be something that has taken a lot of thought (or other forms of deep consciousness) to arrive at ... something that you feel is just right for your story. So changing the title isn't always an emotionally satisfactory option.
So I also support making this a closed group ... for those essentially pragmatic reasons, but also because it makes some sort of 'moral sense' that 'belonging' to/'having full access' to something should come with some sort of 'corresponding moral responsibility'; a commitment of sorts. And that can be as simple a commitment as putting in the effort to simply join up.
(Where on the site does it actually state whether the group is closed or open?)
J.F.- The trouble with closed is that closed quickly suffocates. And actually it is just not true that one is deemed to have published by putting up material here. If you do come across that convenient old publishing mafia hammer- one overused for years- as Paula says- one only has to make cosmetic changes. Especially in the early days of self-publishing- the you are ruined if you 'publish' elsewhere -threat was used on a daily basis. It was crap then and it is crap now.
Richard,wouldn't having a very detailed, available-to-all, SEO focused, keyword optimized, description of the group's writing activities and goals (that would show up in searches ... where that description could maybe also include the names of members, so that they too would show up in searches) be enough of an appetite whetter to potential new members?
Probably, possibly, maybe- Heather. If one of us was called Stephen King I could certainly see some SEO potential.
I sure that there are truck loads of geeky things that would widen our footprint. All this old cogger understands is that the louder you shout the more likely others are to hear. But however loud one shouts, if it is from deep in a closed cave then one is wasting one heck of a lot of energy.
Carrie seems to be one of the few of us that really understands the media impact stuff. I don't. But I do know about the lowlife in the publishing world and especially the bum boys- the literary agents- who would do anything to make one think they are needed.
Fair enough, Richard. Yes I don't really know how 'all that stuff' works. I'm ready to be persuaded either way. I was just a bit surprised to realize that everything posted in this group space (deep cave dwelling, or whatever other thing it may be) happens with the "on air" sign lit up. But as you say, unless a Stephen King is a fellow dweller maybe no-one even notices our air waves rippling through the cosmos ... and as writers we do want our work noticed. True.
I'd imagine it depends on the publisher's budget. If it's a bigtime big-budget press, it pays for a text-and-title search all over the Net for some luscious line somewhere in the text (and using wildcards etc. to catch mild disguises; but if it's an impoverished start-up e-mag, it just googles the title. Then it contacts the author and says "Sorry, we can't use (title) after all. Try us again sometime. Like, in 2180 or so."
Richard,I went back to one periodical's submission page and found that the proviso only covered poetry and graphics, not fiction, which is interesting.
While I would prefer the group is closed, I will still participate otherwise. I view the group as an incubator, a way to challenge me and jar me out of my lackadaisy, rather than as a promotional tool. If there were a way to close the group to the wider GR membership and not just the group members, that would be ideal but probably not feasible.
BTW, I didn't participate this month because of a heavy workload and shepherding a disabled relative through a medical crisis. (He's ok now and doing fine.) So it wasn't that I made a New Year's resolution or anything. ;-)
I had a discussion with a literary magazine who was running a contest a few months ago about what they considered published/non-published.She was quick to point out that different people have different view points but she said generally a writing forum like we have or on LinkedIn wouldn't count as "published" because the general public couldn't read it.
And bottom line is if they are paying for content, they want people to have to come to their publication to read it.
It's not fair to pay and the reader can find it elsewhere and not have to pay the subscription fee etc.
Which I get.
So I would think that an "open" group, regardless of SEO, would fall into the published category based on her explanation.
If we close it and want to keep it from suffocating, and cultivate new writers, as Richard said, we'll have to shout it from the roof tops for people to find.
However, I don't know how many people would come across this group without shouting it from the rooftops anyway. It's not like when you google "short fiction microstories" this group is returned in the search results.
J.F., you said,I view the group as an incubator, a way to challenge me and jar me out of my lackadaisy, rather than as a promotional tool.
That's a very good point, I think, because that's (something like) how I value this GR group; as a brilliant teacher rather than as a marketing whiz-kid. (I suppose it could be both ... but, as 'an opportunity to learn the craft and help to grow as a word-artist' is where it shines, I think. I don't know the answer to whether or not it should/can be moulded into a thing that can do both?)
One thing we know for certain: there is currently no single correct answer, and so, authors who want a publisher to publish their work should just keep it off the Internet
