Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
*JANUARY 2016 MICROSTORY CONTEST - COMMENTS ONLY
It turned out to be a really good batch of stories this month (both quality and quantity). Must be something in the weather....
Hey folks, sorry I've been away awhile but should get back into the swing of things this year. This silly work thing keeps getting in my way (you know that thing that pays the bills?)Anyway, great stories this month!
I like posting them here on GR better, and it is easy to read too. But wish we could like comments...
JR
Dig out day so my husband can get to work this week. My car is buried for the duration. I'd say we got 24 inches of snow.
Sounds like great snow, everybody! Enjoy. I wrote a story-song, "What was snow?", a few years ago, for a local ecology group.
Let's enjoy the cool flakes while we can.
I have been away for awhile myself, sent Jot my votes for this month. Am looking forward to next months Theme.Gary Hanson
Hey, Gary - it's great to see you back! Hope all is well. Looking forward to your super techie stories and more.
Thinking of all those snowed under in the US. Hope it doesn't get any more dire.
Hey, Gary's back! Yay--good to have you back, Gary!
Hope everyone has successfully dug themselves out. For once, we had no snow to show in Toronto.
Welcome back, Gary!We've dug out our cars and driveway- but the street still had 28" + snow. They say later today.
Federal Government, Local Governments and all public schools in the MD, VA, and DC area are all closed today and schools are close tomorrow. The problem is not so much clearing as it is where to clear it to. We're enjoying the day with everyone home, except there are a couple family members who only get paid if they work, so they're getting a day off without pay.
Mod
Second day of shoveling. Cars are still buried.
What happens to the car engine's electrics in the snow all this time, Ronald? Doesn't all the snow tucked up tight underneath a car for a few days seep in and get the wiring wet ... just like as if the car had been sitting in water that was up past its floor level?
Heather: I've never had that problem before, but I'll find out by tomorrow.
We frequently get heavy snow here in Toronto, and our car sits out in it. Never had issues with wet wiring from that.
The biggest problem I've had in frigid weather is when the windshield wiper fluid freezes.
Oh well that's good guys that your cars are OK with the snow (apart from the windshield wiper fluid.) The reason I asked was that the other day I just happened to switch channels onto a TV show about two teams building (from junkyard scrap) and then racing cars in difficult conditions. "Scrapheap Challenge" I think it was called and one of the teams decided to waterproof the underneath of the car so that water they had to drive through (to save from going around the water and loosing time points) wouldn't get into the electrics.One of the other teams didn't do that and lo and behold 'the electrics' got wet and they were stuck in the water! I thought snow was just frozen flakes of water! But something different must be happening if you don't have that problem.
Any news on how homeless people and stray animals manage/are looked after, in such cold snowy conditions? Is there a special effort by government or charities to help them. (I saw on the TV that a panda at a New York (I think) zoo was having great fun rolling in the snow.)
It has been a few years since our last big snow storm (1991 28") here in western Wisconsin (with high winds and cold -15F). I remember getting stuck on an off ramp on the way home (snow drifts, thought I missed the curve and was in the ditch but was actually in the middle of the road). When I got back out to the car the next day, the snow was packed solid into every space in the engine compartment, including around the inside of the air filter compartment. Only had to clear the snow around the air filter to get the car started and drive home.
I'm wondering if the difference between snow and water - re harm done to engines - is that 1.) snow hasn't melted enough to find its own way in to vulnerable parts of an engine ... if there is a break in a seal somewhere, whereas liquid water already is fluid enough to get in,
and more importantly,
2.) the actual fact of driving, (ie having the engine going so that water gets sucked in where it shouldn't be) can happen with water. That is you can physically drive into water, BUT, with snow deep enough to possibly get sucked into the air intake etc you are actually prevented from driving before that happens (by not being able to get tyre traction, or by some other moving part of the engine freezing over?) ... and just by the frozenness of the snow forming a sort of seal in its own right, even sealing off something it shouldn't, like an air intake part?
Be interesting thought to actually know the real reason why snow and water affect engines differently (when depth of snow and water in and around engine are the same!) There must be some mechanic types here who would know?
Heather,Most modern cars are built so that the engine can get wet. The road spray from just rain can get up into the engine compartment and make things wet. With the Scrapheap Challenge, I'm guessing things aren't built quite so thoroughly, so water in the engine compartment is a problem. The only reason a properly insulated engine stalls in water is because it smothers from lack of oxygen for combustion or inability to exhaust CO which is why vehicles that are intended to drive through rivers have 'snorkels' so they can get oxygen and also release emissions.
As far as homeless people and animals, generally in the Washington DC area, there are warming shelters which are open during the worst cold. However, there are still a good number of homeless who refuse, for a variety of reasons, to go to any shelter so you will find 'camps' of homeless on top of heat exhaust grates and tucked in other various areas to stay warm. Volunteer and government agencies try their best to provide supplies for these people. I know of one man who is homeless that lives on the street year round. He uses bags of plastic bags stuffed in oversized clothes to keep warm outside at night and during the day he can usually be found inside public buildings like the library. The police and others who know of him keep a eye out for him, but as long as he doesn't do anything 'illegal' he's permitted to live as he sees fit. Homeless animals, if they can be caught, are taken to animal shelters. Sadly there are a number of 'high kill shelters' that will only keep animals for so long, but there are also quite a few 'rescue organizations' that try to get animals into forever homes.
Snow like we've had here (we had 28.5") is actually, really good insulation. Wild animals burrow into holes or thickets that when are covered in snow, are quite warm.
Thanks Sharon for all that info ... good to know. And of course, I now remember that igloos were/are used as insulation weren't/aren't they, now that you mentioned that about the insulating properties of snow. Thanks again ... I kind of like things to 'make sense' and that all helped me to see those things a bit clearer.That's nice of the police to afford that man the respect to ''live as he sees fit'' but keep an eye out for him anyway. We hear (here on our news) so many bad stories about police in America 'bending the law' to suit themseIves ... so its nice to hear a story about police as good guys in the community.
As usual, and sadly for those that are good, it only take a few sensationalize bad people/things to tarnish the reputation of a few.
Mod
Star's Bridge by J.J. Alleson
The Bridge to Nowhere by Sharon Kraftchak
Votes needed from:
Chris Nance
Jack McDaniel
Jeremy Lichtman
Marianne Petrino
Jot Russell
Timothy Paul
Now the votes are mostly in, and since the following does not relate to the two finalists' works, I want to do a general critique of this month's stories, mentioning specifically however only two that came within an inch of being superb but then showed serious flaws.First, nearly all the stories were well written and did what they set out to do. A few, otherwise excellent, simply had no (or barely-sketched and nonevocative) characterization, so that one could see the story nicely develop and play out but without a connection to make one care. I'll not mention these, except to say mine this month was probably among them, and I think the authors of other such tales this month probably have suspected this lack in their pieces here.
Second, two stories this month could drive one up a wall. These were Jot's and Carrie's.
Carrie's is beautifully written, evocative, full of feeling and elegant lines, a tale of loving concern amid despair---until, beginning about 3/4 way in, one still has no clue what the young woman's despair may concern, and looks for it in vain. Maybe I missed its content, and I'm sure Carrie didn't mean the tale as one of "adolescent angst," but it seems to lack content entirely for the despair.
Jot's story had me totally caught up, right up to the last few lines. Then, following a description of the two characters' hands and the loosened grasp, suddenly--like a deux ex machina--the guy is holding onto a cable and climbs back up to her and happy ending ensues. Well, but hey--did that cable just appear? With no hints earlier from the author that it might? And does the guy know all along there's this cable (and perhaps is even holding it)? And meanwhile are we supposed to be feeling for the poor guy and the poor couple--suspended with them on the suspenseful edge, all the time that the author (along with perhaps the guy character) knows very well there's no danger to the guy? That's playing falsely with the reader's expectations/emotions. Not to mention that, if the guy knows the cable's there, he too is playing falsely. . . with the woman's feelings. I don't know if this flaw occurred because the author's fairly new to writing stories, or what, but it ruined what could have been a good story. Perhaps the last section should have been more worked, and if that went over word-count, pieces should have been taken out instead from earlier sections.
A couple of other stories this month also suffer from rushed-ending flaws. Sure, we've all been too busy this month--but sure, too, it affected the ending paragraphs and thus the quality of two or three other stories (at least), unfortunately.
@Paula thank you so very much for your kind and honest words. You definitely make a good point. In my mind she was almost a woman-child, very immature dealing with a very mature situation. I just couldn't figure out how to convey that in the word constraints! Which is of course all part of why I participate, the learning process means more than anything.Again, thank you for taking the time to provide some feedback.
Ah Carrie! I was about to add something--namely, that I felt the story working up and up to something about to be divulged--and could be something about her, or even them--perhaps in some final remark by the man to her; and then it wasn't. And yes, certainly the word constraint could do this. I bet you could go back to it, trim from the midsection, add a few words (maybe from the guy), and have something. . .tremendous. The story has enormous potential, in fact, especially if you work in a tiny bit, in mid- or end- segments, to integrate the imagery (the squared-off edge, e.g.) that you mentioned at the start.Anyhow, thanks. I usually only public-critique here stories I very much like, but still one worries about hurting feelings. I appreciate very much your response.
Paula: I disagree about Jot's story. I liked the twist :) And I liked the open endedness of Carrie's as it reflected much of life's lack of an explanation.
Hmm,I can't agree Paula (and Carrie) with Paula's interpretation that there was no content for the despair of the woman in Carrie's story.
She tells Sid (I must admit I would have liked him to have had a more exotic name, seeing that he came from 'another world'!) that she was broken inside <= that's the despair!
A little later on he says,
I can not reverse what they did to you; I cannot undo how they hurt you.
“Who’s going to want me now? Now that I’m so broken inside?” (she replies) She repeats the despair - the broken insideness - and its left to our imagination (which is a good thing!) to decide is it a physical abuse (eg a rape) or an emotional abuse (eg an intelligent young woman restricted by the conventions of a small minded township if that was where her upbringing occurred.)
and her vulnerability was laid bare for him to see, [and that] despite her loathing of the world she truly did…had…wanted a family. (If it was a gang rape - there is a reference to "they hurt you" - it could explain why she can't have children irrespective of Sid's angel-like anatomy (apparently without normal male attributes, which we know about from when she "looked at his crotch empathetically" and mentioned their "incompatibility" in that regard, implied.)
He broaches the idea of a whole other 'mature relationship' when he says
There are lots of couples that can’t have children. etc
But, and this is the brilliant point as far as I can see, he is not just broaching the idea (in her and hence in the astute reader who is filling in the gaps, as the reader of a good story should be given room to do!) of a physical alternative to a mature adult relationship resulting in children! ... because,
at another (deeper) level Sid is also saying it is a good thing to not be 'traditionally' mature (= fit in, walk the straight line most people in this world have been trained to do) when faced with the very serious "(mature) situation" of whether or not to be 'true' ... to truly be a different sort of mature ... in an often mean-as-sin world that regards 'a degree of meanness' as maturity!!!
Really! How else will the world be able to perpetually subtly correct its tendency to otherwise spiral into its 'worse self' UNLESS artists/authors/brave life-changers of one sort or another challenge 'readers'/ audiences/open-minds to question the nature of maturity ... normality? Yes you have to learn as an author and hone your craft BUT don't let anyone 'teach' you, (mis)guide you towards, how to grow into, how to learn to be, less (than true to what you perceive).
Paula,I've noticed you sometimes do try to keep too tight a rein on my comments in this forum (unfairly using words like 'disrespectful', as you have in the past, to describe what I say) And I think that your sentence here (which you addressed to me)
"I don't see where it's necessary to object to what can make a fine story into a major story."
does continue that habit.
With all due respect, Paula, I would like to say that I simply disagreed with what you said ... as opposed to what you interpreted my comments as doing; 'objecting to Carrie's learning from your opinion' as to how to transform her story, from being a "fine story" into being "a major story."
I was not 'objecting' to a fellow writer learning something! I simply had a whole other interpretation of Carrie's story; its strengths and its weaknesses and how it did what good art should (namely, to question where the status quo has slid to and thus ask does it need to be 'slid back' to 'being true' to some higher - even other worldly - value system?) and to (in my opinion) 'be careful to not loose that' (to someone else's opinion) and I expressed that. (If I can give a specific example of our interpretations 'simply differing' ... I think that for a character in a story to say "I'm broken inside" is not at all cliched. It is what a character, un-used to expressing her feelings and searching for how to express them, would be likely to say! If, on the other hand, the author/narrator had said, within the prose description of the character, "she was broken inside" then that would have been a cliched, hackneyed expression. BUT a character CAN say what an author cannot!)
Whether/how another writer listens to/takes on board or not, my opinion and/or anyone else's opinion is ultimately none of my business. I simply put it forward as what I think.
Should we critique individuals critiques about stories? No- Not useful- write your own objective feed-back that may be contradicting previous given opinion. But none of this, 'no you're wrong, (my 'friend'), he didn't say that' crap- please. Private mail your flame war material if you have to do something.
Writing critique is hard enough without fearing that you will become a target for simply being generous enough to spend time trying to be constructive. No wonder most of us don't bother to give constructive feed-back in public- and the rest of us have to read through all the hot-air- bollocks to that.
Talking of which, my critiques, or possibly panegyrics, of my top 4 list will come out when Jot posts the voting details.Meanwhile, talking about characterisation, it is one of the hardest things to do successfully in 750 words. It's hard not to have either characters with no emotional resonance on the one hand (they just do stuff), or the lay-it-on-with-a trowel streaming-tears-and-terminal-illness/murdered-by-villains-base-injustice TV-movie-type-in-your-face schmaltz on the other.
I was trying to do something a bit experimental where a 2nd main character - Princess Diana - is unnamed and there only by allusion, but is crucial to both the setting and the storyline. And the depiction of the future.
But I guess it didn't work, lol :-)
Richard, you are correct, and I have in fact removed my post replying to certain objections to my critique, for the very sort of reasons you mention. Most writers groups in fact eschew comments on critiques and simply encourage participants to give their own critiques. Andy, your stories normally are crystal clear; this one, though, seemed less so--and yet Diana was clear. Perhaps too much of history and referents/references for the story? (But I'm not sure.)
Yes, Paula. I think you are right. There were several points where I thought "should I spell this out?" but then that could lose some impact also.This will probably sound very pretentious, but I was trying to create a more literary fiction type of mini-story - one of the key characteristic of LitFic is to point beyond itself to shared cultural references, and sometimes also to have some implied social commentary. But hopefully with one conflicted character in the middle to hold it together and identify with.
Sci FI for me is a great vehicle for extrapolating from the present to the near future - I think this royal story even qualifies as "hard" SF as pretty much everything mentioned is doable or almost-doable now.
But then - maybe it should just be more fun. "For goodness sake, man - it's just a story!!"
Just for the record, I restate that I did not "object" to anyone else's critique! I objected only to the statement about me that accused (me again, this time being) that I was "[unnecessarily] object[ing] to what can make a fine story into a major story." I simply disagreed with an opinion expressed. If you note 'message 80', by Marianne, a disagreement 'with an already expressed opinion' is also stated in that messsage. But her disagreeing with what someone else had said was not remarked upon!
Sure, if its problematic then lets ALL agree to not use the word "disagree" in our critiques ... but let's apply that standard across the board without any targeted discrimination against any one person's 'disagreeing' with an opinion whilst letting another's go through to the keeper..
@Paula – no I always welcome feedback, the more honest it is, the more brutal it is, and the better I’ll become as a writer. @Heather – I appreciate the points you made too, two differing interpretations of a story helps understand different viewpoints from a reader standpoint.
@Andy – I think you are favor more clever than I since I completely missed the points you pointed out. I know what you mean by not wanting to “dumb it down” or be too obvious. It’s a fine line to walk. The smarty pants will say “what? Can you be more obvious?” while if not explaining the rest of us will {insert puppy head to the side “huh?” here}> :)
And for the record, I think debate is healthy, it is hard to give feedback for fear someone might take it the wrong way and get mightily offended. However, I can’t freaking learn UNLESS YOU POINT OUT WHAT I FLUBBED.
So have at it. :)
My disagreement was something of an explanation as the voting will show that Jot and Carrie were in my top 3 in part for the reasons given :) Ironically, Paula was also in my top 3.Disagreement in threads may prove valuable to an author and certainly makes for interesting conversation. Decorum is key, but I also invoke Mark Twain.
Mod
Thanks for the critique and I wouldn't say it is wrong in any way. I struggled with the ending, hoping to pull off something meaningful. As for the cable, it was already hanging off the edge, so there is a little wave of the hand to have the reader believe that he was able to catch hold of it as he fell. Not likely, but it's a typical story ending. I think that is why I didn't like the story as much. Felt it was too predictable. I always try to provide a new perspective in a story, but felt this one fell short a little.
When things get too heated in one world - here - I like to retreat to my parallel universe of 'learning Chinese ... language and culture' for a whole other perspective on life. It's so so fascinating and I look forward to knowing enough to really be able to delve into their literature one day. We're so fortunate to live in a world of YouTube and all the billions of bits of info on the net, including lots of access to how sounds are pronounced ... not to mention the TV show called "If You Are The One" (with sub titles) which is shown here almost every evening. (The local TV must have bought a whole stack of re-runs to show it everyday.)There's lots to learn from all sorts of experiences: from having things 'pointed out' - with or without decorum (just different things to learn from both sources) to, being exposed to such things as the sense of humour, for example, of another culture.
Marianne, what is 'invoking Mark Twain'? Was he into 'directness', as opposed to say 'decorum'? (Actually, from watching the Chinese TV show "If You Are The One" its noticeable how the Chinese manage to be both very direct in what they say AND very polite in how they say it, at the same time. A famous example from that show {which is a dating show where potential partners have a chance to choose each other} was when one woman when expressing her priority that her future partner must be wealthy expressed it as "I'd rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle.")
Heather: Twain was very direct, i.e.: "The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become." :)Check out more quotes by Twain : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/aut...
Agree Carrie- but the deep debate about the credibility of honest critique should not be aired in public. We don't need public floggings. If I was honest about all the works, there would be tears, including mine, I'm sure. Some of the stories are crap- enough said.This group could be destroyed in a day with the brutal honesty you like to see. Most of us actually don't want to see every dot and dash of our work debated in-front of planet Earth.
The whole idea of the voting is to show us how our work compares.
It's the motivation driving the 'honesty' that counts the tears.
I'm back!Carrie - on your comment: not 'more clever', if as a writer I haven't communicated what I mean to!
However, Richard and I have had this debate a few times about how easy it should be for the reader just to drink in a story, or whether it's OK to task the reader to work a bit to interpret a story that is more layered (or obscure!)
I'm reading William Gibson's The Peripheral at the moment - and that is hard work at times as he writes as if he is in the future and leaves you to interpret what some future words and word usages mean. And he bobs about all over the place with very short chapters and a large cast of characters. But it's an inventive and rewarding read for sure, if a little hard to get into it at first.
Your story, Carrie, was evocative and interesting but not quite in my top little group I fear. Why? At first I wasn't sure if the lead character was being self-indulgent and self-absorbed, though that was clarified halfway through - there's a real hurt. But I had had time to go off her a bit, I guess.
I also struggled with the concept of her, a human, "literally dangling her legs in space".
But I thought the story was touching from the point of view of the alien creature whose devotion is overlooked, and it had a kind of message in that too about the nature of love which was well conveyed.
@Andy - I tried reading The Peripheral, twice. Just can't parse it. Some members of my writer's group loved it though.
@Jeremy – fair enough. And the last thing I want to see is this group to go away. It’s the only thing so far in the world that can literally make me shut down my life for a few hours to pound out a story – and make me feel good for doing so. :)@Andy – I struggled with the legs off the edge of the world thing too. I had this vision in my head, and I just couldn’t quite explain it without going down a speculative rabbit hole. I figured the more hard sci fi folks would roll their eyes at my lack of scientific explanation for how that was even possible!
Carrie; Your image of the edge reminded me of an image I had seen in a Superman comic as a kid. I thought it cool then, and now too, in your story. :)
So far this Saturday, we have 25 to 27 inches of snow. We may get more than 30. My 8-year-old daughter loooooves the snow, but she doesn't have to shovel it. I'll have fun with that later today.
I didn't have time to submit a story, but I hope to do another vote/critique for this month's contest.