Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion

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*MAY 2016 MICRO STORY CONTEST - COMMENTS ONLY

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message 101: by Heather (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments Andy said, "Wonder if anyone has replicated that experiment"?
who knows, but it seems a little less brutal than what happened to the clan, quite a few generations of spiders back
http://www.madscientistblog.ca/mad-sc...

The wonder is that scientists haven't yet figured out how to copy the natural brilliance of animals 'more nicely' ... though that experiment on superman spider did sound benign: a 'spray with a water bottle' (waterboarding) after 'collection from the Italian countryside' (extraordinary rendition.)


message 102: by Andy (new)

Andy Lake a 'spray with a water bottle' (waterboarding) after 'collection from the Italian countryside' (extraordinary rendition.)

lol, Heather


message 103: by J.J. (new)

J.J. Alleson (goodreadscomjjalleson) | 106 comments Andy, 1973? Wow - I assumed this was kind of 2000 affair. Thanks, I'll watch with a nice cuppa and a bacon sarnie.

There are several academic references to the experiments - including Cornell University, but I did wonder about the date too. :-)

Heather, I agree about the nicer approach, given the plans to extend testing to other animals/insects etc. I think phobias may well reach new levels if this gets out.


message 104: by Andy (new)

Andy Lake Of course I wasn't born yet in 1973 .... got to know it with my kids in the 1980s ...

Bacon sarnie??? Of course, the issue at the heart of the story.

BTW, on research and testing: I was listening to a report on the radio last night as I drove home about growing embryos outside the womb. It's possible to do that up to the (UK) limit of 14 days now - so what next? SF in reality ...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sci...
No bonding stem cells with carbon nanotubes, it seems. Yet.


message 105: by Heather (last edited May 06, 2016 08:12AM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments These appear to be perpetual questions for Humanity (as long as it - Humanity - remains spiritually embryonic = 'has a visceral body' to be constrained by/allowed to be unrestrained because of.')

Until that changes, one way or the other - eg by "SF in reality"?? or by God's intervention, or by ??? it will be as Shakespeare said (he must have known Jeremy would set this topic)

"Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; And vice sometimes by action dignified"

... which I suppose is why life can be either exhilarating or exhausting (exhausting, not in a good way I mean) ... but generally not in equal shares for all - more a zero sum game. But is that non-balance/strange-balance destined "to be or not to be? That is the question!" And science fiction(/'creative non-fictional reality with a scientific bent',) the answer! lol or not to lol


message 106: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments "Several tropes were beamed to this ship by rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the tropes they sent you."


message 107: by Andy (new)

Andy Lake They went back. They were just day-tropers.


message 108: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderan."

"You are part of the Rebel Alliance, and a trope. Taker her away!"


message 109: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments "You can't win Darth. If you strike me down, I will become a trope more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

Sorry, just watched Star Wars with the kids for May 4. Going to see Captain America tonight. Very excited. Non-literary I know, but I'm a huge movie trope, er, fan.


message 110: by J.J. (new)

J.J. Alleson (goodreadscomjjalleson) | 106 comments Andy wrote: "They went back. They were just day-tropers."

Think a few also joined the Ragged Trousered Philantrope-ists.


message 111: by J.J. (new)

J.J. Alleson (goodreadscomjjalleson) | 106 comments Andy, what with your link, I'm starting to feel like the guy with that cameo role in the movie going, "Now do you believe me?"

Seems we're swiftly being pushed into a new genre of science-fistory.


message 112: by Heather (last edited May 06, 2016 09:08AM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments science-fistory love that word!

but what about 'science fufistory' ? .... or 'science fifustory'


message 113: by Dorthe (new)

Dorthe (dortheaabom) | 8 comments Justin: 'It's a trope!'


message 114: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments Dorthe, that is AWESOME! LOL!


message 115: by Ink (new)

Ink 2 Quill (ink2quill) Justin wrote: "Paula wrote: "I like "Utropia." Or "Uhopia." Or. . .
Some very very fine stories already.
And Jack and Justin both, you got me laughin' in the aisle."

Thanks Paula! Once I overcame my trope-o-phob..."



I loved you May submission story but I wonder what the title meant?


message 116: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments Hi John,

If you're asking about my title: "Emit fo tuO", I was trying to be clever and cheeky by writing it backwards. Read it from right to left. Perhaps that is a trope in and of itself. But I laughed at it when I first thought of it, so that's what I decided on.


message 117: by Thaddeus (new)

Thaddeus Howze | 88 comments Having been out of commission due to family obligations and declining health, I am sort of confused by the perspective of people regarding science fiction and fantasy tropes.

No matter how good a writer you may be, YOU HAVE USED TROPES BEFORE. As a writer of short science fiction: You are more dependent upon tropes than you realize.

Tropes make it possible to take complex topics and make them a sort of default operating system for a story.

EX: If your science fiction world possesses faster than light drive and it is significantly faster than light, you have civilization(s) which could span an entire galaxy. This is a trope of science fiction.

The nature of this single trope means you can also have: Alien life forms, alien technology, alien viewpoints, dead civilizations outside of your own, very divergent species, just to name a few of the benefits of such a trope.

This trope can be initiated with as little as a single sentence: Our warp drive allowed us to reach Alpha Centuari in little under four hours.

Yes, this sentence does imply a reader understand just how fast that was, but a well-versed and understanding genre reader will recognize how fast that is - a beam of light will take 4 YEARS to reach Alpha Centauri) and thus will begin making other assumptions based on that trope.

This is the power of tropes. They are the shorthand of genre fiction, allowing sophisticated readers a leg up in understanding a story and writers the ability to write other things better because they don't have to work quite as hard building a background which is normally taken for granted in most modern writing (where the world we are writing about looks just like the one outside the reader's door, requiring far less explanation.)

What I like the most about tvtropes.org is the fact they have compiled the most well-used, well-known and often under-appreciated tropes into a database where users can see that almost under no circumstances are you writing an original story, something that should be liberating to a creator.

It isn't about being new. It's about being different, writing it from a perspective never considered before, by you, and hopefully by anyone else.

Shape-changers are often talked about in writing and are often thought about in the sense of loss as they take over our bodies. But what if we addressed it like an addiction: Living with a shapechanger rather than just taking the easy trope of "body-snatching" we deal with the ramifications of a relationship with a shape-changer. We can subvert the trope (reverse it, undermine it or change it in a way where it is less recognizable) and do something with it in a new a different way.

Example: "I was deep in my long-denied addiction, subsumed in the spiritual ecstasy of this most magnificent of beings. Shapechangers are creatures in every mythos. Loved and feared, Humans tended toward the later so they learned to hide from us. Among us. When we discovered them or they revealed themselves, we tended to be afraid. They left. We regretted their leaving with an inability to ever truly love again.

Who could love us the way we wanted to be loved, whether it be illusion, glamor, or shapeshifting, whatever the method of achieving this symbiosis, this merging of souls, how could an ordinary love ever compare?

You never truly overcame it. Like an addict, you always craved it. Every day you survived to find compassion in another person, enjoyed the companionship of someone who wasn’t a perfect match for your needs in every way, understood that soul-mates was a terrible condition to hope for, you were one more day sober. You were still a member of the Human race, replete with flaws, and the ability to accept them in others.

Loving a shapeshifter took that away from you. You sought perfection. Because you had it. You craved it, because it was self-reinforcing; co-dependent. This was the power of the shapechanger. After some time with them, you would defend them against anything and anyone.

They became your everything."

Subversion of tropes is the most effective way to allow tropes to work FOR a writer rather than against them.

Anyway, I hope I have added something to the conversation and may try to write something for this month as well if my health allows.

I did submit two stories to the anthology and look forward to seeing more great stories from this group in the future.

Keep writing!


message 118: by Paula (new)

Paula | 1088 comments Okay, Thaddeus, now I'm worried about your health. You've had a hard year this year. . .
Yeah, love those shape-shifters. And trope-shapers, ftm. Good points!


message 119: by Andy (last edited May 09, 2016 04:13AM) (new)

Andy Lake Wishing you good health, Thaddeus

Interesting points on tropes - takes me back to my earlier point that in some ways it might be easier to list what isn't a trope. And Andy G's deftly put point about when sufficient repetition turns plagiarism into a trope.

There are lots of different ways to analyse by categorisation: themes, conventions, motifs, clichés, plot devices etc - and 'trope' seems to cut across a few of these. Like Tinkerbell, tropes exist if you believe in them enough, perhaps :-)

Originality in this sense is always hard, because people can always slot things into one category or another - though sometimes this takes some Procrustean racking and slicing.

Analysis by trope is just one way of ordering the familiar. But in any case, I like the approach of subverting the familiar, whatever we call it.


message 120: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments Heather, from where I sit, you are working on a whole other level. Nicely done!


message 121: by Heather (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments Thanks Justin!


message 122: by Paula (new)

Paula | 1088 comments Yes, a brilliant piece, Heather. I'll have to read it again more carefully but yes, as Justin says, it's on a whole other level. Nice.


message 123: by Heather (last edited May 11, 2016 02:20PM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments I appreciate your saying that, Paula, thanks. It's an experiment ... more or less off the top of my head and different to what I had at first intended to do. I was thinking of going back and self-evaluating the actual rhythm of the piece but decided to just let it stand as it was ... partly because I'm not sure what criteria to use to 'check it' other than how it feels. I'm just a little concerned about "did I keep enough consistency of rhythm and pattern?" (but I feel like it has a reasonable degree of self-consistency.)
(BTW 'Bazzer' in my story is Baz Luhrmann who directed "Romeo & Juliet" - the version with Leonardo di Caprio in it. It just happened to be shown on TV here last week ... which is what largely inspired me to write this story in this way.)


message 124: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments It feels very stream-of-consciousness to me, which is very hard to effect in writing (in my opinion), especially a dream-like sequence. I think you pulled it off smashingly.


message 125: by Heather (last edited May 11, 2016 03:00PM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments Well what might have 'helped' that I guess you could say 'altered consciousness'/stream of consciousness feel Justin is that I have been quite unwell recently (feeling better now though.) I have atrial fibrillation and hypothyroidism and an infection (from my cat accidentally giving me the most minute scratch and me trying to ignore it, before I realized I had to get antibiotics) seemed to spark a scary episode - where my pulse got down to 40 beats per minute and very irregular at one stage - from my usual 80-ish beats, and a bit irregular pulse rate. The infection might have been coincidental because my doctor has adjusted both my medications after review and blood tests and now my pulse is around 60-ish/beats per minute and only a little irregular. (I still have to see a heart specialist, because maybe I'll need a pacemaker, but the way I feel now I don't think so anymore.) But that whole episode really sent me into 'another space', and that is more or less what 'pulled off' that 'dream-like' sequence "smashingly" ... cause I nearly got smashed out of existence altogether!! - it felt like anyway, as if I could have lived or died on a heart beat! Not sure I want another episode of such 'deep inspiration' underlying the "saw a good show on TV" one though!! lol


message 126: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments And here I thought it was just LSD-inspired. Seriously though, I'm glad you're feeling better Heather!


message 127: by Paula (new)

Paula | 1088 comments ". . . directed "Romeo & Juliet" - the version with Leonardo di Caprio in it"-----no no no how could that happen! Or what about an alternate universe where it didn't?


message 128: by Heather (last edited May 12, 2016 12:52AM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments I think it happened because, at the time, America was too busy suckling an infantile power - called (the) Donald T(rope) - too notice! (no offense intended to any innocent bystanders also called 'Donald')

An alternative universe? Hmm ... vote for Bernie Sanders?

EDIT: actually I just noticed you said "alternate" not "alternative." Hmm, that throws a cat among the pigeons ... I don't know what universe would alternate with the one where 'Bazzer directs Ameritropia!' lol


p.s. Justin, thanks for the 'well wishes.' yeah who needs LSD when a little bit of hypoxia does the trick, for free! lol


message 129: by Ink (new)

Ink 2 Quill (ink2quill) Story number 12 is quite the tale. It definitely is unique with a certain littrerary dexterity I enjoyed.


message 130: by Heather (last edited May 12, 2016 12:05PM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments Thanks for the comment John. I just re-read my story ... and I quite like it still.

I like too that being in this group is helping me to open up to exploring (or not self-censoring) the sort of "dexterity" you mentioned. Being deeper "in the zone" through illness helped in a weird way - but I'm trying to find other ways now; like regularly-scheduled-in hydrotherapy, meditation ... maybe even some gardening? (things that schedule in an ongoing repetition of/familiarity with moving in and out of "zone levels." And keeping on writing all the time can only help with that, at a sub conscious and conscious level!)

It's also interesting to think about confronting the challenge of how to walk the fine line between being 'overly-dexterous', ie, producing too 'nutritiously regurgitated' a trope! AND, risking just 'stinkingly vomiting out' - metaphorically speaking - yet another overly-easily comprehensible version of some trope!

Taking one stance can produce 'an incomprehensible-to-the-reader' story (which incomprehensibility I definitely don't want to be guilty of, since I believe in Story-as-Carrier-of-Message.)

But taking the other stance can remove all responsibility from the reader to 'work at' getting some abstract or moral or some such 'abstractly nutritional' interpretation for themselves.


message 131: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments Hello all,

I realize this conversation trail is for the microstories, but I just received a new review for my most current sci-fi novella. If you're interested, just see the blog on my author page. I hope you'll check it out. Thanks for letting me share.

I also cannot wait to vote on this month's batch of stories, and I'm really looking forward to the next challenge!

Best to you all.


message 132: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments Thanks Davon, much appreciated!


message 133: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments Jeremy,

Loved Able, Baker, Charlie. Great story. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot!


message 134: by Jeremy (new)

Jeremy Lichtman | 410 comments I was trying to figure out how to bring in Dog, but couldn't fit it in. :)


message 135: by Heather (last edited May 17, 2016 08:58AM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments You could have had someone 'bark' a command!?

p.s I didn't rally 'get' the story, Jeremy ... but now I have a clue from Justin's comment (that it is to do with a military type phonetic alphabet) ... and is there an old 70's rocker band in there too?? I've got a feeling I've just found a tatty old hard-for-me-to-read mind map of sorts to try to figure it out! + there's always Google! to chase down some more avenues of possibility.


message 136: by Jeremy (new)

Jeremy Lichtman | 410 comments Well, there are "trees" in the background, in addition to an "Echo".


message 137: by Jeremy (new)

Jeremy Lichtman | 410 comments @Heather, it's meant to be ambiguous as to who "Charlie" actually is. He could just be a recluse who tells tall tales. Or perhaps he used to be somebody famous.


message 138: by Heather (last edited May 17, 2016 09:33AM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments ... and - maybe - Charlie is a "Yankee" who a long time ago on another Planet won an "Oscar" and then went and stayed in an "Hotel' in "India" for a while where he met "Romeo" and "Juliett and "Mike" who he tried to teach about the importance of "Delta" in trying to avoid ending up with "Zero" profits in options trading, but "Papa" from "Quebec" convinced them it would be more virtuous to just tropse off over to the "Golf" club ... but in the end they all felt like they had a "Kilo" of sand in their head and wished they had "Xray" vision to see where the truth really lay in "One" "Two" "Three" seconds flat.

edit: I think too that sometimes one has to be not only 'in the zone' to write, but also to read, and I probably shouldn't have been reading just now ... so I'll come back to the stories again when I'm more in the mood to (do the work of) read(ing.)


message 139: by Jeremy (new)

Jeremy Lichtman | 410 comments Well at that point it becomes a trope...


message 140: by Jeremy (new)

Jeremy Lichtman | 410 comments @Heather, the onus is probably on me as the writer to make it easier to read. My wife gave similar feedback. It's a stylistic experiment, and I'm not sure if it worked.


message 141: by Heather (last edited May 17, 2016 10:49AM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments Jeremy,

~One reason to write is to make it easy (enough) for the reader to understand, ie to communicate something.
~Another reason to write is to help the reader to work a little ... to think and thereby grow and feel that type of satisfaction or achievement or exercising of thought.
~Another reason is to take a risk and experiment ... so the writer can see what works and when or not and when and learn and all things like that.

And sometimes more than one of those things can be working together at the same time especially when at least some of your readers are your fellow writers.

So a stylistic experiment's job isn't necessarily to work. Its job might be just to be an experiment. (I used to do that in exams at school. Use them to try out new ideas rather than things I knew worked, because in exams the teachers (and they were a lazy bunch the ones I got) put in the most rigorous effort of 'feedback giving' in marking exams for some reason, I found: so I got the maximum benefit of learning by experimenting then. (I didn't really care about exams so I wasn't hanging on the outcome ... but I learnt that an experiment (failed or otherwise) is a great teacher.

And anyway, Jason really appreciated it straight off ... so its subjective too, what works and what doesn't.


message 142: by Paula (last edited May 17, 2016 02:39PM) (new)

Paula | 1088 comments It makes for a better reading experience not to have heard the explications of a trope first. OTOH---"Alligator. . ., Crocodile!" "Abel, meet Baker"----some *very* cool tales, this month.
Seriously some really fine stories, this month, some cool and some serious. A pleasure to read.


message 143: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments Just to be clear, from a military history perspective, the phonetic alphabet used by the US Army during WWII used Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, etc. This is different from the current military phonetic alphabet, which would be alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, echo, etc.

I think what I liked about Jeremy's story, among other things, is that the artist could be anyone. Frankly, I envisioned Elvis. Thank you, thank you very much.

In my opinion the experiment worked.


message 144: by Heather (last edited May 17, 2016 01:59PM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments Actually now that I have a better idea that there is a 'deciphering code' at play its beginning to not only make sense to me, but also be a very enjoyable story!

Out of the blue a memory popped into my mind of reading many moons ago about Barbara Thiering and her thoughts on "pesharim" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesher which talks about

a theory of scriptural interpretation, previously partly known, but now fully defined. The writers of pesharim believe that scripture is written in two levels: the surface for ordinary readers with limited knowledge, the concealed one for specialists with higher knowledge. This is most clearly spelled out in the Habakkuk Pesher (1QpHab), where the author of the text asserts that God has made known to the Teacher of Righteousness, a prominent figure in the history of the Essene community, "all the mysteries of his servants the prophets" (1QpHab VII:4-5). By contrast, the prophets themselves only had a partial interpretation revealed to them.

So now Charlie looks to me like he could be Christ (or someone close to him) and the music a metaphor for some type of spiritual rapture/virtuousness? (and the reclusive lifestyle a {metaphor or trope for a} misunderstood rejection of viceful ways?) ... because it was written of Barbara Thiering (in her obituary) that she had (at one level of her interpretation of religion/spirituality) "an acceptance of the morality of Christianity ... while" (at another level) "questioning the structural system of the established church." ... and hence her great interest in pesharim would make sense, since most of our obsessive interests probably arise out of our childhood/youthful experiences!

Maybe ... and I'm not sure whether this would be possible or not as a writer, Jeremy, if there would be some way to have given a clue of some sort, to the non military-language-&-its-abbreviated-codes literate readers (myself included in that lot), that there was a 'shorthand symbolism' sitting above a 'greater-and-hence-necessarily-more-ambiguous meaning' then that would have removed the handicap - from the non militarily-literate among your readers; a small but vital consideration, perhaps? (on the issue of the responsibility of the writer?) Just a thought, because without Justin noting the 'deciphering code' I don't think I would have ever picked up that it existed. I just didn't make a connection at all to the times I've vaguely heard on a movie on TV 'some military guy' saying "charlie, foxtrot, something or other!"


message 145: by Jeremy (new)

Jeremy Lichtman | 410 comments As far as the names go, I just thought it would be amusing to have all of the characters named in alphabetical sequence. The newer military sequence doesn't really work for that, and anyhow it gave a slightly archaic feel to things, which I liked.

I do throw symbols randomly into my writing, but didn't have anything that sophisticated in mind, Heather! I think somebody once said that the reader always has the correct interpretation, not the writer.


message 146: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments Heather, I appreciate the way you dive so deeply into thought and interpretation throughout the discussion threads! I feel like I have entered a house and only enjoyed the front sitting room, while you are opening doors to rooms throughout an entire mansion of thought.

Jeremy, I also like the archaic nomenclature. I felt like I was reading a sci-fi story from the 40's or 50's (Saturn V rocket notwithstanding).

The story was Sierra Hotel in my mind.


message 147: by Justin (new)

Justin Sewall | 1244 comments Paula, your story has a very lyrical quality to it. I also felt like I was reading some ancient text written in a higher tongue while I tried to comprehend it with a lesser one - barely succeeding.


message 148: by Jeremy (new)

Jeremy Lichtman | 410 comments Some virtuous stories this month!


message 149: by Paula (last edited May 17, 2016 09:42PM) (new)

Paula | 1088 comments That ancient tongue has past perfect and semicolon stuff and lots of look-back, so I guess the ancient-text trope holds as well as the Rising one, Justin. But seriously, thank you for the sweet comment--much appreciated. What may have made it hard to follow is that, though I *think* it stands alone, it's set in the same worlds and era as my early Sentience story for the contest's first year and references, at moments, that world---though rather more darkly. Thanks for going the extra mile!
Jeremy, I do get the feeling that the word "trope" has turned, somewhere/sometime in this thread/discussion, from "symbolic theme" or "achetypal symbol" or whatever whatnot to--the word that dares not say its name--"word." Perhaps.
Did anyone bet on today's primaries, here in the USA or anywhere, btw? Just askin'


message 150: by Heather (last edited May 17, 2016 11:45PM) (new)

Heather MacGillivray | 581 comments a "word football", perhaps? ... that has been kicked around and thrown and slam-dunked and tossed out of the ball park and chewed up and spat out by by the Dog renamed Delta by its new owners and repaired into unrecognizability ... but it was all great fun and good for us, as writers. No vice there!


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