Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
***JUNE 2016 MICRO STORY CONTEST - COMMENTS ONLY
Dorthe - The German-language thing may indeed be an urban legend, but good urban legends are very hard to come by. They have to be about topics of interest, be intriguing and have to sit in some kind of twilight zone just outside the realm of ordinary knowledge/ experience so that by believing them, the world becomes an ever-so-slightly weirder and more interesting place. I've sometimes thought that an interesting topic to figure out would be what urban legends would exist, say, a hundred years from now. That would be even more dizzying perhaps than coming up with what would be considered a science-fiction story of a hundred years from now.
Posted for your perusal. Some of it is based on myth but I think it is nevertheless an interesting study on alternative history.
Andy G said, "I've sometimes thought that an interesting topic to figure out would be what urban legends would exist, say, a hundred years from now."Great thought, Andy! (I'll vote for your story this month just in the hopes that if you're the winner you'll make that the theme for July's contest! - just kidding. I really wouldn't break the rules like that! -:) )
and @ Dorthe, re Apologies ... re not knowing 'it was an urban legend."
I'm glad that whole little discussion occurred. otherwise I wouldn't have wondered about what you meant by mentioning "BookLand" in German and so wouldn't have found that wonderful, spine tingling idea that someone on italkie.com had posted about how for every character, absorbed (via reading) out of BookLand into the Imagination of a person from the RealWorld, someone from the RealWorld also has to disappear ... into BookLand (which is really just what happens, at a prosaic level of observing or experiencing 'the act of reading', when someone is so absorbed in their reading - eg reading on a commute home in the train the reader disappears from the grafitti of the everyday around them, in the train, at the platforms they pass, in the urban jungle out the windows, etc. Yet at another, less prosaic, more 'wondrous', level it is like a 'payback snatching or kidnapping' between Worlds or Realities, a return to a 'state of balance.' And opportunities to observe anything from that 'more wondrous' perspective makes life more 'worth living,' I find! It's transportive.
So I for one am delighted that your 'not knowing about that urban legend' occurred! Thank you. I learned something I otherwise wouldn't have.
Richard, I enjoyed both of your stories involving Hitler - particularly Mein Kamph. Great detail!Paula, your story has that great mystical touch woven throughout like your other stories. I just don't know the history presented in it. Although it is grounded on Earth, it feels like it could be on a different planet somewhere.
Tom, A Son Unto Caesar. Absolutely brilliant! I love how the changes in your timeline continued to ripple outwards even out to the distant future.
Dean, I don't know much about Castro's youth. Did he really play baseball? What a twist. Who is Nolan? Nolan Ryan perhaps?
Great stories all around. Mine is still growing and I'm happy with its direction so far.
Justin, thank you for those kind compliments! Yes, unfortunately the history in this story, the scapegoating of "the Others" (Jews, Romani, old women living alone, any passing strangers, . . .) especially in medieval Europe, especially in times of plagues, is all too much grounded on this planet. And during the high/late Middle Ages, at at least one point, the king of what is now part of Poland offered the Jews refuge in his kingdom. This tale has woven this with family history, about a Nathan and a Wulf, and others, but with one crucial change. And a thunderstorm that holds off the peasants' attack just long enough--or nearly long enough.
Boy, I've struggled with this month's theme! I've had a difficult time (get it?) wrapping my head around an alternative history that, lacking time travel (or alien intervention), can't refer to a normal time stream as a reference. All that and it still should still embrace the science fiction genre? Whoa! At least I finally think I have something worth submitting. Not my finest work, especially compared to the one's I've seen, but I've got a couple of weeks to work on it.
Chris,Well your struggles were worth it! Your story is beautifully written: atmospheric but bitingly poignant; sad but calmly accepting; hopeful but resigned to Humanity's whims and woes; solid in his belief in the power of the ephemeral guide that is The Chronicle Mathmatica.
If only it were so, that (even a frail human) pure mindedness, in conjunction with (the non-frail) Chronicle Mathematica, was the key to weathering The Ultimate Storm ... but who knows? I guess only those at the edge of tomorrow will find out, what (my favourite lines, as noted below, re) the truth - about Humanity's dealing with All-Else, as explored in your story - will bring/has brought (if we are already at that edge!):
"Regrettably, this is a maelstrom I fear we cannot weather ..."
"I shall not shun my culpability in this disaster, for I should have been a more ardent voice in a sea of great men. Ultimately however, ... I barely escaped ... with my life ... and this Chronicle Mathematica."
"If, by fortunes mercy, mankind rises once more, guide our future generations rigidly along the pathway outlined herein and thrive."
"In a dusty cave, at the edge of tomorrow, the light breaks through the smallest of cracks, the sun hitting the pages of an ancient tome for the first time…or the last…"
....
p.s. but where in the theme's requirements/restrictions does it state or imply that we "can't refer to a normal time stream as a reference."? Maybe you hunckered down too far into 'struggle' of it all ... and so 'read that interpretation in' when it's not really there? Or did I miss something?
Hi Chris and Heather,There is no restriction on beginning in, referencing, or coming back to a "normal" timeline. Without time travel, time machines, or alien intervention, you'll have to.
Chris, your story works perfectly and fulfills the requirements for this month's challenge.
Basically, find an event in history, change something about it, then show the effects of that change going forward in time.
I hope that clarifies it a bit more. Everyone is free to ping me with any further questions.
Again Chris, nice job!
Heather and Justin, I guess I should clarify that I didn't really struggled with referring to a correct time stream but that the inability to use time travel definitely crimps your ability to do that. For without time travel from an established time stream, alternate history becomes relative. And given that this is an alternate history theme for a science fiction themed group, incorporating some sort of futuristic sci-fi element was a great challenge! I had quite a few ideas but couldn't get past the time travel dilemma for some reason. Maybe it was just my own personal roadblock. Justin, I think your theme for this month was excellent in that it made me think outside the box a bit! So, thanks for that!
Anyways, I really, really appreciate both your compliments with regards to what I ultimately came up with. This is such a supportive group!
It is a supportive group, and highly talented from what I've experienced since I joined in April. Makes it fun to contribute.Perhaps a better challenge would be for someone to start a storyline, then the next person continue it, and so on. It would be interesting to see where a story would go with everyone contributing a 750 word "chapter." Maybe someone will pick up this challenge and make it one of the monthly conditions.
I think I have found an interesting way to 'get around' the rule (without breaking it) of timeline-flexibility sans time travel, time machines or alien intervention ... but I'm not going to say what it is just now! -:) I'll just use it in my story and see if it is considered 'valid.' I think it is!
Andy G, I love that idea of future urban legends! The whole notion of not-quite-knowing or at least being not quite sure what is real and what is not plays nicely with Heather's (and thank you for that) comment on making new discoveries serendipitously based on one's own errors as well as those of others.
Here's to making it up as you go along :o)
@Justin, As I mentioned, the tryout with the Yankees (or the Washington Senators) is mythical though Castro did play baseball in college. And yes, Nolan is Nolan Ryan, one of the greatest pitchers in the history of the game. I tried to blend fact, fiction, and a little bit of temporal shifting to examine one alternative time line.
Well Dean you did a great job. I liked it. I wouldn't have thought alternate history and sports, but it's stories like these help broaden my mind to different plot possibilities. Nicely done.
I’m thinking we’re about to enter our monthly doldrums, where the initial rush of stories is in and the authors who are working on their stories and will manage to slide them in under the deadline, are still hard at work. Since I managed to get my story in early this month, I thought I might entertain folks in the interim by posting a couple future urban legends. So:The Succulent Soy Substitute
You remember the virulent soy fungus rot of a couple years ago, right? No? Of course you don’t. The global food industry was about to collapse into total chaos when it occurred, but They kept it all hush-hush. Ever since the entire food supply of earth had at last transitioned to totally animal-product-free veganism,had the news been leaked, there would have been major food riots at the least, and at worst, major governments falling from power as millions of citizens starved. So the industry hastily put out some hand-waving VRs about spot shortages, and induced dockworkers’ strikes in coastal ports to “delay’ soy imports. Meanwhile, their scientists were working 24/7 to solve the problem immediately.
Fortunately, the strategic planners at one of the largest soy processors had been preparing for this very sort of emergency with a daring back-up plan. Using abandoned cloud-server warehouses from the early digital ages, they had secreted tens of thousands of of animals – cattle, primarily, but also chickens and even sheep – into those massive heavily-secured buildings. As the scale of the emergency became clear, the planners began cloning the beasts at a furious rate; day and night they pumped out herds of calves, chicks and lambs. But they then faced the seemingly insurmountable problem of how to make meat yield the characteristics of soy protein cakes. It wasn’t merely a matter of slicing and dicing: there was the ever-elusive issue of mouth-feel: meat just doesn’t chew like soy.
But solve it they did. They even figured out that the red meat, could , with subtly added dyes, look almost like soyburgers’ particular shade of RawMeat Red #73. No one knew how much meat could be substituted before the deception could be tasted, so they mixed varying percentages and fed it, first to brave volunteers at the food-processing labs themselves, then to an unknowing groups of the public, under the guise of “new, exciting soy moisturizers.” The food execs watched with bated breaths behind one-way mirrors to see when gag reflexes from taste-strangeness alone would commence. First 5%, then 10%, then 20% mixtures, and all was going well, but at 23.2%, to use that old expression, the meat hit the fan, and the tasters not only gagged, but vomited profusely. Titrating the mix with exquisite care, it was determined that a 22.9% meat mixture would be able to pass as all-soy for virtually all customers. The process was immediately declared a national resource by all nations, and the process passed on to all producers. The meat substitutions were made under the strictest industrial secrecy the world has ever known.
The upshot: You, the eating public, are now and have been for the last three years, unknowingly ingesting into your own body, soyburgers that are actually over 1/5 meat! The governments are all colluding in this, and have rigged all the protein testing equipment to state that no animal parts have been detected in any “soy” products, so you are denied access to verify this, but it is indeed the case that folks are actually eating dead animal carcasses mixed in with their delicious and healthful veggies. Another example of government and big business clandestinely poisoning YOU!
***
Since I had still more free time – did I mention that my story was the first one submitted this month? – I thought I would try a second possible future urban legend:
The Calm Instead of the Storm
There are documented cases of this occurrence in several major cities and even some smaller venues. Ever since all of our nation’s water supplies have been enhanced with EverReady hormones to ensure the complete, assured and effortless sexual satisfaction of our nation’s citizenry, a small group of so-called Natural Living terrorists have regularly engaged in the following activity. One of them, sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, always very attractive, extroverted and very charming, will be present at a bar or concert or really any social gathering, and be quite open to being approached by an unwitting victim. The victim may be of the same or opposite gender to the terrorist. The perpetrator will strike up a genial conversation, not aggressive or suggestive in any way, but will engage the victim through a deep psychological attunement to the victim’s sexual desires.. Meanwhile, the terrorist has managed to slip a small blue pill into the victim’s drink (any sort of liquid will suffice) . The pill dissolves instantly and the trap has been set.
Gradually, over a relatively short time, the victim will succumb to the delightful encounter and invite the terrorist to engage in sexual activity at the victim’s abode. Once at the victim’s place, the terrorist gradually arouses the victim , and the victim begins the usual ascent of excitement that he/she has been accustomed to, without fail, for their entire post-pubertal life, and then,…nothing! The victim is confused at first, then annoyed, then frightened as the terrorist finally leaps up and declares that the infusion of EverReady into the water supply is against the Natural Order, and the victim has been chosen to serve as an example to The Authorities. The victim by this time is simpering, at which point the terrorist declares the effect to be temporary, and that the victim should recover completely in five to six months. The victim is aghast at being deprived for such an interminable period, but the terrorist further states that any attempt by the victim to get a physician to undo the effects will only cause an irremediable reaction that will render permanent the temporary condition. Likewise, any attempt to contact The Authorities about what just happened will be followed likewise by the unavoidable infusion of a second pill into a glass or drink that the victim will consume, which will also render the condition permanent.
As a final reminder, as the terrorist leaves, he/she hands the victim a business card with the familiar EverReady logo imprinted on it. Scrawled in bright purple ink just in front of the first letter of the logo is a large “N”.
***
OK, so I hope the above examples provide some bemusement for these interim days. I’m sure there are others here with much better examples of future urban legends in mind, so have at it as you will. As I should have doubtless mentioned above, I was only able to have the time to compose these since I was the first one to submit my story this month.
Story is up! I had to cut so much out!! But I am very happy with it if I do say so myself!No further urban legends to report here!
Andy, those are cracking stories; thanks for the entertainment! Very thought-provoking and possibly giving Big Brother ideas? ;-)May I share them with your permission? (cue evil laugh ...) But no, seriously, may I?
JJ - Thanks for your kind words, and I'm pleased you enjoyed the stories.Of course you can use them as you wish. Urban legends exist to be dispersed. Modify, adapt and do as you will with them. The best ULs sound much more like they've been discovered rather than authored, so the more folks re-writing them, the better they end up being.
Agreed! The UL idea is an exciting expansion of what this group offers. Well done Andrew ... and also it might have also grown from an idea Justin suggested a while ago I think for a sort of collaborative story that just grows?But in any case, my take on the Succulent Soy Substitute Urban Legend (that is now - 'now' being a future time from the point of view of 2016 - doing the rounds of popular culture, *strengthened by my perusing/thinking of buying Ernest Becker's "Escape From Evil,") is, that, I remember that that old urban legend that you have reminded us of, Andrew, is, in fact, the legend, and one my grandparents first told me about, of how we humans came to settle upon the the ratio 77.1 : 22.9 for the norm we 'now' accept - as the percentages of Altruism and Selfishness, respectively, that any individual human should abide by IF a 'non-Evil society' is to be maintained.
(Obviously, this Standard was set because it was forced to be following the Mouldy Soy Crisis - which had threatened the, prior, naive {and, let's face it, 'reactionary'} belief, that had held sway for a short while {i.e., since the overthrow of President Triumphant, the first official president of The Whole World} that 100% Altruism and 0% Selfish Delight would be sustainable long term.)
[*Becker purports (as far as I can tell so far) that Evil is an expression of our Fear of Death and Insignificance, taken beyond a degree of expression that is culturally acceptable - eg what we eat, or as he puts it "the toothsome joy of consuming other organisms" - (since it is our Culture{s) that delude(s) us into thinking that 'Death-and-Insignificance' can itself be 'slayed' {escaped} by certain acts or habits {"read 'rituals'" Becker says} which of themselves become internalized as 'rightful' by being thought of/experienced as pleasurable or rewarding.]
I fear this old legend has been resurrected (back into urban, or, even, now-a-days, 'universal,' consciousness) because people are now calming again after the overthrow of President Triumphant's reign, thinking to themselves "well maybe 50:50 would be OK?"
Andy, I just wanted to show it as an example of a certain excellent style of writing - not to purloin it. Of course now that you offer ... (and cue evil laugh again!)
That's great - thank you. :-)
Is an urban legend purloinable, when it is itself an act of purloining committed upon the Truth; a purloining-in-some-state-in-time ... eg 'frozen in time', or, 'in progress' (slow or otherwise.)?I guess if you took the UL and quoted it without any acknowledging (eg 'that it was an UL', or 'who began the UL if known') then that could amount to removing it from UL status to some other status ... which might be dishonest. :-)
Yes I admit, I misappropriated words from the dictionary to write this! ha ha ah ha ha!
Changed my story title by one letter. Author's prerogative. :)
After rereading it today, I felt "Last" sounded better than "Lost" and fit the context of the story better."History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." WSC
Actually, Justin,I was really drawn to the original title "The Lost Bulldog." When I first saw it I was intrigued. It worked at many levels whereas for me "The Last Bulldog" doesn't so much 'fit the context' as FIX the interpretations to a narrower range. I think you've actually taken away a subtlety and intrigue that was appealing in that it gave more room for the reader's mind to move (through and around and under and over the story in the reader's own way)!
EDIT:
To expand on that a bit, take the interplay of plot and sub-plot in a story and how that, specifically can add things like intrigue and subtlety and room for interpretation and just imaginative movement generally.
For example, take the events where Churchill, in the opening (WW1) scene, bulldog-ishly fearing no consequences, attends to the dangerous task himself rather than ordering the young corporal to do it (presumably Corporal Jack Findley) thereby saving ONE life. Well there you have the makings of a subplot.
(If the main plot is How Britain Lost WW11... because it didn't have a leader of Churchill's calibre) then the subplot is The Effect Churchill's Bulldog (manic?) Personality Had On Others: eg, the young corporal {and later his wife and child} who never knew the affect Churchill had had on their family's gain rather than loss; Churchill's wife who lost him at a profoundly personal level; the country which lost him at a different but also profound level ... and also later chose to loose him for that same bulldog-ishness (as being unsuitable in peacetime!)
The reader can literally imagine {and 'companion dog-types' are a common motif for conveying where our emotional development is at via what animal we keep company with} a fiery-headed pet/companion/loyal/much loved but sometimes infuriating bulldog who rushes off into the night ... lost, but with some hope remaining that he hasn't been 'hit', never knowing what really becomes of 'the lost' ... until we find out.
There's a fine line between what is 'beneficial' and 'not beneficial' ... between 'what is not lost to us' and 'what is lost to us' ... until we find out that that line is in reality not fine at all, but thick and harsh and jagged and escalating in the severity of where it leads us to ... or, for some, thick and cushioning and protective, as the case may be.
I'm afraid the title "The Last Bulldog" - though Churchill may well have also been that (the last British Bulldog of political and military interest) - just doesn't invite my mind to roam through a delightfully poignantly and spine chillingly intertwined plot and subplot as does "The Lost Bulldog," (which, incidentally can encompass 'the LAST bulldog' better than visa versa.)
Lol, perhaps I need to clarify again that I was asking Andy if I could share his story - under his name - not nick it. For group work with young writers. Purloinable urban legend or not, it's not my kind of thing.
JJ, I wasn't seriously commenting on your principles on purloining, or to give it its due seriousness, Principia Purloinatica. -:)I was just having it a bit of fun with the 'Doldrums Season' activity Andrew set for us: play around with an urban legend ... and contributions to it, which I'm afraid did included - in my small mind - your, albeit unintended, contribution to the legend (including the inevitable purloinability of that beast, despite any {completely undisputed} best of intentions! Legends simply are troublesome. That's all I was playing with!)
So no need to clarify. Sometimes the space between one person's sense of humour and another's 'serious intent' (and all combinations thereof) simply is/are the muddy waters of legend.
OK, I really was just trying to come up with a bit of filler and relief during the usual mid-month comments desert here. I feel totally confident that we will all make it through to the 20th when the last group of stories come pouring in. We always have in the past. Although, suppose this time is...different...somehow? Hmmmm.
Oh Heather. I have changed the title back to its original form: The Lost Bulldog.
Remind me never to join a debating club with you!
I very much appreciated your in depth explanation as to why Lost is better than Last. And I ended up having to agree with you. Usually I'm very decisive about these things, so I'm a little disappointed at my lack of certainty about this particular story that I so thoroughly enjoyed conceiving.
However, I do value the constructive comments and feedback this group provides and I accept it in the spirit in which it was offered.
I am glad you made the connection between the Corporal and his later iteration, because initially I had not even made that connection myself!
Thanks again for your great commentary!
And thank you, Justin, for taking my comments in the spirit intended. I also appreciate that very much. It's just that it is a story that I really feel has so many layers (perhaps most stories do, but some grab a nerve more than others and this one did for me) and so it came as quite a jolt when you 'flattened' it by the altered title.Didn't mean to be bossy ... BUT I am glad you 'voluntarily - ha ha - chose to 'see sense'!
p.s. You'd be safe in a debating club with me, 'in real life.' Though I was a good debater in school, later life took away my inherent faith in the power of a deeply or creatively logical argument ... to the extent that I can still, at critical times, be quite unable to express myself in real life. (For a while it was also 'in writing' that I could barely string two words together, but now that has cleared up a lot ... and this group is a big help in that regard.)
@Heather - I borrowed your term to clarify my own ambiguous statement and seemed to have caused offence (I think I'm going to adopt that as my middle name!)I just didn't want Andy to get the wrong impression from the offer he made. Ok, I'm now going off somewhere to learn the art of 1) complimenting without giving the wrong impression and 2) not causing offence. :-)
All's well JJ no offence purloined :), taken, or borrowed or otherwise acquired. Half the time I'm just joking and the other 3/4 of the time I'm just mad (as in crazy, not angry-type mad, ie). All's well.EDIT: the urban legend exercise/extra-curriculum fun that Andrew started still seems to me like an hilariously and usefully (to a writer) good idea. So I think what I want to do is go back and re-write up my tumble-weeding of one of the UL's he's posted sans the commentary from Ernest Becker (except where I can make that an integral part of the UL as it rolls past me and hence gathers my weeds into its tumble.)
I suppose it was unfortunate that I saw humour in the fact that an UL is inherently prone to appropriation/mis-appropriation by anyone who can use it AND at the same time you wanted to use it for another reason that also involved a sort of 'borrowing' ... but an honest borrowing. My brain just re-arranged all that as "ha ha ha ha ha!" On behalf of my brain, apologies, JJ!
@Justin,The whole idea of what words trigger what emotions, memories, etc is fascinating ... so (from googling around, stumbling upon links etc, it seems that maybe there is something solidly scientific about why one word is more capable of triggering feelings (eg feelings around the word 'loss' are more universally powerful?) than a more narrowly ranging word (such as 'last' is?)
EDIT: Here is an article on writing, writers and brain science called "This is Your Brain On Writing" (in the New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/sci...
(I deleted the other article I had posted as the links within it crazily went to sites other than indicated in the article!
Justin, now I'm feeling a little bit guilty if I 'pushed you to change' the title. I've just gone on from reading about brain science and writing to (links leading from all that to) 'writer's voice'; how it is unique etc.
If your 'writing voice' speaks more to readers interested in militaria/political matters, perhaps "The LAST Bulldog" would have been truer to that. As you now know, I like the voice that spoke to those (me) more moved by the deeper and broader meanings accessible via "The LOST Bulldog."
But it's your writer's voice that must call the shots in your story.
Justin - thank you for your kind words and comments. I found "Bulldog" rich in graphic detail, the atmosphere dark and haunting. (I'd probably have gotten a lot more out of it if my knowledge of the period were more extensive. I'll have to research it.)
You bet Tom! I'm really glad you enjoyed "Bulldog"! I agree with you that this topic I picked is difficult in that if you are not as familiar with the history discussed (Castro playing baseball is one example) then, while the story may be interesting, the impact of the change you've chosen is less simply because you don't know it.I love military history, particularly WWII, and I am a huge Churchill fanatic (currently reading a massive biopic about him) so the details I pulled are relatively fresh in my mind, and I knew where to go look them up.
Andy's story, where he took a personal history and created a new sequence of events in his own life, was fantastic. But I had to ask him to clarify who everyone was, what had happened, etc. Once he answered that, more of the story made sense to me.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback!
Heather! Don't feel guilty!Your feedback and explanation was very good, and you convinced me to go with my first title choice. I like that Lost is more expansive than Last, and covers loss on several levels.
One of the reasons I joined the group was to get more sci-fi writing in about things different than the plot line of my published novellas, and to get constructive criticism and advice.
You gave me great advice! If I honestly did not agree with you, then I would not have changed it. I'm pretty stubborn, as my spouse will attest.
I have a great relationship with my editor. She's a former co-worker and wields a wicked pen when she edits my work. But she makes my writing so much better and really brings it up to scratch and makes it something I'm proud to put up on Amazon. She slashes words, rewrites sentences, calls me out on weak or repetitive plot points, etc. It's really a great collaboration. She's worth every dime spent, even if I never recoup it in sales.
So you made a great edit!
When Churchill began his series called "The World Crisis" about his tenure as First Lord of the Admiralty, his conduct there, and especially about the Gallipoli campaign, he originally wanted to call it "The Great Amphibian." So if the Bulldog can handle a title change to his work, so can I.
"If you find yourself going through hell, keep going." WSC
Nicely done Heather! Great story! Very mysterious. It made me want to know more details both about Alan's past and new future. Was Christie a fictitious character or representative of someone else?
Its Alan Turing! I 'solved' the no time travel requirement by having him be an early (maybe even first ever) cryogenics 'patient' ... cause someone quick thinking must have discovered his body soon after his death and got him off to the very first ever secret cryogenics facility in the world. So he could be re-animated over a hundred years later.
Nice pick up about Christie, Justin!
In the story it is just the young woman's name - but maybe her mother had had secret longings of wanting to have been a sleuth herself or maybe was an Agatha Christie fan and so called her daughter that!
Also I wasn't sure whether her 'bowing out for a while and letting the boys get on with their IT and AI conversation for a while (in safety because the guards, the unspecified black-balaclavaed body-hugging suited characters were also there (invited to the table) would be taken as not portraying women as equals! BUT, in fact I was trying to do the opposite ... by saying that the GOOD patterns - the Fibonnaci patterns and the like were already there, hidden, in women's awareness, in the complex ANCIENT PATTERNS of Good Things they coded as their Vintage Knitting Patterns.
Yes, I believe you had mentioned Alan Turing in one of your earlier posts, so I knew it was him.His thinking Christie's husband was beautiful was a good touch, subtle, and a nod to who he was without having to spell it out to the reader.
As for the patterns, etc., that goes to a whole different plane of writing I think you and Paula both regularly work from. Whereas I feel my strength is depth of description, yours is depth of idea.
One more thing re Christie, Agatha, that is ... and my interest there:I have more or less decided that I want to settle upon focusing on murder/mystery/thriller/suspense writing - with a science fiction bent, for various reasons. So I am just starting now and this was my first real attempt at beginning to learn and then hone the craft of that genre/genre mix.)
I've ordered a book (I couldn't get it in kindle format) called "The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery" by Robert J Ray (Over 52 weekend, there's exercises to do!) Anyway from the blurb on Amazon one of the writers to study is Agatha Christie ... especially "The Body In The Library."
I also like what this guy says re structuring http://www.mattrees.net/2014/02/20/pl...
Interesting point you made re strengths (and therefore weaknesses too.) ONE thing (there's more than one) I like about proceeding systematically, as murder mystery etc lends itself too is the opportunity to (try to) 'sleuth' out weaknesses that might be holding back stengths. eg if my strength is 'IDEA', then to what extent is it being weakened IF I CAN'T DESCRIBE 'IDEA' strongly enough ... eg clearly or simply enough.
I should have also said that the rest of your story, the descriptive part - what the characters were like, surroundings, environment, etc, was also very good.If I can put it another way, I often feel my writing is flat, or two dimensional. I get a full feeling of three dimensions when I read this story. I'm grasping at analogies here to describe a quality I detect when I read your stories and Paula's stories (which is not to say all the other stories are lacking, I'm just discussing yours at this point!)
Christie is actually also a complex combination character involving myself, my mother, and my mother's mother, and father ... and also a bit of my father and his father and further back there too. And indeed the relationship between Christie and Artur is also a combo of real and/idealized real from my own and some of my family members' relationships.
I actually ran out of room. The opening parts were where I wanted it all to go but I had to foreshorten the final bits, but I think it turned out O.K. given the word limit.Thanks, Justin also for the feedback that you found my story nicely three dimensional. I hope it is due to my beginning to find where in the writing realm I am meant to be. (I am also hoping that I can operate in the graphic novel sphere, but been too busy with other things and held up a bit by ill health to do much there lately.)
I think it suits my nature to be, a bit like my father - a very logical and systematic thinker, yet sensitive also - PLUS a bit like my mother - intuitive and creative and emotional to the point literally of madness (and I think psychosis) at times, but very sane at other times and very deeply scarred by certain life events. My father also had his scars but dealt with them differently.
Somewhere in all that and my own life experiences I have a deep anger at certain things, especially where I have thought that an ordinary everyday compassion and common sense by 'certain others' would have spared so much pain.
I think maybe the 3-Dimensionality you kindly mentioned is just Pain Screaming Deeply, but Screaming Logically and in Pain-Patterns. (the Patterns of Pain matter because 'any pattern' (once recognized as a pattern, or as having some sort of self-consistency, can be turned into one more beautiful than the original 'weird-pattern' experience, I think ... probably perpetually naively I think that!)
For example, when I was young I would listen to my mother singing in church. Despite having a professional operatic quality mezzo soprano voice she would ONLY sing in the congregation and became very hostile, when I asked her once why wouldn't she sing in the choir: "Oh, yes and then the next thing they're expecting you to sing solo!" she growled back at me as if I also was part of the conspiracy to get her to sing on her own.
And yet when she sang in church the notes she sang would just seem to hang in the air exquisitely beautifully, and travel, almost literally, from a point of deep grieving to a place of beauty and celebration; as if she had an internal measuring device or calculator that could work out the 'exact' distant a life-situation was situated at i.e., how far 'a thing' was from 'a place' of perfect healing and celebration and peace ... and then express that exact measure, in song, in pitch, in timbre, all those musical factors such that you had no option but to be 'transported' from grief to celebration!
That was one of the first patterns (of movement) that I ever 'saw' (albeit via 'hearing' it!)
A few times I asked Mum, "how do you do that?" She would just say, "I don't know I just open my mouth and it comes out."
And it wasn't just me that thought it. A retired opera singer from Austria, I think it was, moved to the south coast of NSW where my parents had retired to and she heard Mum in church and said "Joyce, that is a professional quality operatic voice!" She took Mum to her home and gave her 'singing things' to do that the professional singers do and said that Mum could do them as well as any professional ... with no training whatsoever and with a deep denial of her own creative talent! (Mum also had a perfect auditory memory till very old age. I think everything she ever heard she remembered!)
In fact she stopped being friends with that woman, the retired opera singer who had more than just complimented her ... had tried to help her ... and later when I asked why she had stopped that friendship she said "Oh that woman's a cripple now!" (clearly, in my opinion, referring more to her own crippling of her own talent.)
And even Mum's speaking voice was beautifully timbred to the extent she could exert a sort of emotional control over people ... people are mesmerized by beautiful voices ... and that wasn't always good for Mum! Again I wondered all my life about "what are the sound patterns that have can have such emotional affects?" .. but my wondering was always through a filter of pain, or multi-levels of emotional pain filters.
So I think the 3-Dness you saw in my story arose out of all that muddle of multi-levels of crazy stuff that nevertheless had beautiful patterns hidden within in it and my fixation on trying to get the patterns 'sorted out right'!
So I hope that is what I am now, more systematically, on my own journey towards ... 'being with' the life patterns that surround us, in my own creative writing work, - as well as I can be.
Thanks, Justin. I did actually go and make an edit: to the part where Artur is explaining what the pattern in the song "White Rabbit" is ... namely, that 'on one side' there is the underlying ratta tat tat of the snare drums of the British (the voice of a stubborn status quo.)
On 'the other side' of the music's pattern is a subtley rising crescendo (the anxiety of Liberty's voice.)
But interestingly (and this was the part I think I hadn't made clear enough) if you listen to the song "White Rabbit" that 'rising' at the end ("Feed your head, Feed your head") falls away or 'drops down' along a 'more suddenly than seems usual' (at the end of a 'folk song') pathway or trajectory than if the line "Feed your head had been repeated one more time!
That (adding in an extra "Feed your head" line) would have made for the 'customary rise' at the end of a (folksy) song and then the plateauing off.
But the way it is done with only "Feed your head" x2, the last time "Feed your head" is sung it has to drop down more quickly, to a lower place before fading ... as if for some reason Anxiety itself takes a sudden drop: ie (The) White Rabbit (Drops) Down ... (because something anxiety-downing has been achieved?) which is what both the title of my story and the story itself is about: what sort of things (in real life) would constitute that same more triumphant 'downing' of Societal Anxiety (as in the song) ... and how we might achieve that?
(It meant I had to cut 8 other words out to fit the new words in, which I did.)
Here's the link to White Rabbit again, if anyone wants to see if they agree with this analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWsf...
(Of course, it could be the other way around: which 'side' is the persistent one and which side is the anxious one ... and which 'war' for that matter is at the basis of the music patterns (eg did it just go straight to addressing the Vietnam war ... but I think the inclusion of the snare drum-like sounds argues against that ... but this is just my take on it.)
p.s. There is also a sort of reference to "Black Hawk Down" in that title too in a sort of a way, but almost more coincidentally. (And also of course "Alice in Wonderland.") Plus, Grace Slick is a mezzo soprano ...
Layers upon layers upon layers Heather. Hence why I call my writing two-dimensional compared to your three.
Hello C.L.P.!I enjoyed your story very much! I envisioned someone much like "The Architect" in the Matrix Reloaded as the avatar the main character was interacting with, but nicer.
Would you mind at some point elaborating on what history changed within your story? I understand if you don't want to put it out there immediately so that others can enjoy it as well.
Great job!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languag...
Apologies.