Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
DECEMBER 2016 MICROSTORY CONTEST - COMMENTS ONLY
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John wrote: "Jack MacDaniel´s story called "Friends" is briliant. I really liked it."Thanks, John!
That'd be up to them to decide, C. I'd not go phoning book bloggers, though. One might write p.r.'s for bloggers, one do a variant for s.f. journals and a variant for major media review persons, one get/make lists of whom to send to in a couple of these areas, one do lists of same for other types of media, one do . . ., etc. And then some of these do follow-up calls and/or emails, yeah. And one do photography and/or vids related to the book, one write ad copy, one do layout for ads, graphics for the vid, . . . and so on. For instance.
the '+' (of the 10+) could make the coffee! Mathematically, though, she'd have to first ... get her head together, and ... rearrange that equation, as:10+ = 1x♀ ... hmm? :) ha ha!
Paula wrote: "Book promotion of any money-making sort requires either a Big 5 publisher, a very large marketing/pr budget for print, broadcast. andsocial media, or hiring a $10,000+ pr company for a major market..."I think you´re right Paula.
Sounds like a small business or a large family. Think of the paper clip expenses!
It can be done by volunteers, C.--if they have the major time available, which is rare in the present economy, and the enthusiasm.
Call for volunteers:The pay sucks but I'll provide all required paperclips.
Apply in person for a careful and piercing evaluation of your work ethic. Truth serum and lie detector sensors will be administered simultaneously. Also jumper cables where appropriate.
Tryouts commence this Monday morning, at 6am sharp. Bring your own coffee and donuts. Extra donuts are appreciated, and will earn a gold star on your evaluation form.
-C.
Mod
https://www.facebook.com/groups/99901...
It's a close group, so if you have problems getting in, let me know and I'll try to add you.
Note that I can maintain two separate hosting of the contest, so it's not required to switch to facebook, but it would give us a chance to build back up the participation of the contest.
I joined. I clicked the 'request to join group' button and got the approval within a couple of hours. It's good to have even more access to s/f writing ... so thanks, Jot.
Jot wrote: "I know some people don't like facebook, but there is a 16K member group called "Science Fiction", that I just posted a contest thread to using this month's theme. I posted my story for the month th..."Waiting for my request to be approved. Thanks for sharing that link Jot.
Heather wrote: "This is a nice idea http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/fr..."What a good idea! We should introduce this to the UK market.
Heather wrote: "This is a nice idea http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/fr..."What a wonderful idea and a perfect place for all of our microstories.
Yes I wonder how we could go about submitting stories for such a venture? If it had to be to the French version (which seems to be the one up and running so far) would they have to be translated or might they be interested in (to them) foreign language stories also as an offering to their audience? I might go back and check the story again at the link ... OR phone SBS Television here, that ran the story, and see if their foreign language department knows any more. Could be a great outlet for our stories ... if the correct way into it can be found!
Hi Heather,You might try using Google Translate. It's a pretty good service, free, (at least here in the states), and they allow up to 5,000 characters at a whack.
Here's the french version of this message:
Salut Heather,
Vous pourriez essayer d'utiliser Google Translate. Il est un très bon service, gratuit, (au moins ici dans les états), et ils permettent jusqu'à 5000 caractères à un détraqué.
-C.
It does look like one of the better of the translation sites. I put the first two paragraphs of your story in and got it to translate it into French and then took that translation and got it to translate it back to English ... and it came out as"The audience of Davis Kelly Cole simply called him "The Terran", and his new show galactic viz-media was very popular. Billions of enthusiastic fans followed his work, but only he could hear them cheering when he did something entertaining. The show paid so well his employer insisted that he continue. It was like an old Earth-style reality show, but focused on his work as a resolving emissary regulating interspecific trade disputes.
Even in meetings with his boss Resolver, Sparky, they watched - as now. And he was about to ask a question that would undoubtedly provoke a great response from the audience. It was disturbing.
It's hard to tell on that short passage, how much it would or wouldn't mangle any subtle meanings or any idioms, colloquialisms, slang ... even just the difference in impact of a slight change of grammatical structure.
For example, in English we can denote possession by using 'apostrophe s' or by saying 'of' as in "Sam's son" implies something different than if we choose to write "Son of Sam" ... but I don't know how human translators would actually approach trying to be true to the original 'dramatic effect' intention, of saying "Son of Sam," when French already uses the 'of' form in everyday use! (And of course there is also the culturual context difference of why something does or does not evoke an emotion, but even a human translator might have trouble getting that across!)
Imagine if, in an English speaking country, someone came up to you and introduced themselves as "the Son of Sam" ... you might be more worried about what they might do next than if they just said they were Sam's son as if they innocently thought you knew who their Dad was. Literature is very much about getting those 'understood' messages across ... the show not tell thing, etc. ... let alone being true to individual writing style.
But certainly food for thought and also a fun exercise anyway to help in improving one's own French vocabulary and understanding by trying to translate without google and then comparing it to google ... for any of the stories here in this forum. And maybe it really would be 'good enough' to submit stories to that venture?
I've done French-English translation in some jobs and was for a time bilingual, so if you need some help with reviewing some of the rocky places, maybe I can be a bit of help. But, as Heather noted, French and English do not translate one-on-one always.Sounds like an interesting venue, in any case.
Thanks Paula. (Probably it will be after Christmas-New Year ... but soon) I'll look into seeing if it could be a viable venue for our stories. We might have to send a sample story or two translated into French eg by ourselves and/or using the google link that C gave PLUS an over-viewing eye from you to say yeh or ney as to whether it 'reads true.'
It might be imposing too much on you to get you to translate it ALL from scratch ... so a 'sort of translation-editing eye' might do?
Might do, Heather, sure--but otoh might be sometimes ones too difficult for me, especially where the google program's not done its job well, or where we're needing French slang equivalents of US slang, or etc. . . .etc.; there are a zillion problems can come up doing translations. If I can be of help, it'd be with the author also working on getting the translation right. And really, for work whose lanugage usage is not highly traditional, we''ll also want a person whose primary language is French, and uptodate French, to do the final.
Well, I do know some people who are completely bilingual ... having lived and worked in France (for a long time.) They live in America now. Our shared interest is in being ANTI the alt-right movement that is 'taking over the world' including of course the USA. Any s/f stories - that had that sort of moral message - they could well be interested in helping with, to get the modern French usage spot on. I'll ask them about it. I have no idea yet whether they do or don't have the time ... but I know they are very interested in whatever gets an ANTI alt-right message out ... so maybe.
This might be something that evolves ...
This is interesting. It says Google Translate has improved remarkably by becoming an A.I. based system ... which apparently happened sometime in November of this year, ie just last month. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/mag...It says that Google translate is now based on a pervasive, ambient artificial intelligence (or machine learning) rather than computer programming.
They also give a link to this essay by Alan Turing in 1950 on machine learning https://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/471...
And as one of the illustrations of what the old Google Translate and the new are like a translation of a Latin phrase is given by the old and the new system, respectively, as
"One is not what is for what he writes, but for what he has read."
... and,
"You are not what you write but what you have read."
I posted my story, which uses elements from my novel, so I don't know how inaccessible that makes it, but it's about a strange language and it mentions a holiday, has something artificial, and something alien only because it doesn't belong in this universe.
I have enjoyed the SF Microstories, but I am no longer going to be contributing. Thank you.
I guess, like a bad penny I am back. I have a reading processing thing, and reading the contract for the current anthology sent off an apocalyptic panic attack. So as they say in the Outer Limits: We now return the control of your television set.
Marianne wrote"... reading the contract for the current anthology sent off an apocalyptic panic attack."
Have the contracts for the anthology been sent out to us already? I didn't get one. Does anyone else (besides Marianne) have their's yet?
Mod
C,I think it's one of those stories where different people keep adding a new sentence or two ... and if it makes sense at the end that's a bonus! ha ha
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah everyone!May your participles dangle joyously.
-C.
Very good holiday(s) to all of you, and a peaceful, healthy, wonderful New Year!
Putting presents under the tree for the kiddies now. Ho, ho, ho!! Sinter Claus
Happy Holidays to all, and hope for tomorrow.
(Hey Justin, are you feeling a bit jaded by all that Elf on the Shelf's surveillance activity? Looks like you were half thinking "Sinister Claus" ... going by the spelling! :) )Best Wishes to all in this fascinating group!
[EDIT: unless you were going all European literary on us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterk... ]
Heather wrote: "(Hey Justin, are you feeling a bit jaded by all that Elf on the Shelf's surveillance activity? Looks like you were half thinking "Sinister Claus" ... going by the spelling! :) )Best Wishes to all..."
The Elf on the Shelf has been taken away by the Men In Black in a
non-descript black van with a sliding door and a bag over his head. LOL!
Vale Vera Rubin (July 23, 1928 – December 25, 2016)"Don't shoot for the stars, we already know what's there. Shoot for the space in between because that's where the real mystery lies."
— Vera Rubin (@rubin_vera) February 4, 2016
https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/26/d...
And this article http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astron... includes the question, "Why didn't astronomer Vera Rubin win a Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking work on the existence of dark matter?"
And this is an amazing article https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/04... ... not least of all because it cites one of the first obstacles that women had to overcome in order to even become astronomers as being that WOMEN STUDENTS WEREN'T ALLOWED OUTSIDE AFTER DARK!
Interesting. In your fourth example, what would your cadre of 10+ volunteers do? Call to lobby well-known book bloggers?
-C.