Arun's Random Strokes

[Arun]

I wrote a short story for the Week Dec 30 - Jan 5. The story was simply inspired by the topic of the week, since it reminded me of Bertolt Brecht's Resolution, and the first few lines of the poem became the basis for the plot.

I used an interview style narrative structure, inspired by season 1 of the true detective show. It was the first time I was using this narrative structure and writing this piece allowed me to understand some of the strengths and weaknesses of this structure.

Strengths:
1] It presents a very easy way to present a large amount of information in a very streamlined manner
2] Dialogue structure is simplified because I needed to handle just two "roles" - the interviewer and the interviewee.

Weaknesses:
1] Needed to put reader in the seat of the audience of the interview, which meant assuming that the audience (thereby, the readers) had some pre-existing knowledge. While this is not necessarily a hard and fast rule, but given that I was talking about some world-level crisis, I cannot assume that the audience did not know anything about the crisis.

The way I worked around the weakness was to give some additional information and some clues from the surrounding so that the readers can infer some details on their own.

This was fun to write :-)

P.S. The "random strokes" in the topic is simply an allusion to monkeys on typewriter ;-)

[Arun]

Extension plans for May Day

I had written a short story for Week Dec 30 - Jan 5 titled May Day. I have several ideas for expanding the story line, while changing some of the details on the original short story.

Early Outline:
1. We start with events long after May Day (just as in the short story), highlighting the conflict between robots and humans. The robots have established a small country and there seems to be no movement from their side. All battles have come to a halt for the moment. However, the rest of the world occupied by humans is at unrest; some want revenge while others are scared at the prospect that they may be invaded next. It was clear from the earlier war, that the normal tactical options are useless. The robots are able to manufacture soldiers at a fast rate and they have superior weapons. There is lot of political debate on how they come to possess such superior weapons and suspicions are cast on the country where the AI beings originated. Soon, the suspicions spread and the people associated with that country are treated with disdain everywhere.

2. Multiple options of dealing with the robot country are discussed by the leaders including evacuating the neighbouring areas and nuking the robot country. However, there are still millions of people residing within the robot country, which creates the dilemma for the world leaders. They also lack information on enemy's capabilities and possible retaliations. Nobody seems to come in or go out of the robot country, so they don't even know whether people inside are alive or not. Many come to believe that the people inside are associated with the traitorous country and deserve to die. However, sanity reigns and an infiltration and reconnaissance mission is planned.

---

I am still working out the ideas for the remaining story. The rough ideas are:
3. Life within robot country
4. Project Resolution
5. Meeting the AI
6. First Contact

Now, if I can just get off my lazy ass to write the story ..

[Arun]

Mosquito

A mosquito wallows in the filth it was born,
cursing its fate, it struggles to get out,
its effort cheapened by the mosquito far away,
born in an uglier filth.

Achieving freedom, it went to nourish itself,
the first prick, the taste of success, the fruit
of the hard labour, only to be swatted away
by the palms from heaven.

As it falls to its death, the mosquito far away,
waves, cheers, acknowledging a life well lived,
but the fallen one, only wonders what it means,
to live.