Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Fumblemouse
Mar 21, 2013


STANDARD
DEVIANT
Grimey Drawer
OK fuckers. Let's talk about the dismal performance in the last round. And by talk about I mean shut the gently caress up and listen. This is not writing crits - this is general prompt castigation. Let's talk about the difference between a sad story that breaks your heart, something being a bit of a bummer and the death of a small child falling off something for reasons of prompt fulfilment

Fraction - Faded

I was foolishly optimistic after reading this. This was the only story to actually make me misty. That might have been a win had not 90% of the story been predictable backstory. The wonderful, sad moment with the protag having a dinner party with her dead baby should have been the focus. Now that is sad, creative, and something the rest of you fuckers should have been aiming to beat, instead of wibbling on about coral.

big business sloth - secrets of the cairn

Not sad - hopeful - bonds are reinforced rather than broken, there was no cairn and if the worst thing that happens to our protag is a lump in the throat you should realise this is not a very loving sad story at all.

crabrock - the best day ever

Subtle as a brick, and the fact that most of life is a mediocre load of toss is not particularly sad. It's a bummer, and annoying, but the arc of this story - Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, A bit poo poo - is just incredibly lame and gently caress you for reminding me.


Wabznasm - The Dance

At least some bad poo poo happened in this story. Unfortunately you were working towards a certain mythic resonance that your execution failed to express. Nobody identified with your stereotypically oppressed yet beautiful people so their sacrifice seemed contrived, and also murder.


Noumena - The Door

The haunting quality of your dissonant tenses was an interesting stylistic choice, though perhaps better suited to horror than sadness (ALSO NOTHING SAD HAPPENED), but the cheap seats (Mercedes) hated it and would have given it the losertar. You are lucky I'm not afraid of a story that needs some unpicking.

If you can provide a decent description of what the macguffin was supposed to be in the next 24 hours you can flashrule our brawl.


bald gnome error - to my wife (on our anniversary)

Aside from needing to decide if you want to write poetry or prose, this wasn't bad. A death that hadn't happened yet was a fine creative twist. Was my favourite for while.


justcola - the Cnidarian Question

It turns out that no-one actually cares what happens to weird alien underwater plants, possibly because weird alien underwater plants don't read. Green emo porn, perhaps, but by the middle of your descriptions of god knows what I was wishing the humans would turn up to nuke my misery as a reader, which was the strongest emotion I could detect.


inthesto - Civil War


You had a baby in a warzone and NOTHING sad happened except to an interchangeable extra. You fail, sir.


Jeza - A Workaday Misery

Getting there. A nice idea, but so average in execution. You should have killed the first paragraph entirely and used the words to do something interesting. Just because workaday is in your title doesn't mean you're stuck with it.


Chairchucker - obselete

Black humour. Two words. Sadness. One word. Can you tell the difference? No? Then LEARN TO loving READ. Start with a prompt - they're usually quite short.


Helsing - next time finish the job

Another not really very sad effort, mostly because the focus was on the aggressive defensiveness of the writer rather than its effects on the implicit victim. A misplay, but not an egregious as Chairchucker, who should research the guillotine first hand.


docbeard - I heard you on the radio today

There is nothing sad about this. Some bad poo poo happened in the background, but someone deciding to be alone isn't sad so much as it is self determination.

Sitting There - Michael’s Peace

Here we had a loss, and it wasn't just the implicit loss of a child, but the described loss of half a world. We had stakes in the game and we went bust. Sebmojo and I went over the last line to decide if it was egging the sad pudding (I thought it was) but the premise was strong enough to carry the win. Good work.


Kaishai - Come home stay a while

A little bit of a bummer, but not so much sad as predictable. Well written, as we expect from you, but needed to sting like a bee and was too happy to float like a butterfly.


TenaCrane - Climb High


This is like the antithesis of sad and, after the reversal of the last section, we will now refer to lame arse reversals as tenacraning. Or we would, if we didn't just wake up and it was all a dream and we never read this story at all in a possible world a billion times better than this one.


Tyrannosaurus - These Things Happen

there is some mild sad in here, buried amongst the confusing timelines and weird arse 'young' voice. Too clever to be considered clever because it got in the way.


Noah - Nothing belongs to everone

there is a lot of sad to be had in a child losing their pencil case to a bully. Unfortunately this turned into a lifetime movie about youth bruising their shins or something and so lost the considerable sadness momentum it was building up. Still, a sadly close call.


Pantology - total cost of ownership

Another nice twist - sadness by sarcasm, with the wall being broken down as the voice changes. Came very close to the win

J Hume - Familial

This a big deposit of a bummer, devoid of context so we can't really see how sad it is. It's intrinsically bad news, but needed something more than, 'oh poo poo, that's a bummer, how can I tell my folks?'


Mirthless - Crisis Management

Ok- the take on the flash rule was not what I expected, unfortunately, it wasn't sad in the slightest. Or interesting. Plus you used the word nice as an adjective.


dmboogie - sunrise

The only thing sad about the cliches in this story WAS THEIR EXISTENCE.

Accretionist - Expectation and Realisation

Teenagers are vexing, aren't they? They totally are. Why, if they're not drinking an entire sixpack, they are kissing people who may have spots. Seriously - WHERE IS THE SAD?

Nika - not yet

Hahah, what a cheesily uplifting story THAT HAD NO SAD! gently caress it - you're not even trying at this point.

Anyhow - as I have had to resort to all caps I will end this here and continue drinking. Do better next round, for gently caress's sake.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Chairchucker
Nov 14, 2006

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022




If the aggressive machination of our labour force doesn't make you tear up, I just don't know what to tell you. :colbert:

Fumblemouse
Mar 21, 2013


STANDARD
DEVIANT
Grimey Drawer

Chairchucker posted:

If the aggressive machination of our labour force doesn't make you tear up, I just don't know what to tell you. :colbert:

Clearly you don't, and it showed, but take it to the Farm if you want to cry about it, where our service representatives will help you pick up the pieces of your shattered sense of entitlement.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
In because googledrive

Zack_Gochuck
Jan 4, 2007

Stupid Wrestling People
In because I had a stroke.

TenaCrane
Sep 14, 2010

THUNDERDOME LOSER
In because my head's bleeding, but my fingers aren't.

Symptomless Coma
Mar 30, 2007
for shock value
Yeah, I'll go in for this one.

J Hume
Apr 23, 2013

What is the best number?
As the proverb says: A ship in harbor is safe, and I'm going to lose this loving thunderdome.

IN

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.
[Insert witty TD entrance here]

Bad Seafood
Dec 10, 2010


If you must blink, do it now.

V for Vegas posted:

Sailing close to the wind there BS.
Some people like to stand in the rain without an umbrella. That's what it means to live free.

Roguelike
Jul 29, 2006

THUNDERDOME LOSER
I'm going to regret this when I get drunk, but I'm in.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






Roguelike posted:

I'm going to regret this when I get drunk, but I'm in.

you're doing TD backwards?!

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
Still wanted: Two stalwart judging companions. Preferably anyone who can come up with a good drinking game on the fly.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Sitting Here posted:

Still wanted: Two stalwart judging companions. Preferably anyone who can come up with a good drinking game on the fly.

Line up the shots.

CantDecideOnAName
Jan 1, 2012

And I understand if you ask
Was this life,
was this all?
I sat here for way too long trying to think of a clever and original way to say I am in on this.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Have some crits.

Nika posted:


TITLE: Not Yet


There’s no use in sitting around, Jack!

The sound of her voice was getting harder to remember, but he could still hear that.

So despite the burn of arthritis in his hands,
you don't need this stuff. Space at the front of a story is at a premium. Jack pulled open the bag of colorfully wrapped halloween candy and, wincing, poured it into what had been his dead wife’s favorite white ceramic bowl.

For their last forty-seven Halloweens together, she had dusted off the same ridiculous old witch hat and poured the same chewy candy into that same white bowl before scurrying around the house to plaster the inside and out with orange and black—the two of them talking all the while of a silly trip to Europe they couldn’t begin to afford.

But for the last ten years, no children had come. Jack would look up from his evening paper and say, “Parents these days don’t let their kids run around just asking for candy. No one’s comin’ anymore, Sarah, I’m tellin’ you.”

And each time she would adjust her witch hat, or else point an orange thumbtack at him and say, “Well there’s no sense in just sitting around!”

And he would flap his newspaper, grunt, and say, “I suppose not. But I swear you’ll tire yourself out someday.”

Three months ago to the day, she did.

He woke one morning at 9am to find her next to him, still asleep--a first since he’d ever known her. The doctor would eventually call her condition myelodysplastic syndrome. I would give her death way more voice. As it is it's shrugworthy. Did they talk to each other at all when it wasn't Halloween?

Six weeks later she was dead.

SAD EVENT SPOTTED


Jack gingerly bent down to lay the bowl on the floor next to the door. After taking a beer from the fridge, he eased himself into his chair and then remembered that he had forgotten to turn on the porch light.

Not that it would make any drat difference.

Instinctively he picked up his newspaper, but then set it down again when he saw it was exactly three months and one day old--the last day Sarah had felt well enough to leave the house.
Don't care, get to the point.

He had just begun to doze in his chair when four knocks came from the door, hard enough to startle him, but gentle enough for him to know it was a child. He stood and yawned before walking over to the hallway and gently reaching down to pick up the bowl of candy. He let himself smile--slightly--at how excited his wife would have been.

When he unlatched and pulled open the door, he saw a young figure dressed in a black hooded robe clutching a plastic scythe. When the child pulled away the hood and looked up at him, he saw it was a boy with jetty black hair and stone blue eyes.

“Evening sir,” the boy said, in a calm alto I hate both of these adjectives a lot voice.

Jack held out the bowl. “Guess you’re supposed to be the grim reaper?”

Smiling, the boy said, “Something like that. May I come in for awhile?”

Jack made a face. “This is all the candy I’ve got, kid.”

“Please?”

“You should get home.” Jack began to close the door.

The boy placed his scythe between the door and the frame; the door wobbled violently when it struck the scythe, and the resulting sound was not like that of wood against plastic. But was it not unlike that sound? Or was it a not sound that wasn't not unlike it? How about you just tell us what it sounded like?

Jack pulled open the door and the boy was still smiling. “Just for a minute, sir? It’s cold out here.”

“I suppose,” Jack sighed. “But only for a minute.”

Inside, Jack struggled to turn on the rickety radiator as the boy took a seat on the dusty brown couch. “It won’t do much in the way of real heat, but it’s what I’ve got,” Jack said, when he had finally gotten the pipes to start rattling.

“It’ll do fine, thank you,” the boy said, chuckling. “By the way, terrible place you’ve got here.”

“Guess you’re not wrong about that,” said Jack, before setting himself into his chair. His eyes fell as he spoke. “I never had the touch for housekeeping. My wife was the one that done it, and she’s been passed awhile.”

The boy showed lily-white teeth when he smiled again. His voice was not unkind when he said,
Are these lines carrying their weight? “Sarah was a fine lady, wasn’t she Jack?”

The boy’s tone made the old man’s heart beat in his ears; suddenly he understood. This very pale kid had come to take him to be with Sarah. gosh you don't say

Jack cleared his throat. “So...” he gestured to the boy. “Death, huh? The real deal?”

Tugging on his black robe, the boy said, “Did the costume give it away? I thought it appropriate, given the holiday.”

“You’re a kid?”

The boy tilted his head to the side. “There are many kinds of costumes, Jack. You’re not frightened of me?” These lines are flimflam.

Jack scoffed and shook his head. ”I’ve been sitting and waiting three drat months for you to finally show up. I’ve hardly known what to do with myself since Sarah’s been gone.” He pushed himself up from his chair and said, “So I’m ready when you are.”

“You’re actually not. Not just yet.”

“Wait a minute--why?” he demanded.

“Sarah’s rather persuasive, Jack.” the boy laughed. ditto

Jack’s eyes began to water. “I--I don’t understand,” he stammered.

“She made a good case, and I could use a bit of good karma coming my way, for once.” blah blah blah
The boy pulled out a rolled up newspaper from his robe and tossed it to Jack, who unrolled it and found he couldn’t read the language in which it was printed.

“It’s today's Le Monde—written in French,” the boy explained. “Her idea. Open it, Jack.”

Inside was an envelope containing an airline ticket to Paris, and a note, written with the unmistakable flourish of his wife’s hand.

I keep telling you, there’s no use in sitting around!

Enjoy Europe. Hope you were nice to the kid.

Love you.

Sarah


Ok right so on more detailed reading I hated this story a lot. Nothing happens to speak of, there's no change, there are no characters, the Halloween setting you make so much of is irrelevant apart from a throwaway gag (if she was bustling she'd be bustling all the time, not just at Halloween), and it's not sad. Though old fartyface all by himself in Paris would be a bit sad so there's that. Next time write a story not a story shaped block of words.

Accretionist posted:

Title: Expectation and Realization
Count: 566
Rules: “primarily set in a 1950's diner. All speaking characters are female. “

Jane stared at her newspaper, occasionally turning the page to avoid suspicion. The pitch of the town gossip made her as easy to pick out from the din of the teeming diner as the scent of burnt tobacco from coffee and grease. I don't understand this sentence. She regaled her husband with the juicy details of how a certain friend use names had seen a certain woman’s ditto son driving opposite her who? on Thursday night with a brunette in the passenger seat. His her husband? girlfriend and her fashionably curly golden locks weren’t going to be happy. So is her husband sitting next to her or what.

Kids these days, she thought, but at least he’s getting out there. With a wry smile, she turned a page in her newspaper. An out-thrust menu pulled her attention away.

“Morning, darlin’! Joint’s starting to fill up so if you want to keep the table you’re going to have to order more than coffee, sorry,” the waitress said.

“That’s alright! Doris should be here soon. I’ll have the daily special with the baked beans, thankyou.”

“Coming right up!” Jane watched as she returned to behind the counter and shouted through the order window, “One special with whistleberries!” This is whiffle and piffle, get to the point.

She turned back to the sound of Doris taking a seat.

“Good morning!”

“Jane, how are you? How’s your son?”

“I’m fine, thanks. And Jim’s the same as he always is.” ditto.

“Is he still trying to control the house with his little routines,” Doris asked.

“Yeah,” she paused, “He’s 16. What’s he going to do when he has roommates? Or, god willing, a wife? John and I have been making sure he doesn’t get his way. He’s too old for this. He has to start growing out of it.”

“How’s he doing in school?”

“Oh, you know how teenagers can be. He never does his homework. He just coasts, otherwise,” Jane replied.

“Is he talking about college yet?”

“I think so. He’s always been good with numbers and lately he’s been talking about accounting or mathematics. I think it would suit him; he’s never been a people person,” Jane replied. blah blah

Doris nodded approvingly, “He’s always needed a lot of support, that’s for sure. But I’m sure Jim’ll adapt. He’s just a late bloomer! And one of these days, he’ll realize that socializing isn’t so bad and he’ll come out of that shell. He’ll realize there’s a whole world out there,”

“He just needs to figure out what he wants in life. All he does is sit in his room all day and night. I don’t even know what he plans on doing once his father and I are gone. We help him with everything,” Jane said.

“Well, you just gotta stay on him to do more. He may be stressed out now but this is nothing compared to the real world, and then it won’t be nothing like mowing the lawn or not being able to flick the lights a buncha times. He’ll grow out of it, I’m sure,” Doris said.

The waitress cut in with one special and one Bran muffin.

“Hi, Doris! Jane, I’ve got one special for you, and, Doris, I’ve got your regular, hon!”

The women thanked her and started into breakfast. After only a few bites, Jane stopped eating.

“Are you feeling okay,” Doris asked.

“Yeah, it’s just… I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder about Jim.”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. THEN WHY ARE YOU TELLING US I’m sure it’s just a phase.” oh god this is tedious dialogue.

I gave you this flash rule as a general challenge, but I see it was a good one for you as you fluffed the poo poo out of it. Dialogue must convey character or action, no exceptions. Instead you've got phatic communion laden down with fluff. Don't write dialogue like people talk, write it like people talk in good books. I'd really like you to take another run at this in fiction farm and I'll give you a crit.

Oh, and a minor side point - I'm no kind of SJW but you'll write better female characters if you don't just have them talking about the men in their lives.


dmboogie posted:

Last minute entry, ho! (1000 words.)

Sunrise

The dying solider was propped up against a tree, staring blankly at the desolate battlefield around him. Blood loss and fear had made his memory hazy, but from he could remember he had been taking cover behind the tree when the order to withdraw had issued. His temporary relief at being able to get away from the fighting was quickly cut short, as he had caught a bullet to the gut after he'd taken not even five steps away from the tree.

His squad hadn't bothered to assist him. Maybe they thought he was already dead, maybe they didn't notice, maybe they just didn't give enough of a poo poo to risk their own lives to carry him to safety. In any case, the result was the same, and he had been left to bleed out. He faded in and out of consciousness for what seemed to him to be an eternity, though it was likely only a few hours.

Eventually, he'd been able to focus enough to regather his concentration and examine his surroundings. The battlefield was eerily quiet. No gunfire, no shouting, no screams of pain from wounded soldiers. The setting sun had long since faded from the sky, leaving only the dim light of the full moon to illuminate his surroundings. The soldier was grateful for this. It reduced the many corpses strewn about to silhouettes, allowing him to almost entirely wipe their presence from his mind. He didn't need any more reminders of what the future held.

Though he felt no pain, the soldier still knew with an absolute certainty that he was going to die. His body was too weak to move, his thoughts clouded. Any hopes of receiving actual medical attention (his suit would keep him alive for a while, but it wasn't anywhere near a replacement for treatment) had vanished along with his squad.
Hm, look at all those words I just deleted. Has the story changed any? Nope. All he had left to do was wait to die.

There was movement in the distance, to the soldier's alarm, growing closer and closer. This is a dreadful sentence. Three dollops of vagueness in a dreary row. One remaining enemy soldier, searching for any survivors that remained so he could kill them, or worse? The soldier had seen the videos depicting the enemy nation's countless war crimes.

The silhouette was now close enough for the soldier to see it clearly - a man wearing the enemy nation's uniform. Before the panicked soldier was able to react, the man took a few steps towards him, stumbled, then collapsed against the tree, now right next to the soldier.

"Heya, kid. Hope you don't mind me sharing your tree for a while. Don't think I've got enough energy left to stand up again, anyway, so I guess you're stuck with me for now." The enemy chuckled a bit at this, the laughter quickly breaking into a fit of coughing. "Aw, hell." He muttered under his breath. "I'm in worse shape than I thought." The soldier simply stared at the enemy, utterly bewildered. The man was older, roughly in his late twenties. His voice was quiet, rough, with a slight accent.

Had the man gone insane? TENSION!!!!! The soldier knew that all from the enemy nation were bloodthirsty, mindless psychopaths, with nothing on their minds other than killing as many people as possible. Why, then, was the enemy soldier calmly talking to him like nothing was out of the ordinary? WHY!?!? ANSWER ME!!!!

"Hey, you okay, kid?" The enemy asked with a concerned look, causing the soldier to flinch in surprise. "loving propaganda, making everyone's lives more difficult." The enemy muttered, before turning back to the soldier. "Look, kid. I'm not gonna hurt you, and we're in the same boat, right? So, relax a bit. We're tree buddies, after all, might as well get to know each other. What's your name?"

"J-Jonathan." Jonathan stuttered, not taking his nervous eyes off of the enemy for a single moment.

"Good to meet ya, Jonathan. I'm Ben." The enemy said with a slight smile. "So, what's a kid like you doing in a hellhole like this? You look way too young to be a soldier." Jonathan glared indignantly at the enemy.

"I-I'm 16 years old, not a kid! I l-lied about my age so I could s-serve my country and fight against you monsters!" The recruiters had been oddly ready to believe his lie, now that he thought about it.

"Monsters, huh?" The enemy said, frowning. "I admire your conviction, kid, but you've gotta realize somethin'. See, when I enlisted, I was told that we were gonna stick it to some dictatorship that was oppressing its citizens and poo poo, strike a blow towards freedom to all mankind and all that. Well, as you can see, one of your countrymen stuck it to me. No hard feelings, though." The enemy sighed, gazing off into the distance. "Dammit, Julia told me something like this was gonna happen." Has he got a mournful harmonica? I think he should have a mournful harmonica.

"J-Julia?" Jonathan asked, his curiosity aroused despite himself. The more Ben - the enemy talked, the more Jonathan became fascinated. Had his country truly been lying to him? OMG NO SAY IT AIN'T SO

"Yeah, Julia. She's my girl, back home." Ben said, smiling wistfully. "You don't wanna hear me ramble on about my gorgeous girlfriend, though, do you? C'mon, kid, tell me a but about yourself. We've got nothing but time."

The two talked for a long time, of home, of family, of loved ones, anything to take their minds off of the current situation. Eventually, Ben turned to Jonathan, saying "Hey, kid. When all this blows over, and you're old enough, wanna go have some drinks together or-" He stopped. Jonathan's breath had stopped. A smile was still on his face. "...Sweet dreams, kid." Ben whispered, before finally closing his eyes as well. are you familiar with the process of dying of horrible wounds ps it's not pleasant and chatty

The sun rose, shining down on the battlefield. Its light shined on many good men, men cut down before their time, men who died without accomplishing any greater purpose. Men who had died terrified, screaming. However, the sun also shined on two former enemies, peacefully sitting side by side. Even on a battlefield, human kindness can shine. this special sunday episode was brought to you by wtf and ffs

Nothing happens, your writing is vague and fluffy where it's not unrealistic, cliche and melodramatic and this story is not in the slightest bit sad. OTHER THAN THAT GOOD WORK

Mirthless posted:

Sad prompt is really hard. :smith:

Crisis Management
(896 words)

"So, Richard, why did you apply for the transfer to our department?" Emily asked as they moved down the sparse corridor. Dull.

Richard shrugged. "My boss told me about it. I wanted a chance to move up, and there wasn't any opportunities with the DASV in my skillset."Dull.

Emily snorted. "That sounds familiar," she quipped as she placed a hand on the palm reader. The glass door slid into the bulkhead, and she lead the way onto a conveyor. "What do you know about our department, Richard?"Dull.

Richard sweated in his cheap suit. "Uh... Crisis management for the M-System, right? Since it's decentralized, you're a dispatch site."Dull.

"Yeah. Richard, when was the last time you asked for a promotion?" Emily asked off-handedly as the conveyor coursed them through the facility. Dull.

"I don't see how that's any of your busi-"Dull.

"May 1st, 3319. You asked for a raise and a job title change at the Anchorage registration office. You were denied. Twenty years, Richard." Du- vaguely interesting? Not sure yet.

Richard looked stunned, and then angry. "So is that it? You had me fly out here so you could ridicule me about my job history? I don't even want to know what kind of regulations you broke to obtain that information in the first place!"Dull.

Emily smiled. "Relax, Richard. I just want you to have the right understanding about this position, and why you are here. For starters, you already passed the interview before you ever walked in. We have a background checking process. You were referred to us because you are due to be flagged non-essential." Okay... I guess I'm wondering what that means now.

Richard looked pale. "There has to be some mistake... I'm consistently a top performer, and my whole department..."

Emily shook her head. "I said the same thing when I ended up here. We all did. I want you to understand before we go any further, this is a dead end. We're all equals here, and there's no getting out once you're in." Ah, so nothing matters? Dull.

Richard slowly nodded. "I... Understand. I don't really have a choice, anyway, do I?"

"It's that or indefinite furlough. Sorry, I really am. Anyway, to understand what our department does, you need to understand the M-System. So what do you know about it?" Dull.

Richard thought for a moment. "It's a computer program. It exists in the cloud, with hard access points everywhere. It manages the weather and life support systems, the reproduction network, interpersonal communications and government information lookup services."Dull.

"That's what it does now, yes. But do you know it's IT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR 'IT IS' [/b]history?"

Richard shook his head. "I've never read much about it. It was programmed in the 2200s, during the sterility plague. It was the foundation for the reproduction network."

Emily nodded as the conveyor came to a stop. She lead Richard into a small security office, where a squat man took his handprint. "That's almost all correct, but you left out one key point. The M-System is an AI, not just a process floating around in the cloud."Dull.

"...Really? I mean, I guess that's obvious. There's got to be so much automation in a system that large... I just never really thought about it." THEN WHY SHOULD WE

"You'd be surprised how many people don't realize it, even though it's right in front of them. It's really easy to forget she's there. It's something you take for granted."


Richard and Emily exited the security office into a maze of hallways, and she lead him to his new office. The room was comfortable, though not very large, with a nice desk and chair. Emily gestured to the wall, and a terminal window opened. "Anyway, the people who programmed the M-System ran into problems with the reproduction system. The initial programming made judgements that people were uncomfortable with. They wanted a program capable of feeling the same feelings an expecting mother would feel."

Emily made another gesture towards the terminal on the wall, and a library of documents opened up on the screen. With another gesture, she rapidly cycled through a sampling of them. Richard saw spreadsheets, old forms and documents, and then photos. Hundreds of photos, of him. "...What is this?"

"The M-System has managed every human birth for more than a thousand years, and she is attached to every one of those children. The system itself is decentralized, but we're the box in the attic. Every new baby born, every first step and first word. Every little league game played, every report card, every success and failure you have ever had. All of that data is tracked, cataloged and stored here."

"So what does crisis management have to do with any of this?"

"Well, they say the worst thing a person can experience is losing a child, right? Imagine that, every second of every day. The more the grief builds, the more stress it places on the cloud. Disasters can bring down network access to an entire colony, which just gums up the system even more. Our job is to manage her grief, from crisis to crisis. We make sure she's occupied and so she never feels alone." This is literally the first interesting thing in this story.

* * *

Training was a long process for the position, but Richard was excited to see his first bit of progress. He hit the compile button and the program sent a packet of data into the cloud. It wasn't much, but he had to learn to talk to her before he could expect to change the world.

"Hi Mom."

Unf. There's not much I can say about this one apart from to yawn. Nothing happens, what little does happen is vaguely and weirdly described, and it's completely not sad. Next time you write decide what the protagonist wants, why they can't have it and why we should give a poo poo. In this story you failed to provide any of those three.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Oct 23, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Tyrannosaurus posted:

These Things Happen
(813 Words)

I was little and she was big and she said me that I was just scaring myself. Great first line.The TV told me that the storm was bad and that we needed to go. Mama told me that’s why I should just watch cartoons.

Let Mama worry about grown up stuff, she said.

I said Okay, Mama but it was hard. I had to turn off the TV cause there was warnings even on the kid channels. When I laid in bed I could hear neighbors banging away boarding up their windows with hammers and nails. I sat in our window and watched people leave. Mister Dumont knocked on the door and he asked Mama if she needed help bolting everything down and she said that would be very nice.

Y’all thinking about leaving?

Naw, Mama said, too much hassle. We’ve been fine before.

You’re probably right, he said.

Folks always make something out of nothing and especially if they not from here. They don’t know.

You’re probably right he said again but Mister Dumont ended up driving away anyway. Through a knot in the wood I thought I saw him look back at me but he didn’t wave or nothing. I remember wishing I was in that car.

We slept in our car for a long time.

I sat in Mama’s lap on the drive home. This line and the one before it is very confusing; I thought they were at home?It wasn’t scary like leaving. It wasn’t raining so hard you couldn’t see. The sky wasn’t black like death like the middle of someone’s eyes. The whole wide world wasn’t screaming and coming down on you. It was just quiet. But that was scary too. Different scary.

The buildings had gone and gotten really old. Trash was every which way I could see. And now there was these big pieces of broken metal. And broken wood. And there was stuff so alien I couldn't even guess what it was supposed to be in the first place.
Mama where are all the trees?

So much stuff was missing it was confusing. Sometimes I thought I knew where we was but then stuff would look wrong again. I didn’t make sense. Why would somebody take telephone poles? What would you do with them? Maybe folks was making new houses with them.
Is all the houses bad like these ones, Mama?

I felt her muscles get all stiff and tense underneath me. When she didn’t answer I put my head against her and felt her heart thump. It was beating so fast. After some time she ran her fingers through my hair and that was nice. After some time she whispered Please, God. God didn’t say nothing back.

When we pulled up there wasn’t anybody. No people. There wasn’t no plants or trees or anything green and natural neither. If it wasn’t graffiti it was brown like Mama’s hand that was trembling in mine. We had to step over piles of garbage just to get close.

Where’s our front door?

I don’t know, she said softly.

The water mark on the walls was bigger up than my shoulders. It was still damp, too. The carpet was so soaked it was like walking in mud. Every step was slow and squishy and squirted water out underfoot. It was fun to walk in and I was happy not to be in that car anymore. I was happy that I was finally home. Mama let go of my hand and left me in the living room and I poked the carpet and created little pools of water with my fingers. this is a great para, you really nail the childness of the narrator

No. Lord, no.

What Mama? I asked. I didn’t know where she was.

No. No.

I found her in her room.

No, Mama kept repeating, no no no.

She was just sitting there and staring at this soggy book that was in her hands. She was turning pages that were warped and covered in fuzzy mold. They were gross.

Do you remember Mawmaw? she asked me without looking up.

Yes, Mama.

You remember what she looked like?

I thought hard. Mawmaw had met Jesus a long time ago when I was even littler. She would always hold me close and kiss me. She smelled really good. Her clothes always smelled like the kitchen. Gumbo. She made the best gumbo.

You remember her face?

Mawmaw had big black hair and painted nails. She was so much bigger than me. Big hands. But what did she look like? Did she look old? I couldn’t see her face.

No, I said.

Mama buried her face in her hands. She sobbed. The book was open on the floor and I looked but there wasn’t nothing there. Just blurred colors inside little squares. I asked her what was wrong but she wouldn't answer me.

Mama?

I tugged on her arm and she grabbed me. She told me that she loved me. She held me so tight that it hurt.

You have a solid premise here, but you sort of flub it by channelling it through the kid, because he's not the one feeling the emotion so it goes flat. I'm sure you could get the sort of dramatically ironic sorrow you're aiming for, but you need to do it some other way.


big business sloth posted:

This is my submission for the sad story prompt.

Secrets of the cairn [650 words]

I am on a mission of utmost secrecy. There is something big out here, deep in the forest behind my childhood home. I like these two lines - they tell me enough to make me want to know more My father spoke about it, and the words a man chooses to speak when words are few and final and come hard through sighing breaths are assuredly of great importance. I repeat the conversation in my head as I inhale the musk of the trees, searching for clues:
Unfortunately this is flimflammy. Keep complicated constructions like this out of the first para, unless you absolutely need them.
“The woods, behind the house… you remember? Hiking. Our rock. The see-saw tree. All that?”
“Yes.”


Little was said before then, and little after this. So I conclude that there is something big out here. Something important, and something meant only for me. Not just the rock, the large boulder at the edge of the field we ate sandwiches on once, I passed that a while back, along with the fallen tree that lays over the stone wall and across the path. I made my inspection and did not find anything. There were no signs, no etchings, no X to mark a spot where lay buried a box of journals, notes, instructions. I recall detailing those landmarks on my printer-paper maps. I drew dozens of them, perfecting the cartography of these woods, even though I could walk them by memory alone. I had placed my own X’s on those maps, X’s where I had left Matchbox cars, GI Joes, or other pieces of some scheme I was constructing for myself. Those mysteries were solved long ago. But there remains one other waypoint, one more landmark among the trees here, and because the sun is sinking and the ferns are rising I bend low, counting the steps, but assuredly these paces account for two, maybe three of a child’s gait, so I am closer than I think-- I like the picture you're painting here. But words that do not help a story, hinder it.

And there it is. In shallow leaves on the gnarled and sprouting earth lies what remains of The Bridge Across the Brook. I recall helping build this simple crossing with him. I don’t remember why we did it, other than to have built a thing. It would only benefit me, though I imagined then there were perhaps other wayward travelers of these Uncertain Properties behind the neighborhood. So I watched as his axe made loud, smacking strikes against the bases of the choicest candidates, and then we dragged them to the brook, leaving our hands marred with pine-scars and pitch. Nine young pines, young back then anyway, laid down like candles, now snapped and peeling, gripped by mud and under weeds and hidden from most things. Nice.

It seems like there should be more fanfare in this, so I wait. I stand quite a while, watching the decaying logs in silence. A plane drones overhead; the sound of cars on the nearby road gusts through the branches and the reeds. The mud and stones of the brook, its water no longer flowing, would take me only a few stretching steps to cross now. I listen harder, to the spaces in between the trees, and stare into the darkness of their gathering farther out, where the path dwindles and where I was never allowed to go. The sun is gone now, and the forest is a sort of blue. I close my eyes. I listen for something big.

When I open my eyes again my throat is hard. I nod a few times, my acknowledgement to the unpresent, and turn back. I follow the barbed wire fence back to the old house, its windows glowing warm over the greying yard.

Someday, when my paths in the forest have faded out, and all these woods are razed to make the properties more numerous and certain, someone, some construction worker will find that cairn of rot, I expect. They will be perplexed by this sudden arrangement in the dense chaos of the trees, and wonder when and why and by whom it was put there, of all places, for the use of no one, and only I will know, and, I promise, I will tell them nothing. It belongs to us.
I actually think you've said all you need to say without the last para.

I like the subtlety of the point you're putting across here, but you can afford to be a lot more honed. Still, a solid contender.



Wabznasm posted:

The Dance [862 words]

They spent their evenings dancing, never moving out of step, never faltering, never slowing. The nights were cold, and they found what warmth they could from each other, their clothes, now ragged and worn, offered little protection, but neither complained. This strikes a very elevated elegiac tone without really earning it.

Both had seen terrible cruelties, inflicted by people with twinkling eyes and kind smiles, people who looked like them, with sorrow on their lips but madness in their hearts, coldly following the orders of the great machine.
The great machine had raged its way through the countryside, destroying everything in its path. No happiness could exist under its jackbooted presence, only fear, and grief. No one was left untouched by its steely gaze.
The machine had come to their village several months ago. It had scorched the earth and taken the unworthy. They had hidden, enveloped by the velvet-dark forest, and the machine had passed them by.
They had seen, though. They saw how the machine tore through the village, burned down homes, violated men and women and children equally. Some, the machine took, some it simply used and left.

The people left behind were bitter, and afraid, and would not let them return to join them in the warmth. The people said they would bring the machine back upon those left behind. They, with their dark curls and dark eyes drew wrath. The people spat at him, and crossed themselves at the sight of her, warding off the curse she carried with her by accident of birth.

They could only come back under the comforting wing of darkness and guided by the kindly moon, to steal eggs and milk, dancing like motes of dust through the shafts of moonlight, lingering in the shadows to watch and listen, and creeping back to the forest to eat.

He would cook for her, and she would sing the songs they had learned from their mothers, so softly and sweetly that he thought the whole world would weep, if only they would hear her.
Sleep came more easily for him than for her, and she would spend the coldest hours pressed against him, her will to continue ebbing with each breath of sharp, night air.

Deepest winter came, and they knew it was time to move on. They walked, exhausted and starving, through the days and nights, their ears straining for any sound of the machine, until they reached the next village. The machine had left its gruesome calling card behind; twisted bodies littered the earth and beasts lay slaughtered and flyblown. All was silent. She waited, crouched like a wary animal, concealed in the undergrowth, while he picked his way through the trail of suffering to a barn with a wide open doorway. She watched, with held breath, as he slipped inside. Minutes passed, and she dared not move, until finally, he gestured for her to follow.
The barn had loose floorboards, covering an earthen floor. He dug a hollow, deep enough for both of them, replacing the boards above it. They took the clothes from the dead, lining the pit with them. They slept warmly within, a deep and dreamless sleep.

The morning brought a frost. He hurried, mouse-like, to the ramshackle buildings of the village, and mustered his courage to look through the shattered window of the cottage closest to the barn.
The occupants were dead, laid in a regimented row, each one with a neat bullet hole, a red flower blooming in each lapel. Beyond them, in the pantry, he saw great hanging hams and cured sausages. He stood, staring, his stomach betraying him, rumbling loudly. He slipped inside, and gingerly took down a ham. He knew she could not last without it. He felt the eye of God upon him, and prayed forgiveness. He crept throughout the house, searching for clothes and blankets, when a glint of light gave him pause. In the bedroom, lying on the bed, a haphazard pile of jewellery, watches, eyeglasses and gold coins, the sheer volume of which he had never before seen in his life. Beside it, neatly laid out papers bore the insignia of the machine.
His breath catching in his throat, he stumbled back through the house, all his grace forgotten, clutching the ham to his chest, stealing glances over his shoulder as he ran. The machine was coming.

He wrenched open the door of the barn, his hands slipping and dropping the meat in among the dead and the decay.

They lay together, in the pit, the boards carefully replaced above them, and held each other.

The machine came, as they knew it would. Boots outside. Voices, clipped and harsh, getting louder.

They lay still, and breathless.

The machine entered.

Voices shouted in a language they could not understand. The machine was tearing up the boards, one by one. Boots hammering, showering them with grit and dust and dirt.

He wiped away her tears, and held his hand tightly over her nose and mouth, and waited. She did not struggle.

Goodnight, my darling, goodbye, he said.

Light flooded the pit, and he was lifted, up and away into the cold embrace of the machine.

And the dance was over.

I didn't do any edits because it's competent enough prose, but there's a failure of anything actually happening. The characters are ciphers, so their death has no weight. You decided not to give them any dialogue which was a mistake, I think. Also the dance really isn't paid off. And why bother with all the 'machine' stuff, just call them Nazis; we do it all the time.


Noumena posted:

Sad story time, with macguffin

The Door
294 words

Jane and Wren are seventeen years old when Jane disappears for the first time. Jane is filling out a ballot for class superlatives. Most Likely to Succeed. Best Dressed. Most School Spirit. She almost pencils in her candidate for Best Smile when her body twists sideways and brings the school desk down on her neck.

In the hospital, Wren cries. Jane smiles. "Don't worry," she says. They hold hands. "I came back."

Wren and Jane are mirror images. As tots in matching dresses, clinging to one another's hands, the grownups all told them, "You must feel so lucky." They exchanged glances, and the grownups grinned and cooed.

From the top bunk at bedtime Jane sometimes said, "Don't shut the door." Wren, scoffing a little, would always comply.

Now the years pass and Wren calls it "stepping through the door." Because when this happens Jane is gone. Departed. Out the door. Wren is cradling Jane's head upright as her sister's body contorts. Incisors bite the soft lip. Wren cups Jane's chin. Her palm fills with blood.

Wren is used to counting now. Jane is gone, she knows. She waits for her to return. Jane stares at her. "Who are you?" she says, as Wren clenches her fingers, trying not to stain the couch.

"Do you understand?" she sometimes says, and Jane does not. "Stay here," she says, and Jane's body stays, as Wren washes her hands. And Wren sits with her, waiting, as Jane's eyes list along the ceiling. Waiting for the door to open.

"Where do you go?" Wren thinks of asking, and does not, when Jane returns. They cling to one another's hands. Their foreheads touch.

"Don't shut the door," Wren sometimes says, and, for now, as long as she understands, Jane complies.

This is a tight piece, and I have no specific edits, but I feel like it's missing an extra layer of metaphor or (preferably) action to really land its balletically precise punch. I think maybe the vagueness of that last sentence is the problem - it's very equivocal, and 'Jane complies' is weak. And not really sad, as my clumsy rodentine buddy observed.



bald gnome error posted:

Saddest story, written in worst prose.

to my wife (on our anniversary)
1000 words


I always thought I was a different kind of person. That I would love and love forever like I had when I was younger - that I would hummingbird between people and cities and families, whirling around in a perpetual cycle of new love. That I could not be settled.

Now I am settled with you. Now we are the picture of domesticity: we so easily and frequently, buying a bed together, hosting dinner parties. We on bicycles to the north pond in summer. Curled like smoke on the blanket, <= pro simile books for each and in the lull of our wandering minds between paragraphs, laughing dogs and ducks to watch. After summer, we in autumn cardigans and fuzzy eyes; we lacing fingers together loose like the threadbare sneakers we slip on. Cradling tomatoes at the market. Bouncing goodbye kisses off cheeks. this is kind of deliberately twee, but you pay it off nicely when it gets to the death bit

Before, long ago, we were what you're supposed to be before settled. Before we I was happy naked under thin blankets in your college bed. I rode the bus all night to you. I wrote you poetry and cried on the telephone. You got high, I got drunk, and we rocketed along, leaving sparkler trails through the nights behind us. Later you went to India. I moved into our first apartment alone. I had no parents; there were two flights of stairs; it was ninety degrees on the first of July. A coworker packed my boxes and bare mattress into his pickup, then later unpacked them. I had no words to thank him. I tried to say it by not asking his help hauling boxes. I shook and the blood thumped in my face and I did not vomit and hauled another load of books up another stair.

When the last of it was up I stood catching my breath, the coolness of the rooms like just-turned-up dirt. <= another one, you have a knack Fresh. Ready. The nicest place I had ever lived. I opened the box nearest me and began to settle in and was done with the last box before I stopped to eat.

I was alone in our apartment then.

You came back from India, packed up your childhood. We drove from your parents' house straight down the lake shore. After the boxes up the stairs and the suitcases in the corner and the shoes slipped off at the door - after all this we stood in the kitchen and marveled to have come home together, to acknowledge that home was now for two.

I have omitted certain facts, though, and home is for three.

There is not a ghost in our apartment but there is a death. There is your death. She sleeps curled beneath the chair at the desk we do not use. When you were fifteen you tried it the same way, with a rope and a stick and some good leverage. You are an engineer. You have tried it in our apartment. While I was at the market fondling produce or at work late sighing exaggeratedly. You have put a rope around your neck and a stick through a rope and then through the slats of the chair at the desk we do not use. And you changed your mind, disassembled it all before I was home; and you are still here, but so is your death.

She is in the kitchen, just around the wall, clicking a lighter once while you are outside smoking. She reminds me that someday, when ambient noise resolves into a lighter click again, I will be without you. Your death wears the pink lace dress you have not worn yet and may never wear. She is in the broadest clean part of the wood flooring, in the way the light strikes it at early afternoon on a lazy Sunday, in the promise of all the Sundays I will ever have that you may not.

I did not see her at first and then I saw her in her entirety, in her promise and malice, in your daily silences and stares and lank hair on unwashed pillowcases. In these small signifiers but also in the greater tide of it, in the way a year has slipped past. All our quiet domesticities barely break the surface before losing to the current. I am fighting but you are not and your death breaks the tie. She is a mermaid weaving a bed of seaweed. She sings to you from the drain in the bathtub while you hate your face in the mirror. She promises dreamless sleep, a home at the bottom of the waterfall. Your crushed body will turn bioluminescent and rival the stars from the bottom of the lake.

Who am I with my voice cracking and drying to dust in the sun? Who am I, calling you back to a ground that still shakes beneath me? The nicest place I have ever lived holds an orphan, a death, and a wound.

You split open before me every night and I am ashamed to admit that I do not always mend you. Sometimes I try and fail. Sometimes I try to fail deliberately, as if I can provoke you into anger or fear, into anything beyond your desire for her. Sometimes I succeed and for an hour or a day we are there again, two alone in the bower of trees at the pond, pointing out herons; we are there in the parking lot with our foreheads together promising to each other. Sometimes we are there but always we return home. Always you sink fetal into her embrace. I settle and sigh like continental plates, feel the rawness at my edges. We are fused together in pressure and fire. I am married to you and you are married to her.

At night, in the nicest place I have ever lived, in the bed we chose together, we lie with our backs to each other. A space/a presence between. The future rustles through my dreams like a soft wind carrying the scent of funereal lilies. hoooo tight tight tight

As someone noted this skirts the poetry/prose divide and I'd like to see how you write when you're not doing that, but a very strong story.

justcola posted:

The Cnidarian Question (936 words) Wut.

Thousands of miles of bone covered by a coloured skin, slowly turning the bleached whiteness of death. The sky screamed infernally overhead burning deeper and deeper through the ancient reef. I AM ZOGDOR THE SCREAMING SKY I COME FROM INFERNUS, LAND OF HELL It was the time. Unknowing, each mouth kissed the sea, releasing motes out from their stomachs that drifted into the ongoing storm happening beneath the foam. The cells that caught one another began to change, drifting down far from where they began onto a sheet of rock. The polyp grew a mouth and began to grow another, attached by a tiny membrane. And these copies would go on to grow another copy. With identical mouths they snared plankton, reaching upwards on a limestone skeleton towards the shifting sky. This is way too involuted for an opening para dude. You're leaping and screaming and turning and drifting and snaring idek

In it's IT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR IT IS eight thousand year existence, the coral reef could sense that a change was coming. Death. It's IT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR IT IS life was many orders of magnitude slower than any other animal and so it's IT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR IT IS death appeared to be relatively quick. Parts of it starved or were broken off, others were above the water, forever caught in the frantic strobing of the star. On it's IT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR IT IS borders there was a creature making it's IT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR IT IS way through the crumbling towers, crawling with an affray of spikes. The huge starfish the colour of dusk crept across the reef, pushing their stomachs onto it and taking away a soup of sea water and digested coral. They moved slowly across the outermost layer, leaving nothing behind but blank stone. It gorged itself on mile after mile on an animal that didn't even know it existed.

The reef waited. Over towards where the sun rose it felt a strangeness in the water, a rotating churn. In moments huge areas of the reef were torn away, obliterated by moving air, ripping polyps off bone, tearing them to wet shreds. The crabs and fishes that lived amongst it's structures began to dwindle, living hard lives amongst the barren stone. Black, oily poo poo was poured over acres of the reef, drowning the mouths beneath an avalanche of waste. But it continued to wait.

On the reef lived a variety of different species of coral, and each species had colonies numbering the billions. They grew over decades, attacking other corals in their territory, capitalising on empty space, slowly exploring the fringe of the reef which itself transformed faster than the coral could manifest it's destiny. In the caves and over the mountains swam sea snakes, slugs, worms, fish, octopuses and turtles. More closely related to hard coral are the gorgonians, fractal sheets of living polyp that stretch into the water like enormous leaves. Similarly the jellyfish float through the water like the ghosts of bells, catching light in thin membranes from the setting star, colouring them crimson. All of this looked the same as it had for many epochs.Empires of colour rose and fell over the centuries, more dramatic and complex than any that could happen on the land. Yet it what was happening on the land that would bring an end to the Cambrian frontier.

Soft five pointed animals climbed into the metallic things across the ocean. They wore their skeletons on the inside, the only signs of hardness were white crescents set in the holes atop their necks. The holes moved up and down, making dry sounds in the air. The metal rays began to soar through the sky with their reflections caught on the brine beneath, on each wing of the things were long, hard tubes with fins coming off of the side and their ends painted in yellow and red. The bigger pieces of metal seemed to grow little clouds around them with a booming noise and from then they moved silently over the water, their echo taking time to catch up. As the moon gyrated on the other side of the planet it pulled the water away, exposing parts of the dead reef up towards the silent metallic things. They passed above, going towards the land, before making elliptical orbits back over the reef in the crystal water. The metal cylinders on each wing was dropped, one, two, three, four, down towards the water. When they hit they made indents into the sea as the surface struggled to keep, yet in they went anyway, plummeting down towards the reef, crashing through the coral and throwing up silt which threw up a brown fog. And nothing happened.

The light rose again. The soft animals wore black skins and plastic around their faces as they travelled through the water, down towards the eight cylinders. Already starfish and crabs had begun to explore the strange new hardness which had fallen from above. The soft animals swam towards each of the things, leaving behind little mounds of plastic before disappearing. And then the bombs went off. An underwater fire bloomed outward, roaring across the coral, shattering it's IT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR IT IS bones. The entire ocean pressed against this sudden bubble of heat, the water clapping together and then surging upwards, throwing pieces of death in the air. A shockwave continued over the reef eviscerating any soft flesh. The reef disappeared beneath a cloud of blood and sand and when it cleared nothing was left.

The coral did not feel anything. It had lived a long life unknowing anything but itself, it's IT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR IT IS purpose was simple. It had no choice. It was unaware at the beauty in which it created, the systems of life it supported, even of the corals surrounding it. In the black silence of it'sIT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR IT IS existence it felt a hunger that lasted a thousand years. It wouldn't be able to comprehend the manner in which it'sIT'S IS ONLY EVER SHORT FOR IT IS life ended. But then again, neither could we.

Yeeeeeup that's some quality nature documentarying. Also melodramatic, overcomplicated and ploddy. Next time write about people talking to each other imo. Oh and 'it's'? Only ever short for 'it is'.




inthesto posted:

Time to lose!

Civil War (911 words)

Eleven days. It had been eleven days since Joseph had known safety. Eleven days on the road, eleven days tending to this infant. Joseph knew the baby was starving. He only wished he could do something. Weak start. If you find yourself writing 'he only wished he could do something', then delete it and have your character actually do something.

“What's your child's name?”

“He's not mine,” Joseph said. The soldier by his side leaned over and smiled at the infant in his arms. Joseph jerked away, waking the baby. The baby's wails reached every pair of ears in the convoy. These days it was hard to trust anyone in uniform. Though, nobody in this unit did anything abhorrent yet. Joseph let the soldier have a look. “I just found him-”

“On the street, in his dead mother's arms, as you were fleeing the city, right?” The soldier tried tickling the child's nose. The iron on his finger on scratched the delicate skin, escalating the child's protests. “Sorry,” the soldier said. Joseph was too busy rocking the boy back and forth to hear. He shuffled away from the soldier. Toxic, all of them.

The soldier fished for something in his pouches. He retrieved a banana, a bit misshapen from the days of marching. “Here.”

“You think he can eat this?”

“It's for both of you. If he can't eat it, you need the strength.” The soldier forced it into Joseph's hands. “The name's Morgans. Trooper Morgans. Don't worry, we'll be at Hillcrest by the evening. Promise. Imperial honor.”

Joseph snatched the fruit away from Morgans' hands. As little as Joseph trusted him, soldiers had easier ways to kill a refugee. Joseph tried to play a game, waving the banana through the air like a toy and landing it in the baby's mouth. The only metaphor he could craft was a spear sailing towards its target. How grisly.

Dozens of iron-clad bodies rattled at once. Morgans' too, standing at attention in an instant. Joseph had no time to think. He gasped, feeling a cold hand grab him by the wrist. Something else cold was shoved into his hand.

“Defend yourself if necessary.” As Joseph looked down at the knife he held as a spear sailed by his head. Joseph did the only thing a sane man could do. Throwing himself at the ground, he kept his head low. Shrieks from the baby's lungs complemented the battle cries of dying soldiers. War was in the air, and all Joseph could do was wait for it to end.

Something heavy fell on top of his back. With a grunt, Joseph tried to take his mind away. Maybe he could act like a real father and comfort the baby. In a hushed voice, he tried singing the only song he knew.

“Listen children, to a story
That was written long ago
Of the kingdom on a mountain
And the valley folk below

On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath a stone
And the valley people swore
They'd have it for their very own”


Blood oozed down the sides of his face. Trying to ignore the corpse on top of him, he kept singing. The spears repeatedly jabbing into whatever body was shielding him made that difficult. At least the baby's cries became laughter, like the rocking of their bodies was some kind of game. As he nearly finished his song, another voice cut off the last line.

“We've secured the hostages,” it yelled across the plains. With the sounds of fighting no longer in his ears, Joseph wanted to move. He could barely budge with the armored body pinning him down. Eventually, something threw the weight off his back and Joseph rolled over.

“Arming civilians, to make us think they're combatants. The insurgents will stoop to anything,” the new soldier grumbled as he snatched the knife by Joseph's side. The soldier's hands pulled Joseph to his feet. Joseph could only look to the body, face down and punctured with a hundred holes, wondering if that was Morgans who tried to save him. He'd never know.

“You're safe now,” the soldier said. His accent was thick, but Joseph could still understand most of the words. “The insurgent army won't be hiding behind you anymore.” Without asking, the soldier's armored hands beat at Joseph's rags, trying to shake off the dirt. “We'll get you to the nearest refugee camp, and you'll be absolutely safe there. Promise. Imperial honor.”

“How far is Hillcrest?” Maybe this one's second opinion would bring better news, Joseph reasoned. The soldier's answer brought no hope.

“No, Hillcrest is held by the insurgents. They'll use you as a hostage there. We need to march to Shield's Valley.” The man wasn't even looking at Joseph anymore. He looked back and forth, barking the occasional order at his fellow soldiers.

“How long...” Joseph trailed off. Somehow, he knew he wouldn't like the answer.

“Eleven days. Nine, if we make good time.” The soldier spouted off the words like it was no big deal. It probably wasn't to him. To Joseph, it may as well have been an eternity. The soldier leaned in towards Joseph's body, smiling at the infant in his arms. “What's his name?” the soldier asked with a chuckle. He held out his hand. “You can call me Lieutenant Morgans.”

“Get away from me.” Joseph cradled his son as he leered back.

Eleven days. Another eleven days before Joseph could be safe again.

Okay, the writing here is tolerable, but it's not really a story. Have your next character risk somethign and overcome obstacles to achieve something. And a complete failure of sadness, ofc.


sebmojo fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Oct 24, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Noah posted:

Nothing Belongs to Everyone Good title.
Words: 990

Even though she wasn’t delicate with her toys, Kristin loved them truly. A rough-houser even at 6, she didn’t mind scratches or dents on her things. In the future, ‘having character’ is what she will sheepishly describe these dents and scratches as. weird tense choice When grilled a little further, she will tell her friends ‘it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Maybe chop? At dinner once, her mother asked, “Where’s your new bracelet I got you?”

“It all started when we were playing tag, and I was running, real fast, and then it fell off, and I stepped on it, and I broke it,” Kristin said, pulling pieces out of her pocket. Broken pieces of ceramic and copper sat in her hands. “But I caught the boy who tagged me.”

Her father’s face went flat. His lips spread across his face and his chin seemed to bottom out. “I think you should go to your room,” he said. After several quiet minutes, they came in to find her.

“Kristin, we are very disappointed,” her father said. “You are supposed to be more careful with your things.”

Kristin was silent, looking at the ground.

“We’ve talked about this, honey, do you know how it makes your mom feel when you break your things? Do you?”

Kristin shook her head on the third prodding.

“She feels like you don’t care about her when you don’t care about the things she gives you.”

“No that’s not true,” Kristin shouted, eyes welling up.

“Go tell your mom how you feel,” her dad said. Kristin ran past her father, attaching to her mother’s leg, crying. Her mother patted her head, shushing her gently. As the dad of a five year old you get this passage spot loving on.

The next month, for Kristin’s birthday, her mother gave her a brand new pencil case. Animals linked from snout to tail wandered the border. Even though everything else in her backpack had tell-tale scuffs of being Kristin’s, the pencil case was pristine.

“That’s a nice pencil case,” a girl named Nicole said. Kristin beamed at her, smiling. Kristin had gone out of her way every time she used it to be careful with it.

“Can I see it?” Nicole asked.

A lump caught in Kristin’s throat.

“I—no, I don’t think,” Kristin said. Nicole curled a lip at her and looked at their teacher.

“Miss Stillson, Kristin isn’t sharing,” Nicole cried.

“Shh, shh,” Kristin said. “Okay, okay.”

Nicole took the case without even so much as a second glance back. Every tick of the clock made Kristin sweat just a little more. She told herself that Nicole would bring it back any moment.

When the class started to pack up for the day, she finally went to Miss Stillson.

”Nicole has my pencil case, and she hasn’t given it back,” she said.

Miss Stillson called Nicole over.

“Yes, Miss Stillson?” Nicole said.

“Do you have Kristin’s pencil case?”

“No, Miss Stillson, just the one my mommy just bought me,” she said, presenting Kristin’s case.

“That’s mine!”

Miss Stillson inspected the pristine case, flipping it over, and checking each detail. She ran a hand over the intact artwork that lined the perimeter.

”Kristin, that’s not nice to lie,” Miss Stillson said. “If you can’t take care of your own things, you can’t try to take someone else’s.”

Kristin sputtered but before she realized it, Miss Stillson and Nicole were gone. Packed up, and shepherding other kids to the carpool pick up. Hollow echoes kept Kristin in a state of shock and paralysis as she waited for her babysitter to pick her up. After several calls, she numbly climbed into the babysitters car.

When she came home from school, she felt nothing but shame; a heavy, tugging feeling that she couldn’t shake. Avoiding her parents by being quiet in her room, she knew the call for dinner was inevitable. Dragging her feet, her mother’s voice grew stern and impatient. Finally, she made her way to the table.

“How was your day at school today,” Kristin’s mother said.

Flashes of Nicole, sneering and smiling at the same time, blinked in her mind. Her mouth felt dryer than her Easy-Bake confections. Suddenly her parents took on a looming, backlit visage. They towered over her, even though they sat there, eating their dinner with calm demeanor.

“Uh, umm,” Kristin said.

“Did something happen, honey?” Her father asked.

He had the face of anticipating disappointment. She had seen it before, when she would get in trouble at school, when she would lose something. He had the same face her mother would make, standing in the background, surveying the scene as her father scolded and punished her for misbehaving.

“N-No,” she said. “Nothing happened.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, and smiled at her.

Her mouth wet itself again. She felt like she had been dunked in the cool water. Thinking her stunned silence went on too long, she forced herself to push her mashed potatoes around the plate aimlessly. Her parents didn’t notice. Kristin didn’t understand, fully at the time, what had just happened. When she went to bed that night, she felt like she had cheated, but she knew she had to test it again the next day.

On that day, truly nothing had happened, making it easier to say as much to her parents. Their response was the same, a smile, and continued eating at the dinner table. The day after, a boy pulled her hair, called her a name, and made her feel bad inside. She told her parents that nothing had happened, and they smiled again, and continued eating.

Every night, even on the bad nights, the nights where she got hurt, the nights where she had things to hide, the nights that were worse than every night before, it always got easier. Even when she was caught, when there were bruises, rumors, and more, she just said ‘nothing,’ smiled back at them, all of them, and continued to push her food around the plate, waiting for bed.

This is nice work, a notch off honourable mention, so I don't have many line edits. You do a few little weird things with tense and perspective - who's telling the story? when is it being told from that could probably be fixed with a couple of tweaks, but it's a very well observed piece.




Pantology posted:


Total Cost of Ownership
(750 words)

When she started talking kids, I asked a friend what all that was going to cost me. He ran through the stuff I figured--diapers, crib, car seats--and then the stuff I hadn't thought about yet--daycare, college savings plans, and life insurance.

"I get that through work already."

"Not for you, for the kid."

"The hell for?"

"Just in case. It's cheap, and if poo poo happens, coming up with the cash for a kid funeral is the last thing you'd need." The cavalier way he said "kid funeral" struck me funny--like there'd be a sad clown and a black bounce house. But I didn't want to sound insensitive.

"How much can a shoebox and a shovel cost?" This is funny but sort of confusing.

#

I never really came to terms with her being pregnant. Insisted it was just gas. When she called and said her water broke, I told her maybe she had to poop.

#

I did the best I could in the delivery room, positioning myself low and back near her head, where I wouldn't have to see anything gooey. Eight hours of playing encouraging husband later, she finally fired the thing out. They took it--him--over to the other side of the room to do whatever it is they do while the doctor sewed her up. A few minutes later they asked me to come over to them and meet my son, take pictures, bond, do whatever. I asked them to wheel out the bucket of placenta first.

#

In case you haven't had the pleasure, newborns are a pain in the rear end. They're not even cute right away, and they have zero personality. They just eat, poo poo, and sleep, on a three hour cycle. In between, you scramble to prepare for the next go-round, and that's your life for, I'm told, the first few months. You can't really blame them, though, it's a sweet deal and I'd have been jealous if I wasn't so exhausted. HAha this is so true (though I liked mine from minute one, I can understand the other side of the fence). So far your breezy, slick, Chairchucker-esque style is winning me over nicely.
#

About two months in it got better. The routine didn't change any, but by that point he could smile, and as lame as that sounds it made all the difference. I still woke up in the middle of the night enraged that the little poo poo was up, but when his face would light up when he saw me walk in, the anger shook right off. The way they look at you, all happy like you're all that matters in the world, it's contagious. Anyone that can get that reaction can't be such an rear end in a top hat, right? The first time he threw up all over me and we both laughed, I knew I was stuck.

#

When managing sleep and an infant, it's all about respecting the turn system. If you took midnight, she'd get three, and it's your turn again at six. There's no need to set an alarm, you just get the bottle ready and sleep until they let you know it's time.

That morning, I woke up around 8:30, almost-refreshed for the first time since he was born. Nothing felt off, yet. She woke up as I was brushing my teeth, and I thanked her for taking my turn. She said she didn't. Our eyes went wide and we ran down to his room to check on him.

Ashen. Gone. The site of it, him-but=not-him, hit like a punch in the gut, sucking the wind right out of me. I couldn't breath. I couldn't make a sound. She didn't have that problem--I'll never not hear that scream.

#

The other lovely thing about SIDS is that there's nothing to blame. It's a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning no one knows what the gently caress. When it's drunk driver, a particularly virulent flu, even a dingo--at least there's something external you can hate. Absent that, there's just you. If only you had gotten up earlier, or laid him down in a different position, fed him a little earlier, held him a little longer, or done any of a million little things that shouldn't have ever mattered but are now all you ever think about. Whoom. Right in the feels.

Before long I couldn't look at her anymore. I just saw his eyes looking back at me, a sad, broken version of them. Just a constant reminder of our failure. She felt the same way, and it sort of worked itself out in time. You don't quite stick the landing though, and I think maybe cutting this would help. First because it doesn't trust the reader, and also because 'sort of' is super-weak even though it fits your narrators style. If you're implying she left the narrator then say that below, if not just leave it out.

So as for what kids cost, beyond the usual list, there's a chance it could be your wife (maybe?), half your stuff and any sense of meaning in your life. I asked--the insurance won't cover that. And with that change the final line (which you need, otherwise it's jarringly straight) fits better.

This is tight as hell, nice work.



J Hume posted:

Here's a link to a published google doc view if anyone prefers that: Familial

Familial
(975 words)

“Fatal familial insomnia,” the doctor said to her first question. “It’s not good,” to her second. “You’ll still be able to dream; that happens in the light phase. It’s primarily the deep-wave sleep that’s affected.” Keep your openings tight.

For months she had told herself that it was normal, a postpartum thing, and her grief counselor agreed. Until one Sunday morning while over her morning cocktail of Xanax, Paxil, Tofranil, Premarin, and chamomile tea, a cardinal landed on the bird feeder outside the kitchen window and she realized she wasn’t sad anymore. There were still sad moments, but every day there were fewer, and now she felt that she had reached an escape velocity from the gravity of her loss. But the sleep situation hadn’t improvedshe still couldn't sleep. Nice para.

The doctor clicked his pen while he flipped through her charts. When he looked up at her, it was only for an instant before looking back at the charts, as if there were something in her that he didn’t want to see. “It’s an extremely rare condition. Less than a hundred known cases since we started keeping track. I sent samples to my colleagues at Mayo and Stanford to confirm it.” He turned to the next page. “The disease often presents itself after giving birth. There’s a strong hereditary component, so in that way, losing her might have been a mercy.”

She instinctively covered her belly with her hands. “Did I get it from my parents?” Both of her parents were still alive, and slept as soundly as any parent can. Her grandmother, on the other hand, drowned while swimming alone late one night after a prolonged period of ‘hysterical agitation’ as the newspaper reported it.

“They could be carriers, even if they’re in good health.” He explained the progression of the disease: paranoia giving way to hallucinations, weight loss, dementia, and finally a terminal catatonia, all within a few months. All for lack of sleep. “I know you’re feeling overwhelmed,” the doctor said. “I’ll give you a number to call — someone who can help you settle your affairs.”

Up till here, with some minor nips and tucks, I'm really enjoying your control.


She called the number that afternoon. She answered a few menu options until finally getting on the line with an eager case-worker who introduced herself as Erin. They filled out a questionnaire together. Was she married: yes, technically. Did she have any children: no. Did she own her home? Had she paid off her mortgage? Were their any tax liens on the property?

“I’m a lawyer,” she told Erin. “Everything is fine. Legally fine. I don’t know why I called. I can take care of all this on my own.”

"Maybe you just needed someone to talk to."

"loving brilliant insight." She stopped and held the phone against her neck for a moment. "I'm sorry. I just got some really bad news."

"It's okay. This is hospice — everyone who calls has bad news. Have you told your family yet?"

"Not yet. I'm dreading that call more than actually dying. God, it feel weird to say that. You know, I went to law school so they would take me seriously, but they still don't. It's the opposite for my brother. Nothing he does is good enough." She put on a pot of water for tea. "And it's a genetic thing. I'm dying because my dad's a carrier. How do I break that news to him?"

"Maybe this is a conversation you should have with him," Erin said.

"You're right. I’m going to tell them; I have to tell them. The doctor says I’m going to go crazy at the end. Can you imagine? All my life I want them to respect me, and their last image of me is going to be me drooling in a wheelchair. Mostly I'm afraid of how they'll react. What if I tell them and they don't care?"

"Come on. Don’t think like that. Of course they’ll care."

The tea kettle whistled and she started a cup of chamomile tea. "Do you think I would have been like my parents? Would my little Olive feel the same way about me that way I do about my parents?"

"Olive?"

"That's what I called her. The OB-GYN said she was a little bigger than an olive on my first visit. No birth, no birth certificate and no legal name. It's just something I called her." I like this. The cardinal was back at the bird feeder, picking through the grains for the sunflower seeds that he liked. "My husband left the same week I told him. Said he wasn't ready to be a father since his own father wasn't there for him growing up. Dumb rear end. Like the solution to the problem is more of the problem."

Erin was quiet.

"Still there?"

"Still here."

"You weren't saying anything." She was so tired, a deep exhaustion compounded by the knowledge that she would never rest again. "Nothing changes, does it?" Without waiting for a response,she told Erin she would call back later and made a show of repeating the extension even though she didn't write it down..

She called her parents’ house and it went to their voice mail. She hung up without leaving a message and then called her mother’s cell phone, which also went to voice mail. As she was about to call her father, a text message arrived from her mother: Pastor Andrews visiting. Will call tonight if not too late. She replied: I’ll be awake.

Her tea went cold and she didn't bother to heat it up. The cardinal flew away but she stayed by the window. Her phone rang once around seven, but it was the Red Cross, asking for her blood, and she hung up without saying a word. When the sun came up the next morning she was still there, wide awake. Maybe for the first time and maybe for the last, fully and forever awake. Good final line.

Unfortunately after a decently strong opening this one drifts off into not quite being sure what it's about. There's the Olive stuff which seems to belong in another story, and the fatal familial insomnia (which is a fantastic element) but which you sort of squander. You write good words though, so keep it up.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Oct 23, 2013

owl milk
Jun 28, 2011
Came here because of the ad. I love outlaws so count me in.

Noumena
Mar 18, 2008

.

Noumena fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Oct 23, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Don't respond to crits.

Accretionist
Nov 7, 2012
I BELIEVE IN STUPID CONSPIRACY THEORIES
I'm in.

Your writing's good enough that I can't really do a line-by-line, but -- As a reader, I got a little misty eyed. You successfully induced a physiological response thus clearing the primary hurdle. It's reasonably well put together and punchy. I never had to force myself to keep reading and there was a palpable sense of a sort of all-consuming, forever-empty.

That being said, something this length felt like it should have had tighter focus. You jumped right into walking me through a litany of sufferings, through different aspects of the dislocating new reality this woman found herself in. And you did this fairly smoothly and with good tempo, it felt like you were building up to something, but then you sort of dropped a beat and sharply concluded with a suicide attempt. It seemed to be lacking in global coherence.

Accretionist fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Oct 23, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









TenaCrane posted:

Climb High
(752 words)

My best friend and I walked by the tallest tree in town, frequently described by her as the most exciting place possible. This is a terrible opening. Give people names, don't tell by proxy, frequently is an pointless adverb. I’d love to agree with her, but I’m not much of a climber. Tense.Nobody could miss the little pink flag at the top of it with “Annie’s” scribbled on it; especially not when most people still remembered how she fell off one of the lower branches two years ago and broke her leg. 'nobody' and 'most people' are very vague. After a few months of bed rest I went to check on her. how did she survive that long without food and drink Her cast was in bed, but she wasn’t. I found her sitting on the highest branch of that giant tree with a broad grin and her hands tying the flag on. if the narr can see her grin the tree can't be that high? It only took her a few minutes to climb down, but her hands and legs were bleeding from numerous scratches. Her eyes bright and shining, she grasped my hands and asked; “Did you see how high I was?”

Something was different about the tree today, there was a familiar face scampering up the top branches. Annie pointed him out to me; my nine year old brother Jordan was bruised, scratched, and steadily ascending. THIS MAN HAS EYES OF SNOW FALCON Annie cupped her hands and was ready to yell out before I covered her mouth.

“Don’t scare him.”

She nodded. An unexpected noise could break his concentration and he was too high to lose it. He reached the top of the tree and stretched out, his arms wobbling and barely long enough to reach Annie’s flag. His legs had a tight grasp on the branch beneath him, but it swayed a little in the breeze. Something caught his attention and he looked down to see us. His eyes widened in surprise, he’d finally noticed exactly how high he’d gone. He called out, “Hey Annie, how’d you get down from this high?”

“I took it slowly, one branch at a time,” she yelled up.

“But the wind is really strong!”

Annie took a deep breath and sighed. “Just hang on, I’ll be right there.”

She winked at me as she was getting ready to climb. Just another trip up the tree wouldn’t be a problem. Her hands grabbed onto the lowest branch and she hauled herself up with sure and practiced movements. She reached Jordan and hugged him close. “What’d you come up here for, you little monkey?”

He pulled two flags out of his pockets, one red and one blue with his name on one and mine on the other. Annie took them and tied them both onto hers. A sad and limp looking flag without any wind lifting it. He seemed satisfied with it though, shooting me a quick smile. how can our narrator see this

“Very cute, now get down here so I can scold you.” how old is annie

I felt a strong gust of wind blow through the town. where is the town?

I don’t know if it was the extra passenger or the surprise gust, but Annie lost her grip on the tree. There was nothing I could do to help as both of them hurtled towards the ground. I flinched when Annie hit the ground, a momentary blink filled with the sound of a muffled thump punctuated by bones breaking, and a suppressed cry. Then another dreadful thump that sounded much lighter than the first. I forced my eyes open and saw Annie lying still, blood leaking out of a few points where bones punctured her skin, her broken arms still hugging Jordan. I fought down the tears and vomit trying to hold me in place and ran over with my phone out, calling for help. My brother and I were both crying and holding Annie’s hands, as the doctor arrived. Jordan managed to explain how Annie kept a strong hold on him as they fell. Not letting go even when her body bounced from the impact.

---

It’s Jordan’s birthday tense and he wants to take his first skydive: he happens to know a great pilot. We take my rented plane up after tying two dirty flags onto it in a safe spot.

“The wind is intense out there, isn’t it?” he asked as we got close to the jump height.

“You’re not scared, are you?”

He nods. His eyes are excited, but his legs are shaking.

“Well, that’s what your instructor is here for. She'll do her job after she's done giggling to herself.”

“Maybe he'll relax with another story about my full body cast,” Annie said with an impish grin. gggggggggggggggggggggnnNNNNNNNNNNNNN

That was pretty terrible. Stick around, write again, write better. The literal worst that can ever happen in this place has happened; if you win a round then I will buy you an avatar.

Dirty Communist
Apr 29, 2010

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Sitting Here posted:


Fodder for the Blood God:


I cast myself into this list! Add my name to the town prescriptions and let the thugs come. I am stoked about this round, my only regret being that we probably don't get to see sebmojo do an outlaw story.

Erogenous Beef
Dec 20, 2006

i know the filthy secrets of your heart
Posting from (almost) beyond the grave to say: in.

J Hume
Apr 23, 2013

What is the best number?

Erogenous Beef posted:

Posting from (almost) beyond the grave to say: in.

I think that technically puts you IN the grave.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






Noumena posted:

bla bla bla as [1] bla bla bla and [2] since bla bla bla

For the bla bla bla

I'm a glutton for punishment so I'm looking forward to this next challenge!

:siren: Flash Rule: Your story must contain a character who attempts to explain things when it would better serve his interests to be quiet.

Noumena
Mar 18, 2008

Sorry. I thought Fumblemouse was literally asking me for an explanation. I was just answering his post.

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Noumena posted:

Sorry. I thought Fumblemouse was literally asking me for an explanation. I was just answering his post.

Don't worry 'bout it. I feel like it is alright to acknowledge crits or answer a question on a piece in the thread. It is only when there is a back and forth crit-rebuttal-response-argument loop that shits up the thread that it is a problem.

Hence the rule of not responding to crits in thread, but you weren't to know (though you might if you read the OP!)

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
Just a reminder that you are always welcome to carry discussion over to the Fiction Advice thread, and you can repost your story for more detailed critique in the Fiction Farm. Remember that in the 'Farm it's generally expected that you'll try to say something constructive about someone else's work, too.

But I think a one-post reponse to crits, especially if the crit asked a question of the author, is reasonable.

Generally speaking I have always been against rules, cause rules attract rules lawyers, so just realize that this thread is not about workshopping individual pieces, since we have other threads for that.

blue squares
Sep 28, 2007

I'll do better this time.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Fumblemouse posted:

Noumena - The Door

The haunting quality of your dissonant tenses was an interesting stylistic choice, though perhaps better suited to horror than sadness (ALSO NOTHING SAD HAPPENED), but the cheap seats (Mercedes) hated it and would have given it the losertar. You are lucky I'm not afraid of a story that needs some unpicking.

If you can provide a decent description of what the macguffin was supposed to be in the next 24 hours you can flashrule our brawl.

Noumena posted:

Sorry. I thought Fumblemouse was literally asking me for an explanation. I was just answering his post.

Indeed he was - I should have read better myself. Flash rule away.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






I don't read anything ever so my shame is unaffected. My flash rule still stands because it isn't a punishment, but a challenge.

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
Would anyone like a flash rule?

Noah
May 31, 2011

Come at me baby bitch
In.

The Swinemaster
Dec 28, 2005

Sitting Here posted:

Would anyone like a flash rule?

I'll be in and take a flash rule as long as you give me the opposite of what you were about to.

Bad Seafood
Dec 10, 2010


If you must blink, do it now.

Bad Seafood posted:

To be clear, if you submit tonight, before midnight, the initial constraints of the challenge are still in effect. If you submit anytime tomorrow, Sunday, you are reduced to a word ceiling of 1,000 words you absolutely may not go over for any reason. Should you submit Monday, 800 words; Tuesday, 600; Wednesday, 400. If Friday hits and neither of you have submitted anything, the bell tolls for both you. Should only one of you submit, they will be declared the winner by default over the entire contest, disregarding the standing of previous rounds.
Dawn of the final day.

24 hours remain.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Bad Seafood posted:

Dawn of the final day.

24 hours remain.

How many words am I down to?

Edit: I've critted most of the stories above - anyone who I haven't done and wants a crit speak up.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Oct 24, 2013

Fraction
Mar 27, 2010

CATS RULE DOGS DROOL

FERRETS ARE ALSO PRETTY MEH, HONESTLY


sebmojo posted:

Edit: I've critted most of the stories above - anyone who I haven't done and wants a crit speak up.

Me please :)

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Symptomless Coma
Mar 30, 2007
for shock value
This is it.

EAR ONE THOUSAND

Symptomless Coma fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Oct 27, 2013

  • Locked thread