Is it possible to write a story with no plot at all? Lots of showing but no telling? Maybe some poor benighted bastard doing his last final service to humanity but not getting into the mechanics of it? The mind reels once again. I does that a lot.
I don't know good story from a bad one. This whole writing thing seems rather hopeless. Is there a common theme?
I'm old and I have nothing better to do so I thought I would see what all this quantum stuff is about. No wonder people have a hard time getting the hang of it. It's all about things existing and not existing at the same time... and... the implications delve rather deeply into the realm of magic. Really, I think. Or, maybe not. Anyway, that's quantum theory for you. Spooky action at a distance. Teleportation? Not a problem. It's no trick to move anything that doesn't exist from one place to another no matter how big it isn't. More beer, more beer.
Once again we come to the end of another short story contest. I hope that everyone will read all the stories. Very few of us here are professional writers so if you don't read the whole thing a good opening line may be the only good thing about the piece. Please don't vote for one good line out of a thousand. Skimming is right out IMHO. Thanks, that's all that's on my mind for today.
I'm sitting here at the library just laughing my ass off about a story idea I just had. I can't use the idea because no one else would think that it's funny. Maybe I am nutz after all.
Well, I finally won a short story contest again at long last, but not by flippin' much! So the question is "how do I write a run-away winner?" I'm just polishing this month's entry and I don't want to start again AND someone already posted something with a similar theme, but no, not starting over. Onward ever onward as one of my characters would say. I need to write a big fat emotional story without plot holes and a nice twist and maybe save my money for bribes.
Another short story contest down the tubes. Okay, I'm over it. Getting on to August's. DON'T OPEN THE BOX is proving harder than it sounds. Am I really so petty that I care one way or another about a bit of shiny under my avatar? Yeah. I really wish that I could understand what people think is good or bad about stories. There is a tie for July. One of the stories I thought was about as interesting as vanilla pudding. It was okay but nothing to mention on social media. The other had a good beginning but kinda lost it at the end. One was dark and one was light. They both used the prompt. These were the two best? The mind reels. Maybe I'll figure it out one day, like quantum entanglement.
I do try choose my words carefully. I chose the word unprecedented after some research and I can't find a precedent. Got one?I mean a real life president not a literary president where somebody turns into a cockroach. I've never met a 6ft cockroach. So that's unprecedented.
I have recently discovered that I am. Not a national socialist, I don't want to reopen Auschwitz, but as far as writing goes I'm a bit of a plot Nazi. I couldn't see past little perceived plot errors in this month short story contests and so I essentially voted for none of them, rather I voted for the one I thought least likely to win. Is that a bad thing? Other people have jumped my stuff about comma splits and the like and I thought that was unreasonable. I think I'm being equally unreasonable if the story just doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps I should have just disregarded the plot shortcomings and voted for the best story otherwise. A point to ponder.
Is it fair to enter the best short story you ever wrote or even one you plagiarized, to contest with a prompt? That's my objection to the short stories that are posted not in response to the prompt. The prompt is supposed to be your starting point it prompts us to write this story. Reasonably, if I don't like the way the game is played. I just shouldn't play. Okay.
I lost again this month, which is bad. But, I didn't finish dead last, which is good. I'm going to try something new. I'm going to write a story and THEN look at the prompt. That seems to be working for the rest of everybody. It rather P***** me off that these non-prompt dependent stories are even getting into the contest. But, that's just me.
I read something the other day and it is very close to something else that I read or saw on TV years ago, and I can't remember where I saw the first story. It's driving me nuts (not a drive, a gim'me putt.) Now I think I just imagined it, but the details and visuals are so vivid that I think it was a television short such as they no longer make. I have to stop letting things like this bother me and just get on with my ridiculous little life. It is possible for two people to have almost exactly the same idea at about the same time with no plagiarism involved. George Harrison's "my sweet lord' and "he's so fine," Newton and Leibnitz with the calculus, Gray and Bell with the telephone just to name three off the top of my brain. But, I have to blog about something.
How can you tell if someone else is going to want to read what your wrote? You have different interests and different passions, or in my case lack of passions, that drive you. I'm interested in electricity, and gravitation, and the basis of matter and if the aether exists or not. That all seems to be related but would anyone else care... I doubt it. So I continue to figuratively scribble my lines.... I rather like this blogging thing. It's cathartic without the big bill from the psycho-therapist.
There is a three years waiting period for public housing in the United States. How the hell would someone know that they are going to be dirt poor in three years? Isn't poverty something that you're supposed to work your way out of? No, it's a way of life, an excuse to sit and do nothing and have the government supervising you to make sure that you're doing nothing. Let's just get rid of the social services and let everyone get back to their lives. Every once in a while I feel the need to climb up on a soap box. Sorry about that... ....and now something about creative writing.
What did I learn from last months drubbing? 1. Don't call the readers idiots directly or indirectly. 2. Don't over think it. Dash it off. Edit. Call it good. 3. Better a good vignette than a bad story. 4. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtin or the prompt. There is no point. Why write with restriction if no one else does? Right then! I'm ready....