I'm a sucker for vivid characters like these and as someone who enjoys learning about writing but doesn't actually write much this story hits close to home.

I did enjoy this one a lot, even though I'd been taking the story at face value when I was reading it - e.g. Benny seemed like a really friendly dude at first, but Dean's negativity did influence my opinion of Benny (and I only recognized that after reading Ranmilia's comment.)

Stories about writing are always a mixed-bag for me. On the one hand, they can be relateable tales of artistic struggle, showing just hard it is to get an artistic work out there. On the other, it can be self-aggrandizing dreck that lambasts society for not giving the writer the respect they so obviously deserve.

The chief problem with the story is that it feels like the latter tone. Dean is portrayed as repeatedly ignored by his fellow writers, but it also comes off as if he's just too timid to share his ideas. His attitude toward Benny at the end doesn't help, portraying Benny as a jerk because he had the gall to be a bit too talkative and a heavy participant in the workshops. It's hard to root for Dean when a large part of his problems come from his own actions (not participating in the workshop, ignoring Benny's ideas, insulting the other writers). And the thing is, it doesn't feel like the writer knows that Benny's unsympathetic. There's no brief reflection or internal dialogue that questions Benny's perception, just the easy assumption that he's the victim here.

A well-written tale, but one that fails in making its main hero heroic.

Also, the "writers are vain" quote is somewhat true, but I'd answer with a quote from Henry David Thoreau:

"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience."

As an experience piece, this actually works pretty well. We get a good idea of the captain and our narrator, and the situation of literally "riding the lightning" is delightfully absurd. I also enjoyed the final countdown, which really captured how a first-timer must view this kind of event. The only real problem is that there's not much of an explanation for why they're in the lightning, and it kind of takes me out of the story when I think about it (are they harvesting lightning? Doing it for lulz? Charging themselves?).

A fun little tale about lightning and how there's a first time for everything.

I'm going to have to be That One Guy on this one, I'm afraid. But first: There's a lot to like. The concept here is great (subverting the zombie trope by having them as non-mindless), the character conflict is set up compellingly, and the prose is vivid (if adjective-heavy). I especially like the ongoing pen-as-dagger analogy. If I could make sense of this compellingly it would be top-tier. But when I dig into the details to try to assemble a coherent story, I keep running into contradictions.

First of all, after some struggle I think I got what the story's trying to go for:
- Human opens the door when Zombie knocks; she is shown not to be afraid of them, or at least of him. They speak peacefully when the door is open.
- Then she closes the door, and "She took a firm grip on the rifle, ready to use the stock to fend him off". On the heels of "please it must be fresh", the only reasonable implication I've got is that she is refusing whatever the zombie wants (either her corpse or her body parts), and she fears a violent response forcing the issue.
- So all of this seems to be pointing to Zombie trying to turn Human, in order to get some company.

But then I keep hitting a wall trying to interpret the must-be-fresh thing. Her response to "lonely" is to frown in denial: "Her face hardened, lips forming a grim line." Whether or not he's properly interpreting her intention to deny, his "please" line makes no sense. If he does know she's not going to follow through, he should be backtracking and trying to convince her (whereas the note seems to assume she's doing it and discusses logistics). If he's caught by surprise by her refusal, there's no need to beg — up until she shoves the door closed he would be assuming the body would be as fresh as possible because she's shooting herself in front of him.

(Or maybe Zombie's asking for something besides Human's ready-to-infect corpse. Brains? That was my original interpretation of the line — properly interpreting her rejection, he realizes she's going to kill herself instead and asks for sustenance — but that makes no sense in the context of "lonely", making that problem meaningless. What has to be fresh = presumably the corpse, but not necessarily?)

Speaking of the freshness thing, this really has its cake and eats it too on the door strength. It held off every other zombie on earth indefinitely, but it will only last 10 minutes against a single zombie that "seemed to be as weak as she felt"?

And what does "please do it through the heart" mean? Is he still being oblivious and asking her to leave her head in place so she'll rise up as an intellectual zombie and join him? Or did he give up on company and, in a sudden reversal, is asking her to kill herself in a way that preserves her brains? Again, the ambiguity here renders me unable to pin the meaning of the story down. The zombie is a very different character if he's driven by crippling loneliness than if he's willing to shrug off his loneliness for a quick snack.

That line keeps throwing me for another big reason, too. The casual assumption-of-compliance of the shoot-yourself-through-the-heart request (rather than a "please reconsider" discussion) after Human literally slammed the door in Zombie's face … that combines with the opening-door scene in the beginning and the missing context of the notes (e.g. both immediately understand the context of the single word "More?" to mean, if I'm reading correctly, "Are there other zombies left?") to imply a strong preexisting bond, friendship at least. The way Human acts in their early exchanges kinda backs this up, not to mention the subversion of the hostile-zombie trope in the first place. And yet the ending is very stock "I'm gonna die a human!" defiance and denial. It makes Human look selfish — though, granted, that's sort of balanced by Zombie looking selfish too, what with making assumptions about her actions left and right at the end. But a story about two people both doing hard-selfish Prisoner's Dilemma defections isn't terribly satisfying to me, at least without more character context (that 750 words isn't allowing you the luxury of providing) to turn this into a proper tragedy.

So, yeah. I keep spinning around in circles where the implications of all the assumptions I make turn this into an unsatisfying story, and so I try to interpret it differently and the text still fails me. Sorry, author.

I'm reminded a little of >>Xepher's comments on poetry earlier: "art should take effort to make, not to enjoy." I actually disagree hard with that formulation, but I think that there's something behind the sentiment, and my frustration at squaring this story's ideas made my objection cohere:

I think art should reward effort with enjoyment.

How accessible your text (or poem!) should be depends on your target audience; some people want to get it in a single pass, some people like stories that make you pause and dig in and then reward that with a surprise. (A simple example of this is a twist revelation which recontextualizes the entire story: You have to stop and re-file all the facts of the narrative in your brain and review them from a different angle.) But if the story does not make sense up front and also does not make sense after digging, then all you're doing is frustrating your readers. Worse, you're frustrating readers in proportion to their effort: if they tried to puzzle your story out on a good-faith assumption there was an answer and still draw a blank, you've wasted the extra time they spent in interpretation.

This is why I often try to give feedback on internal consistency, as I did here. If readers who dig into your text and try to think through its implications hit walls, you lose them; if they don't, you have fans for life. I speak from reading experience: Very little delights me more than to dig into a piece and tease out little details which make it clear that the author got there ahead of me and sewed up the loose ends. For example, I never would have guessed that the quasi-Joycean Pinkamena's Wake would win a Writeoff gold, but I'm thrilled it did, and that's the biggest thing it got right: it presented a linguistic structure that sounds meaningful right off the bat despite being an unbroken sea of unwords, and over time its portmanteaus sink into your brain and you realize that you're reading language at double density. Once you know that trick you can unlock the whole story. It rewards taking time, and invites you in by throwing some softballs to build up that reader trust relationship.

So back to here: The good news is that this is probably an easier fix than the length of this post makes it seem. A lot of times, consistency errors just come from time deadlines, or from not considering a thematic/motivation question as you skip from scene to scene to keep it consistent. It's common to be able to iron those out with just a few words once the inconsistency is there. (I try to talk through the whole process in order to help train you to question those details in your story, though! "Clarify whether Zombie is asking for a fresh turnable corpse or for fresh food" fixes a problem quickly, but doesn't tell you why it was a problem: because his motivations here potentially flip the story's entire theme on its head.) You probably do have answers for which way these choices should fall, and why, but pointing out the conclusions they lead to can help make sure you're making those choices for reasons that make your story stronger. I hope this does so.

-h

I really liked this one. A nice little view in a very different, very strange world.. Yet one where the characters are still completely relatable. Thumbs up!

Based on the generally positive tone of the previous reviews, it is clear thatr I am missing something here. Because I am totally not getting this story. We have a (freed?) sex droid of some sort, and a man who is a 'luddite,' yet has cybernetic parts, is making films and is rescuing? Rehabilitating? Something? Sex droids. And he hates humanity for what they've been doing to their creations. (But he clearly doesn't hate the creations, despite being a 'luddite.') And in the end he's setting off a bomb... Of some sort. About which we're given no details or scale so as to know how concerning this is. But his friend the sex droid blows them both up first, preventing... what exactly?

The characters are interesting, yet apparently inconsistent on the surface (a cybord luddite? There's an interesting story to be told there) But we're not shown the full scope of the conflict, or really given reason enough to care...

Okay, this one definitely made me smile! And kudos on an interesting (and rather literal) interpretation of the prompt! Thumbs up!

Trying to get through these and talking some of them out, so let's use my own words from chatter! (Apologies for doofy formatting)

The biggest issue (IMO) is that it fumbles the end hard.
Like, I get the jist of it, but I'm actually still pretty... unsure of exactly what went down.
I also think the more complex sci-fi elements were a detriment, as they eat up word count without actually adding much beyond a bit of novelty.
(And I realize I'm saying this as the jackass who basically does nothing but that)
But the gene-mod and odd quasi-time travel stuff I think are just too much in the space
The piece does have a story and does arc fine, but... yeah? I kinda end up not really feeling anything at the end.
Art requires sacrifice, but I really don't come away with a particularly grander view of what that means. Which might be asking for a lot in a mini.
But it does make it sorta ring hollow to me in the end. She thinks killing people is rad, so she kills more people.
I think even a little more insight into -why- the killing is rad, or even a more consistent view of what makes death art would probably have done well with me?
Like I sorta suspected at points it had to do with surprise and shock and all that, which would mesh with the end, but I don't think that carries through.
General writing quality is pretty high outside the end.
I'm -still- unsure about how the time thing works
Like are they creating a time duplicate and replicating it in the exhibit?
Or are they creating a duplicate to replace the original
But yeah, I feel explaining that just EATS the word count
For very little gain.
(There -is- stuff to be mined with that idea)
(But I think it is underplayed here)

Agh. The anticlimax end doesn't really work for me, given the story sort of leads the reader to naturally assume that the narrator is in hot water, so Death letting him basically flip the bird doesn't really do anything but elicit an "Oh." This would probably be a funnier structure if the story was told from Frank's PoV (asshole gets what's coming to him), but instead positioning it as idiot Reaper who knowingly broke the rules despite being a ware what a pain in the ass it was getting to mock people isn't really a solid setup/punchline.

That said, general tone and structure is fun (though you could use an editorial pass). I get a pretty good feel for the narrator and you have some funny presentation. You should also be more aggressive about line breaks. "Technicalities are a bitch" and "Wrong" read a lot better when presented as their own lines, rather than connected to the paragraph.

A generally pleasant little puff piece that won't stick with me.

Like a lot of people said, the ending just doesn't really do anything, which is unfortunate. While you don't need a strong arc per se, you do need a connecting thread, and I feel like you don't set anything up for it. In fact, I feel you kinda actively contradict it when the first paragraph discusses how he isn't noticing the effect of the sky which heavily implies to me he doesn't care - except apparently he does!

Like, the story really feels like it is going to be about the bike, but it is forgotten at the end, replaced by the sunset.

Still, overall nice prose and generally nice, but it just doesn't really engage me or do anything much for me.

This feels really on the borderline of scene vs story.

Its a bit of a divergent take on the standard trope of self-sacrificing loved one, which is cool, but there isn't really a ton to it besides that. Characterization is minimal at best. The end goes one sentence too far (impact would be much better losing the last sentence entirely) and thinking on it, the same problem exists in the first scene as it spoils the punchline. A little more work on at least Cole, I think, would help this piece out a lot.

Let's go with echoing >>Xepher here, as most of what I'd say have been better said by someone else already and he matches my feelings here pretty well.

The Russian-English is a bit weird. I sort of agree with Rao that it functions in a weird sort of way if you imagine this as film, but yeah. It is distracting.

Beyond that, I'm inclined to agree with the above that this more or less goes through the motions of the event, which really misses the opportunity to try and dig deep into the thoughts of a person stuck with this impossible situation. Really, you should be starting us AT the missile launch, rather than using over a third of the max words getting us there.

See >>Ranmilia.

I can see where some of the confusion comes from at the start of the second scene, but outside of that... Benny doesn't actually dominate the conversation much. We get him stepping on the main character once (which is a common issue when lots of people are biting at the opportunity to talk, and the fact that the main immediately backs down means it is questionable how much Benny is aware he stepped on it) and him being in the car with the main, who seems to have a bit of an axe to grind with Benny already, making his complaints about the trip questionable.

Also the really obvious point: for someone complaining about people not listening to stories, our narrator definitely doesn't listen to anyone's stories.

See >>AndrewRogue, but with tighter narrative cohesion.

Pай и Aд Retrospective

So I’m the one who committed that, and I’m not really proud it passed the prelims. Some people were there when I was wondering if I should DQ’d myself or not, but I understood then that it would be disrespectful towards those who hadn’t made it to the finals. Still, I think I didn’t deserve it. Why? Answers below.

As usual when I’m not really inspired, and not because of the prompt, I started thinking about this late. The obvious direction was one minute before the Apocalypse, but I wanted something a bit different, and I remembered Stanislas’ story. I looked for some informations about him and started writing a few hours before the deadline. Unfortunately, because I hadn’t much time (I had other things to do, like finding a job), and because the wordcount is also very short, I haven’t been able to convey the main thing I wanted to convey, that is, the personal experience of a man who has the power to start the nuclear Apocalypse. That’s why I didn’t started directly with the missile launch, I wanted to have the character starting his normal day, not expecting something as big as a possible nuclear war, so that I could emphasize how his decision wasn’t really one he had time to think about. Moreover, I wanted to spend more time in his head, describing how I imagined he could have felt at the moment, the power he had between his hands, and how a simple answer (yes/no) could determine the future of our world.
Fortunately for everyone of us, he took the right decision.
That’s why the main reproaches you raised are more than valid. Without enough time and enough words, I couldn’t spend enough time in Stanislas’ head, and I also couldn’t have this proofread by a native. The language is off not because it was my intention all along, but because I’m just a bad non native.
As for the title, I also didn’t have time to really think about something meaningful, thus, I chose the name of an album by Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell, and translated it with Google in Russian.


ANSWERS

>>Xepher

I think, with the short word count, this doesn't add much to the actual history. We'd need to get inside the mind of Petrov more for that emotional connection, but there's no room here if you don't assume ALL readers already know the story (which isn't a safe assumption to make.)

I explained a lot above, but I want to add that I always assume that my reader doesn’t have any knowledge of past events, so I think I have to detail what happen. But because I couldn’t manage to fit the emotional journey, it ended as simply a retold of an historical event.


>>Monokeras

Telling the story from one of Stanislas’ subordinate is an interesting idea, but for what I wanted to do, it would have undermined how powerful and clutch Stanislas’ decision was.
And yeah, not any real tension here because of what I’ve said.


>>Ion-Sturm

You were right, it wasn’t supposed to reproduce a stereotypical language of Russians talking (why would they talk a bad English if they were in Russia and the only speakers were Russian).
And yes, more than our gratitude, Stanislas should be an example for everyone. I’ll develop that part later.


>>Not_A_Hat

Yes, it could have used a whip-round with a proofreader, definitely, and no, the language wasn’t off on purpose (see above).

Er, I'm not sure how I feel about this as a story, because it's kinda-sorta biographical. As such, this feels less creative to me. Maybe that's unfair to you, as the author, but I think it's going to affect my judging no matter what I do.

It would have been unfair if I have managed to add Stanislas’ thoughts and emotions to the story. As it is, it’s mainly a retelling of past events. Thus, calling it less creative is something I can agree with.

As for what happens, it wasn’t a solar flare that caused the instruments to think it was a missile, but a reflection on clouds that the satellites interpreted as missiles launches, but it takes more words to say that than to say solar flare.
Also, he is not sure if the missiles are real or not. The only informations he had is that:
Their software says there is a missile launch from an American base
The satellite photos doesn’t show any launch from the base, but the visibility is terrible, because the place is between day and night
The ground forces in America haven’t seen any missile launches
A month ago, Russia has taken down a airliner flying in Russian space
There is only one missile coming (in fact, there was one, then four more) so it doesn’t look like a strong retaliation
With these informations, he decides to believe the Americans haven’t launched any missile, but he can’t be sure of that. He simply choose to believe in a greater good. Stanislas said himself that even if the missiles were real, he didn’t want to be the guy who started the nuclear war. He was ready to let thousands of people dying to let millions and millions of others live.


>>libertydude

Thank you for the praise, at least I’ve managed to do something right in this.
As for Stanislas’ reasoning, I couldn’t really fit his train of thoughts in a such a short wordcount. I agree that logic is probably what has made him take this decision, but for story and entertainment purpose, I wanted to emphasize the fact that the informations he had at the moment couldn’t help him deciding if the missile was real or not, thus reinforcing his decision on a goodness level.
Too bad I didn’t manage to convey that clearly.


>>Rao

If you keep doing that, I’m gonna start thinking you’re too kind for your own good, Rao :)
If you felt that the Russian-English was on point, it was just a coincidence.
As for the unique take, like I said, I wanted to convey how tough the decision to not retaliate was.


>>AndrewRogue

Starting at the missile launch would have probably allowed me to spend more time with Stanislas, thus describing his feelings and his thoughts. However, I felt more comfortable starting before, in order to have a strong switch of space and mood between the calm of a normal day and a possible incoming nuclear destruction.


Answers are now out of the way, I want to thank everyone of you for your comments. I was already aware of some of them by the time I submitted that, but having people confirming them is still valuable, because it tells me that I’m becoming more and more, well, aware of my flaws.
But before ending this retrospective, I would like you to learn about Stanislas Petrov, because what he did, choosing to not retaliate, gives me hope. Our world tends to become cynical and to value that way of thinking, claiming that humanity is bad, it only thinks about war and death and reproduce and money and a lot of other shits. But, this man proved that no, humans have great things to offer to each others and to the world. They can be good, selfless, generous, they can be a lot of good things. So take a moment to think about this man, what example he has set, and start to believe the world is good, and that is a face. The more people believe it, the more it can actually becomes a fact.

Thank you, that would be all.
Take care and be safe.

>>Xepher
>>Ratlab
>>FloydienSlip
>>Fenton
>>Oblomov
>>AndrewRogue
>>Not_A_Hat
>>Ranmilia
>>Ion-Sturm
>>Cold in Gardez
>>libertydude

Hail to the winners. Well done chaps for a much deserved medal!

Inertial Frame

Thanks to y’all for your commentaries and appreciation!

Last round, Cold scolded me for writing a story featuring Death but without real takeaway or payoff. I tried to do better this time, while keeping the same character for Death.

The idea was simple. Death sees in Einstein’s special relativity, from which the famous formula E=mc² is derived, a formidable potential, namely the future development of atomic bombs. But Einstein is scatterbrained and unless coerced, there’s a big chance he never completes his work. So Death decides to pay him a visit and put him under pressure. At no time is Death interested in taking Einstein’s life, it just wants to bully him because it’s the only way to be certain the theory will be out in due time.

Cold says that Einstein was not ignorant about the consequences of his equations, but I doubt it. When special relativity – whose primary goal was to explain speed of light invariance – was formulated (1915), quantum mechanics was still in its cradle: little, if any, was known about radioactivity and neutrons, let alone neutrinos. I suppose Einstein was smart enough to envision that the equations could be applied to atomic nuclei, but bombs? Fermi’s first atomic reactor wasn’t built until 1942.

I wanted in subtext to bring up the recurring problem of science and responsibility: is Einstein (indirectly) responsible for the atomic bomb? Can scientists in general be liable of any “bad” consequences of their discoveries? That’s a point still open to debate.

But, as usual, I botched part of the work. The hook was awful and the prose not up to snuff. My bad. I’m perfectly able to do better, I just messed up for no reason except carelessness: I should’ve been more careful in picking my words. Two years ago, I was writing stilted prose; I seem to have fallen into the opposite excess, so time to strike the right balance. If this story hasn’t fared better, it’s really because I pushed hard for it not to. That’s the lesson to be learnt here: pay more attention to what you write. Or: don’t be causal as fuck :P

Thanks again and see you next round!

Gratz to Sturm for taking the gold!

So, this story was interesting. Interesting to read? Interesting to write? Maybe a little of column A, a little of column B. But let me tell you where I had gotten the idea for To Save the Other. It was inspired by an arc of Yu Yu Hakusho in which the main villain, a human, decides that he must flood the world with demons in order to wash away the sins of mankind. He even has a video tape labelled “Chapter Black” that contains supposedly hundreds of thousands of hours of human-committed atrocities. I’m surprised that no one had ferreted out that particular inspiration.

Anyway, thank you everyone for the reviews! They've certainly helped.

>>GroaningGreyAgony
If I were to do this again, I’d be more cutthroat in editing the beginning to make room for a more impactful end.

>>FloydienSlip

I never quite got to the level of connection I was hoping for

Balancing the uncanny valley with the necessity for emotional connection can be difficult... to be sure.

>>Whitbane
Thanks. On the next minific round I enter, I’ll be much more mindful of the limit.

>>AndrewRogue

In addition, I feel the reveal of the narrator's plan comes a bit late and really robs us of a lot of the drama.

Ya, as is noted below, the escalation of the narrative does just the opposite of what it’s intended to do. Looking over other entries, both death and the apocalypse make frequent appearances. An increase in scale doesn’t always mean an increase in engagement. I’ll need to spend more time thinking of smaller, more personal narratives.

>>Monokeras

Tobacco is not really toxic. Tars generated by burning it are.

That was rather careless of me. I meant nicotine. Since nicotine is a restricted substance under UFN law, it’s considered a toxin, and artificial respiratory tracts must either filter it out or neutralize it to comply with those regulations. The point of that small section is to hint that 1) Elias is comfortable breaking the law and 2) he’s absurdly wealthy.

Why does the guy feels the compulsion to show a snuff movie to an android?

This is somewhat of a vestigial motivation, since originally I thought maybe he was going to use the movie to foment a rebellion, but then he decides instead that he’s going to nuke everything.

Damn you, Elias.

And why has he decided to “retire” him at the end of it, while his hatred seems to be targeted at humanity, i.e. flesh and blood.

He wanted to destroy humanity. I fucked up the ending, so it doesn’t come across as I’d hoped, but eh... You win some, you lose some.

>>Xepher

Red, White, and Blue in the first paragraph. Intentional metaphor?

lol, I didn’t even notice that, but let’s say sure.

Pats on the head, head against shoulder, etc. Hmm... Android or engineered pet?

¿Porque no los dos?

Wait, he's had all this augmentation, and synethic parts, but is a "Luddite?"

That’s a pretty stupid plot-hole, but in my defense, people with pace-makers or heart transplants can still be considered “Luddites” today. But I actually meant something more like “recluse” or... Eh, it was mostly carelessness, since I wanted the narrator to have already seen it without his knowledge. Hurrah for plot contrivances!

>>libertydude

We’re not given much of a clue that Elias was planning to cause the explosion, so the conclusion feels like it was a last-ditch attempt at drama.

Bingo, bango, bongo! You’ve hit the nail on the head.

Frankly, I think revealing Elias’ hatred towards humanity would’ve worked as a final revelation, showing just how disturbed this man the narrator loves is.

Sounds about right, but I’d have to do some thinking about how that might be turned into an actually satisfying ending. The issue with minifics is that if the ending’s off, it muddies everything that came before. Overall a hard nut to crack!

But I’ll get it soon enough.

>>Not_A_Hat

You need to start it sooner than that; first line, first word, throw it in the hook! Imagine if this story had started with: 'I don't want to kill my best friend today' or something like that.

O man, am I awful with hooks.

Ya, when I’m staring at the blank screen ready to type any old crud that comes to mind the last thing I’m thinking about is writing an engaging hook. Next time I’ll run back and try to think up a hook that won’t bore Monokeras to death.

I’m really glad that you liked it. Hopefully I’ve learned a little from this and will make the appropriate improvements in my next entry.

>>Cold in Gardez
Thank you for the suggestions!

>>TheCyanRecluse
I definitely caused more confusion than needed with that little word ‘Luddite.’ Honestly I put that in as more of a joke, which no one would get unless they knew about philosophical Perennialism. Oh well.

But his friend the sex droid blows them both up first, preventing... what exactly?

He gonna nuke the Earth, son.

Ya, it sounded stupid when I wrote it, too.

>>AndrewRogue
>>libertydude
>>Monokeras
>>WillowWren
>>Whitbane
>>Ion-Sturm
>>Xepher
>>Dolfeus Doseux



Okay so to come clean, yes I did comment on my own story arguing about author's intent. However, I gotta say I honestly was a bit miffed that people thought I was just adding lesbians for points. I do live in a place where marriage is very open, and I tend to use same-sex couples as much as opposite-sex ones in my stories because I don't feel like either one is "special" above the other or needs justification. Just my two cents there.

Anyways, probably the most disappointing thing to hear about this story was that it was cliche. I googled it after seeing comments about that and, yep, sure enough, this was not nearly as original an idea as I thought it was. :pinkiedespair: However, I really appreciate people not being afraid to label it as such. As somebody who, due to spotty literature education among other things, isn't quite aware of what is and is not cliche yet, it helps me build up to someday writing ideas that are far closer to original.

I am glad to hear that most people found the writing itself well-done, it's always nice to feel like you're tangibly improving. I think, in the future, I'll be focusing more on trying to write tighter and more tangible conflicts. Once I can get those down, well, the sky's the limit!

Thank you again to everybody who commented here. :twilightsmile:

EDIT: Oh, also, the all-caps title is for a reason. The actual doomsday clock updates are formatted in all-caps, so I wanted to hint at that with the title and then confirm it with the last line of the story.

>>RogerDodger
Maybe: "Please vote in good faith. The practice of 'tactical voting' to negatively impact the performance of a competing story is prohibited, though difficult to enforce outside of the honor system."

Because I've had a case or two where I've voted down a story that others considered The Hotness because I just didn't see it, and I feel like that has to be fair, but I can also see the issue of voting to create artificial advantage.

See kids, this is what happens when you crank out a story in under two hours while sleep deprived and nervous about your future.

I jest, but in all seriousness, the biggest problem with this story is that it was basically me writing by the seat of my pants. The story’s main plot veered from a car ride where Caleb talks about his constipation, to a NEET having a drunken reflection on his life in a bar. It was only after about the fourth or fifth draft I happened upon the idea of short vignettes about the main character’s sins. The rest of the story flowed pretty easily from there, as I simply recalled old memories to get the right kind of images and tone. The only thing that was consistent throughout each draft was having the scene in the bar and having the story revolve around American football (I’d just come from a bar involving the aforementioned UCF and Memphis game, so the imagery was stuck in my mind).

Some of you wondered how this story connected to the prompt. Personally, I wanted to avoid any apocalyptic tales, mostly because I suspected many other writers would go that route (and I was right). Instead, I decided to tie it in with football, which is measured in minutes and is often decided by the last few seconds of the game. All of the vignettes take place at the end of each football situation, a.k.a. close to the last minute of play. Hell, the final scene has the TV mention “the final minutes of the fourth quarter”. I was worried that a lot of readers would claim that was just shoved in to fit the prompt, but apparently nobody noticed it.

Since nobody brought it up, the name Latchford was a reference to “Blatchford Sarnemington”, the fake personality of the main character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Absolution”. The story dealt with a similar theme of guilt and being unable to deal with it, and the Blatchford persona was a way for the main character to deal with his guilt by claiming he didn’t do the bad things he did. Latchford isn’t a persona, but it’s not the main character’s real name either. It’s simply a placeholder for the reader to refer to him as something other than “the main character” or “protagonist”.

This is a weird retrospective for me, because most of my other ones end with me hemming and hawing about the final result, saying that I’m disappointed and underwhelmed. This is the first one where I really don’t feel that. I’m actually relatively satisfied with what popped out. I sure as hell want to edit some things (the third section needs to be trimmed, and the first two need some more descriptive details), but I think the story turned out a lot better than I’d thought. Maybe it’s because I wrote about something closer to me than usual (football and complicated guilt), but I still feel this is one of my better stories. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make others think similarly with a little bit of a rewrite.

Now, for some personal responses:

>>Cassius

-Two-thirds of this story I liked. The last third takes everything far too fast and intense.

Yeah, the last third is the area I had the biggest problems with too. I wasn’t sure how to shorten it without removing Latchford’s breakdown, so I largely cut from the other two sections. But my problem with it is actually the opposite: I think it’s a tad too slow. It goes from quick shots in the first two sections to this drawn-out scene.

-Tonally shifts towards the end, overall breakdown of the character arc is incoherent and muddled

That’s kind of the point. Latchford doesn’t know what the hell is going on with his life, given how he’s sitting with his Troubles and is just staring at TVs. He’s also drunk as a skunk, so it would make sense he’d break down for no particular reason.

-What is the take away?

That there’s always somebody else to blame for your own faults. Tim ruined Latchford’s football career, Fred got him in trouble with the Scoutmaster, and Caleb’s defecation drives him from the bathroom. None of this is true, of course, but Latchford makes it true, just how we all blame someone else for our own failures.

-Narrative voice good, although drastically changes in attitude in the third scene

Again, the final part makes a lot more sense if you take it to be Latchford waking up from the previous night’s drunkenness, hungover or still drunk. But yeah, that part probably needs a little less disconnect with the other sections.

>>FloydienSlip

...the ending feels anticlimactic compared to the growing tension in the first two parts of the story.

I disagree. I think Latchford’s bizarre monologue about piss is thoroughly climactic enough. It’s such an odd escalation from the small resentments throughout the rest of the story that I thought it was good conclusion.

>>Kritten
Good point, but you’re making the fatal assumption that Latchford wants absolution. I thought it was clear from the ending that he knows he’s a bad person, but he just doesn’t care enough to change his ways. Admitting you did something wrong is different from wanting to be forgiven for them. Also, I think it’s more realistic to have somebody want absolution, then go right on sinning. After all, nobody ever goes to Confession just once.

>>QuillScratch
You’re the only one that seemed to focus on the story’s suspense. I personally wasn’t going for that sensation, but more of a vague sense of uneasiness. Latchford is meant to be off-putting; not necessarily out of place, but definitely "off" enough to make people hesitant toward him. I’m also glad you caught onto the Unreliable Narrator aspect of the story. Even if I wasn’t the author, I wouldn’t trust a single thing Latchford says.

As for the third section, the “sin” is Latchford himself. At this point in his life, he is bitter and angry, and doesn’t seem to be improving the lives of the people around him. Look at how he seems disdainful toward his brother (and how said brother seems uneasy around him), and how he refers to the people across from him (either friends or family) as “Troubles” to him.

And this ties into the piss monologue. He finally realizes just how terrible of a person he is, but he justifies it with how everything is piss. Nothing is his fault, because everybody and everything else are clearly as bad as him.

>>Xepher
Honestly, I’m not really sure what you mean by “references”. The football references, maybe? The Troubles, though, are just meant to be Latchford’s way of saying he blames them for whatever problems his life is having right now. And the third act is sort of meant to be a non-sequitur; notice how Latchford’s drinking in this scene and it starts saying that this happened “last night”?

>>Monokeras

But, I mean, envious can be a positive feeling if you turn it into a drive towards improving.

I think you’re giving Latchford too much credit. Notice how the phrase “Who gives a damn” ends that section?

I think the guy breaks down because he suddenly realises he’s beginning to think or act like the others – whom he despises – do.

That’s not a bad way at looking at it, but I was going more for “he realizes he’s a bad guy, but is fine with that because he thinks everybody is just as bad”. The key idea is that he thinks his actions aren’t his own fault.

>>Ranmilia

GAY LOVE STORY INCOMING.

Boy, that would’ve been an interesting angle, wouldn’t it? :P

...the lack of payoff retroactively makes the piece feel incomplete and directionless

I don’t think it’s as incomplete as others are saying, but there should probably be more clarification about the story’s central idea (that Latchford is a bad person, but always finds someone else to blame). I think the ending conveys that idea well, but it doesn't work if the rest of the story doesn't make that clear.

>>DuskPhoenix
I'm mostly joking about the title being in all caps, it's a flag on a bad story sometimes, but not in this case. Mostly because the prompt submission page is so clear about things being in proper title case, that the actual titles not being is... amusing.

As for it being "cliche." I throw that word around a lot, but... someone said exactly the same criticism on my story. And most others. I want to clarify that a story does NOT have to be an original idea to be good. That's because, original or not, an idea alone isn't a story. The execution of that idea, the embodiment of it in a narrative is what makes it good or bad. Sure, a good, original/new idea can help, but it is not required. So please don't think you have to be a well-read literary expert to know what's "cliche" or not before you can write well. Just keep at it, and even if something is "cliche" to one or two people, it likely won't be to most. A some of the best stories are retelling or reusing "classic" tropes and memes. I mean, The Lion King is basically just Hamlet after all. :-)

>>Xepher
Thank you, I was trying to find a way to say something similar but that's pretty much it. ^ I don't mind seeing plots I've seen before if there's something else about the story that makes it worth reading.

>>libertydude
The references I mean are why the individuals are tagged as particular troubles was one. More importantly, all the piss references. And the shit references. And the "you must be clean" phrase. All of these seem (being at the end of a story) vitally important, but I have no idea what they reference.

>>Xepher
They aren't really "referencing" anything at all. It's simply an obscene way for Latchford to reflect on his inner rottenness and the evil he perceives in the world.

>>FloydienSlip
Thanks, and I'll try to work on that.

>>Monokeras
Ha! I am not, in fact, Horizon! Also, they aren't aliens. (More on that in a minute.)

>>Not_A_Hat
Word count hurt me a lot here.

>>libertydude
Thanks for the feedback.

>>Ion-Sturm
Thanks! Amusing this praise comes from the one author that beat me! Congrats, BTW!

>>Cold in Gardez
Thanks, but it wasn't meant to be "It's just art" as an ending.

>>AndrewRogue
All good points, thanks for the feedback!



But seriously, thank you all for replying and critiquing. Let me start with the standard "What I meant" bit...


The concept here is:

First, in the far future, humans have genetically modified themselves so much that they can be whatever they want. Thus, "base" humans from the past are as far removed from their modern concept of "human" as homo habilis is to us today. Lizel is saurian-mod... feathers, claws, dino-mod stuff (because why not.) Point is, there are no aliens, just "the past is a different country" sort of thing.

Second, "Mearti" is a shortened/pidgin version of "My Artiste" and is an honorific. Obviously this was a bad choice here because I didn't have room to make that clear, and plenty of other language is contemporary, so I really wasn't doing linguistic evolution a proper service.

Third, the main conceit is that Lizel is literally pulling people out of time in the instant before their death. Her team then replaces the removed people (and surrounding detritus) with inanimate stuff good enough to fool the forensics of the day and thus avoid changing the timeline. E.g. they're swapping actual people out for organic goo a second before the explosion.

Fourth, the "point" of the "Exhibit" is literally to showcase a historic (and barbaric-compared-to-the-far-future) cavalcade of death in high doses, one incident per second for an hour straight. The audience doesn't react to most of this, because they feel no more remorse for these "prehistoric" deaths than we do at seeing a museum scene showing the death of Caesar or some such.

Fifth, the last scene is a "modern" gene-mod human, actually Lizel herself, as a teen. Instead of Lizel being killed though, it was actually the night of her first murder (and the future doesn't really have many murders, so it's confusing to the audiance.) Beyond that, Lizel doesn't just show the past, she brings her young self forward (violating the timeline) to actually help murder the modern audience as well (there's basically a bomb/poison/whatever under their seats rigged to the remote.)

Sixth... I had NO idea what I "meant" as far as a message or whatever here. Seriously, I just had an idea in the last two hours or so before the deadline of "death as art" and "last minute" made me think time travel. There was not meant to be any deeper message about the nature of art, or anything like that. Of course, that doesn't mean my subconscious didn't wedge something in there or anything, just that it wasn't my intention to make a statement, merely show a sci-fi horror story with a twist ending, and what better twist than murdering the audience..


I think I'll try to improve this a bit. I definitely got hurt by word count on this. I need to make it clearer what the strange terms means (the gene-mod stuff, "Mearti", the technicalities of the time-slicing, and others.) I also need to expand the personalities of Lizel and her assistant to make them more "real" to the reader. The initial version of this was over a thousand words, and that was already rushed. Trimming to 750 hurt, and bottom line: I tried to pack way too much stuff into too short of a space. Ironic, as this story literally about packing 50,000 years of human history into 3,600 one-second scenes.


So yeah... thank you to all who liked this. I'm genuinely surprised at taking 2nd place. In my own rankings I placed this story around 7th overall, as there were many better entries IMHO. I'm very pleased to be outvoted on that however!

>>Dolfeus Doseux
Blasted e's, dashing off like that.

As others have commented, it sort of already is. I highly recommend Neil Gaiman's Stardust, as I lifted the general idea of lightning harvesting from that (although the methods and characters are of my own creation). The movie made for it is splendid as well.

>>Xepher
Alas, wordcount was the limiting factor, considering I blew past it by forty words upon completion of the rough draft. In the end, framing the character's emotional arc was of more importance, and the actual act itself secondary to that.

>>GroaningGreyAgony
Many thanks, and who knows? Perhaps one day I will muster the drive to give this the pages, rather than mere paragraphs, it deserves.

>>Ratlab
Cutting off at the cliff hanger dive was actually the back-up plan, if I couldn't squeeze things into a more solid conclusion. In the end some more efficient sentence structure and word choices let me fit enough in to 'complete' it.

>>AndrewRogue
I would argue that there is more to the character's development and motivations than is immediately apparent, and discussing it with some contemporaries made me confident it wasn't merely author-inside knowledge. For example, he evidently looks up to his instructor/superior, seeking her advice and noting her experience, with the most obvious example of such being how he'll " have eyes just as blue as hers yet". You also note that he's not too 'gung-ho' about it, but I feel that the fact that he's so wary, and yet overcomes his not-insignificant fright, is in turn a representation of his resolve and desire to become just as adept as his mentor is (as is noted in how passive is efforts are compared to the predator-like technique she employs).

>>Not_A_Hat
As mentioned, yes, this is loosely based on what Stardust does, although in this case I'm implying a more active form of collection; while I didn't expand on it because it wasn't the focus of the story, my head canon is that the lightning is almost living, and defends its territory fiercely (something like a Lightning Elemental in DnD). As implied by the judicious use of personification, it is primal, untamed and animalistic, falling into the trap the protagonist passively acts as whilst trying to flee the hunter that is his teacher.

To expand on what I said in the previous reply, I believe his desire for blue eyes acts as the personal significance; not because he wants blue eyes, but that they're a representation of his experience, a badge of honour. I tried my best to represent the great divide in skill and knowledge between student and teacher, from their method of collection, changes both physical (strength) and cosmetic (the eyes), and their relative resistance (he pukes 'sparking breakfast' while she almost dances out the energy, a representation of how he has to purge while she's able to convert).

>>Ranmilia
I'm going to point you to the previous two comments since I believe they cover most of what you brought up. I will admit, though, that the opening sentence was rather excessive. I was trying to get a snapshot of all the sensations they protagonist was feeling, in order to (hopefully) help the reader put themselves onto the ship's deck as well, but I did so in an overly direct way.

>>Rao
Heh, yes, I suppose you could say that. As for Zarya... Yeah, I can see it.

>>libertydude
They were harvesting lightning (the use of gold-plated cabling was meant to imply that the lightning travels along it to the ship, where it's supposedly stored). Unfortunately, I lacked the space to really expand on such elements, but I'm something of a believer in giving the reader some things to imagine (as long as it isn't imagining a cover to a plothole). And I imagine there might be some thrill-seekers in this world doing it to 'charge themselves', but in this case it was purely profit-driven.

>>TheCyanRecluse
Many thanks! I apologize for the lack of more substance to this reply, compared to the others. I can, however, offer my musical muses used to craft this tale.

Initial inspiration: Sky Trailer
(The original idea was the boy and a similar-ages girl swinging back and forth below the bow to prep the ship for docking in a minute, but I felt I needed to up the stakes a tad)

Writing music: Tropos - Owlboy OST

Edit: Upon checking, I discovered that my reply is almost as long as the story itself (and I do believe this addition to it has pushed it over the cusp, fittingly enough).