Short Story Contest! [DISCUSSION THREAD]

Sulkdodds

Sulkdodds

The Freeman
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This thread is now for discussion of the contest.

CLICK HERE FOR RULES/ENTRIES

Here you can talk about the competition, ask questions, debate the set subject and talk about other people's entries. Especially, I realise that my topic might seem a little highbor, or certainly might surprise those not accustomed to the study of literature. If there's any questions, therfore, don't hesistate to ask them. The original version of this post appears below.

Old post said:
So the idea would be that every so often, I will set a topic, and people will then have one or two weeks to write a story of 1000 or 2000 words within that topic. A vote thread would then be created for the different short stories and I might ask Munro if those who win the contest can have a custom title. I would not enter myself as I am entering the exam period but I would put some work into the topics and they would not just be "post-apocalyptic" or "involving dinosaurs". Well, maybe that latter one, but whatever.

I guess what I'm asking is how many people would be interested in this?
Click to expand...
 
I'll take part but I wish you'd have done my essay idea instead.
 
This would be cool, but I'm lazy and would probably write two paragraphs then give up. I'm also a crap writer.

Go for it.
 
I might try after my exams are done. I haven't done any writing in several years though.
 
I would definitely be willing to share my abilities (bad as they are) with all of you.
 
I'd give it a go... but may not finish it.
 
Eh, sorry. D: But surely not!

The idea of 'defamiliarisation' is simply to describe a normal, familiar thing in a really unorthodox way so that the reader is at first confused by what they see, and then they come to realise that it is something they've seen before. Yet, having been through that confusion, they are able to come to a new understanding about the thing. They're able to distance themselves from it, get out of the kind of rut of consciousness that we all live in, and consider it in a more detached way.

If you've ever seen the motivational poster which describes Christianity as 'the worship as a space god who came back as a zombie', you've seen the technique in action. Worshippers of Christianity think that it's all unquestionably true, and even those of us who are atheists often find accepted religious ideas more sensible than those of, say, scientology. Because the religious ideas have been around for so long they seem kinda normal to us. But if we step back, and think about space gods and easter zombies, we realise how silly it all is. We have been defemiliarised.

A good example is Darkside55's story The Hand. The story narrates an event we all know, to wit, the Black Mesa Incident. But it is written in a strange way so that we might not initially know what it's talking about. It's from the perspective of an alien slave. The narrator doesn't kno the word for human doors or for crowbars. He doesn't know who Gordan Freeman is. He doesn't know what he's killing. It's only in a circular fashion that we finally work out what he is describing. Charles Dickens does the same thing, more mild, when he describes houses as if they were people, or people as if they were houses ("eyes like cellars") - by describing a hat as if it is actively trying to jump off a table and into a bucket of water (or whatever), he gives life to the hat, make it strange. Another very good example is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Many of you will know that. By looking through the eyes of someone with a mental disorder it makes all the normal things we take for granted seem very odd, and through doing this, we get a new look at those normal things - hell, we more profoundly appreciate them.

This is finally what Cragi Raine does in his poem 'A Martian sends a postcard home'.

Craig Raine said:
In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet, they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.
Click to expand...
The poem is basically like an alien, a 'martian', looking at earth customs and describing them to his family back home. Rather like Darkside's story then. The thing thats being talked about in the quote is in fact a telephone, and one might say that there are clever things that are said by the person on the other end being "a ghost", or technology being "haunted".

So when I say the topic is alienation, that is the device that there should be some use of. You can use it on a small scale, describing individual objects in strange ways, but this could go badly wrong, with people clumsily using the most wildly esoteric ideas and comparisons that they possibly can. I trust the forumites not to do that. So you can also use the concept on a bigger or just more subtle scale: making a comic about the forum as if the forum was a real world is a species of defamiliarisation. I stress that your making-strange need not be hugely obvious, or assault the reader. If you think about it, there are plenty of ways to do this, some aggressive and some very demure.

Does that help? I honestly don't want to confuse anyone. Well, I do want to confuse them, just a little bit, but only to make them think about it. That's defamiliarisation!
 
I apologize for this not being my entry but I just want to comment that your example isn't prose and it is much easier to do what your asking (well) in poetry.
 
I can see where you're coming from but I think all literature is alienation. Well - if people do find it too difficult they should say. I'll apologise and post a new topic tomorrow.
 
Please keep this topic. If they do not understand it then they can simply wait for a new topic. I have been thinking about this topic all day and am close to getting an idea.
 
You really know how to choose a hard topic, don't you sulk, y'bastard :p.

I'll have a bash. I can't say if it'll be any good, but I'll give it a go. Next time had better be a good dinosaur topic for us simpletons :E
 
If you change the topic I'll be pissed. I've been working on mine all morning. It's good. Keep it.
 
My story's really short. I'm not going to give any of you ideas, but I think I successfully grabbed the topic idea. If I didn't, feel free to tell me off. my story's only 330 words, but I feel that's enough for the reader to get confused, then realise what's going on, then develop enough of a deep seated hatred for me :D.
Oh yeah, my story's more of a monologue too, but that's fine. It also breaks the fourth wall thing a bit, which was one of my aims. Going to read more of it tomorrow and sort some of the things that didn't work out.
 
Meh, like I said not till finished with exams. Have fun.
 
Eejit is banned for posting discussion in the entry thread!
 
He's the second person to do that. Saruke originally posted in the entry thread.
 
Is it a requirement that it be original?, cause I know a few books...
 
You can be unoriginal, but it'll be the rest of the forummites who will be judging you with their vote. So expect to lose votes if you're totally lame.
 
I wil attempt to partake in this, but ten bucks says I'll emerge unsuccessful from the depth of my then overworked mind.
 
This'll be my first time in a long writing anything, so it'll probably suck. The topic was fun but I had so few good ideas to run with.
 
This is awesome! Definitely will be reading/voting, although I can't participate because I've got final exams straight from now until AFTER the due date for this contest :p
 
Posted. Not sure how well it works, surely could have been written more elequonteley. Just something I've been thinking about whilst working for a while now.
 
At first I thought you were describing weed, but then the whole friendship by association thing cropped up.

Good job!

I figure KA's describes a dictionary or thesaurus. Although I'm kind of stuck on the grinding teeth riddle.

Fun!
 
Solaris stole my idea, atleast to a certain extent, though at first I assumed he was describing the Internets.
 
These remind me of Anglo Saxon riddles.

And honestly guys, it won't be hard to find ideas for this one. /ducks
 
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