Short Story Contest! [DISCUSSION THREAD]

Can we have another contest, maybe no nessacarilly fiction?
 
*points at title*
Pi is a lazy, lazy bastard :p.
 
Someone just make a new thread on their own. Competition will spurn... [insert something that makes sense here].
 
Very nice. I remember reading and analysing white elephants.
Your word-count was a little ambiguous though; what would be the minimum, or is there not one?
 
Sulkdodds said:
Surely not!

"There will be no minimum word limit".
The only wordcount demand is that the story should be <2000 words.
Click to expand...
ah, well I was both drunk and stoned when I read your thread, so I apologise!
 
Assuming I understand the concept right, an author that did iceberging very well was Frank Herbert. He had a tendancy of including a lot of small details that were pertinent to the scene but that weren't entirely essential to the story. When combined, however, they created a rich universe. I think?
 
Viperidae said:
Assuming I understand the concept right, an author that did iceberging very well was Frank Herbert. He had a tendancy of including a lot of small details that were pertinent to the scene but that weren't entirely essential to the story. When combined, however, they created a rich universe. I think?
Click to expand...
From what I thought the iceberg theory was, it was almost the exact opposite, i.e. rather important story themes can be hidden 'under the water' and the writer only skims over them, so that the reader is either expected to know the underlying theme or could work out that something bigger is happening 'between the lines'.

That's how I'm writing my story anyway. Sulky and his infinite wisdom will clear it up.
 
Well the prompt doesn't exactly state that it has to be the central plot that's implicit, but rather a large portion of the story, which I'd still argue Herbert does. [I'm mostly thinking about the first Dune] He had a tendancy to be very tangential with his characters' thoughts, and much of the action is implied (suddenly, two years later, after all this fighting...) or seen from a distance.

I think, maybe, I'm trying to make a distinction between two applications of icebergism? One is for the plot, and the other is for the universe (which would be unnecessary in plain fiction). I think Herbert used a little of the former and a lot of the latter. It just seems that in contrast to, say, Tolkien, Herbert was very sparing in the exposition of a lot of detail, and was more concerned with the social/philosophical concerns of his characters than describing them walking up mountains for seven chapters (forgive me, Tolkien fans) or having a prologue entirely devoted to smokeweed. For instance, I don't think anyone can confidently say what an ornithoptor looks like, other than it has wings and a cockpit. Whereas Tolkien fans have been raging for years about the colour of Legolas' hair, because in one instance it's described as dark (slip up?).

So while I agree that for the purposes of regular fiction, Dek has the right idea on floating masses of ice, scifi and fantasy can have a different approach.
 
This topic reminds me of The Pedestrian. I have no specific ideas yet, but I'm working on it
 
Curse you Sulkdodds! I have and idea that I'm trying to hammer out but I'm walking on a thin path with a gapping crevice on either side. On one side we have making the story impossible to comprehend, and on the other we have making it obvious. This is difficult D=
 
Viperdae has ably justified an application of 'iceberg theory' that I had not considered. Go him!

Holding back but implicating information about a universe or situation (especially in a scifi/fantasy context) was not something I'd considered, but is perfectly valid under the topic.

Of course, unless you want to write a really long story, then there isn't going to be much room for an actual plot anyway, and so in some sense everybody's entry is likely to dramatise 'a situation'. In the case of White Elephants, it is the dynamic of a couple and, partly, of an entire generation. In the case of a sci-fi themed entry, it would be the world that you have built.
 
I'd like to write something for the contest. Eh, I'll think of something.
 
Oh man, I so do not understand this theme... but I want to write an entry anyway!
 
I just submitted. I won't look down on anyone if you just give up now.
 
It's obviously a scathing anti-fascist social commentary of the industrio-military complex of cold war era America. I like his characterisation of the soldier with the repressed childhood memories (Freudian?). My guess it's a metaphor for sex.




What?
 
Viperidae said:
It's obviously a scathing anti-fascist social commentary of the industrio-military complex of cold war era America. I like his characterisation of the soldier with the repressed childhood memories (Freudian?). My guess it's a metaphor for sex.




What?
Click to expand...

Your talking out of your ass :hmph:
 
Actually he hit the nail on the head! I must commend his literary analysis capabilities.
 
I always tried to minimise dialogue when I wrote things before, but this thing is almost complete dialogue, so
A: It's uncharted waters for me, and
B: It's probably shite.

Edit: I keep reading over it and finding little errors. I should have proof-read before I posted it :P
 
Hmm... that gives me an idea. I might be willing to proofread/edit entries for people if they so wish. I don't know if that's against the rules or not, so it's up to Sulk.
 
I don't see why not, as long as you aren't entering yourself. Proofreaders should be disinterested, at least with regards to the compo.

But let's face it, there's no real way I could enforce that. It's up to you to be sporting and obey. And, to be clear, entrants are pretty free to edit their posts right up until the voting starts - I'd recommend everyone re-read the entries at that point anyway.
 
For you, maybe!

So I guess I should say that I'm free to edit entries up until voting begins.
 
34705525hz6.gif


An ounce of prevention...?
 
Posts stay editable for 24 hours, and I have some experience in this field.

I really have no idea how difficult it is to comprehend my piece. Then again, I didn't understand what the operation that the woman was having in the White Elephant story until I read the Wikipedia article.

I'd like to put forward my theory on Que's entry, but it's probably better to read it with an open mind so I'm going to put it spoiler tags and encourage you to have read the story before you read my thoughts.
Due to the fact that it's a topical event I would suggest that the experiment in question is the Large Hadron Collider.
 
Roughest piece I ever did. Walking home from school, thought of it, sat down, typed it out, posted. Ah well.
 
I chagned the "main character" from male to female at the last second and missed a place where I should have changed "him" to "her".
 
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