quote: Once upon a time, there was beautiful young girl...
You have to be careful, throwing that phrase around. I don't just mean it's overused - granted, the one way to ensure no-one takes you seriously is to start with "Once upon a time". Well, either that or "It was a dark and stormy night".
Though you have to be careful of that one too. I mean, why d'you think these beginnings are so popular? It's not because of their artistic merit. Everyone knows they're pretty pathetic ways to start a story. And it's certainly not because you lot lack imagination - any species which came up with the idea of Vulcans has to be imaginative. Misguided, but imaginative...
No the thing is, these beginnings have power. Real power. The type of power that none of you want to understand, but all of you recognize at some level. It's a rather human preoccupation, trying to understand. It doesn't make things more real. Things just are, whether you understand them or not. Like gravity.
Most people understand it (or at least you profess to), but that doesn't mean it's actually real. Of course it isn't. Ridiculous concept. Though, as I said, you are an imaginative lot.
No, this power is beyond most of your comprehension. It's because these beginnings exist. And every time you use one, something happens. What happens?
Well, that's the hard part. The easiest way to explain... I know! A story.
Two points for providing critique. Critique must be more substantial than “I like it” or “good flow.” If I’m not sure if something counts as critique, I’ll award one point. Critique points can be earned even after the round is officially over.
One point for guessing, with reason given for the guesses. No points for subsequent guesses, unless you guess right. You can guess as many times as you want each round, but one guess at a time. (You can guess again after I answer your outstanding guess.)
Five points for the correct guess.
Score to date:
Jeni: 38 Tristan: 31 advice for robots: 26 rivka: 25 Tom Davidson: 24 ScottR: 23
posted
This is kind of fun, but I'm not sure I personally enjoy this informal of writing. I don't like it when the narrarator talks to me, but that's just personal preference. It could probably be shortened up a bit while still getting the point across. Hyphenating "no-one" really bothers me, though I'm not even sure if I'm correct in thinking it's in fact two seperate words... for some reason I trip over little things like that when I'm reeading and can't get past them. This sounds like imogen to me.
Posts: 4292 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
This seems like something that would start a book targeted at young adults, or even kids. I'm really curious to find out more, and there are so many different ways this could go from here. This is really informal, so I'm going to guess someone on the younger side. How about... katharina?
Edit: oops! guess i shouldn't take so long next time!
posted
I liked this...it flowed well and had very interesting things to say. I like the idea that certain story beginnings have power beyond the normal reckoning.
I was also disturbed by the informality of the address. I would almost expect that such familiarity would be preceeded by an introduction, *then* continuing on informally. But an introduction would take a lot of the charm away. I think this could be rewritten without seeming overly familiar with the reader. It's like someone I've never met coming up and talking to me like they've known me for years. It leaves me feeling insecure and uncomfortable.
But again, I love the ideas behind it. What fun, that there would be power to certain classic story beginnings. Nice work!
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Intriguing concept. It does sound a bit disjointed, though. Specifically, I have problems with the paragraph breaks. I don't know, but usually I'm of the opinion that a paragraph should be able to scan more or less independently. For example, it took me a couple of seconds to realize that paragraph five in this piece is about gravity since that word is never mentioned there. I would move it down from the previous paragraph like this:
"It's a rather human preoccupation, trying to understand. It doesn't make things more real. Things just are, whether you understand them or not.
Like gravity. Most people understand it (or at least you profess to), but that doesn't mean it's actually real. Of course it isn't. Ridiculous concept. Though, as I said, you are an imaginative lot."
There's a similar problem with the second paragraph where you have to remember what "that one" refer to (yeah, I have a memory like a goldfish). Perhaps these kind of casual paragraph breaks come with the informal style, but they irk me a little.
Anyone else who think this being sounds a little too smug? Hopefully he'll recieve a sound trashing later in the story. Yeah.
posted
The paragraph breaks might be my fault. When I copy the stuff out of hotmail I lose a lot of the formatting, and gain a lot of extra line breaks, so then I go in and try to clean up.
I might not always get it right. Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Tristan, I'm with you about the smugness. That's kind of what I meant about being overly familiar. It's almost a used car salesman feeling, but with more arrogance.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I like the Princess Brideness of it, although I think it's a little too drawn out. You lose the freshness of the authorial intrusion after a few paragraphs. But good job. Definitely funny.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
So, between when I last checked hatrack at Singapore airport and arrived home, I have been posted and guessed.
Jeni, I now firmly believe you have spies everywhere. There is no other explanation for your success rate!
Thanks everyone for your comments - while I think the general consensus is my piece isn't as strong as Scythrop's (which is probably a good thing, given he's the professional writer out of the two of us) I did enjoy writing it.
While the paragraph breaks weren't mine (silly hotmail) the smug / supercilious tone was intentional (and with that, a sense of over familiarity and condescension). I was playing around with the idea of an alien narrator which saw itself as superior to humans, yet was telling a tale of an inherently human power (that is, the power of story).
It hasn't developed any further as yet... but we'll see!
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I think it's funny that 'no-one' gave my un-American background away, after I re-emailed dkw to ask her to change 'recognise' to 'recognize' so no such clues would be given...
Thanks again for doing that, Dana Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I actually had no idea that "no-one" was common in other countries. I just remembered both you and Bob Scopatz use it that way. Like I said, when I notice little things like that, they stick with me. Posts: 4292 | Registered: Jan 2001
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