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Poller5
Dec Member 2023

Poller5

Posts: 11,421 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Hi, Poller here, blah blah blah you all know me.

We're all writers. None of us writes here very much. None of us has much time to write.

Let's change that.

Every week, I'll post a prompt. A sentence at most. You have 100 words to turn that into a story.

Flash fiction is tough. Some of you will remember it as the typical first round format of the Crad- and Tron-tests. You don't have many words, so every single one matters.

I'll offer comments on every piece submitted, and at the end of each week pick my favourite. Bragging rights will be won.

This is all meant to be quick, easy, and fun. 100 words is next to nothing. You can plan it in the shower, write it up in half and hour. Hopefully, every one of who reads this can find that much time in a week. By all means, put in more if you want; plan and edit to your heart's delight. Spontaneity has a strange power in art, though, so don't under-rate your first draft, however quickly it may have been written.

~*~*~*~*~

This week's theme is: " Going home. "

~*~*~*~*~

Poller's Favourites:

Week 1: The Level (page 2, post 1)

09-Feb-2014 04:36:49 - Last edited on 17-May-2014 03:55:18 by Poller5

Cyun

Cyun

Posts: 2,389 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The scream stopped. I lie awake endlessly. The screaming was alarming at first, but it soon becomes white noise in the black space of my chrysalis. I like darkness. My old life shivered in it. My fear metamorphosed into relish – in it, nobody sees. My nurse says I’ll become normal soon. The muffled neighbouring screams began again. I don’t want to leave. I’m not normal. Normal people scream. I want to sleep in the darkness. Normal people would want to transform. They would want to fly and leave the darkness, I think. I don’t deserve wings.

09-Feb-2014 11:05:30

Poller5
Dec Member 2023

Poller5

Posts: 11,421 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Your entry, Cyun, highlights exactly why I love open ended prompts -- screams transport me to a battlefield, situations of intense pain and emotion; you put them in someone else's mouth, and turned it into a piece of quiet reflection.

Making 100 words meaningful is difficult, but your specific use of language creates a vivid image, maximizing the effect. The dissonance of the terms chrysalis and metamorphose - words which belong to insects - in a human context highlights the dissonances within the mind of the insane narrator.

The use of words that mean "more" than they do on the surface (so to speak) also maximizes the effect of limited verbiage; darkness, the oldest and most primal fear, is wonderfully evocative as a main theme, and of course the word normal is beyond definition, its use forcing the contemplation of exactly how your narrator is abnormal.

The final sentence works in much the same vein; on the surface it's absurd, four words that can be read as a sentence, but don't form one with any obvious meaning. It is the unfiltered thought of the insane, which must needs by definition be anathema to the rational mind.

Overall, it was a great job of turning 100 words into a story which not only made sense, but also established a clear and unique character whose mental state invited deeper thought. Well done.

(Yes, this sounds like an English essay. I'm not entirely sure why, beyond the possibility that it's been too long since I've had to write one for uni and I'm (absurdly?) suffering withdrawal. At any rate, it was a very enjoyable story, exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, and a great way to kick off the thread.)

09-Feb-2014 11:36:38

Old Gnomish
Jul Member 2023

Old Gnomish

Posts: 2,569 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
It comes like rolling thunder, or a heartbeat that is ever-quickening. Simultaneity distorts you: thoughts are speeding through the air where your head should be at one hundred miles-per-hour; elsewhere, life is in slow-motion, limbs fumbling about your noiseless existence.

Faces. Speeding through the air where your head should be. One is a child that never was; the other’s a red-eyed woman. Hair like Medusa.

Tremors in the ground; a whistle ringing through the air where your head should be. The whistle sounds like a scream. Frenzied. Desperate. The thunder approaches. The scream stops.
Snow
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Guildmaster - The Novelists' Guild

09-Feb-2014 13:21:44 - Last edited on 09-Feb-2014 13:59:47 by Old Gnomish

Poller5
Dec Member 2023

Poller5

Posts: 11,421 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Well, beyond the fact that the prompt is supposed to come at the beginning , a very nice piece, Snow :P .

I didn't know that simultaneity was a word, but now that I do I love it.

For my taste, I find your story almost too indistinct; I get the impression of a car crash (or a train hitting a car?), but when I try to pinpoint anything that would confirm that, I can't. I really like the line "where your head should be", but the fact I can't really interpret it takes something away from it. Mind you, though, it could make perfect sense, and I'm just missing it.

As much as you misplaced the prompt, it does work very well as a final line; I was expecting see more about what happens after the scream, when I set the prompt, but the story of the scream is plenty dramatic in and of itself.

EDIT: I've joined my own party. Bonus points if you can pinpoint the inspiration.

~*~*~*~*~

The sceam stopped.

A breath.

Another scream.

Coursing with emotions beyond words, he screamed.

The crowd screamed too, moved by the same spirit of preternatural joy. As one organic mass they screamed and roared out the exultance of his triumph, an extension of his being, the thrill of victory stripping away individuality, leaving only the communal paean to triumph. Inchoate sounds and primitive, they formed a hymn both animal and the quintessence of humanity.

The scream continued as he stepped on the podium, accepted his medal. A tear rolled down his face.

Gold never tarnishes; the scream will never die.

10-Feb-2014 09:27:43 - Last edited on 10-Feb-2014 12:37:55 by Poller5

Cyun

Cyun

Posts: 2,389 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Poller5 said :

The sceam stopped.

A breath.

Another scream.

Coursing with emotions beyond words, he screamed.

The crowd screamed too, moved by the same spirit of preternatural joy. As one organic mass they screamed and roared out the exultance of his triumph, an extension of his being, the thrill of victory stripping away individuality, leaving only the communal paean to triumph. Inchoate sounds and primitive, they formed a hymn both animal and the quintessence of humanity.

The scream continued as he stepped on the podium, accepted his medal. A tear rolled down his face.

Gold never tarnishes; the scream will never die.

The Winter/London 2012 Olympics?

Although it did remind me of the beginning of Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Party members scream in the Two Minutes Hate.

10-Feb-2014 15:49:06

Old Gnomish
Jul Member 2023

Old Gnomish

Posts: 2,569 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Oops, I didn't realise the prompt had to be at the beginning.

Aye, I had to double-check it was a word before I kept it. :P

You've almost got it. It's about a person standing on a railway line…that "thunder" and "heartbeat" is the sound of the approaching train, its whistle being the "scream". I used the "where your head should be" phrase to indicate that this suicidal man is not thinking straight; he's plagued by mental ill-health.

I too would guess your piece as being Olympic-themed.
Snow
| Runescape Stories Forum |
Guildmaster - The Novelists' Guild

10-Feb-2014 17:01:36

Poller5
Dec Member 2023

Poller5

Posts: 11,421 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
In looking back, it seems I never actually specified it had to be at the beginning, not that it particularly hurts either way. Writing is writing, after all.

I think it was the mentioning of other people that made me think he wasn't alone, though in looking back they're obviously not real, or at least not really there. My other thought was that he'd been beheaded, and was looking at "where his head should be" in some odd sense.

Indeed it is Olympic; I'd just watched a Canadian pick up gold in speed skating. Of course, the crowd wasn't quite that excited in truth, but poetic license never killed anyone.

That's an interesting point about the two minutes' hate, Cyun (which, incidentally, may be the greatest of the perversities in that world). Emotions in their extremity all tend to be very similar, especially in their outward appearance. It's like boiling water and ice water -- dip your hand in either one for a second, and you won't know which of the two it is.

~*~*~*~*~

The sceam stopped.

A breath.

Another scream.

Coursing with pain beyond words, he screamed.

The crowd screamed too, his pain their joy. As one organic mass they screamed and roared out the exultance of their anger, the thrill of hate stripping away individuality, leaving only the communal paean of vengeance. Inchoate sounds and primitive, they formed a hymn both animal and the quintessence of humanity.

The scream continued as the man's guts were pulled forth, though his ended with a choked gargle. The beast in his eyes, wild and desperate, died.

Justice had been done. The traitor had been killed. In rolling waves, the scream carried on.

~*~*~*~*~

It's not quite a perfect fit, but with some changes to the window dressing, much the same story tells a very different tale.

11-Feb-2014 00:56:04 - Last edited on 11-Feb-2014 00:57:18 by Poller5

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