Fiction Farm 2017: we rite gudder nau (1000 words or less)

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Fiction Farm 2017: we rite gudder nau (1000 words or less)

SurreptitiousMuffin: Mar 21, 2010

Welcome to the Farm!

I just noticed the old fiction farm thread was on the verge of disappearing into the archives. It was getting kinda old and stinky, so it's time for a fresh new one. For those not familiar, here's what we're about :

Have you got a piece of short fiction that you want crit on? Post it here. The only condition is that you crit the piece above you. General CC crit etiquette applies: don't be a douchebag and rip something to pieces just because you can, but don't be afraid to be honest about things you don't like. Be honest about things you do like too, so people know the right direction to take their stuff. On the other hand, people are taking time out of their day to help you improve your piece and when you respond to crit, respond with that in mind; if you act like a prima donna, expect to get laughed out of the thread.

FAQ

Q: What if I wrote 1001 words?
A: that's fine. There's some leeway on the 1000 word cap, but don't go crazy.
Q: but I wrote 1200 words and I'm really not sure.
A: :justpost:

Q: what if I wrote 10,000 words?
A: post it elsewhere, preferably in its own thread.
Q: do I have to crit? I've never done it before and I'm probably bad at it.
A: yes, no exceptions. You're really going to tell other goons that you don't have strong opinions about a piece of media? C'mon, guy.
Q: what if nobody has posted in this thread in like six months? Should I still crit the piece above me? They're probably long gone.
A: do it anyway. It's good practice.
Q: what if I just loving love crit but don't have any story to post?
A: post your crits, you excellent person
Q: I don't post in Thunderdome and I hate your bullshit clique.
A: yeah gently caress those guys. :argh:

Seriously though, this isn't a TD thing and I will not let it become a TD circlejerk. Take this as a warning, 'domers.

To kick us off, here's something I've been working on. It's the second chapter in a novel. Chapter 1 is "here is the protag in 3rd person close, here they are protag-ing around, isn't all this stuff cool?" etc etc. Chapter 2 is short, in present simple and a more direct form of address. My worry is that the sudden shift into a very different voice might be working against what I'm trying to do here. It's meant to be jarring and disorienting but I worry it might go too far.

quote:

Here�s an old joke: fisherman sits in his boat, hooks a fish. As he reels it up and up, his friends sit in the boat with him and laugh. �Water�s fine today,� he says.

The fish hears this as it�s hauled from the water and dumped inside the boat. The air here is wrong, and it chokes; its tiny lungs fill with fluid. As it drowns in the dry, it hears strange booming sounds, and it thinks what�s water?

Here�s another joke: fish goes down too deep, and suddenly the whole word is dark, and crushing. The fish here are barely even fish. It�s eaten by something with too many teeth. Point is, there�s a very narrow band of existence a fish can survive in. Point is, words like time and space seem to mean very little until you come to a place where they don�t matter any more. What�s water? Ahaha, it�s a good joke.

They call this place a lot of things: the Barren, Purgatory, Central Station. None of them fit, but they�ll have to do. Light does not exist here, nor time. It�s endlessly empty, except it ain�t. If you�re a fish, it�s both boat and abyss. The things that live there don�t conform to anything you�ve ever seen, nor could ever hope to understand: they don�t verb in the way we verb. On the other side, we call them gods; in the Barren, they just are. It�s hard to describe them in words made for teeth and tongues -- for a different Is, but we must try.

Down in the darkness, something moved. It cast its shadow on the surface. A colossal eye snapped open. Synapses fired, and a sleeping titan woke. It saw, on the other side, where things were small: a shifting of gears, and a music so quiet it fought to be heard. It looked from world to world, and it saw: tall buildings of steel and glass, empty and burnt. It cast its eyes from one to the next, and saw: choking clouds of toxic ash, and emptiness. It saw world after world abandoned, until at last it came to a place with life.

It stood, and the world around it danced away - fled in great swathes of colour and fire. It saw: the rumble before an avalanche; a hiss of carbon monoxide and a blocked tailpipe. It saw: a single spark moving with purpose - the overture to an inferno.

It saw: movement in the darkness, so cataclysmic it would rend Is from Is. It saw: something that would echo through the worlds, into the dreams of the mortals until they woke screaming about a war in heaven.

There was silence, then a shadow, then --from afar, from everywhere, from nowhere at all-- a new music rising from the deep.

Let's do this thing.

edit: crap, the forums can't handle a 'less than or equal to' sign in the title. If a mod sees this, could they change it to "a thousand words or less"?

SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Nov 21, 2016

# ¿ Nov 21, 2016 00:40

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 14:29

SurreptitiousMuffin: Mar 21, 2010

ZeBourgeoisie posted:

I�ll get you sometime tonight or tomorrow, Muffin.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2016 12:12

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Fiction Farm 2017: we rite gudder nau (1000 words or less)