Please, VOTE!! in the new poll of the SDMB Short Fiction Contest's Anthology Thread!!

Cafe Society
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Continuing on -

Beast of Burden

I particularly liked the tone and voice on this one. It reminded me of Synge, in a good way. It was also a strong touch to show the consequences of re-balancing the load.

May you be uplifted by your burdens

Hmph. It might be better to explain the background to this. (I don’t personally care about outing myself as the author of this story, though I think it’s particularly weak.) I had no ideas from the time I found the picture and the words until the time I got to write this. ‘That’s okay’, I thought, ‘it’ll be a good experiment in story development through the act of writing.’ Sure enough, I sat down to write and cranked out this sort of Siddhartha-esque thing about someone’s spiritual development through association with djinni in their native realm. The influences are a mish-mash of Cirque du Soleil, Siddhartha and Jonathan Stroud’s ‘Bartimaeus’ books.

About the one conscious decision I made in writing it was that I wasn’t going to directly refer to the picture, but rather take that as a central metaphor and see where it takes me.

Problem is, I don’t think it makes a lick of sense.

Then, to make it all worse, about twenty minutes after I sent it in to myself, I had this great idea for putting the donkey and the cart in the middle of one of those James Bond chase scenes, telling the story of the action picture from the point of view of one of the collateral casualties…

I have to go, I’m rehearsing in half an hour. More to follow…

I’d really like to encourage everyone else to comment as well; I’m very interested in hearing others’ viewpoints.

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The Good Student
I liked this story. I felt the tension mount as the story progressed. I was dying to know what sort of studying they were doing and what sort of job lay at the end of it. It had a subtle air of menace that I thought worked really well. My only complaint is with this section:

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention closely enough but I didn’t get what this referred to. Apologies if I did miss something.

Beast of Burden
I really liked his continual attempts to guilt his mother, who being Irish is no doubt impervious to it. I also really liked some of the turns of phrase like “…plunging into some friendly young trollop…” There was some great imagery, like him walking through Hong Kong with his borrowed bread knife, just in case.

A Finer Miner
I enjoyed this story. The world was well written and realised. I was able to picture it clearly from the start. I was sorry when the story ended and I’d like to read more set in this setting.

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No apologies neccesary! I learn from comments like this.

It was a callback to the paragraph where he knows he’s improving - that his earlier work no longer seems to be ‘impeccable logic’, so he slipped Sunita notes that he knew weren’t going to be good enough (which she’d have seen if they’d had early time-stamps), basically ensuring she’d be dumped from the course.

Looking back now, the two scenes are too far apart for it to be obvious, a fault I’l correct in rewrites.

I’m glad you liked it, I was quite proud of this one. I’d love to know what they were studying, too!

I’m working through notes myself. I should post something later today.

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Well done, everybody! It was great fun to see so many different takes on that image. It was definitely a difficult one to work with; I was drawing a blank and put off even beginning my story until almost the end of the allotted period. I really like animal protagonists, so that part of my story came naturally once I started writing, but the particular manner in which I’d incorporate the image into the storytelling didn’t occur to me until I was halfway through. Maybe that’s why the result seems to end a little bit pointlessly. :stuck_out_tongue:

We’re all our own worst critics. I liked it. :smiley:

From The Good Student:

Daaaamn. I really liked this one; I too was really curious what they were studying, but by the end I realized I didn’t need to know. The story was about their sacrifices and ruthlessness, and it told those very effectively.
From Fear is a Humor:

I felt the beginning of this story was a little bit vague as to details – I couldn’t really figure out what was going on the first time the man in black was introduced – but this twist at the end made it one of my favorites. The idea of a villain whose chief weapon is fear (snrk) being defeated by the only maneuver that fear left to his victim is deliciously clever.

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Browne Christmas This one had a lot of real emotion in it. Unfortunately, the emotions were envy, resentment, and hate so I did not have a good time reading this. I wanted some twists or a turn, maybe some revenge, or a comeuppance, anything that was a suprise or unexpected. That a lazy, stupid boss with bad people skills would crash a business, seems less like a story and more like a business class parable.
The Good Student This was really well written. However, I thought it tried to do too much for a short story and glossed over a lot of things. At the end I was not sure if the students had graduated or just completed a year. Emotionally it rang very true about a student’s feelings toward the end of school, so I think it is about graduation. The donkey seemed shoehorned in and was out of place at the end of the story.

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Tahafut al-Himar This was a wonderful story, probably my favorite. The characterization was superb, the tone was exactly what it should be, the pacing was very good. None of the characters were condescended too. There was just enough exposition to understand what is happening but it never felt dull or forced. This was a joy to read. A few minor quibbles, the aside about the horse laughing took me out of the story, the collision at the end was too violent for no one to be hurt and was unrealistic. The first sentence of the the conclusion was the perfect button to end the story, the other two sentences lessened its impact a little.
Beast of Burden The tone of this was very uneven. It went from prudish and moralizing to earthy very abruptly. The guilting was heavy handed. It never felt like a real letter to a mother. I think the letter conceit should have been done away with. Especially since supposedly the letter was done while in hiding. How is the letter going to get back to the mother before the son does?
The actual plot of the story was very enjoyable. The actual story of the loading of the donkey was tense and humorous but seemed real. That part was very good.

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May you be uplifted by your burdens This seemed more outline than story. This needed plot, characterization, and tension. I never cared about the character and the beginning just seemed like alot of new age babble which put me off and I never really got back in. The idea at the end of a person who heals through taking on burdens is interesting and has alot of potential. It reminds me of the book The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen.
The Suprise Party The idea for the story was really good, however the ending seemed tacked on, like instead of one really good story we get part of one and the start of another. I think the drinking with the villain should have been explored and expanded and the massacre should have been cut out. The tone was really nice and the picture was woven in very skillfully.
More later

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I think your criticisms are spot on. The aside about the laugh was a narrative conceit I vaguely contemplated using throughout but then promptly forgot about, leaving just that one instance of “narrator addressing the reader.” And you’re probably right about the collision; I just needed some way of getting the cart off the cliff without taking the animals with it, and it could have been better staged. Physical reality took a backseat to authorial haste! For the conclusion, I wanted to sneak in a repetition of “may God guide me to do better next time,” but because I was in a hurry I ended up writing the same thing three times.

Thanks for the kind words though! I did think the ultimate tone was pretty much what I was aiming for. I’m glad it was fun to read; it was definitely fun to write. :smiley:

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Sorry, I meant to get back to this thread last night, but wine got in the way.

Browne Christmas I wasn’t attracted by the narrator at first so it was hard to ‘sink into’ this story. Tweaking the tone of thos initial first sentences could really show off the bones of what is a neatlittle story about self empowerment. Loved the last line.

The Good Student Mine, obviously. Now of course I can see improvements - the forgeiners are reflections of the students at the beginning, this could be shown by them taking pictures of the students and by saying the professor’s dhoti is seen as a market seller’s outfit rather than a circus master costume. Something like that anyway. It’s not a vital theme of the story, but yanno, for the rewrite.

Tahafut al-Himar I really liked this one. I was happy to gloss over the fate of the merchant. The last line repeats an earlier phrase and I thought it was the perfect ending.

Beast of Burden The setup was really good. I enjoyed the tone and language, because they were slightly over the top so it felt like a well rehearsed barropom yarn. Were the foreskins a joke name that never paid off? The punchline was a violent change of tone. It was like I started reading a shaggydog that changed into a horror.

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I was one, and I did come back!

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Right - I’m typing between other tasks at work and on a new keyboard, but that’s no excuse for the silly spelling mistakes. I’ll try to do better.

May You be Uplifted by Your Burdens Was just starting to develop when it finished. If it’s any help, I found the repeating and contradicting dialogue at the start hard to follow. If the characters have no coherent frame of reference, then neither do I. I did like the concept and would like to see the rewrite (and the James Bond story, too).

**The Surprise Party ** A rollicking good story. I liked that at the beginning, Carla couldn’t be bothered fighting if it’s only Ed but by the end, she’s the one telling him he can take them all on. Eveyone needs something to react against. Best use of the picture.

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A date for a nativity donkey There seemed to be alot going on in this one. I found the main character annoying so it was a little hard to enjoy the story. I never got a real good idea of where the story took place. There were lots of biblical allusions, but I never felt I got a payoff from that. I think as an American the idea of rescuing a donkey seems odd. The dialogue was well written and seemed real. The familial relationships were well rendered and believable.
A finer miner The sci fi setting seemed superflous to the rest of the story. The setup to the story was good, but I think it needed a little more characterization of the protagonist. It set up a real good, tense scene filled with suspense and then it just petered out. The defusing scene should have been the meat of the story but it barely happened at all.

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God another story This was well written and had very good dialogue. Both of the characters were unpleasant and thus it was hard to get into the story. It didn’t feel like a letter and a little more about why the grandfather was hated would have been good. The characterization of the protagonist was well done, he was very hateable in a very short period of time.
Fear is a humor This was really well done. It had a fantasy setting but was well grounded and realistic. However, it seems like it was a casualty of the space limit. It had a great build up to a wonderful confrontation and then the bad guy falls on a knife. The ending was just hollow.

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Sorry in advance for the brevity of these notes - the stories are good and deserve more!

Browne Christmas
Timely description of financial dependence on bonuses.; captures the feeling of office politics well. Could perhaps use a stronger ending.

The Good Student
Impressive construction of the metaphor using the donkey. I got a bit lost in terms of the relationship between the boy and girl, and what happened with the notes, but there’s certainly a convincing sense of the atmosphere in a competitive academic hothouse.

The Surprise Party
I really liked this one, primarily for the very characteristically British / Irish (?) humour. The ending, as so often with these stories, seemed a little rushed – I’d happily have read a lot more of it.

May you be uplifted by your burdens
I thought this was an extremely imaginative response to the image; I tend to get stuck in very literal readings of things, and I really admire the ability, evidenced in many of the stories, to use it in a more flexible, creative way.

Grave Secrets
Very ambitious for 2000 words! Nice twist (and then another twist) at the end. I liked the character of Opa – intriguing mix of kindly grandfather and Machiavellian puppet-master.

Fear is a Humour
Nice creation of the village life, and the relationship between Gary and the lord is good. Gary’s character, his thoughts on his own courage, are interesting – it’s good to read a story like this where the focus is on introspection and dialogue as much as, or more than, action. It ends too suddenly, perhaps.

Tahafut al-Himar
This is fantastic. A really clever, witty, well-paced and well-written response to the image. A little off-putting at first because of the unfamiliar (to me) names and terms being used but that’s a fault with me, not the story. My favourite so far.

A date for a nativity donkey
Nice! I particularly liked the relationship between the sisters – very authentic. The opening was funny in the way it seems to suggest a Bibical epic coming up and then descends with ‘Well, not quite…’ I like the wireless donkeys too…

Secret Samadhi
Good tone in this one. It tries to cover a lot in a short time, and is mostly successful, though I’d have liked to follow his journey more. A clever incorporation of the original image.

The Lunch
I liked this one a lot. The focus is on relationships and dialogue rather than action and it works well; the male banter is well done. The lack of contractions in the writing does make it sound slightly formal and stilted, perhaps.

God Another Story
The old man’s character is interesting – I like the idea of him being reviled across most of the world, though I didn’t actually get much sense of why that was. The ending was a little confusing - I have the feeling I missed something. I need to read it again!

A Finer Miner?
I like the setting in this one – sounds a bit steampunky, which is always a good thing. I was expecting a twist a the end which never arrived, unless I missed it, so it seemed a little anti-climactic, but I enjoyed reading it.

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Secret Samadhi I liked this one alot. The tone was really good throughout. The dream was really well done, a great job of describing a surrealistic moment. It seemed to be a casualty of the word count, in that it faded after a great scene. It would have been better to end it earlier. I did not like the mailman being the guru, it felt contrived.
Grave Secrets A very interesting premise. The exposition took too long and it was longer than the actual story. The letter should have been longer and the exposition shorter. The coda about the other conspiracies lessened the impact of the letter and the story as a whole. The Kennedy assination is a very picked over topic but the idea of a right wing billionaire teaming up with Castro is a new take on the subject and has great dramatic possibilities.

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A Date for a Nativity Donkey Starts off in passive voice which made it feel slow. I wanted to like this more than I did. The concept is great and the denouement funny. Maybe I’m too much the mother of a teen, the protagonist should get off my lawn!

Finer Miner Easy to read, drew me straight in and kept me reading till the end. It did feel a little flat at the end, maybe having more things happen to different people so Murry’s incompetence is contrasted? I don’t know, but I wish I’d thought of that milleu.
**
God Another Story** Another unsympathetic narrator (in the sense I don’t connect with him). I struggled with whether or not the grandfather was over-hyped or actually bloved by the locals. Bonus points for using the three required words in the first sentence.

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I didn’t find myself at all inspired by this round’s photo, but I very much enjoyed where **Browne Christmas **and Grave Secrets took the prompts.

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Short Story Grading Scale
25 pts. Intro – does the story have a dynamic Intro that grabs me and makes me want to read more?
25 pts. Body – does the story move along in a readable, coherent and interesting manner?
25 pts. Conclusion – does the story have a satisfying, interesting, surprising or otherwise solid ending?
25 pts. Personal Opinion – did I like it? Just my opinion – and worth little other than to say I liked or didn’t like it.

Browne Christmas
Intro – Got my attention. Everyone knows of the disappointment of not getting a bonus or gift or whatever, especially when counting on it! 22 pts.
Body – kept reading and followed along…some good description and detail, but didn’t really “go” anywhere. 20 pts.
Conclusion – sort of left me cold. I mean, we saw it coming and there was no real twist or lesson or much to be gleaned from the ending other than, well – so it goes. 18 pts.
Personal Opinion – While I liked the premise, I think there could have been some more intrigue and twist or two or something more satisfying at the end. 20 pts.
Total 80 pts

The Good Student
Intro – Nice intro into the life of students and the chaos and movement – I could feel the atmosphere and it set up the story well. 23 pts.
Body – although not a lot happened, the story did keep my interest as insight to life in this type of school and school system. 21 pts.
Conclusion – Nice throw back to the intro and it fit well – could see the visual imagery quite well. Not the most surprising of endings, but it worked OK. 22 pts.
Personal opinion – good story, took me to another place and I could feel a bit of the atmosphere and characters. 22 pts.
Total 88 pts.

Tahafut al-Himar
Intro – Not exactly sure what was happening and it took me a minute to realize these were animals and not people talking…sorta had to re-read it quickly. 20 pts.
Body – lots of names and new names and things reference that I was supposed to know but didn’t and I was quickly getting lost. 17 pts.
Conclusion – This was actually quite good – finally started to put it all together and the action scene worked quite well. 23 pts.
Personal opinion – not my type of story as I am not a huge fan of this kind of tale. I know some really like it and there are lots of historical stories told in the same manner, but at some point these kinds of stories make me feel stupid as I have forgotten who was who and what is what. Consider me a curmudgeon. 20 pts.
Total – 80 pts.

Beast Of Burden
Intro – excellent run of thought and total immersion into the time, scene and action. Got my attention immediately. 24 pts.
Body – very nice job – felt like I was reading a letter from some insane friend off on their adventure! Kept me interested throughout. 25 pts.
Conclusion – again – loved the excitement and the feeling this was just episode one of a longer tale of odd travels and strange situations. 23 pts.
Personal opinion – one of my favorites! You went off on a grand adventure and took the readers with you. Nice job. 25 pts.
Total 97 pts.

May You Be Uplifted By Your Burdens
Intro – one or two riddles are good, but at some point you have to answer something and not just keep answering a riddle with another platitude. Sort of wanted to slap that other voice. 19 pts.
Body – what do you call a riddle within a riddle of riddles? Riddleculous? Wow, was I getting lost fast. This went right over my head. Maybe I was just not in the ethereal mood when I read this. 17 pts.
Conclusion – This was the best part of the story, and wish it could have been incorporated into the beginning of the story so we could have see where we were going with this. Might have been nice to somehow preface the fact that this was a holy man of sorts? 23 pts.
Personal opinion – mostly confused through the first 2/3 of the story and only started to grasp the entire concept towards the end. I know what you were trying to do, but it just sort of fell flat for me this time – sort of felt like I was listening to two stoners talking in the dorm room next to me. 21 pts.
Total 80 pts.

The Surprise Party
Intro – nice jump into the scene – can easily envision sitting at a bar watching TV and having a beer . 24 pts.
Body – fun story in that we got a bit of insight into the day to day life of a superhero and what they think when disaster strikes. Nice spin on it. 22 pts.
Conclusion – could have used a bit more of a superhero punch at the end, some twist or surprise super power of some kind. 18pts.
Personal opinion – liked the story and the characters, but felt it was just missing that spark to make it really, really good. 21pts.
Total 85 pts

A Date For A Nativity Donkey
Intro – good start and set up the story with the religious, yet non-religious, background info. 21 pts.
Body – captured the story and the closeness of the sisters well – and made this a nice tale of sibling bonding in the face of an overpowering mother. 22pts.
Conclusion – I am a sucker for happy endings – so you win on this. 25 pts.
Personal Opinion – one of my favorites – short and sweet, very sweet. 24 pts
Total 92 pts.

A Finer Miner?
Intro – nice start of a good yarn – got me right into the mood. 24pts.
Body – nice movement, good adventure, kept the pace up. 24 pts.
Conclusion – Satisfying, but sort of a bit of a let down…I mean, I didn’t want things to explode, but after the danger was resolved, it was a bit lacking. Not sure how I would have changed this though. 20 pts.
Personal Opinion – liked the story up until the end. 21 pts.
Total 90 pts.

God Another Story
Intro – Very nice…”I am plotting to murder him.” Certainly got my attention! 25 pts.
Body – sort of felt there was some rambling going on and could have used some tighter examples of why grandfather was an evil old fart worth killing and why this guy needed to murder him. 20pts
Conclusion – sort of abrupt and no real surprise or twist or clarification – so it just sort of ended. 20 pts.
Personal opinion – would have preferred to learn a bit more of the motive of murder (other than grandpa is not a nice guy) and learn a bit more about grandpa – but still a nice prelude to murder. 22 pts.
Total 87 pts.

Fear Is Humor
Intro – Nice set up, got right to the style and setting and tone. 23 pts.
Body – good use of dialog and moving the story along. It did seem to take awhile to get where you wanted to go, and might have been edited down, leaving more room for back story of this evil little wizard. 22 pts.
Conclusion – nice little hop onto knife that was quick, but still satisfying. 24 pts.
Personal opinion – I liked the fable aspect, but would have liked to have it be more of a “Once upon a time…” flavor with less chat at the end and more descriptive adjectives, if that makes any sense. 22 pts.
Total 91 pts.

Secret Samadhi
Intro – didn’t exactly flow directly into my brain and I had to read it twice. Not sure if my mind was simply wandering and needed my own exercise in clarity…20 pts.
Body – nice imagery, but once again there were parts I had to re-read – sometimes to understand better, but sometimes because I liked the image. Took awhile to get through this. 22 pts.
Conclusion – it was indeed a bit of a twist, which fit well with the magical aspect of the story. 24 pts.
Personal opinion – I needed to re-read too much to follow the story clearly…perhaps a few more direct bits of dialog would have helped and maybe allow the story to wrap up a bit earlier? 23 pts.
Total 89 pts.

The Lunch
Intro – great leap into the setting – you knew immediately the type of guys who were talking and what the environment was. 24 pts.
Body – good job of throwing me right into the mix – felt like I was sitting on a cot and watching and listening to these guys go on their tangents. 24 pts.
Conclusion – ya know, there really wasn’t one, but that is OK too. 20pt.
Personal opinion – also one of my favorite stories, if for no other reason than I really somehow felt I was there and a part of this whole story. Good job! 25 pts.
Total 93 pts.

Grave Secrets
This was my story. Didn’t take long after I submitted it so see all that was wrong with it. The story lacks a soul…tried to put too much into 2000 words and should have used a few sentences to flesh out my characters. While I still kind of like the premise, it fell horribly flat and if every character had been eaten by wolves at the end, nobody would give a damn; not a good sign of character development on my part. There is so much I could have done better, but again, it seemed like a good idea at the time…

Hope nobody is offended at my point score approach, but it sort of lets me explain why I could like one facet, but still not love the story, or why I can love the story but still not like every aspect. I guess you can call this wishy-washy approach to critique…

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I have been on an extended vacation from the SDMB, but I’m glad I caught this thread. I managed to get through the stories this morning and vote. Very well done, as usual. I particularly liked the first story, Browne Christmas. I usually don’t go for the monologue stories with little to no interaction, but that story was very well written and somehow hit the mark with me. It doesn’t always have to be a happy ending (especially when it’s work related).

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Okay, with minutes to go, here are my thoughts on everybody’s story but mine, all personal opinions, I hope I don’t offend anybody. Read most of them through quickly on the Kindle while riding to work this morning, after procrastinating for 2 weeks…

Browne Christmas: A little tragic, but nicely structured and the story drew me in. My biggest complaint would be that the narrator mostly disappears behind her opinions and her perceptions of office politics; I was most of the way through before I realized that it was from a woman’s POV, and I’m still not entirely sure what her official role with Browne was.

The Good Student: Somehow this one didn’t grab me. The setting had promise, but I just didn’t particularly care about these students and their dreams, though I wondered what they were supposed to be studying. The ending also seemed to lack power.

Tahafut al-Himar: Not my favorite, but a funny ‘little tail.’ The characterization of the animals seemed to be nicely done, and I liked the punch line at the end.

Beast of Burden: Another that didn’t really come together as I was reading it. I found it hard to relate to the voice of the narrator, and was expecting some payoff when he found out just what ‘foreskins’ were that didn’t arrive.

May you be uplifted by your burdens: This was offbeat, and strange in places, but I liked the premise, the plot, and the descriptions. The end confused me more than a little, though.

The Surprise Party: A fun little twist on the usual superhero/supervillain tropes. I loved the scenes with Ed and Callous Carla, but felt that the ‘massacre’ should have been given more attention, and the hero’s reaction to it fleshed out. It was only in retrospect I realized that we didn’t get Ed’s superhero name - assuming that he doesn’t just go by ‘Ed’. Either way, I find that funny.

A date for a nativity donkey: A little sentimental but well done for it, and a nice ending.

A Finer Miner?: Again we’re offbeat and funny - trying to stop a donkey from setting off an explosion in a sci-fi setting. I love it.

God Another Story: I wasn’t sure who I disliked more of the narrator and grandfather, and I actually wanted to see the grandfather get poisoned - and the grandson thrown in a nasty Arabic prison for it. Unfortunately, the story didn’t last long enough for either.

Secret Samadhi: I liked the concept, but I felt like I wanted to see more of exactly how the ‘journey’ led Abed and tested him, to be ready to transcend the mundane.

Grave Secrets: A nice little tale of the secrets of the rich and powerful - feels like it would fit in well with ‘Revenge’ or a similar TV show.

The Lunch: Kind of an anticlimax. A bunch of soldiers talking about Arabs and women… so what? I didn’t really see an ending either.