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SuperBiasedMan

Idle Fiction Jam - Rumours and Hearsay

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Okay, you can still make him whiney, I just didn't find that he was justified until the second character talked about how she would never have been able to carry it anymore.

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man i love spaces and bosses and lords thereof but i got nothing

 

I GIVE UP ALREADY

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How are the stories going peeps? Think I have another one to play with. 

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ive gone through and made a couple changes but i cant really find any major improvements without just re-writing the whole thing (which i just cannot be arsed to do)

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I am working on something but am checking things like censorship in 1970's Portugal and immigration rules.

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I'm writing up a draft, I'll likely post it here later. My biggest issue with writing is not knowing whether something will come across as completely disingenuous. I have a generally detached relationship with media, and I worry that it's either making me write in a detached way that's offputting to people, or that when I read my own work I end up feeling detached and assume everyone would read it as flat and dull. So I'm trying to ignore that and write a full draft to figure out where to go from there.

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I'm about 8 or 9/11.5 of the way done in terms of lines/words, but i thinking bringing it home is going to prove disproportionately difficult. we'll see. I have no plans to put anything on medium btw. I hope just posting it here is ok.

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Here's my first draft http://pastebin.com/XdNzwYaV

It's been a while since I wrote anything. But this is kinda close to a style I used to write in so it's nice that I can still do it.
It could probably use a bit of work tense, grammar, and placement wise. But I tend to play around with that. 
I could have done something lighter but I aimed away from sci fi and decided to write drunk at night. Which is the breeding ground for this kind of tone from me.
Anyway critique and enjoy, or not :P

 

Fuuuck, what was that about?

 

My criticisms are mainly about how it is written and not the content itself (which I liked):

 

The blurring of tenses in a couple of places is a bit jarring as I was trying to figure out whether this was in the past or happening at that point in time - this might be intentional but if so make that clearer that you are fucking with the reader.

 

The use of 'but' at the beginning of a sentence is something that got beaten out of me from an early age. It can be effective in communicating the maturity/age of the narrator but when you have a bit of a mind fuck going on, it might be better to use "However" instead.

 

The formatting is lovely but as you are flip flopping around it might be easier to read if you make it clear when it is that the character is reading the note and when stuff is just happening to them.

 

Anyway, liked it a lot but would just format and adjust a little tighter. 

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I'm writing up a draft, I'll likely post it here later. My biggest issue with writing is not knowing whether something will come across as completely disingenuous. I have a generally detached relationship with media, and I worry that it's either making me write in a detached way that's offputting to people, or that when I read my own work I end up feeling detached and assume everyone would read it as flat and dull. So I'm trying to ignore that and write a full draft to figure out where to go from there.

 

Fuck it, just do it. I am enjoying reading everything that has come out so far.

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Fuuuck, what was that about?

 

My criticisms are mainly about how it is written and not the content itself (which I liked):

 

The blurring of tenses in a couple of places is a bit jarring as I was trying to figure out whether this was in the past or happening at that point in time - this might be intentional but if so make that clearer that you are fucking with the reader.

 

The use of 'but' at the beginning of a sentence is something that got beaten out of me from an early age. It can be effective in communicating the maturity/age of the narrator but when you have a bit of a mind fuck going on, it might be better to use "However" instead.

 

The formatting is lovely but as you are flip flopping around it might be easier to read if you make it clear when it is that the character is reading the note and when stuff is just happening to them.

 

Anyway, liked it a lot but would just format and adjust a little tighter. 

 

Thanks I'll look into it when I next have the energy :P

W/r/t Butt's it seems like I've flipped in my head where sentence points that have 'But' should be killed and started with the new sentence. 

I think I still have a hangover from when my writing was more influenced by Raymond Carver so I tend to still write in short, simple sentences at times.

I also just like the flow in my head when I start the new lines with that conjunction. Re-reading it after you pointed that out, I think I've overused it so when I do another pass i'll be sure to alter some of them. I'm not sure if I'll use 'however'. I'll probably just rework them.

I've had a pretty rough working relationship with grammar. I grew up learning english in an environment where people were rather fussy about grammar, but after years of forums, William S. Burroughs, Raymond Carver, and a few others I'm just riffing off my own in-house style at this point.

 

Originally the character never went back to the note after the first in quotes line. I could see why and where he could go back to reading it and it might make for a better story and use of the letter. 

 

At the end when the character is being addressed in the first person it's actually still that character talking to themselves. Or rather it's a version of that character apologising to themselves. Kind of like he was feeling remorseful/regretful after that facet of his personality lead him to make choices in his life that had led to that moment and closed off the future they're pining for.

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Thanks for the spoiler note. I will re-read it again now that I am a bit more sober too and make sure I standby what I said.

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I have the first section of my first draft done. I need to really focus, because I got too distracted writing this and it took me a long time. Apologies about the formatting, not sure how to make it look good in a post.

 

The alarm buzzed. It was quaintly retro, the same classic beeping of the very first digital alarms. Alli had picked it out for him. Boss wearily got out of bed. It was early. He was groggy. But he was going to get up.

 

“Good morning,” Alli appeared immediately. Their camera activating on the panel right next to the bed. Alli scanned the Boss up and down “Your tiredness levels-”


He got up shaking his head, “No thank you Alli.”

 

Alli didn’t press. Even if they weren’t programmed to heed instructions, Alli would know him better than that. “What would you like to wear?”

 

He was already pulling on his plain white outfit, and sighed at the question he knew was coming. “It doesn’t matter, we have the schedule to keep with.”

 

“Dressing takes an imperceptible fraction of a second, and boosts your mental state. I’ve sent you the paper proving it.” Alli replied. They rarely got to be smug, but took every opportunity, “Arguing with your assistant takes 52 seconds longer on average.”

 

Boss stopped short at the door to turn back to Alli’s nearest camera lens, “Do you… actually have data on that?” Alli didn’t respond as he looked at their lens waiting, “Fine fine, you can choose something for me to wear.”

 

Alli’s lens whirred, zooming in and out. They’d started doing that to indicate that they were ‘thinking’. Otherwise the static silence was just unnerving. Shortly after, the whirring lens stopped and the Boss had an outfit projected on. He had a checked shirt over a white t-shirt, and grubby ripped jeans. He just laughed as he left the room.

 

“It’s grunge,” Alli said in a flat tone, tracking the Boss down the hall, “You like Nirvana.” Alli paused to scan their information on the Boss’s physical possessions, “You used to like them?”

 

He just shook his head as he entered the food consumption zone, “I liked them. It was a bit of a phase I guess. They’re still pretty good.” He walked over to open the food compartment, discovering this morning’s fabricated breakfast. “Pancakes? You actually figured them out?”

 

“My taste sensors are weak but the results seemed promising.”

 

The Boss sat down, mulling over whether or not to actually ask if taste sensors were real. It was hard to tell what was a joke with Alli’s deadpan demeanor, and harder to tell what was intentional.Tucking into his pancakes was a pleasant experience. As always it had a hollow fabricated texture. But that was just a fact of life these days. Beneath that, the pancakes were quite good, by any standard of pancake.

 

He wanted to compliment Alli, but all that ever did was get registered as data to update his preferences and adjust Alli’s approach to preparing food. Besides, he had permitted enough data collection on himself that Alli probably knew how much he liked the food better than he did. “So Alli, what is this morning’s report?”

 

Alli didn’t respond for a brief period, “Don’t you want to examine the data after breakfast.” The Boss sighed, already regretting being so hasty and Alli gave in, “No viable planets were found sir.”

 

“None,” the Boss exhaled.

 

I also have some pretty significant issues. There's way too much "Alli" and "the Boss" in there. It's stiff, and not just in the cases where it should be stiff about Alli. It's also bland, I'm trying to get his life to feel monotonous, but it needs contrast to draw that out. Something to make it read as exciting so that his montonous slog reads clearer against it, as opposed to just reading like the writing is monotonous. I'll stop rambling now, curious to see what others think. Particularly as I'm always bad about sharing work with others.

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I'm getting the stiffness, but not the blandness. Banter with a vaguely sardonic AI is spice enough to break the monotony, its just the flow is a little off. Also this might just be me, but 'food consumption zone' sounds a little on the nose unless you end up doubling down on that kind of sterile nomenclature for everything else in the story.

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Could have done with being longer.

 

The only thing I didn't like was the jarring use of grunge. I am gathering that this is set in a period when space flight across galaxies, and complex AI exists, so I don't think the grunge style would have survived. Mainly because it isn't particularly distinct (a lot of hipster dress wear and skater clothes could be mistaken for it), I can totally buy that Nirvana would still be knocking around but not the clothes.

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My mindspace finally produced a solid idea for a space boss, so now I just need to put it to paper.

 

Prolly won't tho.

 

When's this shit due??

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4th of July! That's when the next theme will be activated.

 

Also thanks for the feedback folks.  :tup: I haven't answered yet as I'm going to post a new draft when I do, with a lot changed actually. I also plan to give other people feedback too. SoonTM

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Maybe it'd make sense to have a small break in between prompts? For everyone to read and comment on final drafts. A week? maybe even just a few days. Iunno.

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So, I signed up for Medium to comment on another article, so figured I might as well put my 'Space Boss' up there:
https://medium.com/@twmac/space-boss-1f4dcb28ef25#.4nsm72fyo
 
Few spoilers:

 - Space Boss was not actually released until August 1974 but it resulted in changing what the main character's dad did as a profession
 - Finding information on censorship during the Salazar/Caetano period is hard to get clear info on what was banned or not, most of the info says that it wasn't that bad but people I know said that PIDE (the Portuguese secret police) were always on the look out)
- Pie is the english phonetic pronounciation of 'Father' in Portuguese
- I have no idea whether I got this 'right' at all

 

Anyway, that was a lot of fun, I look forward to the next one!

 

I will say that the complaint about threads getting overwhelmed and overwhelming is going to be a valid one if we keep doing more of these and keep as part of the same original post.

 

If we keep this up for 5-6 months, might be worth seeing if we can get our own sub-forum.

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In response to an earlier deadline, that is a thought. What do other people think? twig's right that a gap is nice for downtime, plus people can read and give/absorb final feedback. We are already doing that a bit, but I'm sure some people will only really post and engage with other stories when we've got our final drafts. We could have it that the 1st of each month is submission day, and the 4th is always the new theme. That gives a few days of downtime without eating into your time to write too much.

 

 

Also I'm way late but I still wanna give some feedback.

 

I like yours a lot wooben. The split in perspectives works really well. I thought it'd end up being a more boring retreading of stuff, but the focus on internal monologue is good, and the fact that you don't repeat any info helps. Especially since that actually feels true to the character.

 

Mawd, yours reads as a real stream of consciousness outpouring in really rad way. I never really got a good grip on what exactly was happening or individual sentences meant but they did the job tonally. I'm super curious about the thought process that led to here from Space Boss.


It's funny how bleak we're being with such a lofty title. :P

 

I just read yours too twmac and the down to earth nature of it was a good contrast to what I've been immersed in. I don't know if this was entirely intentional, but through the story there was a lot of tension in my about whether it would go well. I was mostly worried about how Claudio would react, even if he liked the main character. I am also a sucker for a declarative introduction like "It was April 25th 1974 when everything changed.". I could totally picture you writing that down and then not knowing where to go from there.

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To be honest - that sentence only went in there after a friend read it and asked what the dad was talking about at the end. April 25th is such an important part of Portuguese history that I forget that a lot of people are not going to have a clue as to the significance of the date. It is loosely based on a story my History Teacher told me, she was in her twenties at the time and decided she didn't want to teach class on that day, instead she went and had a picnic on a hill and read a book. When she came back the whole of Portugal had changed.

 

By putting the date in there it allows for people to look it up if they so wish.

 

Also, was worried about the two big 'twists' at the end. It seems like you already understood the internal tension of the main character but some people totally missed the bit where the father talks to the protagonist and calls them by name for the first time.

 

Also, I got drunk and tweeted about the story and wrote 'requited', instead of 'unrequited' then read it the next day and high fived my formerly drunk self. Unrequited has been done to death.

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Well that tone in my piece came because I wanted to try and write this story in a non-scifi way. 

My first actual idea would have been a video game-ass video game company going "What do we call our game?" "Space Boss the Lord of Space FUCK YEAH!" and then just kinda going on from there.

Instead what I actually did was find the quiet part of a boozey night and sat down to write something melancholic. Which is what my stream of consciousness inner voice absolutely used to be when I wrote a lot more things like this about 5+ years ago only while depressed and detached, but I didn't do that this time because I left that headspace behind about 3 years ago.

I just started with the tone and a mental image of where I was writing and how it'd feel to be there. I also forced myself to describe my surroundings because I often fall into the trap of making qualitative statements in these pieces without connecting them to a place which makes them even more floaty than they are already.

For the surroundings I just wrote what I knew; between a boarding school, philosophy weekends, and a university hall I'm just really familiar with kinda institutionalised, very samey cookie cutter bunk rooms. Usually in some maintained but run down place that used to be run by nuns, or priests at some point.

They were all last refurbished in 1994 at a time when fit-for-purpose institutional, interior decorating in NZ reflected the 1970's anywhere else.

 

Anyway looking back on the writing I'm actually still doing sci-fi; It's just more Children of Men than Culture.

 

For my next things I've actually given myself a few challenges. One: to make something that's actually bright and bubbly. Two: to turn something that doesn't sound like sci-fi into sci-fi. Three: to be done with sci-fi for a little while.

I also need more practice at writing two distinct characters that talk with each other since overwhelmingly I write first person stream of consciousness that mostly just refers to events and other people in the past tense. : P

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As promised I finally have a new draft after some feedback. To be clear this isn't a full piece like the last one it's still without an ending (though I think I know what I'm writing towards now). I mostly wanted to change the tone cause I think I muddled different ideas last time and didn't consistently stick with anything. I'm hoping there's a more consistent tone here, even though I'm still trying to clash two different things, but I'll stop yammering now and post it.

 

A wild blast of a grandiose trumpet fanfare began, but was immediately cut short as the boss hit snooze to silence it. He sat up wearily, wondering yet again whether it was worth fighting Alli to try change his alarm from the official state fanfare to something more light. He didn’t have much time to ponder, as his bed rotated up and slid back into the wall, politely pushing him into a standing up position. Suddenly this this morning’s chart of sleep biometrics popped up in a floating window in front of him. Unconcerned with the trend of his average sleep cycles, the Boss dismissed it immediately, “I never should’ve signed up for that damn thing. Alli?”

 

“Good morning,” Alli appeared immediately when called. Their camera activating on the panel right next to the bed. Alli scanned the Boss up and down, “How are you my Lord?”
 

He sighed, he’d never been able to get Alli to call him anything more casual than that. “Can you cancel my subscription to that sleep tracking thing, I never look at it,” he turned to open the wardrobe, to see what today’s outfit was.

 

“I’m afraid I can’t read your emails my Lord,” Alli paused for a moment, “But that data does seem valuable, you have been sleeping less.”

 

“Never mind, never mind,” he said dismissively as he took out his royal garb from the otherwise empty closet, “Do you have my morning report ready?”

 

“This early? Shouldn’t you-”

 

“Yes, this early,” he replied sternly, pulling on his plush robes. He finished dressing by taking the Neural Crown from its plinth and placing it on his head. He could see the gems light up in the mirror as they turned on. Despite Alli’s best efforts, they’d been unable to explain to him what the Neural Crown was, just that it was very important. “Spit it out Alli, I can already tell it’s bad news.”

 

“No new planets have appeared that could be studied. Our projections expect that we’ll come across a new galaxy to investigate in 6-8 weeks.”


The Boss stood with arms folded, waiting for the real news. His poor posture and weary eyes gave away how obtusely he slotted into his role. But with no other people around, he found it hard to be concerned about appearances and lordliness.

 

“All planets under surveillance have been confirmed as nonviable. There’s nothing for us in this section of the galaxy.”

 

The boss silently went out the door. It was one thing to anticipate the news, but a whole other thing to actually confront it. He walked down the long grand halls of of the Alabaster Palace. It was an impressive sight, to anybody else. He internally grumbled as he continued along the long stretch of hallway he had to navigate. Realistically, he could easily get around much faster with the pneumatic elevator, but why bother? He was never in a rush to go anywhere.

 

“My Lord,” Alli’s voice projected out of the loudspeakers in the hall. It was all set up to be impressive, and even oppressive. Alli was his right hand, declaring proclamations and communicating his will to the people. Instead, they were a nuisance. A reminder that the boss was unfortunately not quite alone.

 

Also I've taken on board twig's suggestion, so submit by the 1st of the month. This leaves a few days gap of break before the new theme is revealed on the fourth. Hope that doesn't pressure anybody too much, looking forward to reading them all soon. :)

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*basks in the glory and power bestowed upon him*

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Perfect - shame we can't do an idle thumbs book club episode where they have read each of the pieces and then comment on them.

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