Discussion thread -- November 2014 75 word writing challenge

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Congratulations, Phyrebrat!

Thank you, Ursa, for the honourable mention.

Springs, I obviously didn't think there was anything lacking in your story; I liked it enough to shortlist it.

The inspiration for mine was based on the way I feel whenever I read a story where the girl of humble origins, after being threatened and confined by a man of high rank (think Pamela, as well as fairy tales like "Rumplestiltskin"), is "rewarded" by becoming his wife. How annoying. As if marrying the guy would lead to a happily-ever-after life. I don't think so! So the last line came to me first, originating in the idea that she wouldn't want to marry the king who had threatened three times to behead her and would prefer instead the magical dwarf who had saved her each time. So what if he's not a handsome king? At least he doesn't have homicidal tendencies. (And he must be rich if he can spin straw into gold.)

Much later it occurred to me that marrying Rumplestiltskin would also get around the problem of surrendering her first born child. If it's their first born child, of course she can "give" it to him and keep it at the same time!
 
Teresa Edgerton: Thanks for the long listing, I was beginning to feel left out. ;)

Phyrebrat: Congratulations on a well deserved win. Great Story!!

Springs: I caught what you were trying to do with your story and short listed it. I think you did very well indeed.


I hadn't read the stories before I posted mine. I hadn't realized I'd be comparing myself to T.E. But ours weren't the only stories which took on the same fairy tale.

The inspiration for my story started when I asked myself what would cause someone to come up with a story like Rumplestiltskin? I guessed that it would be a way to explain away the success of a woman in a man's world. And what the affronted woman would do in such a situation. The last line was just a bit serendipity. I saw her angry and wanting to get her "pound of flesh." And almost without my thinking it I had reworked his name into a serious threat.
 
Firstly, many thanks for the mentions, Bowler and Ashleyne. Congrats to Phyrebrat and commiserations to Her Honor.
Anyhoo, since Parson raised the issue, the wolf used a ray gun. Too subtle??
 
Yay, it wasn't too confusing! I was delighted with the response - it was the first 75er of mine that hasn't bombed in ages!) And ty for the mention, TE. I got yours and Parson's (and liked them both) but didn't get the Raygun in Telford's.
 
CONGRATULATIONS, PHYREBRAT! It was a really funny story, and a terrific updating of the tale! This has been one my favorite challenges, so thank you for the wonderful genre choice, Hex! :)

As for the inspiration behind my story? Well, first, I know it must have seemed a bit insane. :) But that was intentional...I decided to come at this challenge from a different direction; instead of taking an old fairy tale and giving it a modern twist, I created a modern fairy tale using (hopefully) older-sounding language. But beyond that, the 'fractured' aspect of the entry was that it actually wasn't a fairy tale at all, it was a mini-biography of Freddie Mercury of Queen. I packed the story full of Freddie-facts, including:

--He was born in Zanzibar, and later came to England (Albion).
--"Hermes' ancient twin", from the Roman pantheon of Gods, was Mercury.
--All Queen bandmates were named, May, Deacon and Taylor (tailor).
--The band name Queen was used three times.
--The story contained seven full, or partial song titles.
--A partial title of their, arguably, best album was used.
--Freddie was a singer (golden thrush).
--And there's an allusion to the causes of his death.

So, that's kind of cool, isn't it? I didn't have great aspirations for success in the challenge, but I hoped people would kind of enjoy the trickery of the piece. I was lucky enough to receive two votes, and that was amazing. So, on to the next challenges! :)
 
Congratulations, Phyre!

And commiserations to the wolf er TJ.

Sorry, springs, I didn't get yours. Or, I didn't see beyond the super-obvious. If I had seen, I'd have liked it very much.
 
Congratulations, Phyrebrat! I foretold this -- now you owe me a drink!

Thanks for the mentions runners-up-ships, Teresa and Ursa. I don't think I've ever, in the 3+ years of doing the Challenges, had so many mentions etc! (Pity I couldn't convert a few of those into votes... ;))


I share your distaste for those give-her-to-the-prince stories, Teresa, and I'm glad to see the story reworked to give a proper ending! Parson, I preferred your contemporary take on it to the original, too! springs, I've seen that poem but didn't make the connection and I'm afraid didn't understand the story at all -- the green hood made me think flowers, and I couldn't get away from that. CC, I got that part of it was about Queen, but didn't know enough about them/Mercury to be able to get all the clues. Very clever.

I'm not sure where my story came from. As ever I hadn't had any ideas, as everything I came up with was a bit too obvious. Then we drove down to the local garden centre and it suddenly came to me as a whole; I composed it in my head, got back and wrote it down and it came to 115 words, so I had to spend a while pruning it back. I had a terrible job thinking of the title, and in the end, that's what I was proudest of! (If it remains a mystery to anyone, there is a publication called The Huffington Post.)
 
Tres cool, CC. I didn't pick it up. :eek:

Tis okay, TJ. I asked a pretty astute reader after they voted what they thought of mine and was told they didn't get what the colours were about and went uh-oh. (Memo to December: clarity and word count... My head hurts....)
 
Congrats, Phyrebrat!

And thanks for all the mentions and short-listings, people :)
 
Thanks Ursa, Teresa, TJ, TDZ, Ashleyne, Remedy and Bowler1 for the shortlistings.

Well done to Phyrebat!
 
Congratulations Phyrebrat

This being my first submission, I made a few false starts while trying to do a scifi take on snow white. That ended up in the bin and I'm glad as Jastius's Little boy blues would have shown it up.

I decided to take a completely different approach, a modern take on my favourite folk tale, The 12 months where Maroukla is sent out by her horrible stepmother, in the middle of winter and told not to come back without strawberries. Just before she is about to freeze to death she stumbles into a circle of 11 men with the 12th sitting next to the fire. They take pity on her and January lets August take the centre seat. Strawberries appear and Marokla is saved.

Not liking the stereotypical evil stepmother, I combined the start with the end of Jack the Giant killer. The fracturing of this tale being the realisation by the last line that this Giantkiller wasn't actually very nice. Perhaps I was overthinking it but I wanted it to start out like a fairytale and end up in an extreme area of the modern world such as the wolf of wall street.

Now for the weird part...The greed of the big banks and the crash of Lehmans seemed to be an easy fit my need for an evil perpertrator. At this time there were a lot of newspaper articles about the overwork and suicide of bank interns. and the Maroukla character fitted this perfectly. I combined this with the so-called Vulture Funds that were being blamed for the Argentinian debt default crisis at the time. Inspiration from the business pages, who would have thought?

Big Thanks to Cat's Cradle for the vote. I must admit I did not get all the clues hidden in your story but found it just as compelling in any case.
 
Congratulations to Phyrebrat, and special notice also to The Judge and Robert Mackay for very close second and third places.

Thanks to all for sharing your inspirations.

Not much to say for my trivial joke. My only intent was to render the fairy tale utterly mundane. I may have been inspired a bit by Stan Freberg's recorded sketch "Little Blue Riding Hood" (flip side to the more famous "St. George and the Dragonet") which mixed the fairy tale with "Dragnet".

Little Blue: But gramma, what big ears you have!
Joe: All the better to get the facts. I just wanna' get the facts, ma'am.
Little Blue: But gramma, what a big subpoena you have in your pocket!
Joe: All the better to serve you with.
Little Blue: But gramma, what a big .38 police special you have pointed at
me!
Joe: All the better to take you in. You're under arrest. You and your
grandma are operating a goodies ring.
Click to expand...
 
Congratulations to Phyrebrat for a well deserved win.

There's not much to say about mine, I think it is fairly obvious where it came from. The only thing I tried to do was to throw in an acrostic (always fun), which might explain why I had to reverse the names of Hansel and Gretel in the first line - it would not have worked otherwise.

There are a few more people who I should thank for the mentions, but I'd have to go back through the threads to do it individually so errrr, thanks for the mentions/shortlistings all of you that did so ;)
 
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