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Box Discussion

post #1 of 14
6/22/05 at 7:38am
Thread Starter 
By Andrew Clarke

http://chud.com/stories/3452
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post #2 of 14
6/22/05 at 12:22pm
That's quite a box. Combination mini-guillotine and GPS transmitter. It seemed like an awful lot of effort/expense just to punish a poor slob. I liked the protagonist; probably his enthusiasm for survival and good-natured approach to having his hand chopped off.

The flashback was abrupt; my immediate thought was, "Oh darn. It has been almost 24 hours since the doctor told him he had one hour. Poor guy. Oh well. What happens next?" I caught what happened, eventually, but it seemed like unnecessary obfuscation of the plot progression.
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post #3 of 14
6/22/05 at 1:08pm
You know, you might be right. Using the clock on the phone is a good visual way of showing the flashback, and the flashback is a good way of getting the set up in place after I've already jumped the reader right into the action of the feller having to chop his own hand off, but then stories aren't a visual medium. Films are a visual medium, and this story isn't meant to be a script - maybe i was writing it in too 'filmy' a way.

Plus disjointed time lines are cool, and an established trope of pulp crime type stories. I'll admit I never noticed the possibility of it not being clear. Ah well, it's cool that you liked the main character.

And hey, someone in the leak letters said they liked the chudstories and chewer column sections! Wooo!
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post #4 of 14
6/22/05 at 2:54pm
Good job Mr. Gusset. I was also thrown by the time thing, but I picked it up after that. I think what you said about it seeming more for the screen is right, because as a film moment that works better.
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post #5 of 14
6/22/05 at 2:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Clarke
Plus disjointed time lines are cool, and an established trope of pulp crime type stories.
No argument here. I even like being unbalanced in stories, as long as I'm smart enough to figure out how to piece the plot back together. (Not always the case.)

Some of my favorite crime novels are Raymond Chandler's, especially "Farewell, My Lovely". The manipulation of the timeline in his stories, and those of his contemporaries, seems more linear -- gaps in time exist, but always in a forward progression. The flashback wasn't so popular. This made for stories that were easy to get into, and still had enough time-muckery to keep the reader unbalanced, in the dark.

Just idle comments...
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post #6 of 14
6/30/05 at 9:35am
OK, there doesn't seem to be a CHUDSTORY this week, so if anyone else wants to argue the toss over mine, fire away.

It's difficult to know why more chewers don't comment, but if it's a worry that the writers will get all defensive about any criticisms and try and discredit or burn you - go for it, and don't worry about not being 'smart' (whatever that means) enough to comment on literary stuff. I know some have said to me they feel they don't have anything clever to add to these types of threads. I won't bite your head off.

Of course, my worry is that no-one is reading the stories at all, or that mine is neither good nor bad enough to warrant comment. I'd hate to be stuck in mediocrity.
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post #7 of 14
6/30/05 at 8:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Clarke
I'd hate to be stuck in mediocrity.
I don't think that it's a matter of the quality of your story. The number of responses here is just about the same as that to any of the recent stories. So, if anything, it's a matter of the quality of all of our stories (my own included).

Still, I don't think that's the prime reason we get the size of discussions that we do, here. I work as a slush editor on a speculative fiction site (bewilderingstories.com) that publishes weekly -- we get a lot of content, and we publish a lot of content, to a sizeable number of regulars, and our message board has less activity than does chudstories.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Clarke
Of course, my worry is that no-one is reading the stories at all...
I wonder about the number of views the chudstories get, too. I think it's a great part of the site, and I love it when new stories come up.

I suspect what happens a lot of the time is that readers will read the story, enjoy it, and not comment on it, and I can't blame them for that.
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post #8 of 14
6/30/05 at 8:58pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by iandonnell
I suspect what happens a lot of the time is that readers will read the story, enjoy it, and not comment on it, and I can't blame them for that.
That describes most of the sections of CHUD, unfortunately.

As for stories, Kirby and I have to work on the coming month's entries. Nick has an idea that we may or may not run during the summer... still working it out. People reading this, if you've got any other stuff, please send it in. Submissions have been a bit slow over the last month.
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post #9 of 14
7/1/05 at 12:35pm
The only quibble I had with 'The Box' was the time shift not being signified, but it's not that jarring and it's been covered. /shrug

In any case, I'm reading and I dig it.
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post #10 of 14
7/1/05 at 12:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chest Rockwell
People reading this, if you've got any other stuff, please send it in. Submissions have been a bit slow over the last month.
All my stories are out and about at magazines right now, but I'll send along something new in the next couple of weeks. Probably something scifi-ish.
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post #11 of 14
7/1/05 at 1:51pm
I'm just glad people are reading them. When they're good, Chudstories is a pretty cool little addition to the site and, at a guess, most of the writers are dirty attention whores.

Most of my old stories are way too long (5000 - 15000 words) as i hadn't quite learnt the joy of brevity. I'm sure there's something of a sensible length I'd be happy to have people read.

I should probably get another chewer column out too, Chest, as i'd like to keep that going as well.
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post #12 of 14
7/1/05 at 6:31pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks, Ian.

And Trin, maybe you could divide up your lengthier stories into sections or parts like Sean Fahey's The Restless series. If it's conducive to that of course.

There will be a Chewer Column up on Monday. If you've got something brewin', please have at.
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post #13 of 14
7/5/05 at 2:44pm
Andrew-Just read your story. I have no idea why it took me so long to do so.

I liked it, although I do think that the box device could have been explained a little bit more. And sometimes it seemed a little disjointed, but that was mostly in the beginning where it was short pieces of dialogue, one after another. The dialogue was real good. Not your normal back and forth, making sense, kind of dialogue. More like, jarring, erratic dialogue. In the situation here, it worked nicely. If my hand was off, I don't think I'd be speaking very clearly either.

Anyway, good job.
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post #14 of 14
7/19/05 at 7:45am
The box was just a means of fucking with the little guy. It was a deliberate choice to only include as much exposition as was absolutely necessary. After all, we are dealing with characters and situations we've all seen and read dozens of times before, so why bother going over it again?

The box contains a prize the thieves want and that's about it. Mcguffins are fun as long as you are open about the fact that you are using them, which is to say if the point of the story is the box then you should explain it properly, but if the point of the story is how characters get into extreme situations and how they deal with them, then why bother explaining it?

The point of my story was to fuck with the little guy. Fucking the little guy is fun. Ask Kenneth Baker.

Maybe a story topic should be set up of 'fucking with the big guy'.
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