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Post by grainnerhuad on Dec 8, 2009 17:23:01 GMT -5
Okay, after much solicitation nobody took up the prompt for Flash Fiction, from experience I know this is just timing. However, should you wish to stretch your fictional muscles I have posted a prompt. fantasticfiction.multiply.com/notes/item/64. After the conversation on music here I do have to admit, I took it from the first line of Ani Difranco's "Pink Castles" so RESPECT!!! to Ani! Anyway, Karla, you are up next and you have two weeks or it shall be your choice, flogger or paddle.
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Post by karlsie on Dec 8, 2009 20:27:07 GMT -5
Hee hee. I've been slacking on those fictional challenges, although this flash should make it easier. So many of my characters do like to hang around in coffee shops. I've been trying to coax another story out of Etta Mae, who i suspect has remained content for entirely too long with her new gold smelling puppy. Contentment is for herd animals! I need to pry her off her duff.
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Post by grainnerhuad on Dec 9, 2009 20:04:02 GMT -5
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Post by karlsie on Dec 11, 2009 21:55:14 GMT -5
I finally got to read your flash fiction story. I think you should take that character and weave it into our sci fi story. It was really meant to serve as a background for internal stories, with the main plot timeline giving all the characters a common denominator.
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Post by grainnerhuad on Dec 12, 2009 1:58:45 GMT -5
Hmmm, interesting thought. Tell me were you see this character in the story. I had originnally thought to weave it to the Hobbyist, but the charcter got surley and went in another direction.
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Post by karlsie on Dec 12, 2009 22:35:14 GMT -5
I think i've been unfair. Even though i know exactly where my characters are going to go in the sci-fi, and wish to keep the ending a surprise, i haven't really explained how others could write in their internal stories. Your flash actually sounds futuristic; which doesn't surprise me because i happen to know that at least three of our writers lean toward sci-fi. This is bound to exert an influence.
The thing is, if this particular sci-fi project relied only on its council meetings to provide the plot, the story would be too boring. The council members must have internal lives. They engage in intrigue, subterfuge, deception. Because of the nature of your character's presentation, i would say she is involved in intrigue; although possibly not to her knowledge. The outer story is about the power struggle of nations. The inner story is about the people captured within the struggle. There is a reason your character is being propelled forward.
Project your character fifty years into the future. The initial background has already been provided; the water starved mega-cities, the vast barrens, the independent economy. Only a very small part of the technology has been provided. Your story hints at a possible, very sophisticated type of mind control; an experiment perhaps? By whose orders? Certainly the global democratic union wouldn't approve it as a whole, but what about under cover agents?
I've actually been thinking about mind control ever since i decided to advance the use of medical nano-technology. I have one very sneaky character who i refuse to reveal on a public board, but if you'd like to work this character into the overall story, i think it could be done.
I'd like to add that anyone who sees this background as useful for creating their own internal stories, to please go ahead and advance your ideas. If we receive a large volume of sci fi around the same central time era, with the same background history, we can split it into segments like an Asimov anthology, only this would be our own chronicles.
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Post by grainnerhuad on Dec 13, 2009 13:09:53 GMT -5
Karla,I am mulling this over and will talk with you more. Really this was just a "write anything" exercise for me. But I coil see this character(whose sex I had not yet decided on) fitting in sci-fi. My initial thought was another species maybe evolved from us or something paranormal but then I realized that is probably due to the fact that I just finished reading Storm Constantine's Wraeththu. So I left off developing that until later when my mind is not full of spiritually advanced telekenetic hermaphrodites.
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Post by karlsie on Dec 13, 2009 16:49:08 GMT -5
Grainne, i actually started writing around the prompt, but i was then faced with a duo dilemma. One, i no longer wish to publish any of my short stories at a public blog as it then becomes more vulnerable to plagiarism. At one point, this didn't bother me, as my goal was to exercise my craft. However, now it does. I don't like people who are without scruples and don't like to aid and abet them by giving them the right to steal other people's work.
If i could confine myself to a simple flash story, i would shrug it off. But this is the second part of my dilemma. I've reached a developmental stage where any time i can think of an opening statement, i prefer to prefer to construct a full fleshed story. I began my flash, thinking i would just toss something out, but the subject immediately obtained too much complexity to confine it to "splice of life".
The story you constructed has the similar appearances of needing pre-requisites. It looks like a scene lifted out of a far more complex story. It captures the reader and makes him/ her want to know the longer story. My flash was supposed to end promptly, but i realized the ending i had chosen was a cheat mode. I'm now stuck with a character who must develop her personal dilemma into an understanding of her point of view, and the necessity of finding an ending that would emphasize the message of her statement.
In all honesty, i think that this is probably one of the developmental stages of receiving a flash prompt. Although initially, the goal is to stimulate the writer into devising a short story quickly; which also helps in learning how to trim away the fat by concentrating on delivering a short, yet complete story, the next stage in exercising fiction abilities is in writing the longer story.
The flash prompts are a good idea. Along with inspiration, prospective writers also need stimulation, especially while they are still in the ground school of kindling the imagination. Although i probably won't be delivering any flash fiction at my blog spot, the prompts still stimulate and help me concentrate on the aspects of fiction writing. Just give me the heads up for the day i am to deliver a prompt and i will have one ready.
Since this is your story, you have the right to carry it in any direction you wish. However, since my favorite fiction genre is sci-fi, i'm holding the temptation of nano-technology out like a carrot. As i said earlier, i think a sub-plot in nano has enormous potential. The first chapters on the board represent only a rough draft. The dialog is tightly squeezed together, and will probably be spread out in the final revisions. The dialog is essential however. None of it will be omitted. It sets the background, the history, the demographic locations and the politics for the overall story. My own ending, for the overall demise of the demographic council has its own direction, apart and separate from the internal stories. The internal stories are open-ended; they are situational; at the mercy of cause and effect. Your situation; as i see it; is mind control. The cause could easily be built into nano-technology. The motivation could be made clear through the experiences of your character. The sales pitch is on!
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