Wulf Moon's SUPER SECRETS Workshop & Challenge!

Hey AjZach, nice editing. I really like the bit about the lightning pointing to the spot in her dreams. Your prose is solid, no issues there (except for "touch" should be "touched" I think). I wonder, if you could give Julia a stronger internal conflict and arc, if the story might be more potent. Something about why she feels an affinity for the burned wood, and why she's dreaming about the gold. I'm sure the answer is in your head somewhere. Childhood teasing is a good start, but we don't *really* see her freed from their teasing. Kids can be awful, we know. Maybe even just a line at the end from Timmy or Jim that shows she's part of the club now. It would be your own approach, of course, but I felt like there was a depth here that could have been deeper.

When I used to critique weekly for critters, I used a critique template that covered every possible aspect of a story (seriously it was like 3 pages long without notes inserted). One of the most common pieces of feedback I would have would be exactly what I'm saying to you - great adventure, fun setting, but what's the impact on our character? Why does this adventure Matter? I know, with Wulf's word count and all that's really hard, and other people might have a completely different take. But that's what I came away thinking. Thanks for sharing! Good luck with this!

AjZach,

I have two others to comment on before yours, but I'm mixing things up today. First, you cut your words in half, and improved this story by at least five times. Proof that less is more. Remember this and use it on your larger works as well. Well done on getting this point on my Economy of Words excercise!

That's the good news. Now for the bad. You didn't apply my suggestions for raising the stakes. You barely tweaked it up, even though I told you the tension would only meet a young child's interest at best. It's okay if you only want this to be a story about not being respected by peers, and then worked your heroine's courage up to do something courageous that earns her the respect of her peers. But the pain of her torment needs to be so much higher, and her need to earn their respect so much greater for this story to work even on that theme.

Margaret Attwood, author of The Handmaiden's Tale, said the number one rule in writing is HOLD MY ATTENTION. How do we do that? We give our protagonists BIG problems, both external and internal. The writing itself is clean and competent now. But the story has very little tension, because there is no true opposing force. That is a Fail. We have no real villian. Some kids tease her, but that's true in everyday life. We have a puzzle, but it's not fighting her. You have the ultimate source of tension--powerful magic and a witch destroyed by someone more powerful than her--but you don't turn that power on your heroine. There is no true pressure on her, no great opposing force, and no reason for readers to sit on the edge of their seats and keep reading, wondering what in the world will happen to their dear heroine. They could be fearful the wizardly looking being is going to show up and strike her with lightning for persuing the treasure or even the witch's power; or if she herself is becoming a witch and the power troubles her; or even if the gold is tainted by the witch and it's calling to her because the witch cast her soul into that gold and she wants out from under that tree to inhabit the girl (now that would be an intense story!). There's any number of ways to raise the stakes here, but we have the same story of a girl wanting something that might raise her street cred one notch (although she doesn't really seem to care even about that) with the other kids. She doesn't have incredible longing for a thing desired. And nothing really stands up to fight her for the thing desired. It's all passive. And the solution, to just dream in the ferns and the answer shall appear, is all too easy.

In conclusion, you got the main point of the ongoing lesson--less is more. But you have to give your readers a real adventure as you do that. Otherwise, they'll move on to someone else's story, one that has suspense. In this contest, and in professional writing, tepid will not win the gold.

I suggest you go back, really rewrite this, and RAISE. THE. STAKES. It will be good for you to focus on this. It is a requirement in professional storytelling.

Thank you for being bold and sharing in the exercise, AjZach!

For the rest, Friday is almost upon us! There should be more 500s here. : ) And each of us should offer comments on the works presented. Oh, and Becky? Well done. Your words showed excellent understanding of what AjZach's story did right, and what it needed to improve in. Good critique.

All the beast!

Beastmaster Moon

They had invented a new game.

That right there is where you put in the bad thing the children are doing, the thing that might keep some people up night. That sentence sent a chill up my spine, and had it been followed by something homicidal, I would've been thinking about it for a long time.

They had invented a new game. Skin the witch, a homeless guy being the witch.

They had invented a new game.

That right there is where you put in the bad thing the children are doing, the thing that might keep some people up night. That sentence sent a chill up my spine, and had it been followed by something homicidal, I would've been thinking about it for a long time.

They had invented a new game. Skin the witch, a homeless guy being the witch.

Corbin, you are harsh. I am disturbed just by your suggestion. I mean, you are right, that sort of thing hits a reader hard giving serious emotional impact. But YIKES!

They had invented a new game.

That right there is where you put in the bad thing the children are doing, the thing that might keep some people up night. That sentence sent a chill up my spine, and had it been followed by something homicidal, I would've been thinking about it for a long time.

They had invented a new game. Skin the witch, a homeless guy being the witch.

Corbin, you are harsh. I am disturbed just by your suggestion. I mean, you are right, that sort of thing hits a reader hard giving serious emotional impact. But YIKES!

Maybe I’ve read too much Stephen King.

Maybe I’ve read too much Stephen King.

Or just the right amount!

Maybe I’ve read too much Stephen King.

Or just the right amount!

In my opinion, the first book the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger, was the closest he came to perfection. Maybe because he was only 19 when he wrote it and had as yet to injure his craft with drugs and alcohol. When you read those first dozen or so pages, you'd think Faulkner and McCarthy had some sort of writer-love baby. The first sentence alone is the probably the best ever written.

I'm reading 11.22.63 right now and am loving it. I love his characterizations and the way he grows setting without breaking the tension. He really is a master. The only other thing of his I've read is The Regulators and I did not like it. I think I'm learning almost as much from King's novel as I am from Wulf's challenge! I'm also reading Memoirs of a Geisha, and that one has beautiful prose and a quiet kind of storytelling I am fascinated by.

Looking forward to the other 500 word stories! It was such a challenge getting mine down, but I'm editing my novel right now and can see how the exercise has informed my thinking about what can be cut.

Oh what the heck. I did it and here it is. I figure it's not really the same story at 500. I'll post the title separately.

Dr. Mann Chiu Lee felt it before he understood. The warp bubble had ceased its warbling hum. He moved to the nearest port. The stars should be blurry streaks. Instead, they twinkled back.

The nearest comms station barked to life. “Lee! What the hell happened?”

“Allison . . . We’ve dropped out. Where are you?”

“I’m at the Nomura tank. You better come down here.”

When he arrived, he saw Allison, the only other crew member, keying commands into a panel. A screen inside the tank responded by flashing shapes and colors. The animal wasn’t listening. Black swaths of color swirled about its body.

“What is that? Anger? Confusion?” Lee asked.

“Both I would guess.”

Lee recognized one of the patterns. Herd, the Nomura’s own family group or, in this particular Nomura’s case, a pod of fellow training animals. When his people first colonized New Ceres, they were astounded when they discovered the Nomura created their own hydrogen and used it to rise into the upper atmosphere. However, that was nothing compared to their shock upon learning the Nomura then manipulated spacetime to travel to breeding grounds on the second planet in the system. It took many years of research and development to harness the Nomuras’ abilities.

Lee touched her on the shoulder. “Perhaps let’s give it some time?”

“You know as well as I do we’re dead meat if we don’t get this Nomura working again. Why the hell would it stop!”

* * *

“Lee, it’s been three weeks. We’ve gotten nowhere with it. We must try something else.”

“You mean punishment. It’s never worked with them.”

“Lee, I am not going to die here. I am not!”

* * *

He wasn’t hungry anymore. The food had been gone for what? Months? The Nomura, in stasis, was a grey tight ball.
Allison died. It hadn’t been pretty. He felt a guilty relief when she went silent. Lee wasn’t going to go like that. A deliberate engine feedback would do it. Lee floated over to the command station on the bridge and pulled himself into the chair. Navs were still set for their destination: the Cashus system. Well, he decided, that wasn’t right and he changed the destination to home. New Ceres. A symbolic act without the Nomura.

Lee froze. He put his hand flat on the surface of the console. Lee pushed over to a port and saw it. The stars were streaks again. Tears welled and flowed down.

Did the Nomura know he programmed a return home? They didn’t have anywhere near that level of perception or intelligence. Did they? We were so wrong about you, Lee thought.

* * *

“Gods, that’s the Odyssey!” the controller yelled. “Odyssey, we’re dispatching rescue. Please respond.”

Lee was too weak to answer. He floated in the tank room as he gazed outside. Dusk had almost given way to night and the distant stars brightened and twinkled around his home.

THE END

So the title I have so far is "Shall we Sleep in the Cold, Dark Deep"

Chuck, I like it! I like the determination and the dread, and the twist. Humans can be so myopic. I got "it" just before I read the reveal, which is perfect pacing. Surprising but inevitable.

I still wonder if that block of exposition couldn't be smoothed out somehow.

"When his people first colonized New Ceres, they were astounded when they discovered the Nomura created their own hydrogen and used it to rise into the upper atmosphere. However, that was nothing compared to their shock upon learning the Nomura then manipulated spacetime to travel to breeding grounds on the second planet in the system. It took many years of research and development to harness the Nomuras’ abilities."

I am not sure the first sentence is needed information, for the 500 word version at any rate. The second sentence's info would be easy to meld into another part of the story. Eg. "Lee had been part of the original team studying how the Nomura manipulated spacetime to travel to their breeding grounds on another planet, but even now decades later he scarcely understood the simple creatures." Or some such, but in a way that relates it to the character and the story.

But I'm really nitpicking because that's what we're doing here. I really enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing. Best of luck with this!

Good suggestion Becky. I like it. Thanks.

So the title I have so far is "Shall we Sleep in the Cold, Dark Deep"

Good title, Chuck. It's a curious question, and makes this reader want to find out more. I do think it should have a question mark at the end. Otherwise, it looks like an error, and you don't want a judge, editor, or reader wondering before they even begin to read your story, "Did the author forget the question mark, or is it supposed to be that way?"

Titles are important. One of my weekly winners in that year long ultra flash contest? I titled it, "La Sirena." It means "The Mermaid" of course, a little boring, but it was about a Spanish captain, so the title at least alluded to the Spanish nature of the story. When I expanded the story (after doing Phase 3 of this exercise which you will find out about tonight) it became a novelette with the title, "Through The Cold and Glistening Blue." I got the idea for the title from a bit of prose from one of Zelazny's works that I liked and twisted. That story earned me a semifinalist in WotF, and Dave's critique which said it was likely better in worldbuilding than all the other Finalists put together, had beautiful prose, but that was also the problem--I needed to "kill my darlings." Ooops, I expanded up from the original micro flash WAAAAY too much! I took his critique seriously and cut HALF the words out of my story (16K to 8K), just like you're doing in this exercise, but I had to do it with a vastly larger work. WHEW! I WAS MERCILESS! Just like you guys have to be here to go from a thousand words to 500. Oh, I changed the story's title because, while evocative, any ocean going ship story could be described in such a way. So I narrowed in on the internal conflict of my protagonist within the story and retitled it, "Weep No More for the Willow." Would you like to see how it turned out after applying this Economy of Words exercise to it? Read it in the upcoming Fall issue of DEEP MAGIC magazine.

It KILLED to cut my story in half and toss the bleeding chunks to the gulls (I believe Becky felt the same--she said she had to cut some beautiful prose from her piece in here). There was prose within mine that made me sigh with delight. The vision on the page was identical to the vision within my mind! But Dave told me it wasn't going to sell like that. I had to kill my darlings.

Kill your darlings. Heh, I shall retitle this exercise! KILL YOUR DARLINGS: The Economy of Words Exercise. What it teaches is very important. Properly applied, it can take you from a continual stream of nice personal rejection letters from pro editors, into suddenly receiving multiple pro contracts.

More to come! Phase 3 is about to begin. But first, I owe you some critiques on Phase 2: The 500s.

Cheers!

Beastmaster Moon

Anyone want to venture a guess as to what Phase 3 of the exercise will be? Muahahahahahaaa!

If it's another 50% cut I'm gonna cry. I will give it my best shot, but I'll cry the whole time. Ugly cry. If that's what you want to do to me, Wulf, well, that's on you. 😉

I thought you already gave it away. Double the length. To 2000?

And I look forward to reading your story in the Fall.

If it's another 50% cut I'm gonna cry. I will give it my best shot, but I'll cry the whole time. Ugly cry. If that's what you want to do to me, Wulf, well, that's on you. 😉

Ugly cry it is! But you'll get a lollipop at the end, 'kay?

I'll explain it and the reasoning behind it in a bit. Good news! After Phase 3, we turn them into haikus! Or Kaijus, your choice!

But for now, it's time to critique! Let's see what cutting your Flash by 50% has done for your stories....

Oh, my mistake. I thought we had the option of sending it to you for a private viewing.
Regardless of how it works out I wrote a story that stayed within your guidelines (except for posting on a public forum) which I choose not to do.

I thank you for helping me learn and grow into the writer I will be. If you would like to read it then let me know.

I did send you a message, Storysinger. And in Messenger. I hope you got it.

Dying of the Light by RSchibler 498 words Moon's comments below.

It was not a grand death.

Almost mundane, in fact. Movement slowed, light faded. Mass once vibrant seeped into thin wisps before vaporizing into nothingness.

The old man stared from Sol Invictus Station toward the distant sphere of fading solar brilliance. "Well, that just won't do."

He used his cane to step over prone figures, almost catching the toe of his blue slipper on an outstretched hand. Both slippers and cane bore a scarlet splatter. They should not have tried to stop him. Their ignorance didn't make him wrong, after all. For something so grand, a quiet death would be a universal injustice. They'd called the star a dwarf, him a maniac. He settled onto the stiff work stool, exhaling stale station air with habit's groan. He'd make it right.

"Grampa Sal," said a small voice behind him. "Is it time?"

He turned to smile at Dorah. Six years old, and she alone understood. From the beginning, three years ago when she came to him, she'd listened. Before she'd understood the dream, she understood him. As her father never had. "Would you like to push the button?"

She clambered over bodies to reach him. "What will happen first?"

He chuckled and pulled her onto his lap. "First, a long streak of light, whoosh. Then a long silence. Then," he leaned down and whispered, "boom!"
She giggled and bounced. Yes, he could see she understood. Something so beautiful should not fade. It should rage, expand, transform. He typed the final command. Dorah's tiny fist curled and slammed onto the shiny red button.

Whoosh.

Silence.

BOOM.

The station shuddered as waves of protest screamed into emptiness. Dorah cheered and clapped. Sal grinned, triumphal tears weaving down wrinkles to drip into her hair. The white blossom burst outward, absorbing planets one by one.

"So fast," Dorah whispered. "Will it reach us?"

"No," he patted her hand. "We're far away." But as the nova spread, he wondered. Had he miscalculated? No, he couldn't have. Dorah cringed away from the stunning brilliance, light obscuring all else. Her insubstantial frame shivered and he drew her closer. In this of all moments, he had not wanted her to be afraid.

They began to sweat, the inexorable press of matter and light raging toward them. He set Dorah aside--though she cried now--and pulled up his calculations. Had he missed a step? Slipped a decimal somewhere?

No, the shields had failed. A weakness beyond his control. They should have been far enough away, but there was no one left to pilot the station. He had seen to that.

Dorah whimpered. The temperature climbed past tolerance. He turned, tears of a different sort boiling away before they could drop. He'd chosen wrong. Grandness and fury befit a star, but she shouldn't have died this way.
[It was not a grand death.]

He sank to his knees, held his arms out. She toppled into them and together they fell to the floor.

Whoosh.

He whispered, holding her close. "Rage, rage, against the dying..."

Silence.

BOOM.

END
___________________________________

Becky,

How interesting! You lost half the words, and you've said so much more in this piece (exactly 500 words by MS Word!) than you did with all the extra in the other! How is that possible? Because you were forced to focus on word choice and theme, and had to discard anything that didn't contribute to the compelling destination of this story. Well done!

Here's what's going to happen if you continue doing these exercises. Because you've been practicing this in short form regularly, your long form is going to start doing this naturally. You'll be saying more...with less! And it will become natural to do so! Tighter stories, laser focused on your promise, and on the destination to the promise's ultimate fulfillment in the climax. Boom.

Here's some noteworthy things that changed in this piece.

I don't recall being so grounded that we were in a space station in the other. It took longer, as I recall, to grasp this in your 999. We swiftly have a name of the station and what it's observing.

Total clarity as to why there's dead bodies lying around. Grandpa did it.

Clarity as to why he did it: He had a vision as to how this star should go out, and he was going to send it off right. This was your promise. We understand this is very likely the story of a crazy man about to do something crazy.

Grampa Sal. You got in your protagonist's name in this one. It personalizes him. He's not Old Crazy Man, he's Grampa Sal.

You gave us some reason as to why his granddaughter goes along with all of this. It did reduce her creepiness in this one, which is a shame, but it made no sense in the other. Little girls don't like seeing their grandfather kill people, let alone in front of their eyes. If you expand this (more about the "Kaiju" extra credit at the conclusion of the final exercise), see if you can keep the explanation here, but still give her that complicit creepiness. She should be as off as her grandfather. Makes her interesting.

Significant problem solved: how the temp could slowly rise and how a supernova could not simply wipe them out in the blink of an eye. There are shields. They are failing. Because Grampa Sal screwed up on proximity to the event. This works. It didn't in the other.

I did one other thing. I inserted your opening into the ending lines. It's important. It brings the story full circle. And it shows change. The opening line is the same, but it means something entirely different now. I LOVE doing this. It's a boon to any story when you can pull this off. And you have the perfect line to do it with! So look how I placed that. Remember that trick. It's such a huge secret, it was a hidden secret I shared only with challenge members. Well, the cat's out of the bag now! Run with it before somebody else reading here figures out how to employ it. Its potency is lethal.

Well done, Becky! You could look at a few of those darlings you killed due to size restriction, decide if they added to the theme, and carefully work them back in if they do. But beware! You could easily dilute this with too many additions. Well done! If this had been a private critique, instead of publicly posted, you could have sent it off to Daily Science Fiction. So do another!

All the beast!

Beastmaster Moon

Cousin Coyote Meets Mother Torment, Take II by disgruntledpeony 500 words
Moon's comments internal and below.

Coyote slipped into Sheriff Mallory’s skin as the man traversed Devil’s Creek. Boots squelched through russet-red clay accumulated in the arroyo from recent rains. Wind sang through tangled catclaw bushes, carrying the honeyed scent of acacia blossoms.

Coyote missed having a body. This was the perfect night for a run. [Everyone reading this should hear thunder here. This is the problem. It's also his great need, what this story is going to be about. You've made a promise to the reader. We buy in, and hope you will deliver.]

Mallory shivered. “You’re supposed to ask before entering.”

And you’re supposed to invite me on every hunt. What are we after?

Add-->“[Not sure.] Tracks like a bear, but bigger. It's been eating Harmon Ellis's cattle. Damn near ate him when he tried to chase it off.”

They caught up with the beast at sunrise. It stood twenty hands tall, with shoulders broad as a carriage. Patches of fur clung to cancerous knots of flesh; spurs of bone jutted from every joint. One hind leg ended in a ruined stump.

Oh, my. Our friend is being consumed by a pain spirit.

Mallory grimaced. "[Seems to be.] How do we stop it?"

Exorcism, most likely.

"You want me... to exorcise... a bear the size of a Clydesdale."

Just incapacitate it--

"How?!"

Don't worry. You'll think of something. Coyote poured himself into every crack and crevice of Mallory’s being. In that moment, he felt fully alive.

Perhaps too alive.

He searched Mallory’s mind. It was silent. He'd pushed too hard, too quickly. Mallory was unconscious. [<--great, this was unclear before. Short, sweet, and clear now.]

Coyote's mouth stretched into a face-splitting grin. "Whoops! New plan.” He approached the beast, arms spread wide. “Noble spirit! Call me Cousin Coyote.”

The bear nodded respectfully. “I am Mother Torment.”

“Why have you claimed this sorry creature? I sincerely doubt it deserves such torture.”

“It gave itself over to escape a hunter's trap.”

“You've run your host ragged, mother. Already burned it half away.”