Author Topic: Pseudopod Flash Fiction Contest IV Rules  (Read 65456 times)

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Reply #150 on: November 04, 2015, 05:30:20 PM
Now we almost know how slush readers feel.

I've also been a slushreader, but when I am I don't give out detailed comments to every story I read, and I don't necessarily read every story front to back like I do here, so this is still more time-consuming.



Chicken Ghost

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Reply #151 on: November 05, 2015, 04:16:36 AM
So when you were doing that, what would make you go "nope, next?"



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Reply #152 on: November 05, 2015, 02:57:44 PM
So when you were doing that, what would make you go "nope, next?"

For specific things: awkward writing (which doesn't happen too often).  I'm really tired of serial killers and zombies so if a story has those then it needs to make up for it in some other way, it could be an interesting new angle or perspective, or particularly clever language, or really anything to show that it's not a member of the rank-and-file.

But most early-nopes boil down to the general category "didn't catch my interest".  I usually give a story at least a few hundred words to grab my attention, which is more than some readers will do.   If I can set that story down and not wonder what happens next, then it's probably not for me--I've experimented with reading further after I get that initial sense, but I don't recall a case where my initial disinterest was reversed. 

The cause of that can be a variety of things, and it's important to realize that such disinterest is largely a matter of taste--I have similar disinterest in a fair amount of professionally published stories. 

My interest can be triggered by a variety of things--a character I can empathize with, a weird and fun situational idea that I haven't seen before, a cool speculative element, clever or funny use of language.



Fenrix

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Reply #153 on: November 05, 2015, 03:00:29 PM
This is a killer:

“I don’t care what happens to these people.”

http://www.pcwrede.com/the-eight-deadly-words/

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


MCWagner

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Reply #154 on: November 05, 2015, 06:46:41 PM
As a writer, I really want 750 words, because in both my entries this time I had to cut vital information that I could've fit with another couple hundred words.

But as a reader/voter/participant, I'm good with 500 because I was already worn out by the end with 500 words apiece!

When I started participating in these contests, I was really wanting that 750 word limit, as I tended toward the lengthy and wordy (NO!  Say it ain't so!).  Now that I've been at it a while, I realize the 500 really does improve your writing.  Textual efficiency has a huge learning curve, but once you master hammering your own work into such a small space, you start noticing lazy writing elsewhere.  Needless words, bad, convoluted structure.  The tighter the wordlimit, the better your writing has to be to even make sense in such a small snippet.  (Up to a point, presumably.)

So I'm also in favor of the 500 word limit...



FireTurtle

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Reply #155 on: November 05, 2015, 07:04:01 PM
What MCWagner said!

“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.”
Ursula K. LeGuin