Hey everyone! So this is the part of the show where I come in and talk about my own entry, The Girl and Her Robot. For those of you who need a refresher, it was the one about a girl... and her robot. I'm hilarious, I know.

Anyways, I got the first sparks of inspiration for this one when I saw The Martian a few weeks ago. It was amazing, and while I did read the book beforehand, the film really showcased this sense of isolation that the MC feels when he's trapped alone on Mars. There were these big, sweeping camera shots of nothing but sandy red dunes and a too-faraway sun in a pale, alien sky. Suffice to say, I recommend the hell out of this movie.

These ideas sat with me for a bit, stewing, until I saw our prompt, "Eye of the Storm." A few minutes of brainstorming gave me a rough storyline (MC loses a friend in a storm), and with Mars on my mind, I couldn't help but think that I had a perfect setting for it.

Tonally, I wanted something on the very soft end of the sci-fi spectrum. I ended up taking cues from a whole range of sources, including Bridge to Terabithia, Inside Out, Isaac Asimov, and The Green Book by Jill Paton Walsh, which is a fantastic children's novel about planetary colonization that I read back in elementary school. In fact, it's probably what got me into sci-fi/fantasy. That and Star Wars.

So, while I was writing this piece, I had a serious case of "oh my god, my idea is garbage" about halfway through, which ended up in some revisions and scene-deletions. I knew the pacing was a bit wonky, but I might have actually made it worse after I put it under the knife. I have no objective idea whether or not my original outline would have been stronger, but it is what it is, I guess. A couple of reviewers noticed some pacing oddities right around the places where the cutting and stitching happened the most, no surprises there. The biggest changes from my original outline was that Nemo was supposed to be flat-out broken, not just de-powered. I thought this would slow the pace a bit too much at the end, so I came up with the volatile memory thing to get him back on his feet sooner. Definitely not the most elegantly-implemented solution, I know.

As a result of it all, I found myself falling behind schedule, and I really had to push myself to get it ready for submission. When it was finally in, I was actually more relieved than satisfied. I would have never expected it to do so well, even before I started reading some of the amazing stories this Writeoff has produced. I'm really happy that people enjoyed this story, and I'm thankful for all of the reviews I've received.

Speaking of which...

4808454
Thank you for your thoughts! I'm glad you thought that the characters were strong, since to be honest, I was a little nervous about them, myself. Also: there was definitely something that was originally going to happen with Dorothy's father, but I cut it because I was afraid of pacing issues. If you are interested, I was originally planing for him to have his ship leave contact range in order to take care of the injured crewmate, which was supposed to contribute to a scenario where a frustrated Dorothy is much more responsible for Nemo being left in the storm. I ended up axing this for streamlining purposes, which is why it still feels like Dorothy's conversation with her father are leading to somewhere.

4809103
Thank you so much for your review! I agree that how tech/resources are treated is probably a bit too sketchy. I was originally envisioning a 1950's-esque sci-fi style, with minimal digitalization, but it eventually evolved to the amalgamation of styles that it is now. Regardless, I'm glad that you enjoyed it enough to be able to see past those weird decisions. Thanks!

4813489
Wow, that's quite the compliment! I'm really glad to see that the story seemed to work for you in the best way I could hope for. Thank you so much for leaving me your thoughts!

4820398
Thank you so much for pointing out these problem areas. I know that I tend to rush to the point of my stories, and a lot of what you're pointing out are good places to slow down and make good use of the setting/plot elements. It's really helpful to see my story in those terms; thank you for your review!

4824783
Thank you! I totally agree with you that pacing is a problem. Regarding Nemo, while I was trying to make him seem a tad alien with the sounds that he makes, I might have gone a bit overboard. Thank you for your feedback!

4826097
Yep, my old nemesis, Tense Slipping, strikes again! Thank you so much for your play-by-play analysis. In retrospect, I very much agree that there's a lack of forward-going conflict. Also, regarding not mentioning Mars by name, I just thought that saying it out loud would make it feel a bit cheesy, since the phrase "Mars Colony" doesn't really have serious emotional connotations, IMHO. I tried to put it in there, somewhere, but to me it felt awfully like Peter Dinklage's infamous "That wizard came from the moon!" line from Destiny.

4830523
Huh, I didn't realize there was an entire genre (or subgenre) of "girl and her X" stuff. Anyways, I totally agree that this dives into cliche territory. I was trying to go for something in the "easily accessible" area of the spectrum, but like many of my biggest mistakes, I might have overdone it. And yes, Theodore (along with Dorothy's father) was supposed to have a bigger role in the climax, which I cut for pacing purposes. In hindsight, I should have probably left him unnamed if I wasn't going to use him again. Thank you so much for the feedback!

4832571
I think you're on the dot when you say how things might have been better if the pacing was slowed. I was really afraid of losing the reader's attention, so I cut a couple of corners that I probably should have left alone. For instance, Nemo was supposed to have a "recovery" time after needing repairs, but I thought it might have been dragging the ending a bit too far. Still, I'm very glad that you enjoyed it! Thank you!

4832785
"Many micro slip-ups" seems to be the theme of all of my short story Writeoffs so far. Thank you for leaving me your thoughts/feedback! I'm glad that you think that there's potential in this story.

Whew, and that's it!

I'm going to try to enter tomorrow's ponyfic contest, so I'll see a lot of you there! Take care, everyone!

4834418

“Suspension of disbelief does not mean hanging it by its neck until it is dead.”

That's beautiful.

4834483
I wouldn't call it a mistake in terms of its being cliched; cliches exist for a reason, and I liked it anyway. But it was cliche.

Also, A Boy and His X is a big trope, and its distaff counterpart, a Girl and Her X, is a thing.

I wrote I Would Like to Speak With The Director. It’s the one about Stuart Whitless, 33 years old, etc. in a dystopian office setting, trying to speak with The Director and he shoots himself afterwards.

When I saw it made finals, I was ecstatic—didn’t think it would win a medal anyway, don’t care that it’s bottom of the finalists. Bradel and horizon both gave it a “Solid” rating, and that’s all that really matters in life :P Still haven’t pleased TD, yet—it’s on my bucket list. Anyway, on to discussing the story.

My Goals (what I wanted to work on)

Usually I go into writing entries with a few specific things in mind to work on (and as it turns out, some of them ended up being things I was watching for in entries for this writeoff, too). I wanted the main character to have a clear, specific, and straightforward goal (“I would like to speak with The Director”) and be active about it. I wanted to make distinct characters. I wanted to work on showing, not telling, in terms of characters’ emotions and dialogue. I also wanted to be careful not to make it pretentious—I wanted it to be easy to read and easy to grasp the theme. All of this was in an effort to engage the reader. If I at least did that, then I would be happy. The rest of the story grew from all that.

In my mind, in terms of what’s listed above, I succeeded in some ways and failed in others. I think I’ve learned a lot from this experience, mainly because of…

The Flaws, part 1 (what I think went wrong)

I knew this story wasn’t quite up to snuff. I could feel it when I wrote it, and I can’t say I was surprised seeing it in the reviews. The main problem with this entry, in my mind, is show vs. tell.

Show vs. tell has been and will be haunting me for a long time, I imagine, because I’m finding that the balance between the two is so tough for me to find, both on a large scale and a small scale. I don’t want to show too much, or I risk making it too obtuse. I don’t want my stories to be complicated puzzles, that only the most keen readers will appreciate. Yes, I put in some not-so-obvious details to this story that make it juuust a little more enjoyable, but I tried hard to make the story straightforward. As lazy as it sounds (and as you might’ve gleamed from my reviews here), I dislike stories that take a lot of energy to enjoy. I just want to enjoy it.

This reasoning is why I instinctually defaulted to such a tell-y ending (and other tell-y parts of the story). I laid out plainly the things I wanted to get across, but thanks to the time restraint, I didn’t have enough time to revise it and make it less forward (for instance, the rattling off corporate policies thing in the second scene—I’d already shown it, even, and yet I didn’t have time to change Stuart’s tell-y comment on it) My entry there is essentially my first draft, still, and I had spent almost all weekend on it. I really, really need to work on writing faster. Anyway, on to…

The Flaws, part 2 (what other people thought went wrong)

First of all, I would like to say thank you very much for your reviews, if you reviewed it. I really appreciate it :D And I know I’m not responding to all of the points everyone made and only touching on a few points here, but I’d hate to make this comment much longer. Rest assured that I have read all of them and have taken all your points into consideration. ^^

4820398 (Baal Bunny)
4821232 (Bradel)
4813957 (horizon)

All of these reviews cited issues with originality, that it was predictable or something you’ve seen several times before, etc. I can take the blame for that.

I have not read much in terms of “dystopian capitalist office” or whatever this genre is. I recently saw a dark comedy called The Double, about three days prior to the writeoff, and was inspired by that to write something of my own anyway. I was fascinated by the setting and such, but I found myself frustrated at the movie because it felt like it was wasting its potential, which spurred me to write this story entry. Ironic how I wanted to write something better, more engaging… and I ended up writing something closer to the “boring” and “banal” tropes of the genre than The Double did. :<

And so, by inadvertently not being aware of the tropes, I accidentally a trope. Ah well.

I should note—this story is not an exact copy of The Double. That movie is different enough from this story that I’m comfortable calling my story original.

4830578 (TitaniumDragon)
4824783 (Not_A_Hat)

These reviews cited a “pointlessness” to the story. That was, ah, sort of the point. The idea of the end was that Stuart had backed himself into a corner, and no matter what he did, nothing would change in the company. He kills himself and nothing changes—everyone returns to their normal jobs and whatnot almost immediately. So, there was a point. Maybe it just wasn’t clear?

Besides that, it’s kind of a pessimistic ending. I didn’t have a lot of time to write a less pessimistic ending that I thought would be meaningful.

Also, a few reviewers had a personal distaste for dystopian-whatever this was. Not much I can really do about that.

And to those I haven’t responded to yet:

4813489 (Georg)
4808834 (Scramblers and Shadows)

Thank you very much for your feedback. I’m glad y’all enjoyed it for the most part :)

4832875 (horizon)

And thank you for the kind words :>

4834518
I don't know, I tend to equate "cliche" with "bad"; there have been more than a couple of times that I didn't like a Writeoff story just because of an over-used topic or plot device. But then again, if the Great and Powerful Titanium Dragon still likes the story, I suppose it isn't as big of a deal as I think it is.

4834546

These reviews cited a “pointlessness” to the story. That was, ah, sort of the point. The idea of the end was that Stuart had backed himself into a corner, and no matter what he did, nothing would change in the company. He kills himself and nothing changes—everyone returns to their normal jobs and whatnot almost immediately. So, there was a point. Maybe it just wasn’t clear?

I know the point of the story was that it was pointless, but the problem was that the story didn't really... work in that respect.

Look at IDDP. IDDP is about how the protagonist can't be sure that anything he is doing is worthwhile, and isn't sure if the program is worthwhile. But the story as a whole keeps reiterating on the uncertainty - why was this important? Why does this matter? What were the ultimate consequences, if any? Can we ever even know if we accomplished anything? Each scene reinforces the uncertainty and/or the lack of real consequences.

In your story, however, the various scenes are ridiculous but the guy seems like he has a plan, and then just aborts it at the last minute without following through on it. The story doesn't structurally align with the pointlessness of the situation on a scene-by-scene basis, and the climax feels arbitrary.

4834955

The story doesn't structurally align with the pointlessness of the situation on a scene-by-scene basis, and the climax feels arbitrary.

Is this what theme is (like, when it does structurally align etc. etc.)? I was under the impression that theme was nice to have but not necessary.

The ending was supposed to come as a surprise to Stuart. For once, he’s making progress, getting somewhere, burning bridges, even, and then at the end, it was all for nothing anyway. I feel like I didn’t need to touch on pointlessness in every scene. In fact, I feel like that’d hurt the ending—if Stuart had foreseen what the possible outcomes would be and known it’d be pointless, he wouldn’t have gone ahead with this plan, and the sort of drive of Stuart and this story would be moot. I’m wondering, then, if this was a bad premise to begin with.

Perhaps I should read IDDP. Edit: Started the first third. I couldn't help but find it boring. I really don't know, now.

4834409

That, my dear friend, is his reputation.

But... he just goes around making enemies everywhere. Is that a sustainable business model?

4835051

To the people he hasn't directly screwed over in this, he's the guy who just bought two armies out with a box of rocks.

But... yes. I think the best way to put it is actually an XKCD comic:

The mouseover text for this is what I'm referring to: You can do this one in every thirty times and still have a 97% rating.

4834546 Oh, please don't take my comment the wrong way; I understood that pointlessness was a big theme in the story, and I felt you did a good job delivering it overall. I should have been clearer, and simply stated 'I am not in the target audience here.' Not a big fan of 1984, either, well-written though it might be. Some stories, I just don't enjoy the content. I can, however, appreciate good execution, and I do score for that as well. Ideally, the stories on the top of my ballot would have both.

Wellp, this weather-related prompt was submitted by yours truly (surprise!), as was entry #33:

I just want to say thank you to everyone who offered their thoughts on this story. Or, rather, their thoughts on the 65% of this story that I was able to write in time for the deadline.

I've been thinking about the basic idea behind this story (soulmates and weather) for two years now. While this Writeoff was an immense help in actually getting the idea out of my head, three days was simply not enough to accomplish what two years had failed to produce. This story really didn't want to be written.

With the deadline looming, I had to yank the hook from the beginning, completely axe the climax and resolution, try to turn a scene that was never intended to be a conclusion into something that could kinda sorta maybe wrap things up, and then desperately pray that I hadn't made any tense slip-ups. So when I saw 4811745 Aragon's comment:

I just felt like I read half of it instead of a whole

I laughed. Quite a bit. And then I solemnly questioned if Last Minute truly was Best Minute. (Please, Aragon, give yourself a pat on the back for those A+ reviewing skills. Holy wow was I impressed.)

That being said, The Skies in Their Fury as it was intended to be is nearing completion at around 6k words. It ends rather differently than the contest draft, and I am uncertain as to what to do with it-- on one hand, I would be incredibly grateful to get opinions on the finished product because I have no idea if the expansion is making it better or worse, but I'm also toying with the idea of seeking publication and am uncertain if the revising/expansion is sufficient to be able to sell first publishing rights or whatever, should I begin to spread the story around shopping for opinions I have no idea how this works can you tell

If anyone is interested in reading TSiTF in full, I would be delighted to send a PM with a link to some private-ish thing like gdocs or whatever it is the cool kids use.

4818005 (Mike)
In terms of criticism, this was by far the most useful comment I received, thanks to its specificity and detail--and I've definitely worked to resolve the issues you brought up. Thank you.

4819045 (FDA_Approved)
Thank you for appreciating it. Artsy pieces don't resonate with everyone, and it means a lot to hear that someone thought it was as lovely as I'd hoped it'd be.

4819533 (Bradel, you sly thing, you)

This is a story to be proud of.

This means the world to me.

4813924 (S&S) 4824783 (Not_A_Hat) 4830523 (Titanium Dragon) 4832571 (bats)
Thanks for sharing what worked for you and what didn't; it's been quite helpful!

4832785 (horizon)
I've gotten a variety of reactions regarding the more thematic aspects/star stuff, but I am delighted to hear that it didn't negatively impact your enjoyment of the piece.

Good luck to everyone participating in the next event!

4835437

I just want to toss out that I thought The Skies in Their Fury was an outstanding story, and I thought it was a solid contender for the gold medal. It was one of two or three stories I was genuinely afraid of during the finals voting.

4835437

If anyone is interested in reading TSiTF in full, I would be delighted to send a PM with a link to some private-ish thing like gdocs or whatever it is the cool kids use.

Oh, hell yeah, I wanna do that. Especially if you made it bigger and included a resolution.

As per the selling things -- revise it, delete and unindex from the writeoff, and then try to sell it. Should suffice. I'll personally change the title too, I believe, but that's just aesthetics.

4835437
Reading an extended version would be quite interesting.

4835437

I'll throw in with above chorus. The Skies was one of my favourite stories from this round, and if there's an expanded version I want to see it.

4835555 4835673 4835856
Awesome! I'll be sure to send you each a link as soon as it's ready!

4835524
I really appreciate you mentioning that. It made my day.

4832875
Update on prize distribution: Three of the four cash prizes have been resolved (I'm still working out the logistics with the non-hat).

As two of the winners requested that I make a donation to charity on their behalf, I wanted to highlight the organizations they chose to aid:

charity:water
International Rescue Committee

Just by being part of the Writeoffs and encouraging me (and awesome people like 4798135 Trick Question) to put forth these prizes, you, yes you, get a teeny sliver of the credit for these donations -- but if you think those groups do good work, go sling 'em a few bucks yourself.

4832769 Thanks for doing the research. Be wary of talking about "frontal lobe damage". That's only a little more specific than "brain damage". Grammar and emotional control are disrupted by damage to different parts of the brain.

4835437

I have no idea how this works can you tell

I think you'd be interested in the group and discussions here. The group is invite only, but just PM bookplayer asking and you get an invite. Theirs a little discussion in the forums about short story markets by our winner Not_A_Hat

Also, if possible, I would very much like to read The Skies in Their Fury as well sometime

4848920

Be wary of talking about "frontal lobe damage". That's only a little more specific than "brain damage".

It's what happens when you use Phineas Gage as a case study.

4849228 I don't think there's any mention of Gage having speech difficulties. And his damage was very different from (nearly the opposite of) the results of a prefrontal lobotomy, which also causes no language deficits. Language deficits start at Brodmann's areas 44 and 45, and regions just posterior to and underneath them.

4849354

Sorry, that was a bit of a weak joke, the idea being just how big a piece of rebar is when it goes through your head.

No, you're right, the damage affecting his speech was more fixed to the areas around Broca's -- Brodmann's 44 and 45 -- area with a very modified form of expressive aphasia in a way that still allowed Prattle to communicate clearly, if not sensibly. This is different to Wenicke's area -- Brodmann's 22(I think?) -- which would have made Prattle unintelligible. Fortunate for me it's not the other way around, it'd have made the inspiration for the character far more difficult to pull off.

Prattle was a pastiche of conditions in and around the frontal lobe, and not any one case study or damaged area. I was ideally allowing my research to help shape the character without becoming too obtrusive to a reader trying to identify with him or follow his narration, which becomes a narrower line to walk the more specific you make the damage.

4848987 Thanks so much! I'll be sure to throw a link your way soon!

Hello, I would like to know how to unpublish my story from the writeoff.me website, I cannot find a method to do so anywhere on the site though the information says it should be there. Thank you.