a 75 word sequence of events

[Aun Doorback]

Hi All,

Looking back at some of my previous entries I realised that I wasn't actually delivering what the challenge has been asking i.e

It is expected that your story will have a plot, and not merely consist of descriptive prose

Now I'm all for freedom to express our creative flow, but I thought I would just ask the general question of what works for you? Is it the power of the words? The neat twist in the tale? The exploding elephants? Or even a plot!

There is a real skill to this 75 word challenge and I take my hat off to the winners.

[The Judge]

For me, yes, some kind of narrative/plot is important. I wouldn't wholly dismiss a piece which was wholly reflective, but it would have an uphill battle to win my vote. A piece which was simply description would fall at the first hurdle, no matter how well written.

I like good endings, and good beginnings, come to that! I prefer thought to have gone into word choice, and stories which have grammatical and spelling mistakes get marked down. But very often it comes down to whether a story grabs me or not.

[HareBrain]

I'll mark down an entry that doesn't have a satisfying plot, but it can still win my vote if it stands out in other ways. I have admired several entries that were more descriptions of character or situation than what I would call proper stories. But, though such entries often show great ideas and imagination, for me there's much more of a challenge involved in trying to craft a story with a beginning, middle and (twisty) end, all in only 75 words, and that's what will usually get my vote.

[AnyaKimlin]

For me it is pure and simple - which gripped me, amused me, made me cry, go oh my gosh etc

[TheTomG]

In my few entries so far I do try and have middle, beginning and end - however I try to create something that I hope spins off into something larger for the reader and imagine more, with the 75 words as a seed - self-contained but ready to germinate into something more. I try to do the same with my 3D art when I get a chance to be artistic and not making stuff for some commercial reason, to tell a story but one that invites extension from the viewer for them to add more background, or to picture what comes before or what follows on after.

I still hold that any book has 2 authors, the writer and the reader, and they manufacture the final book together

Anyway for 75 word challenges I hope to achieve a true self-contained story that still paints a bigger picture.