Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → Twiction Contest -- The Greatest Story Ever Told [Conclusion Pg. 12]

Can it stay? PLEAAAAAAAAAAAASE

Oh, how could I resist the siren cry of &quotlease". Your entry will be disqualified if it does not meet the character requirement. If you are having trouble counting characters, I recommend the following:

public static int charsInTwiction( String tweet )
{
int count;
for ( count = 0 ; count < tweet.length() ; count++ );
return count;
}

That's almost exactly what my method looks like.

Anyway, moving on: Stormdragon, I count 139 characters in your story. Can you double check to make sure it fits in the character limit? The first line is 15, then the newline is 1, then the next paragraph is 123 characters. For a total of 139. I like the concept.

Hallfrost, your entry looks good. Not EXACTLY sure how it relates to the theme. I'll judge it as is, but if, say, I forgot to tell you there was a theme, feel free to submit an update.

I think having a range would be easier cause then I could express the irony of this in a way that sounds better.

Noted. Your opinion will be considered as the rules are updated after this round. Thank you for your feedback.

Think about it:
The internet is a place with unlimited space. Yet we had to come up with a new system so we will not run out of addresses.

Stormdragon, I count 139 characters in your story. Can you double check to make sure it fits in the character limit? The first line is 15, then the newline is 1, then the next paragraph is 123 characters. For a total of 139. I like the concept.

I did miss count but only because I counted the space between up and with twice. I added an extra space between the two sentences in the paragraph so it will fit the character count.

Or today. So here's the judging:

Honorable mention: Cenere! Cenere's entry, page 1, was disqualified for character count. However, the writing was pretty good.

So, the entries: I'll talk about them, just based on my impressions.

3rd place:

Think about it:
The internet is a place with unlimited space. Yet we had to come up with a new system so we will not run out of addresses.

While my Xzenoy devotion to technical accuracy compels me to observe that the Internet does not have UNLIMITED space, I like the idea of this entry: He is observing the irony of the fact that the system is limited for arbitrary reasons rather than hard technical/mechanical issues. The implication of this twiction is more than &quotlanning ahead is good", to me, it says something about understanding the nature of the thing one is working with. It calls for a sort of understanding that goes deeper than mere factual knowledge. It suggests that problems arise when the design of something is at odds with its spirit. One flaw is that its extra space is trying too hard to fill the character limit.

2nd place:

Little hamsters, scurrying about, sending data back and forth to their destinations. They travel along this pathway -- this series of tubes.

First, Poison gets mad cred for not using cats. Series of tubes that cats crawl through is overdone. The strength of this entry is its clear focus. It embodies the spirit of the contest: to say something in a very string of text. Poison's entry paints a single image to describe the Internet. The tubes, to me, can be seen as one of those tubey hamster playground places that are awesome. The hamsters are of course integral to the structure: without them, it has no purpose and no life. The hamsters are the masters of the tubes. But, of course, they are merely hamsters. Small creatures in a series of tubes so vast that none is able to truly grasp all of it. To me, it characterizes and Internet that is more than the sum of its parts, and somewhat alien -- yet the image choices humble the whole affair. This juxtaposition between mighty and vast forces and less awe-inspiring forces is this entry's strength. It gets one to think about the nature of the Internet... and hamsters, of course.

Winner:

Now feast your eyes as millions view your embarrassments--while biting the thumb--to add insult to injury; you only have yourself to blame.

To me, this entry does its job quite well. That job, is, of course, distilling a human experience to 140 characters. Maybe it's just because I post stuff I invariably come to regret, but this is a part of the Internet for me. It focuses on a feeling we all know too well: the feeling that comes with the aftermath of doing something you regret online. Be it a facebook status or a post on this very forum, that lonely humiliation is known by all. I presume. The wonderful thing about this piece is that Frank doesn't spend too much time spelling out the emotion, he merely expresses a situation and allows the emotion to flow from the reader.

It's also interesting that this was written for the theme of "the Internet". It suggests that the experience is one fundamentally understood as part of Internet usage (and it is, for me). I also like the characterization of those who see what you wrote. As with the Internet, they have no mercy, no sympathy, no emotional connection to you. The last clause suggests that the addressee of the piece knows that such reactions are inevitable: such treatment is a mechanic of the Internet, a force of e-nature, as blameless as a hurricane. We just make the mistake of standing in its way.

This entry manages to distill a fundamental human experience and relate it to the nature of the Internet as a whole in a well-written way. Thus it wins.

Anyway, due to popular demand, the character limit will be changed to UP TO 140 characters. Whiners.

The next theme shall be The Cold War. What? The Cold War? But that's like a historical event! Xz, you're doing this wrong! Everyone knows that REAL art is about vague adjectives and nouns! Something like "nature" or "love"! I mean, who writes FICTION about real life when one can just write some vague phrases tied around a theme? The answer is no one on AG. Yet the theme remains the Cold War. Yes, I am speaking of the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, feel free to take the message about the vagueness of themes in the OP to heart.

Entries are due one week from today.

Is this when I manage to write a 141 character long story, just to spite you?

Now now, that'd just be unreasonable. You made your arguments, and when I didn't listen, you made a petty protest entry. I'd complain, but that's exactly what I would do if I wasn't the one running this contest. Like, down to the detail. Then I caved and went with your admittedly reasonable rules alteration :P

3rd place "I wonder how much fear could have been averted, how many lives could have been saved, if we had just whipped out the old ruler back in 1947."

Ha. Cute. I liked this entry because it creates an amusingly ironic contrast between something small and simple and something very complex and dangerous. I like its whimsical approach to the issue. One thing I particularly like is how the date at the end is the only clear reference to the war in question. It gives the entry a good sense of progression, from an abstract description of a good possibility to the simplified specific.

It's not all rainbows and butterflies, however, which is why this entry didn't win. It perfectly captures the spirit of a tweet -- a thought that says it all in a short span, shared with the world. But this isn't the World's Cleverist Tweet contest. This is the Twiction contest. The entries in general force me to make a reminder: This is a twiction contest. The goal here is to write a work of fiction in 140 (or fewer. *grumbles*) characters. That is, this contest is primarily about writing stories. Some sort of story would be better than ruminations on the topic. While one might argue that Aknerd and Strop's profound misunderstanding of the events of the cold war might qualify them as fiction, the element of the story is the main issue here.

2nd: "Words like daggers, poised at the backs of government. Bullets cast of subterfuge fire from the dark. Men of many faces hide in the shadows."

This was my favorite of what I considered the "capture the feel" entries, which were Poison, Cen and ellock. TO be honest, I liked all three. I thought the "data gained and lost simultaneously" bit of ellock's was brilliant, but the second sentence of the entry was too awkward to compete with Poison's. I really liked Cenere's theme: how the rejection of one source of angst (paranoia about being doomed) is a direct result of another source of angst (a feeling of powerlessness). That feeling of hopelessness just really stuck me. You guys all know I like depressing stuff, so there's that.

Poison's entry beats Cenere's for no good reason whatsoever. You can both feel free to consider yourselves in 2nd place. As with last contest, I really like Poison's imagery. "Bullets cast of subterfuge" is my favorite image of the contest. He did an excellent job of showing the mood of the cold war, rather than telling it. I liked how he focused on the spy thriller elements of the war rather than the nukes. Refreshing change of pace. Again, the main problem is that it sets a mood, but doesn't tell a story.

1st place:

"People said they would do things. The world fearfully stood, waiting for them to do the things they said they would do. Nobody did anything." I also considered Tacky's entry as the winner, and it was Tacky vs. Strop until I realized only one of those two could count.

Strop says he doesn't know much about the cold war and oh man, that is so clear in this entry. **** went down. Just not nuclear war. Also, Australia was involved, of course. Everyone was. Just not very involved. I don't know much, but basically it goes like this: The US, New Zealand and Australia form an alliance in which they all support and defend each other: each nation would offer the others military relief in the Pacific theater. Then America told New Zealand to lube up and let them park nuclear subs in New Zealand waters, in violation of New Zealand's anti-nuke policies. New Zealand was like "no way" and America was all "fine then!" and it took its toys and left the sandbox by way of terminating its obligation to New Zealand. Thereafter, Australia and New Zealand entered their own, separate agreement, about which I of course know nothing by definition: It didn't involve America.

Anyway, onto the entry: I couldn't decide whether this was a really good entry, or a really bad entry. The main issue is this: does the vacuousness of the entry help or harm it? For 140 characters, Strop sure does repeat ideas and phrases a lot. However, I chose to interpret it as unquestionably deliberate: At the end, the reader feels as though absolutely nothing has been achieved. By choosing to not use fresh images, instead relying solely on the phrases used in his short first sentence, Strop perfectly captures the way in which the cold war was less dramatic than it seemed. Like the real "war", this entry ends not with a bang but a fizzle.

Strop has, ultimately, managed to write an entry that is annoyingly free of content and frustratingly long-winded, all through his repeated use of overly plain, detached images. And it's really, really clever.

Also, his entry has a story. It had a narrative arc. It was actual historic twiction, not a tweet on history. So for that reason, this entry wins.

Next theme: Nature! This one is always a crowd pleaser. Everyone loves talking about nature, from pretentious hacks with their abstract haikus to rich poets with nothing better to do than tour natural scenery. It is a source of inspiration to many, a source of beauty to others and a source of allergies to the rest of us.

As you can guess, this theme doesn't have to be about singing nature's praises, although it can be if you want. So come on, AGers, whether you're Romantic or Enlightened, write 140 characters or fewer about nature! It'll take you 30 seconds tops. You don't even have to think it through! I'll over-analyze it for you. Due on Saturday. Not this Saturday, but next. June 30th, I think.