Rocket Scientist

Yep, I said I had a bunch.  Feel free to add a favorite of yours or write your own!

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
– David J. Liszewski

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located but
Endless others exist.
– Joy Rothke

Errors have occurred.
We won’t tell you where or why -
Lazy programmers!
– Charlie Gibbs

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot
Order will return.
– Suzie Wagner

ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
– Mike Hagler

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
– Margaret Segall

First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
– Simon Firth

With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
“My Novel” not found.
– Howard Korder

The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao until
You bring fresh toner.
– Bill Torcaso

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
– James Lopez

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
– David Dixon

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
– Cass Whittington

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
– Francis Heaney

Having been erased,
The document you’re seeking
Must now be retyped.
– Judy Birmingham

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
–Ian Hughes

Server: poor response
Not quick enough for browser
Time out, plum blossom.
– Rik Jespersen

Rather than beep
Or a rude error message:
These words: “File Not Found”.
– Len Dvorkin

The code was willing!
It considered your request,
But the chips were weak.
– Barry L. Brumitt

Everything is gone.
Your life’s work has been destroyed.
Squeeze trigger? (yes/no)
– David Carlson

No keyboard present
Hit F1 to continue
Zen engineering?
– Jim Griffith

This site has been moved
We’d tell you where, but then we’d
Have to delete you.
– Charles Matthews

Printer not ready.
Could be a fatal error.
Have a pen handy?
– Pat Davis

Logon incorrect!
Only perfect spellers may
Enter this system!
– Jason Axley

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
– David Ansel

Ten thousand things
How long do any persist?
Explorer is gone.
– Jason Willoughby

Seeing my great fault
Through darkening blue windows
I begin again.
– Chris Walsh

This site uses frames
And yet your browser does not.
One of these will change.

For a new PC,
Center of my universe,
I abandon all.

I’m going to take a break from short stories (sort of) because I read a post on Bookish’ blog wherein someone wrote a book transforming the classic Pride and Prejudice to an alternate book:  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. 

OK.  Zombies aren’t my thing and I’m very fond of the original.  However, bookish quoted a portion of the new book including a swashbuckling Mr. Darcy (and a courteously puking Mr. Bingley) and that got me to thinking.  Even if this particular incarnation doesn’t appeal, wouldn’t it be fun to play with taking a bit of classic and give it a different twist, either environment or condition?

Now I could tell you some possibilities, but here, I’ll show you.  Like “The Cask of Amontillado”…

“He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. At a small cozy room, and realizing he had reached the extremity of the corridor, and finding his progress arrested by the wall, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the couch. In its surface were two iron staples. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

“Pass your hand,” I said, “over the table; you will find a catalog for tupperware. Indeed, it is the very latest lineup. I implore you again, would you not care to give me a ride so I can leave my damn house? No? Then I must positively tell you all about our new spring colors.  And let’s not forget our new core decor items!”

“I thought we were having coffee!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.

“Too bad,” I replied; “You could have sprung for Starbucks.”

Or, perhaps, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but D8N40, who’s programming was clearly in need of an overhall, instead of keeping to the road, made an opposite turn and plunged headlong down hill to the left, it’s hovering capability malfunctioning so that the ride was unreasonably rough. This road leads through a delapidated ghetto shaded by disintegrating skyscrapers for about a four blocks, where it crosses the laserbridge which formed the boundary to the standard monitored city, where help was readily available.

As yet the the robotic steeds errors prompted full speed so that it gave him advantage in the chase; but just as he had got halfway through the ghetto the antigrav unit gave way and he felt the unit stutter and fail beneath him. He tried to fumble a backup program into place and run a diagnostic, but the unit whined back into power before he had a chance to do anything, but it was only half power and stuttered across the ground on one side, jolting him terrifically.  Now he could hear them, his pursuers, greedy for his technology, despite the malfunctions. For a moment the terror of his boss intruded as this was his transportation unit; but this was no time for petty fears; the aliens were hard on his heels, and (unskilled rider that he was) he had much ado to maintain his seat, sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jerked backwards with a violence that he verily feared would rend him on the back lip.

A glow in the distance now cheered him with the hopes that the laserbridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a blue glow in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the gleam of the bridge dimly glowing under the broken street lights ahead. He recollected the place where other travelers had disappeared. “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the, black chittering, the panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt their hot breath. Another clumsy fumbling at the control panel and he got the unit to lurch forward slightly faster; he thundered over the surface made of naught but light; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuers should vanish, according to rule, unable to follow him across the beam of light. Just then he saw the aliens cluster at the laser’s edge and, as one, spit some vile concoction over the small river. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash; he was tumbled headlong into the plascrete, and transportation unit, the aliens and their greedy followers passed by like a whirlwind.

 So, you try.  I would stick to books or stories in the public domain, but, hey, knock yourself out.

Or, if you don’t want to go to that much trouble, hey, I’ll just field your ideas of new ways to transform old classics.  After all, it’s supposed to be fun.

For those of you thinking this would be another Moon posting, hey, it’s Wednesday and so it’s time for a writing exercise, which, eventually, someone will do. 

 So, what can you do with a few words?  Well, you’d be surprised.  When I hung out on Gather a great deal, there were a couple of groups that specialized in assigning prompts for short stories.  Among the shortest was the group that calls for 50 word stories.  

FIFTY WORDS!  Yes, that was my reaction, too.  What can you say in 50 words.  Half my sentences are longer than that.  But, you know what, it was easier than I ever expected.  And fun.  I’m not expecting a full up story story, mind you, but you should be able to show me why someone is crying - without coming out and saying it.

Since short stories are all about keepin’ it short, I thought we could try this.  Normally the rules are 50 words, no more no less.  I’m willing to let you go +/-5 words on the limit.

So, in 45-55 words, tell me why ___________ is weeping.

Here’s an example:

 The clatter jarred her from her stirring.  She spun and gasped, as her toddler lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs.  “Tommy!”  Instantly, she was on her knees, afraid to touch him, to know if–.  Tommy stirred and began to cry. Only then did she weep.

Or

 With an exhausted sigh, she collapsed on the couch.  Home at last.  Without thinking, she reached to the nearby cushion, then stopped, tears starting to her eyes.  Her sister wanted her to get a kitten, but a kitten could never replace Romeo.  Without him, it just wasn’t home any more.

Now, you try.

Also, since you all are so patient, here’s a photo of the moon, courtesy of morguefile.

We are still on short stories.  One of the interesting things about short stories is that much of what I’ll talk about is true for novels as well as short stories.  However, the tactics for how you do things in a short story vs. how you work them in a novel aren’t the same.  In a short story, as I mentioned last week, you need to set a scene briefly, but, in my opinion, more sharply than you do with a novel.  A short story needs to have a sense of immediacy, yanking the reader in at once instead of easing them in as you can in a novel.

This is true of dialogue as well.  As a character person, I’m really fond of dialogue.  Perhaps too much.  It is almost always the most effective way to get to know a character, listening to what they say and how they say it.  But, as with setting, you need to get the most bang for the words you use.  Each statement, each comment, should add to the story or the character.  What’s more, you need to make how they say things reinforce the character every time they speak, much like the sound can reinforce the meaning of words in poetry.

If what they say and how they say are at cross-purposes, the reader will be confused or, worse, knocked out of the story and it’s hard to pull them back in when you only have a few thousand words to work with.  Losing the reader in a short story is often unrecoverable.

So, how do you do that?  Actions, words, attitude should all be in concert.  From my short story, “Cauchemar “

“You had best move on, old man,” a fierce voice hissed from the tiny figure swathed in black. “You would do well to sleep further on this night.”

“But the road is open to all, child,” Marin said placidly in her rasping contralto, shuffling forward slowly to see better. “And the sun is setting.”

A bitter laugh escaped from the black-draped stranger. “None would know better than I when the sun sets, old man. All the more reason for you to make haste in leaving this place. You are not safe here.” 

Marin’s seamed face broke into a smile. “Brave soldier,” Marin clucked reprovingly, resting her slight weight on a staff of rowan wood. “To stab an old man as he sleeps. In truth, there are few who would harm one of my clan, child.”

The figure in black pulled herself up to stand more straightly. “I waste no love on men,” she spat. “Even old men would do well to flee.”

The tone, words, syntax are distinctly different.  Ideally, one can tell the difference between one character and the other by what they say, rather than the names we apply.  An old fashioned way of talking can be reminiscent of old lore or tradition (useful in fantasy like I write).  Youthful speakers are likely to use slang and unlikely to speak with good grammar or in complete sentences.  In fact, most people don’t.  However, having someone who does and speaks articulately, again, can emphasize characteristics and give a reader a good feel for someone right away.  It’s an opportunity that should not be discarded.

Contrast:

“Where are you going?” she asked, eyes slit with suspicion.

“I am not going to tell you,” he replied hotly.

“I would like you to tell me.  If you will not tell me, I will feel compelled to either cause you pain or report your behavior.  You have not completed the chores assigned you.”  Her voice was menacing and he had no doubt she meant it.

“What have you done to merit that information from me?” he asked more meekly.

With:

 ”Where do you thing you’re going?” she asked, eyes slit with suspicion.

“None o’ your business!” he replied hotly.

“You’ll tell me, boyo, or I’ll beat you blue or tell ma you left without finishin’ your chores.”  Her voice was menacing and he had no doubt she meant it.

“Why can’t you let nothin’ be?” he asked more meekly.

By changing only the words spoken, without changing the meanings, I have completely changed the tone of the conversation.  Originally the dialogue was stilted and unrealistic and there was nothing really to indicate anything about that characters.  It was so unauthentic, the characters were not even characters.  In the second rendition, however, they are clearly young, likely siblings, and there’s a rivalry and a secret.  It’s not perfect, of course, but clearly better than what was done before.

Now, your assignment is to take this following exchange and rewrite it so that the individuals are made individuals, without changing the gist of the conversation or anything outside of quotes.  Extra credit for trying it more than once and instilling genuine voices.

“What are you saying?”she challenged him, her eyes holding his own intently.

“I have deep feelings for you,” he said, dropping his eyes.  “I’ve never cared about anyone like I care about you.  I love you.  I expect you’ll laugh at me or scoff, but I’m telling you, I love you very very much.”

Her hand was gentle on his cheek, but he didn’t look up.  “I appreciate your honesty.  You and I both know why it can never be.”

For those of you who have been intimidated by reminiscences about poetry, fear not, I am now moving into short stories.  Short stories had many of their own lessons to teach me.  And, ’cause it’s writing workshop Wednesday, I’m going to tell you about one of them today.

 See, you’re not constrained by cadence and sound like you are in a poem and that gives you a great deal more freedom and flexibility.  But you are still constrained by length.  A short story can do many things:  cause surprise, set a scene, breathe life into a character… and, ideally, tell a story.  But it has to do so in a limited number of words.  

There are lots of skills in short story writing and, when compared to novel writing, calls for completely different approaches.  They usually do not have the same tone or pacing.  But many of the skills you build for a short story can be useful in a novel, like the poetry skill, in judicious quantities, adding power or magic at the moment you need it.

So, today, the skill we’re looking for is setting the scene with brevity.  In this case, the limit I’m imposing is a single sentence (not run-on) to bring a setting to life in a way a reader can identify with.  I’m not saying describing every leaf in a huge treehouse or each shade of color in a kaleidoscope wallpaper, but providing the right details to let the reader fill in the rest.   

Here are some examples:

It seemed he’d entered a hall of mirrors, except it was just an endless white hall with innumerable doors, identical, stretched out to infinity.

 The light was soft as the surf at her feet, warm, red, tinting the white sand pink and adding a violet lustre to the blue ocean under the cloudless crimson sky.

 It was an oasis, emerald, jade and sapphire, a jewel nestled unexpectedly in the endless gold of lifeless sand.

The air was so heavy and humid, it was like a being underwater and Terrence felt as though he were drowning in the heavy scents of the rain forest:  jasmine, orchids, ferns, mold, fungus and, under it all, the scents of decay as he plodded through the thick green undergrowth under the endless twilight under the dense canopy.

Now, it’s your turn.

 Oh, and don’t forget to vote on the poll.

More poetry?!?  Relax (unlike my sister who’s been on a real poetry kick lately), I reiterate that I will not make you write poetry.  But, if you want to write some, my sister’s got the exercise here and something a little less poetry intensive here .  But I still think there are lessons we can learn from poetry.

One of the most easily overlooked but most powerful tools of poetry is making the sounds of the words reinforce the meaning.  Because the poetry depends at least some on the sounds and cadences of the words to build itself, an adept hand can really use that ability to make those words do double/triple time and bring out the sound like gangbusters.  You know what I’m talking about, even if you don’t think you do, if you’ve ever read Poe.  Poe was the master at this, at least with the English language, and while some reviled him as “a jingle man,” I am not one of them.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
” ‘Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door —
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; —
This it is, and nothing more.”  

Note the first line of that stanza, the alliteration and similar sounding words that reinforce the image of whispering draperies.  Many people think of alliteration and rhyme much like they think of algebra without realizing it has a real use.  You see them again in the second sentence, the rhyme helping to build the tension, the alliteration carrying it forward even further.  And, of course, the whole poem of “The Raven” is like that, undoubtedly why it was such a sensation at time.  The sound of the words was at least as important as the meanings.

Contrast the first eight lines of the first verse with the first eight lines of the third verse.   

Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;

Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,

The tone, the resonance, the rhythm of the words made add power to a poem that would be, otherwise, entirely forgettable.  I was going to show you an example of my own poetry, but, really, can’t top Poe.

So, you’ve read down this far and you’re shrugging.  Steph, you say, I am never going to top “Tamerlane.”  That’s fine (who can?) because what he did with poetry, one can use in prose (though, in my opinion, it’s best to use it judiciously).  Here is an example from my favorite short story of all time, “Spoils of War” by Jennifer Roberson (published in Sword and Sorceress V edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley):

All around her the arrows sang.  It was a sibilant song of death, she thought: whining, humming, buzzing . . . the percussion of iron on wood . . . the crescendo of human screams.  But the melody did not please her.

Seriously, this is a great story.  This is, in fact, the story that got me writing fantasy.  Note the alliteration, the cadence, the onomatopoeia, all setting the tone for the story, setting the scene, telling us something about our archer.  In many ways, this story is a prose poem.

Even so, the girl in common brown, dancing to her own rhythm, flashing her strange eyes with every odd movement, she held his gaze.  His breathing stopped as he watched her, his senses thrumming with a magic like one possessed, feeling the crescendo in his bones, in his chest, rather than with his ears, finding himself unable to tear his eyes from the mysterious woman, caught up in music of her own making that he began to hear beneath the pounding of the drums. 

And you can use words that add to a sense.  Words like malice and solace sound like what they mean, feel like that.  Alliteration, repetition, all can add power to a sentence or passage as can cadence.

Now, you try.

What?  Wait!  Don’t run away!  Sheesh, mention poetry and they all turn tail and run as fast as they can.  I’m not going to make your write poetry.  Ever.  I promise.

I have to completely give snaps up to my sister , the English Ph.D., for reminding me what fun writing on command is.  Yes, you heard me and I meant it.  Shakespearemom is a font of writing know-how on the collegiate level and I so encourage everyone to check out her website.  She also will do writing exercises from time to time and I’ll make sure to link whatever exercises she does on this Wednesday feature so you can’t miss ‘em.  (You know she’s an expert because she never shortens “them” to “‘em.”  And she reads Shakespeare - for fun!)  This week, it was one on adding detail to make emotions and feelings come alive and one on writing haikus , which was really cool because my inspiration for this feature came from the first and the second just played into it.  She added another one today .

Now, let me also preface this by saying I’m not nearly the technical expert on writing that she is.  My degree is in Engineering Physics and I tested out of all my English requirements.  My only college creative writing course was a waste of time for me (which the professor told me himself) and the only other English course I took in college (Physics in Fiction) wasn’t exactly a writing course.  But I’m going to run this feature anyway because I can write and write well.  I’m just mostly self-taught.

So, here’s the boring story.  See, in high school, I wrote poetry, lots and lots of rhyme and rhythm poetry, much of it long and epic-like.  I’m not advocating this path for everyone, but it taught me a few lessons (hence the poetry part 1).  In college, I moved from mostly poetry to mostly short stories.  The lessons I learned there were completely different than the lessons I learned with poetry.  When I made the switch post-college to novels, I had to work on a completely new set of skills, while still taking advantage of the ones I’d built doing the other stuff I’d previously learned.

So, in the interest of sharing the wealth, I’m going to start with lessons I learned writing poetry.  My sister’s blog mentioned the “magic” in detail for making an feeling come alive, rather than just telling how someone felt.  I entirely agree with it.  But sometimes there is something to be said for brevity, for pulling emotion with just the right words, for emoting with almost no words.  I know you’re laughing.  What would rocketscientist know about brevity (especially given the poetry she wrote was sometimes pages long)?  Well, just because a work is long, doesn’t mean the lines are brief and limited.

When I was on Gather, someone pointed out the story of Hemingway who was challenged to write a story in six words.  His answer: “For sale.  Baby shoes.  Never worn.”  He challenged us to do the same .(By the way, this is probably the only time I’ll ever use Hemingway as an example.)

You might be asking, why bother?  Because, sometimes, brevity is very powerful.  Take for instance, the following passage:

It wasn’t fair.  Children shouldn’t be wracked with pain, eaten with fever.  Mothers shouldn’t sit at the bedside, grieving for pain one can’t stem or heat one cannot quench.  To fight for days against a disease, a sickness, it wasn’t fair that the fever, in the end could win, could only be beaten by the boy finally gasping his last.

Or I could write:

The fever and boy both broke.

Both have their uses and there are times where the first one is the right one.  But, sometimes, the second works more powerfully because everything in the first is implied by the second.

I know, it seems scary limiting yourself to six words.  But, you know what?  When I tried it, it was much easier than I thought.  So, here’s what I want you to do.  Don’t write a story necessarily (though you can), but build an emotional response, an image that resonates in…just…six…words.

Here are some examples.

He’d promised he’d do better.  Again.

He never even heard the gunshot.

In an instant, she was gone.

Mommy, why don’t you love me?

You were never what I wanted.

Ms. Bastion, you don’t have cancer.

My babies are still in there!

He had never known such kindness

With one smile, her life opened.

Because of her, his life mattered.

He would never hurt anyone again.

She only said she loved me.

OK, now you.  And, if you need more inspiration, check out the link to the gather article I have up there.  There are some excellent examples (which I hope I didn’t accidently duplicate).

Have fun!

(By the way, if you were prompted to register to make comments yesterday, that should be corrected today.  Sorry about the trouble.)