RHP Prose Competition

@caesar-salad said
From a certain point of view, existence itself is all about formatting, is it not?

Not really, I don’t think so. ‘Formatting’ in this context is something one does to a body of text to improve reading accessibility, provide contextual emphasis and lend a particular visual style. ‘Existence’ is something completely different.

“Editing”

Editing is a subset tool of formatting. Lots of edits can indicate a need for reflection.

@caesar-salad said
As above, so below; as within, so without.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfiYJlHszTQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwFz3EThGMU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1B9Fk_SgI0

It must be jolly late where you are.

On another point, how short can a story be?

Rules and also opinion.

@caesar-salad said
After some doubts and false starts, I now have two stories done except for a little tightening of the bolts.

One of them I only started sketching out this morning at about 2 or 3 AM with the vaguest of notions.

Also, I have found VSCode (Visual Studio Code) to be a compatible text editor for fiction writing (at least for me).

I added a couple of color themes, a ...[text shortened]... ypewriter until the final draft.)

Looking forward to a splendid banquet of spookiness in July. 🙂

I invariably write my entries in crayon. (Red or green). Ponderable, bless him, humours my idiosyncrasies and types them up.

@rookie54 said
formatting is as important as content...

I know what foreplay is but formatting?

@divegeester said
The story is to be sent via email and not posted directly into the forum. How is formatting as important as content anyway?

for me,
poetry, prose and pron is like a great plate of food,
it can smell great,
but if the meal is plopped unceremoniously into a single bowl,
it isn't as appetizing...

this is only true in my own circumstances...
if the prose isn't presented beautifully for you, and you still think it worthy,

so be it...

@divegeester said
On another point, how short can a story be?

Rules and also opinion.

Opinion: any length that can convey an emotion, for example (I've borrowed this from somewhere, not sure who to credit):

A sad story

For sale, babies booties, never worn.



So to me, a 6 word sad story.

@paul-a-roberts said
Opinion: any length that can convey an emotion, for example (I've borrowed this from somewhere, not sure who to credit):

A sad story

For sale, babies booties, never worn.



So to me, a 6 word sad story.

That's Hemingway.

@wolfe63 said
That's Hemingway.

Hemingway did have a certain economy of words.

@wolfe63 said
That's Hemingway.

Thank you Wolfe63, I appear to have misquoted one word too, but the gist is still correct.

A 6 word flash fiction story.

@suzianne said
Hemingway did have a certain economy of words.

"Tip of an iceberg".
I once had an American teacher in American literature and I was asked to write a very short summary of a novel by Hemingway. He said "It is all right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go as far as it might." - I didn't quite understand what the story was about.

@suzianne said
Hemingway did have a certain economy of words.

'Me
We'

poem by Muhammed Ali given at a Harvard graduation ceremony.

@paul-a-roberts said
Opinion: any length that can convey an emotion, for example (I've borrowed this from somewhere, not sure who to credit):

A sad story

For sale, babies booties, never worn.



So to me, a 6 word sad story.

Interesting, thanks.

@divegeester said
On another point, how short can a story be?

Rules and also opinion.

Now there's a good question. The rules do not state a minimum. The implied minimum would be the three required keywords plus enough connective verbiage to make a story out of it. We have already had a few one-liners earlier in the thread.

There are probably trade-offs whether one writes a shorter story or makes the most of the 800-word limit. Some readers/voters might look at the longer entries as being long slogs compared to the shorter entries. But a story that is told too briefly and sparsely might not have much of an effect on the reader.

At any story length, generally I would recommend short paragraphs rather than long ones, although I'm sure some forum wags might now intentionally include a long, labyrinthine, tour-de-force of a paragraph that could be written no other way, just to show off. I think we all know who they are. (No pressure, peeps! 😉 )

Long or short, I think writing a ghost story is akin to writing a long joke -- they both have a setup or build-up, and a payoff or punchline (generally speaking -- of course with ghost stories there might be exceptions). Rebuttals of this notion are welcome.

But it's important that the story provides some entertainment or engagement or stimulation along the way and some kind of satisfaction to the reader overall, even if it's of a perverse nature.

BTW, in case anyone is planning to vote against me, mine will be the Regency romances with a little Ligotti, Borges, Bradbury, and Addams mixed in, written with American spelling and punctuation. 😉