Ah, good spot sir! That takes me to ficlet nirvana as well. Also yes I guess that is quite a weird way to phrase it, not my fault! I’ve been conditioned to find it normal.
Argh, not sure why it went up twice. Ficlets runs really slowly for me these days, some pages take forever to load up. I must have hit refresh at some point or something.
It’s annoying as it means I spend less time on here than I otherwise would :(
No it didn’t! I don’t like Coldplay, although I think Chris Martin’s probably quite a nice and funny bloke. I saw a play few years ago called My Life in Theatre (starring Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson) and that was the influence.
Is it just me who gets the first line of the 2nd paragraph looking really weird and running of the page? I hope so, otherwise no one will be able to read it. If it isn’t just me does anyone have any idea why that might be happening? It’s in a different font and everything!
Yeah, I think I rushed it a bit because I was hoping to get to be before 11pm, although that has now absolutely not happened. Also I had no idea how I was going to carry it on when I wrote that, hopefully the edit has helped.
I did kind of intend it, but I have got rid of most of them and it’s probably better without them. It was an attempt to get the flashing of the images across but it didn’t really work.
I keep catching this out the corner of my eye thinking this says Ruffino in the title. It’s the Ru and the double f that does it. I enjoyed the story but it’s getting annoying!
Congrats! Awesome challenge by the way. Made me write a story I’d never have written and tell it in a way I’d never have thought of, which is what challenges are all about. Not only that but I’m quite pleased with the result. Hooray for you!
Definitely agree with you there, like the Reservoir Dogs ear scene, you think you see a lot more than you do because it makes you imagine it so vividly.
I thought the church thing as well. I can also relate to the sentiment, a bit too much. It’s especially hard for me because there’s more activity on here the later I stay up because of the time difference.
Yes I know, trains from Manchester would probably end up in Euston, but Kings Cross sounds much better in the title. Oh, you didn’t know that? Shame on you!
I whole heatedly agree. I thought I’d got over my mistrust of Clowns but recently played a computer game where I got attacked by a chainsaw wielding clown called Adam. I hated it.
Annoyingly I think the title gets my point across better than the resulting Ficlet. It’s kind of about how you can find something to be outraged about everywhere if you look even slightly into any topic. To the point where you’re contradicting yourself and don’t know what to be more annoyed about. Then in the last bit I make confused attacks on the war, classes, political parties and religion all in 4 lines. Which I think is quite impressive.
Wowsers! I almost didn’t enter this challenge, think I read through the briefing about 4 or 5 times without coming up with any decent ideas. Glad I persevered. Being one of the four winners in a challenge you’ve presided over has made me rather chuffed. Thanks.
Good idea only having 2 choices after each one. If I could change anything about the one I started it would be that. The 3 choices meant it just became this big sprawling monster of a series that I couldn’t keep track of and occasionally got lost in.
I really like the style of this series, I always stay away from writing fantasy as I imagine it would be hard to write something that didn’t feel like a retread of already covered ground. This is definitely unique though.
You might wanna tag this with ‘newchallenge’ and ‘challenge’ so it shows up when people search for challenges. Also it means it should get a mention in the ficlets blog.
I would’ve commented on every one but I couldn’t stop clicking through to the end. Really good series, I really liked the mystery of the character, and the dialogue was really nicely written.
This made me sad, which I suppose is a compliment, I had a good friend move away a few years ago. There’s nothing like a bit of Dashboard to make you feel emotional as well.
It’s definitely a very interesting discussion. There’s a Stephen Fry book called ‘Making History’ where the character gets the opportunity to prevent Hitler being born, it’s a bloody good read. It merges all my loves, Stephen Fry, alternate history and time travel. I think Minority report gets into it a bit as well, can you really arrest people for something they might do.
Yeah that was one of mine. I love time travel quite a bit as well. I still haven’t got round to buying that book and checking it out. I’ll order it now.
Damn, that bit might not cross the pond so well then. It’s a fairly common phrase that people say to you if you look unhappy in England. Especially strangers in bars.
Bouncing bombs are a real thing. One of the most ingenious moments of the war, and they were used against dams. There’s a film about their invention and use called “The Dambusters” which is shown on a yearly basis in England. It’s got a cracking theme tune as well.
Hurrah, I’d already spotted that one and fixed it before I read this. Don’t worry about it, I enjoy being corrected, how else will I learn? I’d rather people read it and pointed it out than just read it and kept quiet.
I have visited Germany but I didn’t like it, although I may go to Berlin for a weekend sometime this year, see if I just had a bad experience. My sister lives in Austria and I much prefer it there. If you get the chance you should go up to Poland and visit Aushwitz, it’s harrowing but it’s somewhere I think everyone should visit.
Damn, I think I’ve caught most of them. My excuse for typos and being hypocritical is that I was in a car that broke down in London on Saturday night and didn’t get much sleep as a result. Therefore I blame my tiredness and a faulty clutch entirely.
Kind of partly stolen from an old Harry Enfield or Fast Show Sketch, but I hadn’t written anything for a while and needed to unblock myself. The second half isn’t partly stolen though, so yay me.
I spy an advertising campaign. 9/10 Doctors agree, being addicted to Ficlets it healthier than being addicted to crack. Enjoyed the conversation too Kermit.
Agree with you once again. I always read and re-read after each and every edit. And even then I still make mistakes sometimes. I quite like identifying deadwood and getting rid of it. It’s cathartic.
Yeah, sometimes I think I’ve rated and I haven’t. I am awful at leaving ratings though, especially if it’s a series and I just want to read the next one.
I’m definitely on the side of paragraphs. There’s been a few times that I’ve not bothered reading a ficlet because it’s been one big block of text. I appreciate that sometimes it’s done on purpose, but I don’t want to read it to find out if it’s ignorant writing or stylistic writing.
This is an historical Ficlet, first time I’ve ever sequelled one of my own. I’ve been wary of doing so because I know how like me it is to overwork ideas. I may carry this series on further though.
I realised earlier that when I consider a topic, rather than one train of thought it’s more like two trains, running parallel both coming up with arguments and counter arguments. Almost like a devil and an angel on each shoulder. I realised I don’t have an internal monologue, but I dialogue. Also I was reading Churchill quotes earlier and it struck me that while I’ve never considered myself a patriot I do hold England in higher regard than any other country.
I decided not to put the name of the game in the title because I think I prefer people reading it without really knowing what it’s going to be about. Anyway, it’s Bomberman if you hadn’t guessed, one of the greatest games to sit round and play with 3 friends ever.
Damn, my 3 month old Ficlet for a different challenge would be perfect for this. http://ficlets.com/stories/15619. I will have to try and come up with a new one for this challenge though
I quite like the world at night as well. I Love walking around a city at night, I walk round London a lot at night and used to end up wandering around Portsmouth a lot at night. Not in a weird way mind. I think it’s partly because I really like the orangey light the streetlights cast on everything.
This is a bit of a weird one, I’m not even sure what to make of it and I wrote it. I think I just wanted to get across my like of cheese and dislike of living statues in one go.
Yeah, just make that one you’ve done in the wrong place a draft so it doesn’t show up anymore and then you can go pick one that you want to sequel and do what you want with it.
No that’s fine, as long as people don’t start sequelling their own stuff I think it’s ok to just write as much as you want on whatever branch whenever you want.
Yeah, I think my main drive for starting this series was being able to write death scenes like he ones I remember so vividly from these books. I imagine I will be killing these people fairly frequently over the next few days.
Just in case you’re interested, which you won’t be, my inspiration for the gifts were. 1) Hagrid gives the giant leader a branch of everlasting fire on behalf of Dumbledore in Order of the Phoenix. 2) The compass that points towards your hearts desire from Pirates of the Caribbean. 3) The swords from LotR and The Hobbit that warn of orcs.
To be fair most of the spelling differences you lot have actually kept the originals and we’ve changed. I’m pretty certain that’s true of stuff like Aluminum/Aluminum, Colour/Color, anyway.
It is annoying when spell checkers keep telling me I’m spelling things wrong. If you want a laugh try checking out how the English pronounce lieutenant. Although I’m pretty sure our way of saying it is the original, albeit ridiculous, way.
Look, I even managed to remember spell licence your silly American way :p go me!
I only remember this because whenever I watch Austin Powers it bothers me that he goes the the English Ministry of Defense, which doesn’t exist. The Ministry of Defence though, that’s a proper thing.
Oh no, a challenge I can’t just steamroller my way into. I’m going to actually have to put some thought into this one. . Or, I’ll just wait for someone else to enter and take all my cues from them. Good idea anywho, I’d expect no less from you.
Are there rules about entering twice? I’ve entered but it occurred to me halfway through writing it that people might like to also hear about the time I accidentally stayed the night in a brothel in Shanghai.
Not sure how original this is, I certainly haven’t heard the idea before. Something tells me that with the amount of fan fiction out there this might have been done before.
Also, I wasn’t sure if there were rules about using other peoples characters on this site, someone let me know if I’ve broken any anyway.
Hmmm, I doubt it, I don’t really have ideas that I feel I can expand to more than one ficlet, but there’s plenty of room for a prequel or sequel if anyone else wants to do it.
Nice, good observational stuff, that’s essentially what do every morning. I will forever hear the word git in the voice of Rimmer though, although it did still make me laugh.
This is the first one I’ve written and purposefully tried to to leave a fair bit of room for prequels and sequels, my others have been bit closed to those options I think. So if anyone’s interested, go for it.
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