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The Weight of the World
How It Rates
Description
In days long past, dubious alchemists would travel the countryside, claiming that they could turn lead into gold, fleecing the rich before fleeing. In a future world, where a great resource war has taken its toll, and much knowledge has been lost, the new 'Philosopher's Stone' is a device which can turn the great landfills into fields of new wealth, the device which effortlessly turns plastic back into oil.
For this challenge I tried to condense an unfinished novel-length story into a short story, but after several attempts to make that work, I've changed my mind. Now it is more like an introduction, the first part of a serialised story. Nonetheless I feel it is somehow more complete this way.
I love this competition, I've appreciated the comments and I've enjoyed reading all of the stories. I hope it happens again so that I can create a story from scratch next time.
Comments
I enjoyed it. For a short story you cover a lot of ground. I was a bit confused right out of the gate but it became much clearer as it went on. There are a number of interesting concepts in this story that could easily merit a much larger tale.
There is a lot of good writing here, and tons of clever ideas. I thought the clever-bot/Good Listener device was interesting for scenes that did have to plow through a lot of background. Overall, you mostly don't get in the way of the reader, so while it's long, it does move along.
It didn't feel like a self contained story, though, but more like a condensed few chapters of a novel. I'm sure the ship gets explained down the road, but except for providing background, I wasn't sure why X was there. I was a little distracted by not having a character to focus on at the beginning, but that's probably just me. I just mention it "by the way." :)
Great ideas and command of language, and a fascinating read! :)
Thanks for the great feedback. I agree with the problems you both mentioned. It was my first time trying to make a short story out of a longer one and it came out a bit squashed. I'm not sure whether to try and strip it back even further to make it feel a bit more contained, or just use it as a basis for something novella length.
I liked this one. It has a very smooth flow while reading and comes across as well polished. Nothing caught my eye as grammatically off, which is even better. It does feel unfinished though. The Good listener is never resolved in my mind, that line sets up the background for the rest of the story but doesn't ever get tied back in, I would have liked to have seen something more there. The ending final scene with the Baron felt like it needed something more. It felt more like the start of something else than an ending ...
Definitely good work though!
You write exceedingly well. So well, in fact, i treated you like i treat one of my favourite authors - Neal Stephenson. He, like you, has multiple storylines, somehow connected. And like you, some of those are way more interesting than the others. So like when I'm reading Stephenson, I find myself skipping to the storyline I like best. But then, I am an undiciplined reader.
Maybe it felt a bit compressed, leaving some storylines less engaging and more confusing than the others.
Loved, _loved_, the Interested Listener mechanic. Have no idea why that one worked so well for me.
Thanks for your feedback, I'm happy to hear that the Good Listener was well received. It came out of some conversations about infodumping, I was thinking about different ways to do it. I'd like to explore it more.
It is a big thing to be compared to Neal Stephenson (even in the context of you skipping over my writing), he is one of my all time favourites. Yes, it was definitely compressed, I attempted to make a short story out of an unfinished long story, and I didn't really succeed. But, based on the feedback, I feel encouraged to go back and finish the full version, which is probably novella length, unless it spirals out of control.
Thank you for sharing this story with us. I think you have a good handle on characterization, as I certainly would have liked to spend more time with everybody. I liked the concepts you were playing with.
It needs a round of polish to buff out a few grammar issues, but nothing really major.
That this is part of a longer story does explain a few things. I, like everybody else, enjoyed the Good Listener, but I struggled to draw strong connections between those sequences and the rest of the story. I mean, I know the connecting thread, but by the time all is said and done, you could remove the whole Good Listener content and nobody would notice. In the context of this short story, it lends little to the plot. It is a way to tell us the backstory, but 'd probably cut it all, and see if you can work that all into the sections with the people we really care about.
The last part is ultimately where things really fall apart. The story just sorta stops. I definitely needed some sort of resolution. Instead, we get a non-ending where our two main characters are in deep doo doo, about to be separated, and perhaps even killed. I can cope with sad endings, but this is more a to-be-continued moment that does a disservice to the short story form. I think sticking with limiting your viewpoints to Sepia, Ranbir, and Saurus would help you have time to tie this thing up in a neat little package.
One thing that caught my eye: Since she was female, shouldn't she have been an Oil Baroness?
I think you have a TON to work with here, and you are a good writer. I would love to read this in its longer and/or reworked form.
Thanks for the read and the feedback Ethan. I agree with all of your comments, and I have no idea how to proceed. I know that removing all of the good listener stuff would free up enough words to make a proper ending. I kind of like it like this, open ended, introduction to a larger world. That means that it's not a particularly satisfying short story, but each time I remove detail from the story, it becomes less original. oil Baron underwent a last minute gender change, but I decided to keep it add Baron and not baroness, I can't succinctly explain why. Writing on a phone, blah
Hi Ivan I thought it was very atmospheric and the themes were great but it was a bit hard to follow. Maybe tightening up and strengthening the plot line and strengthening the characterisation of the main characters would help - I guess that is about making it a short story rather than a condensed longer story!
cheers val
Thanks for the read and the critique val.
This is a complex and interesting story. Great writing. Great characters. I was a little lost with all the switching from storyline to storyline without seeing the bigger picture until the very end. It felt more like the first few chapters of a novel rather than a fully contained short story.
I think your story would benefit from a little more description. An example is the scene on the last page where a storm of bullets rain down on Saurus. That’s all telling, not showing. Show me. What does it sound like? Does he smell gun powder? Is he temporarily deaf? What happens to the bullets that hit him?
The bones of the story are great. I would just flesh it out a little more.
Thanks for sharing~ Sam
Thanks Sam,
I've got some ideas for the next edit now. What I'd like to be doing is, as you say, giving the story some more description, adding atmosphere, fleshing out the characters, etc. but the word limit is a tyrant. I wish I'd actually chosen a less complex story to write from the outset, for this challenge. It has been a good lesson.
I do enjoy your story’s tone, it has a very lyrical quality to it. I like what I read to have flow to it, and this has it in spades. It feels like a dream at times, and while that means it lacks urgency, it still keeps the interest really well. I also love the fact that she’s talking about the past with a kind of bitter nostalgia, and brilliantly you name her Sepia. It feels like a bigger story here, and it’s clear even without your comments that this has been condensed. I’d like to see it developed further, because I think you have something that could be quite special here. Forget about word count and just write it until it finds its natural length. It’s a good short story, but it would be even better with a bit more to it.
Thanks very much for your lovely comments Adam.
I've given up on fitting this story into the limit, though it was really useful to try. With each edit it has become a little easier to follow. I'm reworking it now into a longer, serialised story, and I'm looking forward to putting the characters through some real challenges and seeing what they're made of. I'm now trying to work out which parts of the story benefited from being condensed and which ones I should flesh-out again (down with editing!)
The final edit, which I will upload imminently, will be the first part of a long story, and if I can't get the rest of it published somewhere, I'll put it up on the old blog.
Cheers,
Ivan