Student needs help

[MysteryWriter]

far be it from me to argue with an expert but

you did use the word evolve or some form of it. Tell you what better still why dont we just leave it to the readers. I will call it a story and you call it anything you like. I will continue to stick them up as long as the site managers dont tell me to take them down and you can continue to say what ever you think of them. How is that?

I do have to say I will continue to disagree with you and your experts. I have told you the definition I work with you have told me what your experts say so now we have both had our say. Time to stop boring hell out of everyone else.

 

[KillerMuffin]

To define:

The train rattled and bumped over the uneven rails. The club car was about the most comfortable place in the beast. Still, there was just something about a train. Two drinks had made the ride even better.

She was all soft and curvy in a mature way. At eighteen I would not have understood but at twenty-one I did.
She looked up from her magazine then smiled at me. I stood to go to the men’s room. I was embarrassed by the lump in my pants.

I was again in the chair when she rose. She walked to stand in front of me then place her magazine on the table beside me. She whispered so that no one else could hear.
“Follow me I have a compartment.”

Inside the tiny closet sized room she put her finger to lips. She began desperately removing both of our clothes. I helped as much as she allowed.

Her breasts were soft and warm. Her nipples were hard. She gasped as I kissed them. I felt her hips pump at me from the first lick of her nipples. After a few seconds of sucking here breasts, she pushed me onto the fold down bed. I sat on the side of it while she knelt between my legs. I tried to lift her but she fought me.

She slipped her warm mouth over me. Her tongue did things to me I had never felt. I finally forced her onto the bed. It was before I had the giant orgasm that I knew was coming. I kiss her as I entered her. I felt her body open and close around me. Soon I erupted into her warm body.

While I tied the field scraf she said through her tears. “He was there you know.”

You have what looks like a plot. You have initiation and an orgasm to sex. Is that a plot? No, there's no conflict for one. Two, there is no resolution. Orgasm is not resolution it's the end to a scene. It is a complete scene, but it does not stand alone as a story because there's no plot. It does stand alone as a vignette because there is a feel to finality. You began to introduce conflict at the end, though you never defined it, and the conflict was never resolved.

No conflict, no resolution, no plot.

Sex can be confused as a plot because in some stories it is the plot. It's not in this one because the movement through the story is about the characters, not about the sex. If you wanted to write a story where sex is the plot, then the entire movement would be concerned with sex and the characters would be secondary or never developed. That is why you cannot write an arousing 300 word story because you cannot introduce character development and plot sex at the same time. Why not? Character is about mental things. Sex is about physical things. Combining the two effectively in 300 words or less with conflict and resolution is extraordinarily difficult.

 

[Whispersecret]

KM doesn't have to convince anyone. Most people would agree with us that a scene does not equal a story. It's just that she and I are the only lamebrains who are strange enough to take the time to try to explain why.

The definition of a story is a given, whether you think so or not. A story shows a character with a problem. In the course of the story the problem is solved and/or there is some change in his situation or outlook on life. Even children's stories contain all of this, and that is, by necessity, some of the most pared down fiction published today.

I suppose if you wanted to get really picky you could say in every one of those 300 word scenes that you have a character whose problem is that he wants to come, and at the end, he does. That would be technically correct. But using that narrow logic, I could also write a 15 word story:

Gary couldn't sleep. (problem) He took a sleeping pill. It worked. (problem solved) He now swears by No-Doz. (new outlook)

Is that a story? In the strictest sense it is, but it's not something that anyone is going to feel satisfied reading. Stories encompass so much more. They're the sum of so many things. I have higher expectations from stories. There needs to be some reward for me as a reader.

You seem to want to shift the responsibility onto the reader. THEY are the ones who have to connect the dots. That's both true and false. There are instances where readers have to make leaps of imagination, but there's also a limit that.

Your train encounter is an example. It's not a story because there's too much missing.

1. Is the field "scraf" (scarf??) supposed to characterize him as a soldier? Because there's nothing else there to suggest that.

2. I know next to nothing about the woman. I know she's willing to have sex with strangers. That's about it. I have absolutely no idea why she cries at the end, or even what she meant when she said, "He was there, you know." WHERE? Who is HE?

Usually if it's a vignette/scene, it doesnt matter. (In this case, it does for me, because I'm just plain confused at the end, which is not a state that you want your readers to be in.)

In a story, these types of questions CANNOT go unanswered. You CANNOT expect a reader to make up things like that. Most people don't want to read a story where they have to make up half of it themselves.

3. I don't know much about him either. What I got was that: he drinks, he thinks he's worldly at 21, and he's horny. Not a very defined character.

4. There's no problem to be solved, except for, as I mentioned, his desire to get laid. If you want to cling to that as a valid problem for a character to solve, then I'm certain that we will never come to agreement on this "what makes a story a story" issue.

Now, I think I may have said all I want to say on this matter. KM, smack me if I look like I'm going to revisit this topic.

 

[Whispersecret]

Okay just one more thing. (MW and KM posted stuff while I was composing my post.)

MW, no one is arguing that your stuff isn't fit to post here on the site. I think it's perfectly valid to post a scene/vignette. However, I was arguing over the definition of a STORY. Nothing personal at all.

 

[MysteryWriter]

will this never end

I do not agree that it is about sex and orgasm was the end. The end is in the statement "He was there you know." The end is left to the mind of the reader. The plot again is in the mind of the read for him/her to fill in why a complete stranger would make such an offer. The plot is there killer you just cant see it because you are too hung up on technicalities.

I am sorry but there is a plot. It is kind of like the sentence, 'Go to the store." The you is understood. That is a hard concept for some people to understand. In everyone of the 300 word STORIES the untold part of the story is a part of the plot. I am sorry you might not get it and the majority of the readers might not get it, but on some level some of them will. You might be watching the next EVOLUTION. rofl

Why not just give up on me Killer, I am hopeless. It is not that I wont admit when I am wrong. I am married, so I admit that I am wrong most days at least fifty times. I just am not convinced by your arguments. The experts don’t phase me because this is a fluid medium. Only old maid English teachers get bogged down in tradition. When I was a kid, you could not put a contraction in a short story. Now take a look at the stuff in them. So don’t tell me things wont change. Readers are more earthy now than they were when those definitions were drawn. The world is changing killer. Take a look around you. Nothing traditional ten years ago amounts to much these days. I mourn the passing of some, others I can embrace.

You believe what you want but I am going to keep on believing people can understand the 'understood' part of a story. Though I never bothered with this crap in 300 words before, I have written the reader into all my stories. The reader’s mind is part of everything I write. I know that is hard to understand because I don’t really understand it myself. But the reader brings his/her own memories to my work. Some love it, most don't but you know what? We all say the same thing, we write for ourselves.

Please just let me muddle along in my ignorance.

 

[MysteryWriter]

personal me?

I never take any of this personal. I dont agree sometimes and I do defend my possition but I dont take it personal.

 

[Whispersecret]

Re: will this never end

Only old maid English teachers get bogged down in tradition.

Hey, even though I'm married, I resemble that remark! You're wrong, and now you're insulting us teachers. Don't make me get out my ruler, young man. LOL.

I'm done arguing.

 

[MysteryWriter]

A quote for you and from you Whispersecret, "Nothing personal at all." rofl.

And the ruler thing is pretty kinky.