[ SECRET POST #348 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #348 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 100 secrets from Secret Submission Post #050.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, 0 not!secrets, 0 not!fandom, [ 1 2 ] repeats, [ 1 ] too big.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Thursday, December 20th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[forchancookie.livejournal.com]

Now you're moving into that nebulous grounds of "What is art?" I'd really rather not go there. That is a dark and wanky place that I'm just not stupid enough to tread on.

I will say this, I think that even fanworks deserve your best efforts. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right (well, whole-heartedly, but not necessarily what someone else deems as proper). I think too many people in fandom slide by with the excuse that it's only fandom? I ran a fanfiction panel once where some girl insisted that she would write her fics half-assed if she wanted, but she'd do it properly when it counted. So...you're not practicing getting it right now, but you're going to nail it later on when it counts? Excuse me for being cynical, but it really doesn't work that way. If you're going to do it, put some effort into it. If you're not going to do that, I will not respect you or your work.

Now, back to drabbles. No matter how artistically they are executed and no matter how anyone else argues, a drabble really is a piece of an unseen whole. Now, I'm working off the idea that a drabble is 100 words, maybe 200 but that's pushing it. No matter what you say within that limited word length, there is always something else that is unsaid. There's always something missing. Drabbles simply cannot be complete.

Yes, I will withhold my respect from someone who is afraid to try something new. If you say "Well I write good drabbles and that's good enough". I just don't feel that it's good enough. If you're not constantly trying to improve, then you've just fallen into a stagnant hole and ya might as well go buy your plot now. What else is there for you to do if what you've done is good enough?

[(Anonymous)]

Way to miss the point of drabbles entirely.

[forchancookie.livejournal.com]

Oh please anonymous-chan! Won't you tell me the point of drabbles!

Come on, if you're going to toss out a dissenting opinion, at least take the time to elaborate, otherwise keep your two cents to yourself.

[(Anonymous)]

Drabbles aren't about completeness.

Stop overgeneralizing. If you can't take the time to prove your incredibly arrogant points then you should keep them to yourself.

[forchancookie.livejournal.com]

That's funny, most of the people commenting are talking about how much work it takes to create a polished or complete drabble. So far, I've seen no other viewpoints that agree with yours. So that's just your opinion and this is mine. I have just as much of a right to spout my opinion as you have to spout yours. If you don't like it, you get to argue, but that's about it. Being an ass about it doesn't convince anyone of your viewpoint.

[(Anonymous)]

tl;dr

You should drabble more, since obviously you haven't learned what they're good practice for yet.

Stop hiding behind your verbosity.

[forchancookie.livejournal.com]

My reply was 84 words long.

That's less than these drabbles you're so vehemently defending.

IRONY.

So here's a novel idea for you. GTFO.

[(Anonymous)]

With pleasure~

[coloredink.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to disagree on the point that a drabble "cannot" be complete. I think the key is to find a story that only needs to be 100 words long, or that can survive the given constraints. Of course, ah ha ha ha, this is quite the challenge in itself.

A while back, there was a "six word stories" meme running around. One of the most amazing stories I've ever read was one of the examples used for this meme: "For sale: baby shoes, slightly used." I would not call this incomplete. I think it somehow manages to convey a--very tragic, heartbreaking--story in only six words.

One of my writing instructors once passed on a piece of wisdom that her mentor gave her: Every sentence must have three reasons to be there. This may be an impossible goal, she said, but in reaching for it, you'll at least find two reasons for every sentence to be there, and that alone makes your writing more powerful.

I write drabbles for practice, not to get myself past a block or help me flesh out an idea, but because when I have only 100 words, every word has to mean something. There is no room for superfluousness in a drabble. All my drabbles so far have pretty much sucked, but I hope I'll get there someday.

[forchancookie.livejournal.com]

I find that most, if not all, of these drabbles leave so many questions behind, they're just incomplete.

Even the example you've provided, which is a famous piece from Hemingway, leaves so much unsaid. It hints at a story, but I cannot feel that it is a story in and of itself.

That's kind of how I feel about drabbles. They're hints at bigger pictures, but you only get that little drop and it's not enough to refresh your thirst, therefore I can't see it as a whole.