Pickle Tales Round 1b, Vote for your favorite story! Options

[Christiana]

Hello everyone!

Round 1B is now on the feed!

You can subscribe at http://pickletales.picklefeeds.com (iTunes 1click, Pickle Page), or download the episode direct right here!

Listen to the show and then vote for your favorite! Voting is open until noon on Thursday, November 16th, then on November 17th, we'll announce the results! The top three vote-getters will move on to round 2!

[Laurence Simon]

Just listened... man, this one's going to be hard.

But at least I got to finish off my notes profiling each of the judges.

BTW... might want to unpin the previous round and pin this one.

[Christiana]

BTW... might want to unpin the previous round and pin this one.

Done!

[Brother Osric]

"The Book"--here's one where I'll disagree with the judges, in that I felt the reading was quick, but not necessarily rushed. The occultic operations were well summarized, and while I needed them to fill out the story, any more might have been excessive. (Certainly we've heard enough of them in other tales, and seen enough of them in movies, that we ourselves can fill in the blanks.) The crucial task in the story was to maintain the link in the listener's memory between the discoveries of the Book, and Manata did that. He set the mood (did he ever!), and told us just enough to indicate what was going on. Ten minutes might well have been too long.

Granted, I'm trying to learn the art of compression and thus I see it as a plus. And perhaps that too is part of the difference between a story on the page and one told orally. Still, I thought "The Book" worked.

[comedy4cast]

"The Book"--here's one where I'll disagree with the judges...

Right on. This is the place to discuss your opinions of the stories. As judges, we get the chance to let everyone hear our opinions. Those doing the actual voting should use this venue to express their views.

Keep it up!

[Christiana]

Right on. This is the place to discuss your opinions of the stories. As judges, we get the chance to let everyone hear our opinions. Those doing the actual voting should use this venue to express their views.

Keep it up!

Let me second Clinton here. You've come here to vote, but please do stay to discuss as well! Do you think the judges are right on the money or way off the mark? Do you want to sing the praises of your underdog favorite or jump on the bandwagon for the leader? Did one of the stories make you think/feel/laugh/cry? Let us know!

[Laieanna]

I think I liked "The Book" except for the fact that it was read so fast with no breaths in between. I really wanted to get into the story, but I couldn't keep up with the pace to really savor the creepiness that I know was going on. I think only a small portion of the small portion of our brain is actually working in me. I would love to hear "The Book" again at a slower (with pauses) pace.

I think my second favorite was "The Helpful Dead". Might be the first time I feel bad for zombies. Although...the thought of them as greeters is pretty entertaining.

[P. Dilly]

I think I liked "The Book. I would love to hear "The Book" again at a slower (with pauses) pace.

I agree, my thoughts exactly

[Brother Osric]

Okay, an example of compression. Check out the next episode of J.C. Hutchins's podcast novel 7th Son (www.jchutchins.net) — and you should anyway, ’cause it's got Nathan Fillion in it — where he's been kind enough to post a skit I did entitled "Wake-up Calls." It's entirely dialogue, and I noticed as I replayed it that each gap between lines stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. So I cut down on that intervening time, until the pacing eventually came to resemble one of those rapid-fire radio comedies (or the quick-zinger retorts of Morey Amsterdam of The Dick Van Dyke Show, one of my heroes). Also there was the question of how much material was redundant and could therefore be cut. What remains is pretty much a bare minimum, although I believe people who've been following 7th Son will catch it. But will they get it all on the first hearing? That I don't know.

Why I bring it up here is that the pacing of that skit (which I would love to have used here, except that, depending as it does on the background of 7th Son, it is not at all self-contained) wound up being much like Manata's in "The Book." And again the same questions can be asked: How much material is enough, and how much crosses the line into padding? How fast a pace is too fast, and how slow should a pace be before the story drags? We all know that our capacity for hearing words is far greater than the speed of normal conversation; how can we best adapt our storytelling technique to make use of that fact?

Incidentally, I just checked out Manata's Squirrelbait podcast. After hearing it ... no, I wouldn't say the reading of "The Book" is rushed (whatever you might wish to say about the writing). This man could do FedEx commercials comfortably.

------------

P.S. — Okay, granted, horror is a genre in which silence (= negative space) is also a tool to be wielded carefully. (Yes, I also grew up listening to Paul Harvey, a master of the pregnant pause.) Still...

[David_Rex]

I wanted to vote for "Distinctive", in part because I seemed to like it so much better than the judges, despite the problems. Maybe I just thought the ending worked better than they did. *shrugs*

I loved Ivan though, partly because this mother with an overdone accent in "Russia" was such a strange contrast to Ivan and his overdone American punky teen. That just struck me as funny somehow. He seemed to be an unwilling participant to the story. It did go on for too long though, I agree.

[Smart Bomb Radio]

I gotta say that these judges did a really solid job of deconstructing the problems with my story.

I listened to their critiques of the helpful dead and I've been kicking myself all day. I cut an entire section about the shotgun out and the fact that there are waiting periods of handguns, etc for more anti-consumer angst and that was a bad move.

And as for the performance, I was going for Noir, but it really did come out as slightly bored

All in all I was really pleased with the first 2 minutes of this one, and I still like where I went with it, but I can deffinately see that the market for "Sympathetic Undead in Consumer Dystopia's" might not be all that strong

Seriously thiough, to be able to even have my stuff featured in the same podcast as some of these stories has been a frackin honor!

Greensleaves and The Practical joke were what rocked my world this round, and I want to hear a version of "The book with a slower, spookier tempo because the writing on that one really was great "night gallery" type horror. And Simple Ivan is one I would LOVE to hear round a campfire.

As for distinctive, I agree that the "Tell me a story tomorrow" or some such thing "Tell me a story before you kill me" might have been a better ending, but this one really did give me a nerdgasm. Any story that mentions the Touring test is good in my book, and I'm really fascinated with the idea of artficial intelligence (especially in that you basically have to kill iteration A to create iteration B, and so on and so forth.)

Like I said, hell of a great round to have my story side by side with!

[Brother Osric]

I wanted to vote for "Distinctive", in part because I seemed to like it so much better than the judges, despite the problems. Maybe I just thought the ending worked better than they did. *shrugs*

Thank you! I think the stumbling block may be that the idea of a story's depending on sequence, on cause and effect, and thus being by definition alien to computers as we know them, made for a punchline that wasn't all that obvious. Or, if it was, it was more cerebral than visceral — and a good campfire punchline does go for the gut, even if not exclusively so. (Certainly "The Practical Joke" did!)

That was part of my puzzlement with "The Helpful Dead." Now please understand: I am in awe of Will Ross's comedic talent. I haven't heard much of Smart Bomb Radio, but his contributions to the collateral material for Infection and 7th Son have been right on target. By contrast, I wasn't sure what the target of this story was (or even how it addressed "Tell Me a Story," besides being a narrative). At first I thought it was a skewer-the-Christians piece; then I figured it was really a zombie tale, the zombies being explained by the fact of Christian revenants; then, really a tale about maladroit Wal-Mart greeters, explained by the fact of Christian zombies ... but then we abandoned the zombies to look at Wal-Mart customers instead. In view of the narrator's final choice for his purchase, perhaps the story was simply intended to be a depiction of chaos (and perhaps a final pie fight might have fit as well). But in that case, it seemed less like a story than a presentation of images. As always, others' mileage may vary.

I loved Ivan though, partly because this mother with an overdone accent in "Russia" was such a strange contrast to Ivan and his overdone American punky teen. That just struck me as funny somehow. He seemed to be an unwilling participant to the story. It did go on for too long though, I agree.

True; I might have subtracted two segments. But you're right, Ivan himself was kinda cool; I liked his "oh, I get it" and other offhand remarks, which glided smoothly into the flow of the piece yet at the same time were able to sound unscripted. I'd like to hear some more from the Activated Storytellers — this was a good performance indeed!

[Smart Bomb Radio]

That was part of my puzzlement with "The Helpful Dead." Now please understand: I am in awe of Will Ross's comedic talent. I haven't heard much of Smart Bomb Radio, but his contributions to the collateral material for Infection and 7th Son have been right on target. By contrast, I wasn't sure what the target of this story was (or even how it addressed "Tell Me a Story," besides being a narrative). At first I thought it was a skewer-the-Christians piece; then I figured it was really a zombie tale, the zombies being explained by the fact of Christian revenants; then, really a tale about maladroit Wal-Mart greeters, explained by the fact of Christian zombies ... but then we abandoned the zombies to look at Wal-Mart customers instead. In view of the narrator's final choice for his purchase, perhaps the story was simply intended to be a depiction of chaos (and perhaps a final pie fight might have fit as well). But in that case, it seemed less like a story than a presentation of images. As always, others' mileage may vary.

Here is the thing about my story, I'm not sure I reached my stated objectives with this one. The point of the story was to cast evil as good and good as evil, all while skewering everyone I could get my skewer into. But what I realized was that after some of the cuts to get it to five minutes and by making it film Noir with this main character what I came out of it with was the Podcasting equivilent of fingerpainting. I like parts of it, but it's kind of a mess.

People seem to like it, and that's very cool, but I really think they are voting on the potential of it, not the finished product

[Manata]

Hey ya'll, Manata here. I'm glad to hear that some of you enjoyed the story. I can definitely see how listeners may feel hurried through the story.

Some have noted the nature of my own podcast is definitely clock-conscious; each segment is exactly 1 minute in length. Being clock-conscious is kinda my whole shtick. It was this reason that I relished the opportunity to write a story that was exactly 5 minutes long. I'm just so used to fitting my content into a specific length of time.

(Incidently, Episode 5 of my podcast gives some love to this contest on the Pickle, Laurence's 100 Word Stories, as well as my obsession with 7th Son, the show Brother Osric mentioned earlier.)

I was also hoping that the pacing of the verbal delivery would keep the listener interested. After all, the only thing that actually “happened” during the time that elapsed “in-story” is that the main character washed his hands and walked to his daughter's bedroom...not all that eventful, otherwise. I hope that the speed doesn't detract too much from the story overall, but I appreciate all the input. Hell, if that's the only complaint, I'm a happy guy!

Good luck to all participants and thanks to all who vote!

[Twaingirl]

Loved these podcasts--they were all superbly performed and really hard to pick from. I favor "Ivan" though, because it was homey--it reminded me of something you might hear on an Old Time Radio show like Prarie Home Companion, or something along those lines.

[tvindy]

Here is the thing about my story, I'm not sure I reached my stated objectives with this one. The point of the story was to cast evil as good and good as evil, all while skewering everyone I could get my skewer into. But what I realized was that after some of the cuts to get it to five minutes and by making it film Noir with this main character what I came out of it with was the Podcasting equivilent of fingerpainting. I like parts of it, but it's kind of a mess.

People seem to like it, and that's very cool, but I really think they are voting on the potential of it, not the finished product

After hearing this story, I was astonished that all of the judges seemed to have completely missed what to me seemed the obvious point of the narrative. But now I see I may be wrong, since even the author doesn't see it as I do. Here is how I would summarize the story:

The narrator wakes up one morning realizing that he has had enough and sets out to rid the world of the zombie scourge. On the way to acquire the requisite shotgun, he recounts details of the invasion and observes the various highly annoying zombies that surround him. This continues up to his entrance into Walmart, where he comments on the zombie greeters. Then there is a gradual shift as the narrator finds himself confronted with ill-mannered yet typical humanity. Barely realizing it at first, the narrator shifts focus to the human scourge. When he finally reaches the point of being able to acquire the shotgun, he realizes that there's really no point. The real scourge is that of living humans. Realizing the futility of the situation, he buys sleeping pills instead as a escape (perhaps a permanent one if he takes them all at once).

This reversal is a callback to the typical zombie movie formula. Most (perhaps all) zombie movies end with a brief bit at the end, after humanity has taken back control of the world, which questions who the real monsters actually are.

[BSquared]

I couldn't go past Keeme's effort. Awesome story well told. In addition, you needed no other frame of reference (no jargon or understanding of a genre required)...the story stood on it's own. I don't want to know if it's true or not though...I know what I believe and that'll do me.

But thanks to everyone from both rounds. Cool stuff.

[Brother Osric]

BSquared: Quite right! Not to mention that it ties into memories that all of us share to some extent (I mean, who hasn't had someone to idolize?) and makes us say about the narrator, "Man, that could've been me. Thank God it wasn't."

Tvindy: Nice take on "The Helpful Dead." Made sense to me.

Will: Thank you for your kind words on "Distinctive." Makes my own cross-posted comment seem kinda petty; sorry 'bout that — at least the voting so far tells us that your idea definitely has legs! (At least until they fall off in Aisle 6 ... heh heh heh ...). I've never been given credit for a nerdgasm before — although, now that I think of it, it's what I was going for. Cool.

And it's good to see "Greensleeves" finally picking up speed! I figured it should've been among the first out of the starting gate, and was disappointed that people didn't seem to notice it. An excellent reading, a gut-grabbing situation ... and how often do you hear a final stinger that uses a music box tune?

[philrossimusic]

This is a great round!

[philrossimusic]

It's my understanding, so long as you remove the zombie's head, they'll die.

"...bash 'em in the head, that seems to work."