Don't be a bore!
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:45 am
I had hoped to justify my recent promotion by reading all the oldest stories on the Archive and passing on any hints that had been left by these authors ten years ago and more. The results turned out rather differently.
I began with "The S-M Cult" posted anonymously in 2000. This purports to be about the creation ofa new society where all males are routinely neutered. I say "purports" because I didn't persist to the end. On the excitement-points scale it is level-pegging with the daily doings in an old people's retirement home.
So, Lesson No 1, if you want to get read, DON'T BE DULL.
Lesson No 2, don't be obscure. I refer to another old one, "A-1 has a nervous breakdown" also posted in 2000. Nearly a page of A4 is given to the two words "road trip" repeated over and over again. Might mean something to the writer but not to me.
To move to the positive, the reason why "Just 10 years old" sends a shiver down my spine is the way it's set in the here-and-now: the little victim loses his boy-parts to two cuts of a razor, in the men's room in a major city in the States. The perpetrators, two men from a disaffected ethnic group. So: Lesson No 3: prefer the familiar to the unfamiliar. Set where is is, the story is a winner. Set 1000 years hence in the city of Joveopolis, or among aliens on the planet Zarg, it would be nothing.
A recent story that has won much acclaim - and hits running well into 5 figures - is Coyan Hyde's "Five Boys". Coyan Hyde is a master of Lesson No 3: his story is well into the here-and-now. Boys of 11 all get their balls pricked to stop them having sex with girls - and how we do feel for them!
Hope this helps.
C van D
I began with "The S-M Cult" posted anonymously in 2000. This purports to be about the creation ofa new society where all males are routinely neutered. I say "purports" because I didn't persist to the end. On the excitement-points scale it is level-pegging with the daily doings in an old people's retirement home.
So, Lesson No 1, if you want to get read, DON'T BE DULL.
Lesson No 2, don't be obscure. I refer to another old one, "A-1 has a nervous breakdown" also posted in 2000. Nearly a page of A4 is given to the two words "road trip" repeated over and over again. Might mean something to the writer but not to me.
To move to the positive, the reason why "Just 10 years old" sends a shiver down my spine is the way it's set in the here-and-now: the little victim loses his boy-parts to two cuts of a razor, in the men's room in a major city in the States. The perpetrators, two men from a disaffected ethnic group. So: Lesson No 3: prefer the familiar to the unfamiliar. Set where is is, the story is a winner. Set 1000 years hence in the city of Joveopolis, or among aliens on the planet Zarg, it would be nothing.
A recent story that has won much acclaim - and hits running well into 5 figures - is Coyan Hyde's "Five Boys". Coyan Hyde is a master of Lesson No 3: his story is well into the here-and-now. Boys of 11 all get their balls pricked to stop them having sex with girls - and how we do feel for them!
Hope this helps.
C van D