06 May 2006 at 01:19 - 5
Title: It is very hard to live next door to someone who likes to play the drums at three in the morning.
That is what she told the police as they took her knife away.
***
Thats a mild paraphrase (to avoid copyright) of a story I heard once, from a published anthology as the speaker read it to me. If anyone knows the original and the author, please post or PM; I thought it kicked butt.
Technically, this is fiction. We know our spider pets don't actually save us from trouble by spitting webs at us.
Now Nooblets and this type of short fiction isn't really my cup-o-tea (EDIT: and I'd not want Lyssa's Fiction to be suddenly flooded with it) but its cute in its way and has an appearant fan base. I would suggest you spend more time crafting your piece before posting, however. Make it less anecdotal in the future if you want to write very short fiction. Example; in just two sentences (as above) you can have every element needed to make a story. Antagonst, action, suspense, drama. All there in just two sentences.
So too does yours. You've got monsters in a pit, yourself as the point of suspense and drama as you are endangered, and Nooblets coming to the rescue, coming alive in the action of spitting his web. Buts its rough, the way you've placed these devices. Also, the backstory about "Why don't more rangers care about their pets?" should be physically seperated from your piece. Running them together as you do with Nooblets background makes the story seem less fictiony, more comentary.
Still, I say, it should stay. Its a novel first effort at short fiction. i hope to see your writing evolve as you continue to post in this thread.
More to a point: you have posted in Lyssa's Fiction so you will hopefully be recieving many "off-topic" replies. These are people like me, coming in to critique your work, offer advice and their views. Take these with a grain of salt. For my part, I hope you find these comments constructive and helpful as you begin your story telling career in this forum. To that; my advice:
Edit. You need to move your subjects and craft a title from the anecdotal last sentence of your first paragraph. And yes, it needs to be a title. Since these are the Adventures of Nooblets and Kurt, each seperate story deserves its own seperate heading.
[ b ]Bold [/b], [ i ]Italics[ /i ], [ u ]Underline[ /u ] or ALL CAPS certain important words and phrases. Exapmle: I italicised the title to the example piece in this post. That makes it clearly different from the rest of the work, and so seperates it in the hopes of grabbing the readers attention. Side-commentary is allowed in this forum, but it needs to be seperated from the story to protect the story's integrity.
Finally, there is a device you half-use here, a question and answer type of writing. But you don't have the "question". Think Catechism, the religious practice of one person asking a question and the congregation answering. For you, this is done in reverse, but the queestion is subtly hidden. Next time, don't hide it.
EX: The casual gamer asks : "Why do you love your pet?" and you reply "Why just today he saved my life again" and move forward with the story of how.
Try that device next time; you might find the work evolves in credibility while still maintaining its quirky sense of self.
PS: every one of my pets names is "Meatshield".