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Post by Dante on Jan 9, 2012 14:25:34 GMT -5
For Daniel Handler's 42nd birthday on February 28th, we have decided to write forty-two micro-stories for him based around forty-two unfortunate items, events, or ideas. The premise is that these stories have been produced as we attempted to find the mythical "answer to misfortune," but could only devise ideas that created misfortune rather than resolved it. At present, we have not yet decided whether the stories should all be forty-two words long, or whether they should increase in length from one word to forty-two words. The increasing story length would be cleverer, but harder to co-ordinate. Please vote in the poll above on which you would prefer, and try to give your reasons in the thread, as good reasoning may trump a majority vote. In addition, the first letter of each story will spell out a forty-two letter birthday message for Mr. Handler. Please make suggestions and recommendations for what this message could be. Suggestions so far include "WE WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR DANIEL HANDLER" (me) and "HAPPY BIRTHDAY! MORE GIFTS NEXT YEAR! SO PLEASE LIVE!" (tk). Please submit ideas for the forty-two subjects. They can be anything so long as they are unfortunate, optionally slightly funny, and definitely possible to write a story of up to forty-two words about. It should also be possible to represent these ideas in the form of a single image, as we are also planning an image collage based on the subjects of the stories. For further information, please see this thread. |
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Post by Dante on Jan 9, 2012 16:51:18 GMT -5
Not meaning to double-post, but the post above is sort of introductory and I don't want to clutter it. Here are some ideas I've had or have been suggested to me: - Dropping one's change.
- Being attacked by a seemingly harmless animal. (I have a vague idea for a story in which Larry Lotsaluck is attacked by a duck.)
- Being burgled by a man in a striped vest.
- "An initial way to speak to you." (Final story.)
In the original thread, F.D. also suggested melted ice-cream, whilst Brunch suggested cold soup. Be creative! Even something only slightly unfortunate can be written about in forty-two words. Once we have our suggestions, I'll be posting a few example stories to get people inspired. |
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Post by Invisible on Jan 9, 2012 17:16:07 GMT -5
Your favourite TV show being cancelled. It's quite a bad idea, but meh. It happens  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2012 18:45:29 GMT -5
-Forgetting to remove a bunch of tissue paper from your pocket before putting it into the washing machine, and then when you wear the pants again there'll be these annoying shredded pieces of wet tissue paper. =/ (too long?)
-Your car battery dying on you when you're the first car in front of a line waiting for the traffic lights to turn green (happened to me and my mum last week, can you believe it?)
-Stage fright
-Maths
-Warm carbonated drinks
-Nagging mothers
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Post by csc on Jan 9, 2012 19:49:59 GMT -5
May I ask how we will select the subject?
My ideas:
-Slipping on a banana peel
-A hairdresser that doesn't follow your requests
-Being found foing something embarassing
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Post by Christmas Chief on Jan 9, 2012 21:57:38 GMT -5
On the poll: The advantages of all-42-word submissions would be such that not as much coordination would be required, which might make the whole operation smoother, as well providing an opportunity to reemphasize the 42 theme many times over. On the other hand, advantages of an increasingly-42-word submissions would provide a chance to express our organizational, communicating, and creative abilities. Bear in mind also that we do have an early start on this project, so the coordination would lie mostly with record-keeping, I feel, and not with time - we have some weeks to arrange this. Also, remember we'll all probably be doing several stories, so someone doing a two-word story could also do a 37 word story, for instance. One disadvantage to this that's occurred to me, however, is that collecting extra stories would be more of a challenge. May I ask how we will select the subject? Do you mean the story ideas? I think we decided to use a sign up, so that once we've gathered ideas people can choose which ones they want to do. Speaking of which, we should probably decide on a cut-off date for this to allow enough time for both the actual story submissions and any coordination it might require (e.g., the secret message). Ideas: - A threatening telephone message (realtor phone call) - Being stuck in an elevator (with villains) - Having an e-book run out of batteries (in the first five minutes of an eleven hour flight) |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2012 2:38:55 GMT -5
Ideas:
-secret codes (maybe we can use this as the 42nd unfortunate thing to give a hint on the 'initial way to speak to you' thang?)
-buying a book that turned out to be very poorly-written
-forgetting to buy some milk until it's too late
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Post by Dante on Jan 10, 2012 3:56:22 GMT -5
Another suggestion I've been given, taking into account that we're hoping to use images and image collages, is that the short forty-two word stories could be used as captions of sorts to images; the example that was given to me was that you could have a picture of a birthday cake, and the story caption would suggest that it actually contains a bomb. So if you can come up with a good way to use an image for a story, then go for it! In addition, here's an actual story idea I've had, which you may or may not approve of but may regard as an example of what we're ultimately expecting: "Sarah from Alaska was reconsidering her political career. It wasn't like being a sports commentator, where you could just talk about the action from a distance away. Although people did seem to like her speeches... but they laughed in the wrong places."
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Post by Invisible on Jan 10, 2012 5:22:25 GMT -5
Your favourite TV show being cancelled. It's quite a bad idea, but meh. It happens Wait, I've altered mine now. Your favourite TV show being cancelled due to lack of a script XD |
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Post by csc on Jan 10, 2012 9:25:18 GMT -5
May I ask how we will select the subject? Do you mean the story ideas? I think we decided to use a sign up, so that once we've gathered ideas people can choose which ones they want to do. Speaking of which, we should probably decide on a cut-off date for this to allow enough time for both the actual story submissions and any coordination it might require (e.g., the secret message). What I actually meant is, how will we choose the ideas that will be used? I think everyone should agree on them, right? I had an idea for a secret message: "DON'T GET ANY OLDER, WE'RE WARNING YOU: IT GETS WORSE." |
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Post by B. on Jan 10, 2012 11:36:26 GMT -5
Sounds good, but what is the unfortunate thing? Is it people laughing in the wrong places?
A HAPPY BIRTHDAY! LIFE GOES ON WITH MORE MISFORTUNE
If I'm not mistaken the above has 42 letters.
My ideas:
- Nails scratching on a black board
- bad breath
- Dentists
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Post by Dante on Jan 10, 2012 11:48:04 GMT -5
What I actually meant is, how will we choose the ideas that will be used? I think everyone should agree on them, right? Depends how many we get! If we have more than forty-two by the time everyone's finished coming up with ideas, I'm sure we can all agree on which ones aren't so strong or don't seem like they could spawn much of a story. I think the secret message should be a happy one, actually. Sounds good, but what is the unfortunate thing? Is it people laughing in the wrong places? I didn't really come up with a concept for the story; the story itself just kind of struck me. It's an unfortunate situation for a lot of reasons. But it's also just an example. We don't have to go with it. (And can't, if we decide that the stories will increase in word length.) Here's another example; the first four words of this story were supplied to me, and inspired me to write the rest. Think of it as another example. "Squirrels: Sure, they look harmless. But ask little Jimmy Lackpaw why he can't play the piano any more, and he'll tell you a story which'll change your mind. Would you like to hear that story? You can't, since I'm out of words." |
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter 
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
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Post by Antenora on Jan 10, 2012 12:14:57 GMT -5
I came up with this one, thinking about the idea of cake bombs:
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Birthdays frequently feature surprises. But not all surprises are pleasant. For example, you may receive an ugly sweater instead of the new electronic device you wanted. Or you may light the candles on your cake, only to hear a strange ticking sound…
--
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Post by csc on Jan 10, 2012 12:29:01 GMT -5
Nice story.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Jan 10, 2012 16:33:56 GMT -5
[Note: I counted the hyphenated word in the second story as a single word.]
The old woman slammed down the phone, panting at the memory of the bright, cheery voice. Hurriedly she dialed the number to contact the police. But it was too late. A “FOR SALE” sign was already being nailed into her front lawn.
"Ladies, Gentlemen: please fasten your seat belts. We are departing the airport now." I pulled out my PDA. WELCOME. I scrolled through some files. FLIGHT CHECKLIST. I checked: Flashlight? Check. Laptop? Check. Camera? Check. Walkie-talkies? Check. LOW BATTERY. What? Oh. Oh, no.
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