Cliches

I used to be a bit concerned about the length of my stories, and I'm highly aware it's why I don't get many comments, I'm sure there are people who click onto my stories and think no this is just too damn long and click out again. I actually think I may have at least one short story here that qualifies as a novella. However I write these for my enjoyment and to experiment and grow as a writer, if anyone, anywhere actually gets some pleasure out reading them and feels so minded to comment that's an extra special bonus for me. With cliches they are sometimes hard to avoid, a pet peeve of mine is using slang or technology that doesn't fit with the time being written about. There's a series of books based on the Assassin's Creed computer game. I'm not a gamer, so have never played it although I get the whole concept, it seems to partially responsible for the ubiquitous hooded man who seems to appear on the cover of every second fantasy novel hitting the shelves these days. Anyway I liked the idea of the concept, assassin in Renaissance Italy goes out to avenge his family. I picked up the first book and within the first chapter I counted about 3 anachronistic sentences and immediately put it down and have never looked at them again.

Speaking of cliches, I'd like to recommend "Finding Excuses" by js_anon, a hilarious tour of spanked-wife cliches in under 500 words.

First, the word count is usually clearly shown, so there is really no reason for someone to click on a story just to find out how long it is.

Second, I have had excellent success with a couple longer stories lately, and so am questioning my assumptions about what what length story readers here want to read. Frankly, I'm just not a 1 or 2 thousand word kind of Guy. It usually takes me at least 3000 words to develop and tell a story.

Strictly speaking (and if one can't be strict at the LSF, where can one?) this is a pretty big digression from the original thread.

Once I click on a Seegee story I'm not clicking out. LOL I find there are authors who keep me interested right on through, and there a quite a few of them here. You're one of them, my friend.

B

Here is a minor point and off-topic: Soldiers wouldn't yell "Duck". What they would yell is "Incoming!"

Once when I was in a coffee house a man who had just gotten out of the army and had been in combat was walking across the floor. Somebody dropped a plate and instantly he was on his face on the floor yelling "Incoming!" He was very embarrassed when he arose but there was no criticism of him.

Maybe "duck" was supposed to be a clue about who called it? It's been a while, but if memory serves there might have half trained civilians with them... which is an aside to the fact that even professional authors sometimes screw up to the point that the reader doesn't know who said what.

It's so much easier to have two character talking than it is to have 3 or more. It just is.

Goodgulf

When one is in a tense situation one may have been told to call out certain terms, may have even done so in practice, however when it comes to the real crunch, a person yells out whatever comes first to their mind. Yes they may have got orders to yell "incoming" but when the bullets and bombs are flying people do what they do, and it may take years before they finally get around to yelling out the proper terms.

I am sure if anyone one is in that situation and someone yells "duck," no one is going to turn to him and say "You are suppose to yell "incoming." If one ever did such a thing that one would likely get his ass blown off long before they finished correcting the word.

T
True, but service personnel are trained over and over again to respond to certain situations in certain ways. In the Roman army, so modern in many ways, it was said that they trained till combat seemed like just more training. From everything I've read and heard, regular soldiers will shout "Incoming!" if that's what they've been trained to shout - and as being fired at is quite a common experience for soldiers, they'll have experienced it before. However, soldiers may also think fast under stress. The best response to a grenade and to artillery fire might be different. I remember a U.S. Second World War soldier recounting an incident in which he shouted "Live grenade!", which was useful information to his comrades into whose hole the grenade had just dropped (they survived).

Indeed they do. Tom has obviously never met my wife.

Cliches ...

The spoilt brat wife who plays up more and more in company until her alpha male husband takes her outside and gives her a good spanking and then she's just wonderfully sweet and submissive.

The girl's school in an age of computers and rap music but which still has a remote tower where miscreant girls are taken for a bare-bottom birching by the male headmaster ... just a few days after their eighteenth birthday.

The futuristic story where a beautiful female earthling is spanked by an alien whilst its tentacles do interesting things to her erogenous zones ... oh, actually that's one of mine.