LNH: The Alt.Riders Story Challenge Spectacular!

[Tom Russell]

Jamas Enright wrote:
> THE ALT.RIDERS STORY CHALLENGE SPECTACULAR

Hurray!

The first thing I want to say is that I love the fact that you were
able to make the last word into a punchline. :-)

Secondly, you rose to the challenge.  While the prose isn't necessarily
as sharp as your regular stories, it certainly moves and entertains--
something that's hard to do within these constraints.

> Author's Notes:
> Ew, there is some really awkward phraseology in that. And too many uses of
> similes to get around some of those words. Still, not a bad effort. I

I would say, from a quick survey of the entries, many of us have relied
on too many similies to carry the weight of the challenge-- probably
because it's difficult to craft a literal story that utilizes so many
nouns.  Which brings us to the next point.

> wrote this going backwards and forwards, seeding earlier words that I
> would be forced to use later. Having more words being past-tense verbs or
> adverbs would make things easier. Hey-ho.

True, but who wants it be easy? ;-)

I might come up with a few variations on the rules, if only to make it
a tad bit easier for myself to occassionally enter the challenge. :-)

How about, you must use the seventy-five words-- *or* *their*
*derivatives*-- in order?  So, one could conjugate stack into stacks or
stacked or stacking, or fast into fasting, faster, fastest.

We'll call this variation the Preserving Sanity Variation. :-)

Thanks for writing, Jamas.  And don't be so hard on yourself-- because
I think you did swell!

==Tom