8FOLD: Journey Into # 13: The Five Graph Trap!

[Scott Eiler]

On Jul 21, 6:32 am, Andrew Perron <pwer... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:33:06 +0000 (UTC), Tom Russell wrote:
> > He must be more
> > brilliant in this week, this day, perhaps even this hour, than he's
> > ever been in the past.  And indeed, more brilliant than he ever could
> > be.
>
> Ooooooh.  Very, very nice.  Sort of like a reverse Ozymandias, but far more
> difficult.
>
> > NOTES.
>
> > The problem with being the sort of chap who sometimes fusses over a
> > story for weeks and months is that all that fussing isn't conducive to
> > finishing a story in a timely manner-- that is, say, before a high
> > concept contest deadline.
>
> Oh, do I ever know that one. (Looniverse Chronicles #1 was only thirteen
> minutes before the deadline - or it would have been, had Dave not been a
> time zone over from me.)

I think I'm sitting out this contest again.  I pretty much got rid of
my last death-trap specialist last year, and right now I am just
stumped for things that look like death traps.

> > Having missed the last deadline for
> > precisely that reason, I said, to hell with it, it's gonna be a little
> > messy, but let's get the damn thing done this time around.  Having
> > just finished proofreading said story, I'm not too deeply unhappy with
> > it; I think the idea's reasonably clever and the ornate execution
> > somewhat appropriate for such an ornate thinker.
>
> I was going to say it felt a bit rushed, but then I realized...
>
> > This story doesn't only reflect the death trap theme in its substance,
> > but I also consciously trapped myself formally in writing it by using
> > The Five Paragraph Strait-Jacket, as we used the standard format for
> > both essays and creative writing back in high school.
>
> ...that it had a length limitation.  With that in place, I saw how cleverly
> it had been used; it felt longer than it was.

Hmm.  I forgot everything I learned about writing in high school, so I
don't recall if I ever learned about five-paragraph form.

> > Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed it.
>
> I did!
>
Yeah, me too.  I found the short length refreshing, and that run-on
sentence in the first paragraph actually sounded great from a villain.