Story idea winnowing blues

[mrissa]

[Poll #1261965]

If you have any particular favorites, please say so in the comments. Also if you think you would like to read stories of these titles but in other genres instead -- a high fantasy called "Trusting the Math," say, or near-future SF called "Temptress Terraforming Theater" -- please say that in the comments, too.

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I would go right for The Radioactive Etiquette Book, or Rituals of Optimism, if I saw either of those on a shelf.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The former is one of the clearer stories in my head, so I think I'm going to be working on that one pretty soon.

[tournevis.livejournal.com]

I'd read ANYTHING called The Radioactive Etiquette Book. Genius title.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[biguglymandoll.livejournal.com]

Ditto to this!

[brooksmoses]

I go by authors, more than people; I would pretty much like to read any of these. So I adjusted the threshold to a point where about half of the stories were checked, and checked those.

I particularly like "There is a Way...", "Trusting the Math", "The Stars Were Closer Then", "When the Forest...", "Pillars...", and "What I Did...". Which, oddly enough, is actually pretty close to a total ordering -- like you, I virtually never have those. (Disclaimer: Total ordering may change in five minutes.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thank you; checking all of them and saying, "I like your stories!" would be flattering but not useful.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Most of the ones I chose were appealing because they sounded like the kind of thing that Heinlein would have written.

My highest hopes would be for "Many Other Amenities" and "Trusting the Math". I would read the gingerbread one because of the title alone and hope for the best. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Trusting the Math" is a pair of elisem earrings, gorgeous and mathy.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

But it totally sounds like a Heinlein short story, doesn't it? Maybe something with Andy Libby.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Also, I seem to have failed to tick the ticky box for 'Math'. [sigh]

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

my favorite of them all is "sing the verses you know." i'd pick that up and hope it wasn't TOO SF-ey ;)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Dear heart, I am what I am.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

I'd probably read nearly all of these, given an author (like, say, you) or a venue that I found generally reliable.

I didn't mark "Pictures of Her Gingerbread", because I have a hard time imagining a far-future SF story with that title. I kind of suspect that if it were presented to me in a context that made it unambiguously clear that it was a far-future SF story, I'd probably read it just to see how you made a far-future SF story for which that was an appropriate title.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So I should only write it if I think it could be sold to an exclusively SF antho, or else Analog?

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Oh, no. Asimov's would do. ;)

I should be clearer: it's not that I wouldn't read the story if I thought it was fantasy, or mainstream fiction, or a mystery. It's just that the conjunction of that title with far-future SF would really make me think, "Oh, that's unusual. I should check that out."

I am possibly over-thinking this.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I dove straight for "The Radioactive Etiquette Book" and pounced upon it with great and vehement clicky-clicky.

"All the Ones We Could Not Reach" sounds very sad and elegiac in my head.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In mine, too.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I really like "What I Did In My Summer on Corexis D," "We Make of Them an Icon and a Church," and "Three Naughty Words."

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

"All the Ones We Could Not Reach" jumped out at me, though I liked several of the others.

[madmanatw.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that I answered with novels specifically in mind. I would be unlikely to read a novel called "What I Did In My Summer on Corexis D", but I would almost certainly read a short story by that name.

For novels I tend to like titles with a certain weight to them- thus the preference away from "Summer" and the, yes, pretty genius "Radioactive Etiquette Book" and towards "Pillars of Salt and String" or "The Earth Behind Them Gleaming" (which, perhaps ironically given my reasoning, does sound like a Heinlein short story, though that would have an ellipsis at the front, IMO).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I did mean short stories. I can start with a title and feel confident I can get at least a short story from it, whereas I don't commit to something being a novel until I can feel it noveling in my head.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

If we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, doesn't that imply that we shouldn't judge a book by its title?

B

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah, but you can judge a title by its title.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Indeed you can.

B

[brooksmoses]

"No, no, that's not the title of the book. That's what the title is titled!" :)

[jry.livejournal.com]

The most intriguing ones to me were "The Stars Were Closer Then" and "Echo Truer Than Sound"

[columbina.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid that I didn't realize, until looking at this list, that I have apparently never in my life chosen whether to read a story by its title. This would explain why I seem to stick with known authors, or prefer to read stories where the magazine editor|author|anthologist writes a brief introduction that tells me what it's about.

(Now, when you do this exercise with one-sentence pitches of what each potential story is about, notify me.)

That said, some of these titles do strike me as catchier than others, and since I gather that's what you actually were surveying for, I have voted accordingly.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

P.S. I should like to add to the chorus in favor of "The Radioactive Etiquette Book." My favorite of all the titles there. (And as a data point, I voted before I read the thread and saw how other people had voted.)

[aliseadae]

My favorite is 'The Stars Were Closer Then.'

[katallen.livejournal.com]

Okay, I had something to say about why I liked so many, my lessened ability to pick one or fewer of anything. and my general love of titles... But I got distracted.

Lists of other people's titles are like the names of Elise's necklaces. Also, yes I'd like a fantasy story called 'Trusting the Math' and 'The Stars were Closer then' and 'Postponed Electrons', but that's because I like doing weird things to fantasy and want other people to do them so I can read theirs instead of having to write mine.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"In addition to," please, instead of "instead of"?

[katallen.livejournal.com]

Darn, I accidentally revealed my secret master plan. :)

I clicked a bunch ...

[fmi-agent.livejournal.com]

... but not "The Radioactive Etiquette Book." That one raises warning signs of potential gimmickiness for me. I like "Pillars of Salt and String" and "Trusting the Math," although my like for the latter is conditional on it being about something more off-the-beaten-path than, say, navigating an asteroid field on instruments.

Re: I clicked a bunch ...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I promise that it may involve astrophysics but will not involve astrogation. At least not as the titular part of the story.

[aedifica]

At this point (having read a whole three of your short stories) I would read anything I saw that you had written, but I tried to adjust for that in my voting, and only vote for titles that would make me give the story a chance even if I had never heard of the author.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Much appreciated.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

None of those would do for my book, except possibly There is a way from here to there.

Do you own that necklace? Or does someone else? or has Elise still got it?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do own it; I needed that message just now, but for my life, not for a book. You're welcome to the title for your book if you decide it goes.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

If pnh likes it, I'll thank you in the acknowledgements.

[hbevert.livejournal.com]

I loved the tone of "Just Sing the Verses You Know." It struck me as a title indicating that the protagonist would be feeling clueless and eventually learn something by the end of the story.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Almost certainly. Possibly more than the protag would follow that arc.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I read short stories either when they are in anthologies I've wanted for various reasons, or in a mag. to which I subscribe; or because i like the author. The title is generally not relevant to me, except that it can comment on the story; it has little to do with whether I read the story, however.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I would read something entitled, 'Trusting the Math' even if it were on the back of a cereal box. But maybe that's just me.

I did not vote for 'Pictures of Her Gingerbread' because that, I feel certain, would be the book/story/whatever that everyone I know sees me reading, and would not under any circumstances believe it was anything non-pornographic. And unless it actually was pornographic, that would be a giant waste.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

Of the first batch I went for "Seeing through Ice" Because I trust you to do something more interesting with it than a first person pov corpse frozen in a lake with flashbacks.

Of the second I went for the optimistic and/or poignant ones. I'd be very interested in reading "When the forest was opened" to see if it fits the echoes in my head.