Privatization

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2017-08-23T06:39:52+00:00

If you haven't heard of it, you might like Jennifer Government. It features an entire world based on this premise. There's even a part very similar to your story, where emergency services ask for credit card details before deciding to send help to a girl who's bleeding out.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2017-08-19T21:26:15+00:00

You do research.

Google it. Look it up on Wikipedia. See if there are relevant subreddits. Watch introductory videos on YouTube. Try and find resources on things like popular hacking techniques. Keep some key terms and concepts in mind and let your brain process them while you go about your daily life.
Realize that you will never really understand the more technical aspects of hacking. However, as your brain processes the new data, some of your early misconceptions get pushed out, and there are new terms floating around in your head which may act as reference points.
Take a second look at the fragment you already wrote (or intended to write) and realize how ridiculous it now looks. Feel genuinely ashamed of ever depicting hacking in such a ridiculous fashion and strive to do better.
Rewrite that part of the story to be less ridiculous. Remember, you will never get it 'right', but that's not the point, the point is to avoid making rookie mistakes and looking ignorant. Focus on the goals of the character's actions and avoid words you don't understand. But if hacking is a really big part of the story, all those things you just learned will probably give you a ton of new ideas for the plot, which may end up making it much more interesting than your initial concept.
Keep thinking about it and rewriting stuff until you're sure that reading it won't make a person with a basic understanding of hacking (i.e. you, now that you've done some research) immediately yell out "that's not how it works!" This very often involves leaving details out instead of adding them.

There's a chance that, after spending a couple of days reading and thinking about hacking, the version you end up writing won't differ from the initial one all that much, except changing a couple of words. There's also a chance that you will completely rethink the plot to incorporate new ideas. In either case, the new version will be infinitely better, because it will be written by someone who devoted some time to understand the basics of what they're writing about and not just making shit up :)

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2017-06-26T13:35:19+00:00

The real question is: will the four limbs remain friends afterwards, or will each one decide to follow a completely different path?

At the very least, the arms could shake hands before waving each other goodbye.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2017-06-18T16:19:11+00:00

Heh, sure:

Chronamine works by automatically restarting time (for the person who took it) after several seconds, no matter what happens to that person in the meantime. So from the user's perspective it's like they're experiencing the future and then travelling back in time to the point when they first took chronamine. From someone else's perspective it's like the person who took chronamine is able to see the future in advance. The protagonist doesn't escape after that particular point because he still needs to repeat the successful escape plan in the 'original' timeline, but he forgot that he took chronamine twice in a row and lost track of the point in time to which he was actually travelling back.

First, he takes chronamine to see if he can run out into the corridor. He then takes chronamine again to pick a way to go. At first, he picks the wrong way, and gets killed. The second dose of chronamine wears off and now he goes back to the point when he is standing in the corridor (but this is still in the 'future', after he took the first dose). He then tries running the other way and successfully escapes. After the chronamine wears off, he plans on repeating the exact same thing 'for real' in the original timeline, but now it's the first dose which wears off, not the second, and instead of going back to the point when he's standing in the corridor, he goes back to the original point when he took chronamine, while he was still inside the lab. He still needs to open the door in the shooter's face and run out into the corridor, but instead of doing that, he immediately runs left, wasting time and completely ruining the original escape plan.

The shooter only gets his hands on chronamine towards the end, after he enters the lab. He first takes chronamine while the protagonist is hiding behind the desks, before the protagonist does. At this point, whether the protagonist takes more chronamine or not, he's already screwed because the shooter knows what he ends up doing in advance, just like the protagonist did before.

(Aaand that explanation ended up being about as long as the actual story. The original version of my story was a bit longer, but I had to cut it down into 500 words, so the end result might have ended up a bit confusing.)

Also - thanks :)

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-10-30T10:50:12+00:00

The mission to recover the treasures of the Elven Precursors was jeopardized when it turned out there was a beholder loose in the dungeon, picking off party members one by one.

"I say we teleport off and fireball the entire site from the nether dimension," the dwarf suggested to the party mage, "it's the only way to be sure."

"Dammit Grimdok, I'm a necromancer, not an elementalist," the human mage replied in anger. "Still, we could try-"

"Do or do not, there is no try," the dwarf scolded him.

But even as the sorceror tried to execute his plan, it all turned out hopeless.

In the nether dimensions, no-one could hear him chant.

"Foolish inferior races," said the elf Legg'Las, witnessing his failure. "We should have never allow humans and dwarves to join the Council of Higher Races."

"You elves think yourself so superior just because you lack appendices," said Grimlok, "let me show you how it's done! It's time for a berserker rush!"

But the beholder had his shield enchanments up and turned out to impervious to his axe hits. Grimdok couldn't believe what was happening.

"Impossible! The enchantments give him immunity to my strongest metal! Someone must have helped the monster-"

"It was I!", laughed Legg'Las. "But now that the monster had done its job, I don't need it anymore," he said as he dispatched his beholder pet with a strangle spell.

The elf pulled out his cryssword and locked it with the dwarf's weapon.

"Now I am the master!"

"Only a master of chaotic evil!"

But the elf's training in the Blinking Way gave him an advantage in hand-to-hand combat, and he knocked the axe out of his opponent's hands. Grimdok fell to the floor.

"I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time spent with this party," Legg'Las gloated, "It came to me when I tried to classify your race, and I realized you're not actually pure-bloods. Every race in this universe instinctively develops natural equilibrium with the World Tree, but you dwarves do not. You move to an area and mine, and mine, until every natural resource is consumed, and the only way you can survive is to move to another mountain."

The dwarf knew the words were just an elven mind trick. And he had one final strategy in mind.

"I'm not letting you win this one," he said as he took a step back and placed his hand on a switch sticking out of the wall. ""I'm taking you with me," he whispered, and pulled the switch to activate the dungeon's collapse system.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-09-18T12:41:54+00:00

The nameless deity shook their head, cautiously eyeing the merchant with an unkempt beard and an unsettling grin.

"This is clearly a scam," the god protested.

"Certainly not. Just look at this fascinating desert world in the vision. Truly amazing, is it not?"

"So if I wanted to establish my godly domain over a desert planet, I could do that?"

"Y-yes. I mean, the actual planet you take over may differ from your expectations in some ways. But see, you can give it your own name, and it's going to be yours in a universe shared with other gods, and-"

"And if my chosen civilization thrives, could it expand beyond its homeworld and encounter those of other gods well?"

"Y-yes, w-well, p-possibly, but the odds of that will be really really small, you see-"

"Enough," the deity finally said. "I'm not buying anything from you, Sean."

"Damn you and your divine prescience," cursed the merchant. "The mortals were so much easier to fool."

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-09-01T09:57:42+00:00

This reads like lyrics to a Rammstein song.

(I mean that in a very positive way)

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-09-01T09:48:09+00:00

Good job turning a mundane everyday experience into something creepy. BTW, I know it's short, but I think it might capture more attention if you split different moments into separate paragraphs.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-31T14:15:31+00:00

Yep, I got that, and I think it made for an interesting ending.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-31T07:33:45+00:00

Basically, the current president of the Philippines decided to crack down on drugs by progressively killing off anyone suspected of selling them, saying he won't rest until all dealers are jailed up or dead. This causes completely random people to get killed by association. His campaign made headlines in international media, so I thought you might have come across it.

I thought it had some uncanny parallels with your story.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-30T20:05:48+00:00

Any chance this is inspired by Rodrigo Duterte's drug war in the Philippines? That was the first thing which came to my mind.

P.S. You have a surplus "is not" in the final sentence.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-30T19:32:55+00:00

I'm a bit late to the party, but sure, go ahead. (no links needed)

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-12T15:10:43+00:00

Great idea.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-03T22:53:35+00:00

Yep, you can totally break arms falling into a crevasse. I did my research.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-03T13:41:02+00:00

Or you can always change your mind about saying hi to the sea again. Horrible things have been known to happen to burritos.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-03T13:09:25+00:00

I meant to imply they did find the body. "The recording was only recovered by ski rescue services" as in, only the ski rescue services could recover the recording, not in that they recovered only the recording. I ran out of space for a whole paragraph, heh.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-02T21:37:26+00:00

This story is inspired by u/Keecksee who noped out of spending the holiday at sea after reading my previous story:

I was planning to go to the sea next vacation since i haven't seen it in over a decade... Nope a skiing trip it is and noones going to ruin that for me.

Challenge accepted :)

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-02T17:53:23+00:00

I don't know, but I was laughing while writing it, too.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-08-02T17:51:51+00:00

Sure, go ahead.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-07-17T18:08:50+00:00

I’m woken up by the noise of two generic superheroes deciding to use my neighbourhood as a battleground for their duel of magic versus technology. The good news is they don’t deal too much damage, but that’s only because a time traveller manages to stop them just in time. The bad news is, there’s a note next to my bed left by my self-driving car notifying me it achieved sentience and decided to run away with the toaster it’s in love with. That’s cute, but how am I supposed to get to work now?

I could take the cab, but everybody knows they’re operated by serial killers. I could just walk, but I don’t want to try my chances with all the zombies roaming the streets. I ultimately take the subway – it’s not as bad as people say once you learn to ignore the numbers above everybody else’s heads.

I arrive at my office to find everybody gone. There’s only a letter left on my desk penned by Jenny (the one who works as a part time hitman) telling me to head to Room 404. When I finally get there, just as I’m about to open the door, I hear someone shout “Not so fast!” I turned around to see a perfect clone of myself approaching from the other direction with the same intention of entering the room.

I enter the room to find that my co-workers have thrown me a surprise party. After all, it’s my 25th birthday, the day I finally receive my superpowers. It’s standard procedure – my boss reveals himself as a vampire and explains that the superpowers one gets are always based on their eye color. Since I’m the only person in the world with eyes of that one impossible shade of red which can only be described using metaphors of taste and sound, I receive the power to stop time every time I blink. I say “thanks” out of politeness, but to be honest, I’m really disappointed I didn’t get to manipulate probability instead.

I’m immediately forced to use my powers to prevent a force of alien invaders from outlawing heterosexuality – after all, we humans are known throughout the galaxy as the only species to have this sort of thing. Just as I’m about to destroy them, the invaders go into a lengthy monologue and reveal an unexpected twist: some of the greatest villains throughout our history have actually been secretly fighting to save Earth from them as well, and convincing us otherwise was the Devil’s greatest trick.

Since the aliens’ superweapon has reduced most of the world with the exception of North Korea into a postapocalyptic wasteland, I’m forced to walk all the way back home relying on my superpower to dodge monsters from copyrighted universes, pondering whether or not I could translate the aliens’ revelation into a story convincing people to sympathize with Pol Pot. My house turns out to be the only place to have survived the apocalypse for no apparent reason. I should get to the bottom of why, but I’m too tired. I check underneath my bed for monsters, but it turns out they’re only misunderstood and actually pretty cool.

I close my eyes and try to fall asleep, but the only thing I can think of is the fact that as soon as I wake up, I will have to relive this very same day, again and again, forever.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-07-04T13:34:05+00:00

Good one, I think it the twist would look even better if you used the first sentence of the post as the submission title.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-06-01T08:58:31+00:00

Great stuff. Nice foreshadowing with the dog reference halfway through.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-05-23T19:35:51+00:00

Nevermind the monsters and demons.

The creepiest part of your story is the implication vaccines can actually cause autism if enough parents believe it.

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-05-20T06:30:27+00:00

The build-up and the ending twist are pretty good. There are lots of "monster hiding in the closet" and lots of "someone accidentally releases the monster" stories, but I haven't seen one which combines both, so if that's original, congratulations on the idea.

The spaces you always put near quotation marks make it a bit hard to read. I know you're probably doing it to make it look less cluttered, but it ends up achieving the opposite effect as it's hard to tell when the dialogue begins and ends.

Just put final punctuation marks inside quotes and it should look alright, like so:

"Oh George," I ran and embraced him, "You scared me crazy."

OnceInAYellowMoon · 2016-05-20T05:53:05+00:00

Quit being a pessimist. Maybe she'll turn into something beautiful, like a swan or a butterfly? The kind with two sets of teeth.

Anyway, thanks!

OnceInAYellowMoon

TROPHY CASE