Mandamon Posted October 5, 2015 Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 Here is Quantum Jeans. There's a contest for flash fiction having to do with quantum effects called "quantum shorts," so naturally I wanted to write a story about actual quantum shorts. While writing, this turned into quantum jeans. I'm looking for responses on whether there is anything confusing, that you don't believe, bores you, or is really cool. Thanks! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdpulfer Posted October 5, 2015 Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 Hey Mandamon, I love the concept of "quantum jeans", even though for me it would have been "quantum jean shorts". I also like the quantum execution, as the day unfolds differently depending on which way the main character puts on the jeans. The setting does feel a bit vague, especially since it was alternating between two storylines. I wondered if the second was supposed to be more sci-fi when the narrator mentions the interface, but otherwise, everything seems pretty normal. I would just make sure you can always tell which POV you are seeing. The flower in the lapel helps this a bit. Also, I don't know much about newspaper stands, but do they regularly sell apples and muffins? I just thought they sold newspapers and magazines. Otherwise, I think it's a great concept and I hope you win the contest! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sera Posted October 5, 2015 Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 That was a fun read. A tiny voice in my head complained about the broken paragraph indenting and spacing conventions, but I can see why you did this, and it worked wonderfully. Good job! Plot-wise, that interface also got me scratching my head. Its mention raised all sorts of questions, and I felt you left a promise unfulfilled there. Mentioning an "interface" right at the moment the characters physically wandered away from their routines (and each other) made me wonder if that was an electronic device designed to prevent extreme deviations in the alternate realities or something, what would effectively make both POVs aware of the alternate realities existence. Then it wasn't mentioned again, and I wondered if it wasn't actually a cellphone, a pager or something mundane that just happened to go off at this moment. The issue here is that I think that little passage might be what contributed to make the ending slightly unfulfilling, since I kept expecting a payoff other than "then, they deviated". The tame payoff also made me go back to the beginning and compare both POVs from the "what if POV1 is POV2 tomorrow?" premise, since POV2 put the right leg, then left, but inverted the order at the end to remove the jeans. (I know, it's a silly guess and doesn't quite work) That would make POVs not only alternate realities in the same time, but different slices of time of a same alternate reality. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandamon Posted October 5, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 Thanks both! I think this helps identify some of the things I felt were missing. On the "interface" I just meant that to be a general phone-of-the-future, but perhaps I should just leave it at "phone" to not confuse everyone. rdpulfer: newspaper stands--I have no idea what they sell either, so I assumed they'd have some breakfasty items. Maybe I'll have to (ick) do some research. Sera: yes, the formatting was getting to me too, but I couldn't find a better way to do it. I think your "promise unfulfilled" is spot on. There's something extra I need to add to the story and I'm not sure what it is yet. I like your idea of different days in the POV. I was sort of aiming for POV2 to be behind POV1 on emotional development--that he might come to the same solution in time. Maybe I need to play that up more. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrike76 Posted October 5, 2015 Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 I thoroughly enjoyed this. The character is developed wonderfully through only a few short hints (the empty half of the bed, the office, etc.). The grammar and spelling were very clean. The entire thing is very well executed. Just a few notes:- In the efforts of tightening up the word count, since it's flash fiction, you could trim the 2 instances of "began to".- "balked" should be followed by "at" Tone/Mood: I don't want this to read as a complaint, because it isn't. It's just an observation. The story ends on a down note, because we've seen what could be, and it ends on the usual routine with only a mild promise that maybe one day he'll go through the front door. It leaves me wishing he'd made the other choice. We see both possibilities, and understand that both exist at the same time, but it ends with us seeing the unchanged half of the quantum state. You could (if you chose) invert the order of the paragraphs so we end on a high note if you wanted the piece to feel like more optimistic fiction. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandamon Posted October 5, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 Thanks Shrike--I actually thought about switching just the last POV around, but didn't do it because of the rest of the pattern. I may look at switching the order of all of the paragraphs instead. I've been wanting to see more short fiction ending on high notes rather than low notes, as most of them tend to end up with a sad ending. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rohyu Posted October 9, 2015 Report Share Posted October 9, 2015 I understood you meant phone when you said "interference" and I liked it. I got the impression the world is our current world and you were just using a clever wording. “My city was an island in the middle of cows and corn, but I liked the consistency, or so I thought.” I'm not entirely sure what you meant here. Do you mean the character likes the consistency of their daily life? The “2nd character"(so to speak) seems relatively happy during the story, so the sad ending felt out of place for me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandamon Posted October 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2015 Thanks to everyone for comments on this! Special thanks to comments on the "sad ending" and Shike's suggestion to flip the order of the two POVs. I did that and made some other corrections and I feel it's a whole lot stronger. If anyone's interested in reading the new version, send me a PM (so I don't take up a whole submission) and I'll send it on. I'm hoping to submit this to the contest in the next week or so. Oh, and I changed it back to "Quantum Shorts." That title fits so much better with the contest that I had to. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinski Posted October 11, 2015 Report Share Posted October 11, 2015 (edited) Hmm, this is one of those stories that make me feel dumb, like I should know what’s going on, understand the root process that is behind the story, but I'm afraid I can’t bring it to mind or readily decipher it from the story. I can see that there are two threads (alternative paths). I found them a little hard to differentiate towards the end. I think maybe I stopped concentrating on which character was walking and which was riding in the taxi. Perhaps it was because the passenger was out of the taxi at the end. It’s intriguing, and makes me think about the themes after reading the story but, like I said, I ended up feeling like I had fallen short. I’ve spent some time thinking about Shrodinger’s Cat too, with similar results. It’s well written, without a doubt, but I would expect no less. A couple of quibbles along the way, but only one that I was bothered enough about to mention... Page 3 – “a ready supply of currency from my account” I think. I guess my final verdict is – enjoyable, but... ------------------------------------- Some commentary on the comments: 1 – “interface” bugged me too. There was nothing even slightly SF in the setting. Why not just say ‘phone’? 2 – Interesting point from Shrike about one day making the other choice. Isn’t the point that the character does make both choices? 3 – I wanted the story to be called ‘Quantum Pants’. 4 – The return to the interface thing, I have to disagree with Rohyu, I don’t think the wording is cool, I think it’s the only part of the narrative that disrupts the reader’s progress. p.s. Sorry for late critique. Edited October 11, 2015 by Robinski 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rohyu Posted October 11, 2015 Report Share Posted October 11, 2015 Ok I'm dumb. I thought it was interference, not interface. The phone was "interfering" with what the character wanted to do. So I agree with the others about using the word interface. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinski Posted October 11, 2015 Report Share Posted October 11, 2015 Just for the record - definitely not dumb ;-) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandamon Posted October 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2015 Hmm, this is one of those stories that make me feel dumb, like I should know what’s going on, understand the root process that is behind the story, but I'm afraid I can’t bring it to mind or readily decipher it from the story. Interesting. My wife had the same reaction, but said she put it up to being "dumb about quantum things." Since the ratio is now 4 to 2 readers who understood to ones who didn't, and this is submitted to a site about "quantum things," I'm hoping it won't be an issue (crosses fingers). Just chalk it up to me being unnecessarily complex... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrike76 Posted October 12, 2015 Report Share Posted October 12, 2015 Interesting. My wife had the same reaction, but said she put it up to being "dumb about quantum things." Since the ratio is now 4 to 2 readers who understood to ones who didn't, and this is submitted to a site about "quantum things," I'm hoping it won't be an issue (crosses fingers). Just chalk it up to me being unnecessarily complex... Since I didn't mention it in my comments, I had no problem with that. As soon as I read the first two lines I knew what you were doing with regards to the quantum states of this person's life. It's definitely something that can give non-SF or non-sciency readers a hard time, but I think it's fine for the thing you're submitting to, since it's part of the established vocabulary of the genre. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinski Posted October 13, 2015 Report Share Posted October 13, 2015 Since I didn't mention it in my comments, I had no problem with that. As soon as I read the first two lines I knew what you were doing with regards to the quantum states of this person's life. It's definitely something that can give non-SF or non-sciency readers a hard time, but I think it's fine for the thing you're submitting to, since it's part of the established vocabulary of the genre. I should qualify. Maybe you should count me as a half. I understand that quantum theory involves the potential for alternative outcomes or states, so I did understand what you were doing with the parallel(?) strands. I found that mostly effective. There were maybe a couple of places where I felt their distinctiveness could have been a little clearer (I mentioned the end). What I was trying to say before was that I felt how simplistic and incomplete my understanding was, and it made me a bit frustrated, but through no fault of the story. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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