Did you hear what happened to Ol' Morlane? Word got around, I mean, I heard it from Skeets who heard it from Fuller but I checked around with some other people and they all heard the same so it's true I guess. You didn't hear this? I mean, I don't know where you been you didn't hear this. Once Skeets told me I musta heard it nine-ten-twenty times in the past few or four days. You been out somewhere? Somewhere secret? Rustlin' up something good for the rest of us? Don't worry about it. Anyway, before you go in there you gotta hear this on account of it's all anybody's talking about and you go in there not knowing the story people are liable to joke on you. Even more than they already do, I mean. You know. Kidding and all. What? Right, so Morlane, you know Morlane? Skinny kid with the freckles. The shorter one of them not the big dopey one what's his name, O'Brien or something. The small one, Morlane, PFC, skinny kid, from some hick nowheres town middle of Alatucky or West Sucktown Georgia, some farm kid who never seen a city block 'til last Tuesday is being woken up twelve minutes before Reveille every morning by that big fuckin' rooster they got over there that lives by C-Company. Anyway four mornings ago that damn cock blew his head off again, right at the same time, twelve minutes to wake up and here comes Morlane in nothing but what his mother birthed him in and strangled that rooster to death without so much as a how-do-you-do.

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davidjmcgee over 13 years ago

Really, Galen, I think I might start a new website called SEVEN minute story. You're killing me, here. :)

Galen over 13 years ago

"Seven Minute Story" missed the cut. Just didn't roll of the tongue like "Six." :) However, the change wouldn't be difficult to implement. Thoughts?

Galen over 13 years ago

That's a brilliant idea. And not too hard to implement. Maybe integrate some sort of "Karma" or user reputation points, so users can unlock the ability to adjust the time after writing / commenting a certain amount?

davidjmcgee over 13 years ago

So out walks Brooks who puts that big meaty hand on Morlane's shoulder, Morlane who's still standing there squeezing on the bird's throat, and he, Brooks I mean, says: "Morlane, we don't allow any public choking of chickens in this outfit." And walks the hell away. That's all talking-to he got. Plus he got to eat the fuckin' rooster himself which apparently smelled like heaven above. Anyway, I won't keep you. Get on in there. Have one for me.

davidjmcgee over 13 years ago

I'm just cranky that I missed the punchline. I know the point is that I should WANT a seventh minute, and that I then go and keep writing.

What if, though, six minutes were the default setting, but users could adjust the countdown clock before starting? If I'm looking to write something a little meatier, I could give myself ten minutes. If I'm looking for a blistering quickwrite I could bump it down to three.

Or you could leave it the way it is, which is wonderful. :)

fr.gassalasca.jape over 13 years ago

Really, I think the story almost worked better without the punchline.

I think people should be able to bank unused minutes from earlier stories. If you finish one in 4 minutes, you should be able to bank the extra 2 minutes to use at will. You'd have to find some way to prevent people from posting 30-second stories and banking hours of time....

Scraps over 13 years ago

Don't give Dave McGee what he wants, this is a bad precedent. However, perhaps after the 6 minutes is up you can click a big red button that has 60 seconds on it, like a TIME BANK in online poker, where you can use up to 60 seconds of bonus time to finish up the story, and this time bank is only replenished at a rate of 5 seconds a day, to a maximum of 60.

Galen over 13 years ago

The automatic time bank seems the cleanest implementation. Or perhaps they could gradually build the bank based on their karma? (You may have noticed a karma score appear in your profile.)

davidjmcgee (joined almost 14 years ago)
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Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

Prompt

Prompt (write a story including these elements)

hero Private Morlane
villain Rooster
goal Let the regiment sleep
Prompt suggested by Galen

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