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“Giiiiiiiiive it up for our five contestants!”
The Crowd complied.
“Contestant number one is Bull!” The Commentator’s voice was smooth like butter.
Cheers and hoots from The Crowd.
“Contestant number two is Oceanic Whitetip!” The excitement in The Commentator’s voice was palpable.
The Crowd’s volume increased.
“Contestant number three is Shortfin Mako!”
Several screams and whistles.
“Contestant number four is Tiger!”
Thunderous applause, hands clapped against hands.
“Contestant number five is—” the commentator chuckled “—well, you know who contestant number five is, don’t you, folks?”
The enormous response told that they did, indeed, know who contestant number five was.
The Commentator allowed The Crowd to have their 30 seconds or so of riotous noise he resumed control. “All right, folks, simmer down! Simmer down! Now, I’m sure you all know the rules, but I’m gonna repeat them here for those of you who are joining us for the first time. If you are here for the first time, welcome, my friends… to The Tank!”
Foghorns blasted through the speakers. Celebratory music boomed across the stadium. Confetti shot out of cannons.
The Commentator wasted no time. “Five tanks, each an identical size, 50 metres long, 25 metres wide. 2,500 litres of water in each! Separated from each other by a chain-link fence. But that’s the boring part — onto the exciting stuff!” The Crowd begged for the exciting stuff, and The Commentator was happy to deliver. “Our five contestants must swim from one end to the other. That’s all they gotta do! If they manage it, we’ll make ‘em millionaires!”
The Crowd all but erupted. They knew what was to come, and The Commentator knew that they knew what was to come. It was a game — a tease. Foreplay, if you will.
“Ah, but you know it’s not that easy, don’t you folks?” The Commentator laughed. “No, no sir! For our contestants — ha! — well, they won’t be swimming alone, now, will they?”
The Crowd indicated that they knew the contestants would not be alone in the water. Why else would they be here?
The Commentator surged on. “That’s right, folks! Our contestants will be sharing their respective pools with a different species of predatory fish.” He let The Crowd build up to a frenzy before he dropped the bomb: “Otherwise known.” He punctuated his words. “As.” Each syllable a bullet to their hearts. “SHAAAAARKS!”
The Crowd went nuts. People jumped. Feet stamped. Foam hands waved. Streamers soared across the throng. An inflatable ball — nobody knew from whence it came — bounced over their heads. Those lucky enough to reach it punched it into the air.
“But of course, we’ve gotta make it even spicier than that, don’t we folks? Haha, yes sir!”
The Crowd begged for the spice. They wanted it, needed it, would die without it.
“Which is why each contestant has their palms cut!”
The Crowd swallowed the spice whole, hungry and starved. It burned their mouths, chapped their throats, and they couldn’t get enough of it.
“Did you know that sharks can smell a single drop of blood from over a mile away?” The Commentator baited them. “And — heh — there’s gonna be a lot more than a single drop, and it’s gonna be a lot closer than a mile!”
The five contestants shifted on their pedestals, faces drained of colour. Some wore lycra bodysuits, some wore ordinary swimming clothes. Bull’s full-body suit was black, whereas Tiger’s was bright neon, with many reflective stickers. Oceanic Whitetip even had chainmail on. A few had swim caps on, others didn’t. Shortfin Mako had brought a motorcycle helmet with them but discarded it at the last minute. All but contestant number one had a pair of goggles. The plastic domes stuck to their foreheads like demon horns, ready to pull down. They all had chainsaw resistant gloves on.
So many different theories about the best method, technique, and equipment. Every week there was a new expert on for the after analysis. They always touted something contradictory, or something expensive.
“Well, without any further ado, let’s—”
The Crowd joined in with The Commentator, they all knew the catchphrase.
“SEE. HOW. FAST. YOU. CAN. SWIIIIIIIIM!”
Lights flashed on and off, foghorns blasted, more confetti. The Crowd was on its feet. It undulated like one giant organism, a hive mind. The thunder vibrated the floor underneath. The smell of sweat and chlorine tinged the air, stung the nostrils, burned the backs of throats.
Music came through the speakers, muffled and tinny. It was upbeat. It was joyful. It was triumphant. Bass thumped too loud, felt in bellies and bowels. The cacophony drowned out the trebles and mids, but nobody cared. The Crowd felt the tribalistic rhythms nonetheless.
“And here come our referees now — all contestants get cut at the same time, so loss of blood is equal amongst them. Each referee uses the same hunting knife, a Leatherman OHT Multi-Tool. Available for purchase now. Get 15 per cent off with your Tank ticket! While stocks last, terms and conditions apply, knife may not protect you from actual shark attack.” The Commentator said the last lines without pause for breath, with machine-gun rapidity. He cleared his throat.
The Crowd and The Commentator hushed, the music died down. “Quiet, please,” said The Commentator. He needn’t have, as the explosions of sound had fallen off the cliff into oblivion. The silence deafened, juxtaposed with the bear’s growls moments prior. Reverence. “The referees will now slice the palms open—” awe hushed his voice “—diagonally, upwards, left to right.”
The Commentator took in some air. “Lay-deeeeeees and gentlemeeeeeen! The. Blood. Has. Been. SPIIIIIILLED!”
The Crowd was euphoric, they could not contain their energy. It bubbled up and out of them like shaken champagne. The cork burst from the neck of the bottle, rocketed away, ricocheted off the walls.
“ON YOUR MARKS.” The Commentator wasted no time, he pushed on. He would not allow the excitement to wane, would keep the beast riled.
“GET SET.”
The pressure rose. The energy built up.
Microseconds tick-tick-ticked by. The Commentator sucked in a breath, the grin on his face audible in that whoop.
“GOOOOOO!”
The Crowd roared — an uncaged lion. The volume increase was exponential — the boom of an atomic bomb. Blast. Shockwave. The mushroom cloud rose over the stadium.
The five contestants dived into the water.
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wow! indeed prodigy does exists :)
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Thanks, Mc! Such a lovely thing to say. :)
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Congrats! Really enjoyed reading this! Definitely some great social commentary here, and you do a wonderful job characterizing The Crowd. Well done!
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Thanks, Jim! That's a really nice remark. So glad you liked it. Your comment means a lot. :) Also, thanks for sticking up for the story -- I really appreciate it!
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WOWWW! Congrats on being the 2nd person in all of Reedsy history to win a contest x3! Amazing job.
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that's so crazy! who's the other person?
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Phoebe Barr: https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/phoebe-barr/
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thx Avani
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Thanks so much, guys! Really pleased! :D
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Love the crowd 'noise'! Good story, Joshua. I found the crowd description to be a great 'balance' to the grim reality of people getting chewed up in a shark tank. I could envision the crowd booing the sharks for not ripping someone up. Then, the ending. I get the humor. Well done!
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Thanks, Roland! Such a nice comment. It means a great deal to me. :)
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Dang, that was amazing. I just wish there was more, lol
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Dear. Lord. I´m honestly terrified (in a good way, of course).
It was like I was there with them. Amazing plot!
Love how you described The Crowd, which can obviously be interpreted in many different ways. Such a great metaphor for a show society though!!
It just made me want to know more about this universe you´ve created. Maybe you could add some more substantial information or even extend your story. Anyway, it grabbed me by my feet and asked to be shared. Simply amazing.
Great work!
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Nice job on hooking me into this!
WHERE CAN I FIND THE TICKETS I NEED THE TICKETS
Jk! lol XD
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Cool story, but you left us hanging there at the end! I'll be back later to leave a full review. ;)
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So, the problem I saw here was this; where's the humor? It's listed as a funny story, and at the beginning, it could very well be. But the problem is, you don't follow through. Therefore the story lacks both humor and a complete plot. If you finished out the plot line, and created characters, then the premise could be humorous. However, there is little more than a premise here.
Others may find this funny, but for me it just didn't do it.
Overall the writing is very good, and the premise piques interest. I wasn't originally going to read this all the way through, but the opening paragraphs caught me and drew me quickly in. Excellent pacing.
Keep on writing!
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I would agree with you that "funny" is probably not the best category for this; it definitely has some humorous elements, but I suspect it probably reads differently for each reader. On the other hand, I think the plot works fine, and think it's a complete package. Sure, we never find out what the result of the race is, but to me at least, I took the entire story sort of as an over-the-top (which does not necessarily equate to funny) social commentary on our modern obsession with reality TV and the types of things we're willing to broadcast. In that light, I think it follows through completely. The thing I love the most about the short-story format is that what isn't spelled out is as important as what is, and by the tone and pacing of the story, you can guess the outcome for yourself without needing it written down.
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So, the deal with this is we lack some plot points. The basic elements of a plot go like this: inciting incident, rising action, falling action (repeat, more for a longer story, probably just once for a short story of this length), final rising action, resolution.
In this, all I can see is an inciting incident, which is when the announcer shouts, "Go!" We have no rising/falling action, and no resolution.
It works beautifully as a satirical commentary on real life, but lacks a complete plot.
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I suppose if we're going for formulaic, we could follow your suggested "basic elements," however, there are various schools of thought with regard to the length and depth of the basic format of a story. For instance, the Hero's Journey formula suggests a 12-step formula to follow. Sure, it kind of follows exposition, rising, climax, falling, denouement, but that isn't to say that there's a one-size-fits-all for writing.
For instance, where those particular pieces fit together varies widely. Look at JK Rowling. The thing that struck me about The Sorcerer's Stone is that's essentially exposition........................... climaxdone. But it clearly worked for her. Seven books, seven movies, sequels, prequels, you name it... she clearly found a formula that worked for her readers.
All of this to say, even if we accept that everything kind of has to follow exposition - rise - climax - fall - denouement, I would argue all of that is present in this story, whether written or not, and that is the beauty of the short-story format. One of the first stories I ever won a contest with violated your rules, because I never wrote the actual climax of the story... I left it to the reader to imagine it. I had 1,500 words to work with, not a word more, and it came in at 1,498. To tell the story I wanted, which was heavily character driven, I found I didn't have the time to describe and detail the climax, so I instead had the protagonist think about it in the aftermath. So my format was exposition, rise, fall, denouement. Again, the climax was implied, but I gave the reader enough clues to fill in the blanks.
The very same thing is happening here. We've got the exposition that takes us through everything that's going on. We get plenty of exposition. The rise, if you ask me, is the building of the tension as the announcer continues. The climax, if you are looking for one, is when their hands are cut. The fall is everything that follows, leading to the resolution.
Ah, but there's the kicker. There is no resolution, right?
Except we have enough information to imagine that resolution for ourselves. Perhaps the author meant to take the story one way (someone finally wins), but given what's written, we can easily imagine this is a snapshot of a reality show in which so far there have been no winners, and this isn't going to be the exception. Although Joshua doesn't write it for us, the resolution is right there in front of our noses. It's an implied resolution.
Again, I would argue strongly that the short story format allows us to break some of the conventions of story-telling, as long as it is done well. I think Joshua did a very effective job of writing a social commentary piece that is engaging, contains all of the elements you would expect it to (even if only implied), and is therefore a successful story.
Of course, on the other hand, not every piece of writing will be everyone else's cup of tea. I just think if we're looking at this particular story from a critical standpoint, the method you've taken to do so doesn't meet the muster, as it were.
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Lots of material to work through here!
So, first of all, the story in your anecdote does not violate my "rules". All the parts are present within the story. The story isn't open ended, as it seems the final scene was the protagonist remembering the climax. And, it seems we have a denouement, the all-important cap on the soda bottle. I would say that while story events happening in a character's memory are impactful on the reader, they do still constitute a story event.
Speaking of which, a soda bottle is actually a good metaphor here. If you don't cap your soda bottle, and then shake it up, your soda will spill out everywhere. Just like with this, since there's no cap on the story, everything spills out. And to address what you said about the audience finishing the story, if Joshua had given us foreshadowing, or given a preferable outcome, we could make a good guess. However, there's so many unknowns, that there is no clear ending. I love how with your "implied resolution" you give us two examples. Resolution is singular, not plural. There can be contradicting endings foreshadowed in the story method of mystique, but after reading this again, I see no foreshadowing whatsoever. How are we to choose which resolution? Maybe the swimmers chicken out. Maybe they lead an armed rebellion. Maybe they're cyber ninjas who turn the sharks into sushi. Maybe the sharks turn them into sushi. Maybe one swimmer, through torture and pain, actually wins. (you get the picture, I'm just spitting out random scenarios. :P)
The point is that we have no "resolution" to imagine. Instead, we must navigate and narrate a complex hypothetical multiplot rife with unknowns. If we did that, we would not be the readers of this story, we would be the authors.
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I completely disagree that a resolution needs to be singular. Certainly the word is singular, but that does not, in any way, imply that the resolution itself has to be a singular event. Some of the best stories ever have resolutions that do not answer every question raised in the book, and those stories are never revisited. There are whole college courses on the study of author's intent about particular writings. I wrote a paper once called, "Sometimes A Rusty Bike is Just a Rusty Bike," arguing that although we as authors often include something with specific meaning, not everything we write is more than set dressing. Whole classes discuss whether the appearance of a rusty bike in Winesburg, Ohio has any significance to the larger story.
I'm digressing a bit here, but for a very specific purpose. Certainly one could argue that with an open-ended story, it is up to the reader to decide what happens, but Joshua gives us two potential answers that are within reason from the scope of the story: Someone wins, or they all lose. My argument would be in favor of "they all lose," simply because there's nothing in the story implying this time will be different. However, one might take a favorite and say, "Well X won, clearly, look at the chainmail he was wearing!"
Sure, the swimmers could turn out to be robot ninjas, from Cyberdyne, perhaps, and under Skynet's control, and this is just the intro to Terminator XXVIII. And someone could certainly write that. But I think that takes the open-ended nature of the story a bit too far for the material given. At which point, yes, the person developing the next Arnold flick would, indeed, be writing.
You choosing whether a swimmer wins or not is simply your interpretation of an open-ended story. That doesn't make you an author, it's your best guess based on what you read.
I mean, let's be honest, successful movies have ended with far less. Again, I understand completely that this isn't necessarily your preference of ending, I would still argue that there is a complete premise here.
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