Self-Review – Quartz

Let’s Look at Quartz

I can immediately tell that Quartz got its name because I was hunting around for a prompt word that started with the letter Q. And the fact of the matter is that is generally not going to be the world’s most compelling reason to tell any sort of story.

Unfortunately, the piece suffers, due to this rather precise fact. But I am still going to report on it here in my blog, warts and all.

I wrote this story during the second quarter of 2021.

Background

The original prompt word was just the word that became the title.

Plot for Quartz

There’s barely a plot to this one. It’s really just an idea, and not a too terribly well executed idea, at that.

In fact, the excerpt below is something like three-quarters of the entire piece.

Characters

The sole character is just the narrator. And I never even gave them a name, anyway.

Memorable Quotes

Glass on spaceships is a terrible idea. Just think, meteors. And aluminum oxynitride is a great idea in theory, except it’s polluting as all get out. As in, threatening the lion population.

So, engineers had to come up with something or other that would be durable but also something you could see out of. Hence, they hit upon quartz. Which is lovely, but for one thing: it easily gets distorted.

Genre and Overall Mood

The genre is science fiction, with a very small amount of humor. Very small. The mood is mostly instructional beyond anything else. There is not really a lot of dramatic tension in this tiny piece.

Rating for Quartz

The story has a K rating. I had to fudge the ‘facts’ by making the alternative material horribly polluting. It was the only way to make this tiny piece work at all.

Takeaways

Could it be better? I kind of doubt that. In actuality, Quartz would normally just be a few throwaway lines in a longer piece.

Hey, they can’t all be gems. Still, I offer you what I’ve got, the good, the bad, the weird, and the grievously underdeveloped. Which is what this story most certainly is.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

Finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.