Comments on: The Truth About the East Wind

By: Julia Sheehy

Julia Sheehy — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:34:48 +0000

Sparse, brilliant, engaging writing. I like the idea of a pop-up or sidebar for the various names to remind the reader who/what is being referenced. This story reminded me somewhat of Small Gods by Terry Pratchett — in concept obviously. I am seriously going to hunt down a projector to deliver this from my laptop onto a sheet or screen while sitting beside a fire pit in my backyard. It used to be a family tradition that we’d tell scary stories at night during the summer. Your work is a prayer answered and to my mind a clear path to reviving a wonderful tradition — only the story teller herein is you. Yes I’ll be reading it aloud to my nieces, nephew and son but until text-to-speech can do it justice my voice will have to suffice.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:21:31 +0000

Hey Robin,

Whatever happened to posting the comments? I know that whole getting a new job can get in the way. :) We should do the Friday night club again sometime (when you can catch a breath).

OBM’s idea of some sort of chat room for that would be awesome with one caveat, you had to have read the story already and filled in your comments. I think you’d need to make this caveat or else you risk losing some of that initial “AHA” that you get reading a story (you mentioned something about this in the Anabelle Scheme editing process). Maybe do pre and post chat room feedback?

By: Jesse

Jesse — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:25:39 +0000

This story would be absolutely perfect for the iPad, if only said iPad supported Flash.

By: Van der Boom

Van der Boom — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:55:16 +0000

I really enjoyed this. I spent a little too much time on Wikipedia afterwords though.

Having a kindle has drastically increased my interest in short stories for whatever reason and if the sounds and pics were triggered by the next page button on the kindle that would be pretty awesome.

The iphone seems too small for this experience.

By: Offbeatmammal

Offbeatmammal — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:12:36 +0000

Wow! Sucked me in a second time. Couldn’t stop scrolling down as the pace and tension increased.

Although it feels like there are more words than the Friday Night Club version (I wish there had been a real time chat room / book club we could hang out in) it doesn’t slow the pace in any way — makes it feel richer and deeper … a great balance

I agree with Michele — I loved the visual impact of the scissors as the story progressed … it’s like the music building to a cresendo as the climax is revealed

Kept seeing the story as a collage style 2D stop-motion animation … still got Annabel Remix ideas bubbling in my brain I guess :)

By: Michele Laidlaw

Michele Laidlaw — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:09:09 +0000

Loved it still. Looks like you changed the cover page from the initial one I saw. Don’t know, I just remember it looking different. Love how the scissors get progressively closer together, good effect. As far as adding a scroll bar, i think it would muddy up the clean look of it, and lose some of the childlike simplicity. Thanks for the story! It was great.

By: Joshua Dance

Joshua Dance — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:37:33 +0000

Love it. The audio definitely gave it the right mood. I actually went all the way through the source code looking for more goodies etc. Why does the find more stories link just link back to the story?

Anyway, great work.

By: Mike S.

Mike S. — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:17:57 +0000

Nice work Robin! I enjoyed reading this over breakfast. Love the layout. And I was also a myth buff when I was a kid; but my volume was Tales of Greek Heroes, by Roger Lancelyn Green.

By: robin

robin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:27:09 +0000

Nina: That is SUCH a super awesome idea. A story with a floating sidebar glossary. I’m going to have to try that.

By: Nina Simon

Nina Simon — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:52:40 +0000

Great story. But a couple of thoughts on the presentation…
I loved the scroll, except for the times (especially early in the story) when I wanted to easily go back and scan for a name that had come and gone too quickly for me to remember exactly who he was. It might be nice in a story presented in this way to find a way to have a persistent sidebar that scrolls with you, or a way to highlight words and see a basic definition/reminder pop up.

When I was lost in the story, the scroll was wonderful (and the images lovely). But because the words are sparse and the Greek names many (and because not all of us were classics majors or anything close to it), it would be nice to have a secondary reference system that doesn’t require serious up-scrolling.

By: tykejohnson

tykejohnson — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:42:55 +0000

“When the flood came, they were ready. They had an ark. I mean, of course they had an ark. They were rich.”

hahaha–nice one.

By: robin

robin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:48:54 +0000

Shaun: Absolutely! Good idea. I’ll do a post later this week.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:37:47 +0000

Nice revisions. Enjoyed the expanded background to the professor. Loved the little “PS” at the end about buying the greek myths book. Maybe I’m just spoiled from the Scheme experience, but any chance you could post some of the comments you received from the Friday Night Club? :)

By: Betty Ann

Betty Ann — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:26:41 +0000

I can see why it was impossible to move on to others things before you got this one down. Format = Wow, Story = Delightfully Wow, Imagery = I am on Olympus.

Soooo glad I just got a laptop speaker bar!

By: robin

robin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:07:01 +0000

Here’s one thing; I need the page needs to load all the way (gigantic images included) before the Flash clicks in. So keep an eye on that. Also, I’ll monkey w/ it & see if I can fix that.