{"id":2106,"date":"2024-10-10T07:26:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T07:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quantum.closelycoded.site\/?page_id=2106"},"modified":"2024-12-18T01:38:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T01:38:04","slug":"backstory-two-lives-stretched-out-them","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/backstory-two-lives-stretched-out-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Backstory: Two Lives Stretched Out Before Them"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Backstory: Two Lives Stretched Out Before Them<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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A Q&A with\u00a0Janel Comeau<\/strong>, Quantum Shorts finalist<\/p>

Read the story:\u00a0Two Lives Stretched Out Before Them<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Can you give a short introduction of yourself?<\/strong><\/p>

I\u2019m Canadian, currently living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I\u2019ve mostly been doing comedy writing. I write for The Beaverton, and wrote for Cracked.com about ten years ago. I have only recently started doing fiction. In my day job, I work in social services, working with homeless youth.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

What made you decide to try quantum physics writing from comedy writing?<\/strong><\/p>

I’ve always had a love for science, technology and science fiction. When I was in university studying computer science, I had taken some particle physics and quantum physics courses. I also had a professor who worked on the CERN collider who was very passionate about the topic. When I came across Quantum Shorts in a list of short story contests someone had compiled, I was intrigued by the concept. I read some of the past stories and thought they were cool. Even though I\u2019m not doing science for a living now, I realised that I\u2019ve retained more than I thought I did from my undergraduate days.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

There is some ambiguity at the end of your story. How did you come up with the idea?<\/strong><\/p>

I started thinking about what I know about quantum physics that translates easily into a story, especially because this contest has a short word limit. The two things I really remembered were superposition and the observer effect, fairly accessible concepts that I understand well enough to put into a story.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

I also really like stories with a really uncertain ending. In school, I studied a famous story from the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century called \u201cThe Lady, or the Tiger?\u201d. It is a Frank Stockton short story where a woman has to choose whether to feed her lover to a tiger or let him marry another woman. You don’t find out what she chooses. The story really stuck with me and I liked this idea of combining an uncertain ending with quantum superposition and the observer effect.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Did you have to refresh your memory about quantum physics?<\/strong><\/p>

I did take some time to watch YouTube. The channel\u00a0Kurzgesagt<\/a>\u00a0has a few videos on quantum science, and I watched other introduction 101 videos. I think the beauty of quantum physics is that we don’t really know how a lot of it works so you can kind of get away with not knowing.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

What was your writing process like?<\/strong><\/p>

I knew that I wanted to go with a very human angle on the story. I was also a big fan of teen dystopian stories like\u00a0Divergent\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The Hunger Games<\/em>. I thought it would be interesting to write a story where a quantum computer is making a large decision for somebody and seeing whether the characters feel that they can influence that. I wrote most of it in one sitting, coming up to about 1500 words. The main process was trimming it down and realising the story works better when I devoted more time to the characters grappling with the implications of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

What is your favourite science-inspired book?<\/strong><\/p>

I\u2019m a fan of\u00a0The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em>. The science is almost intentionally absurd. I also love\u00a0The Martian<\/em>. That is kind of the opposite and the science is almost painstakingly realistic. I like a variety of these stories and always like to see the human angle.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

What does being a Quantum Shorts finalist mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>

It\u2019s very validating because while this was one contest I wanted to apply to, I thought I had no chance given the size of the contest. So I\u2019m blown away to be shortlisted. It\u2019s a little intimidating to have people who\u2019ve made careers out of quantum physics judge something I wrote, but it is so cool to see the blend of artists and scientists on the judging panel.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Anything else you would like to tell us about yourself or your story?<\/strong><\/p>

This was a really cool opportunity to explore something I normally wouldn’t have written about and to find a human angle in these abstract ideas of quantum physics. It was a fun exercise to broaden my horizons a little bit and see that quantum physics doesn\u2019t have to be something accessible only to a few select people.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Backstory: Two Lives Stretched Out Before Them A Q&A with\u00a0Janel Comeau, Quantum Shorts finalist Read the story:\u00a0Two Lives Stretched Out Before Them Can you give a short introduction of yourself? I\u2019m Canadian, currently living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I\u2019ve mostly been doing comedy writing. I write for The Beaverton, and wrote for Cracked.com about ten […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2106","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBackstory: Two Lives Stretched Out Before Them - Quantum Shorts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/backstory-two-lives-stretched-out-them\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Backstory: Two Lives Stretched Out Before Them - Quantum Shorts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Backstory: Two Lives Stretched Out Before Them A Q&A with\u00a0Janel Comeau, Quantum Shorts finalist Read the story:\u00a0Two Lives Stretched Out Before Them Can you give a short introduction of yourself? 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