[Write On Wednesday] Insults

I read this delightful essay on the literary insults writers hurl at each other, and it inspired a writing prompt!

The Prompt

Write a letter or review full of insults

Tips

  • Imagine a correspondence between two writers, one whose writing you admire, one whose writing you loathe. What would your favorite writer pick up on, in the writing or reputation of the other, to criticize. What style would he/she use?
  • Write an insulting letter to someone who regularly annoys you or someone who picked on you at school. Banish compassion. Write it with style, wit and ruthlessness. Be clever, artistic, snide. Have (guilty) fun.
  • Write a rebuttal of an imagined unfavorable review of your work. Be sure to point out the critic’s shortcomings in the most colorful, inventive language you can, but challenge yourself to keep it fit for print (no profanity).
  • Damn someone with faint praise.
  • Create a rich picture in your head of each of the characters in your story (insulter and insultee). Allow their personalities to shine through you words.

Go!

[Write On Wednesday] Metaphor To Reality

Yesterday’s Reading Room story started out with magnificent metaphors and then flipped to a story about a suburban guy. It brought back the metaphor at the end.

It was an extreme example and tough to pull off (I’m still not sure it entirely worked), but today we’re going to try something similar.

The Prompt

Start a story with a vivid image and weave the metaphor throughout the story

Tips

  • You still have to make this story about a character. Think of something that matters to your character and create the metaphor/story imagery from that. (e.g. if your character gardens, all the metaphors could be horticultural)
  • You can weave the tie-in metaphors throughout the story or, like the Reading Room story, start with a vivid image and come back to it only at the end.
  • Try to dig deeply, and go beyond the obvious, clichéd metaphors. I worked with a reporter on a weekly newspaper who would open a file and think of all the puns and metaphors he could, on a particular topic, before he started writing an article. The top of every file he wrote was a groan-fest! Try creating your own list of imagery before you start to write, to help yourself push past the cliché.

Go!

[Reading Room] In Cretaceous Seas by Jim Shepard

This story starts off magnificently,

“Dip your foot in the water and here’s what you’re playing with: Xiphactinus, all angry underbite and knitting-needle teeth, with heads oddly humped and eyes enraged with accusation, and ribboned bodies so muscular they fracture coral heads when surging through to bust in on insufficiently alert pods of juvenile Clidastes. The Clidastes spin around to face an oncoming maw that’s in a perpetual state of homicidal resentment.”

Shepard takes us on a tour of the ‘monsters’ of the deep in the Cretaceous era and then, suddenly, the story swings into the modern day human world.

It’s disorienting and not at all what I was expecting. I was a little disappointed, to be honest. The writing in the first few paragraphs evoked a world unknown to me, with power and vivid images. It seemed to promise one thing and then veer away.

But as I read on, I was swept along on the language as we examined the life of one tortured middle-aged, suburban man. I didn’t much like him — I don’t think I was supposed to — but I did end up having some sympathy for him.

And the language…wow.

I had to go back and read the story again to figure out what the heck happened when we switched from the Cretaceous to modern suburbia, but that was OK because I wanted to.

I read the story without the introduction found online, which made it even more disorientating, but see what you think:

[]

[Write On Wednesday] Can’t And Won’t

Does a story have to have conflict? Does it have to have a beginning and a middle and an end? Perhaps not.

Lydia Davis’ story “Can’t And Won’t” is pages of complaints about life:

My sheets get all twisted in the dryer.

The carrot cake was a little stale.

When I toast the raisin bread, the raisins get very hot.

The bridge of my nose is a little dry.

I’m sleepy, but I can’t lie down.

The sound system in the examining room playing folk music.

I don’t look forward very much to that sandwich.

There is a new weatherman on the radio.

Now that the leaves are off the trees we can see the neighbors’ new deck…

There is no ‘happening’, no crisis, no rising action, but do you get a sense of character? I do.

What is a story if not a portrait of a character or characters?

The Prompt

Write A Non-Narrative Short Story That Allows The Reader To Experience Another Character’s Life

Tips

  • You can copy Lydia Davies’s idea and write a story of complaints. Make sure all the complaints belong to one, very specific character. (They can be like you, or unlike you. It can be a secret portrait of your annoying coworker, your ex-mother-in-law, your little brother…) [remember, this is an exercise. If you decide to publish this, you might want to credit Davis as the inspiration!]
  • Write a List (like they do in McSweeneys)
  • The “character” doesn’t have to be one person. It could be an institution: write the Standard Operating Procedures of a big firm.
  • Write about a collection of objects (e.g. The Things They Carried) and allow the reader to infer what they will about the owners.
  • Come up with your own way of writing a non-narrative short story.

Go!

[Reading Room] The Care And Feeding of Houseplants by Art Taylor

This story won multiple awards in 2013 for Best Short Story and I can see why.

The Care And Feeding of Houseplants is crime fiction, though it’s not clear for a very long time where and when the crime is going to come in…but I didn’t care because the writing was so engaging.

As is often the case in mysteries, the passion at the heart of the story is all about infidelity. As in Thea’s First Husband the husband is complicit in his wife’s decision to stray. Unlike that story, however, this tale is visceral and full of raw imagery. Information is doled out during the story, rather in great gobs of ‘telling’.

In this story we really get inside three out of the four characters’ heads, even when not narrated from their viewpoint: the way the lover views his conquest’s “beige linen business suit…folded carefully across a chair by his bedroom window’ tells us as much about her character as about his self-congratulatory tendencies; the wife comments on her husband’s character during their courtship, saying “He’d brought her an orchid for their first date. He’d typed up tips for taking care of it”, which speaks volumes about both the husband who did these things and herself, who noticed.

I really enjoyed this story. It was more than a mystery, more than a crime: it was a story that pulled me along from the start to the deliciously dark ‘reveal’ near the end. I was, if you’ll pardon the pun, rooting for and against the characters exactly as the author intended, and I loved every minute of it.

6 Simple Steps For Jumpstarting Your Writing

screenshot from Jodyhedlund.blogspot.com

I’ve found that the process of writing is one of the biggest keys for stirring my creativity even more. No matter what ideas I come up with before the first draft, invariably once I start writing, my ideas grow and change into something so much more than I could have planned.

via Author, Jody Hedlund: 3 Surefire Ways to Generate Book Ideas.

Nothing, in writing, is harder than getting started.

If you haven’t been writing for a while, sitting down to write is terrifying. Not in the way a midnight call from the hospital is terrifying, but terrifying all the same.

  • Where do I start?
  • What do I have to say?
  • How can I call myself a writer, when I never write anything?

Writing is the only way to conquer the fear of writing.

Paradoxical. Annoying. True.

So, don’t wait for inspiration. Don’t wait to be good. Just write. Write now. Pick a prompt. Promise yourself you’ll write a Drabble. Write revenge on the person who is annoying you the most today (even if it’s someone you love. You can always rip it up, delete it, make it funny, whatever you need to do).

Go on.

  1. Pick  a topic.
  2. Write a sentence right now.
  3. Write another one after that.
  4. Ask yourself “what if…?”. Or write “and because of that…”, and then tell us what happened next.
  5. Keep writing. Do not stop even if you think it’s bad.
  6. Get to the end as quickly as possible (you can revise later).

Congratulate yourself: you’re a writer who is writing.

You can do this. Write now.

Need more help? Get the ebook that grew out of this article: Breaking Writers’ Block, A StoryADay Guide

[Write On Wednesday] Objects In Space

When I was ten or eleven years old, our teacher marched us over to the cafa-gym-itorium (didn’t your school have one of those?) and sat us down in front of the rolling cart that held (hooray!) the TV set.

The film they showed us featured a tumble weed. There was no dialogue, just a stirring score that swooped and whispered as the tumbleweed rolled through its day. First it rolled down a deserted street and across an open plain. Then it started to have adventures. It was nibbled by animals, it got stuck on a fence and, in a climax that had the whole class gasping and biting our nails, it had a run-in with an 18 wheeler. We were sure it had been destroyed. Silence fell in the huge room as 26 preteens stopped fidgeting and tried to make sense of our feelings of loss. Then, oh joy, the tumbleweed rolled across the now-empty road and we all cheered.

Why did we care, asked our teacher. We all shrugged, a little embarrassed, as the spell broke and we realized we had been rooting for a bundle of twigs.

“That,” pointed out our smug teacher, “Is called ‘personification’.”

More than 30 years later, I still remember the experience and the discovery.

 

The Prompt

Write the story of normally-non-sentient object

"Dawn Flight Configuration 2". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dawn_Flight_Configuration_2.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Dawn_Flight_Configuration_2.jpg
“Dawn Flight Configuration 2“. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons –

Tips

  • This week, the NASA Dawn Spacecraft settled into orbit around Ceres, a dwarf planet in our solar system’s asteroid belt. Imagine what it’s like. Could you imbue Dawn with a personality and report back for us?
  • What other object catches your interest?
  • Decide whether or not you will tell the story in the third person (as in my tumbleweed story) or the first person.
  • If you work in the third person you can decide to have your object pass through the hands of several people or you can observe the object and anthropomorphism your narration, to give it life.
  • If you work in first person, you can have a lot of fun figuring out what characteristics such a thing could possess. (Think of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: Cogsworth, the butler-turned-clock is, in his own words, a bit ‘wound up’)

Go!

[Reading Room] Thea’s First Husband by B. K. Stevens

“Thea’s First Husband” was first published in the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and went on to be nominated for Macavity and Agatha Awards

The story is narrated by a woman who seemed to have won the lottery: plucked from behind a bar to marry an older, wealthy man who showers her with gifts and insists she not work any more. Of course, things start to go wrong as the bloom goes off their romance and Edward begins to invite younger men home…for Thea. Eventually she discovers Edward has hired a private detective to follow her around. What will Thea do next?

I was a little impatient with the amount of backstory and exposition the narrator dumped on us at the start of the story and again as the climax was being set up. It wasn’t badly done, it just seemed like the kind of thing all the writing advice columns in the world tell you not to do at all. I did, however, find myself kind of warming to Thea as she went through her dead-eyed days as a trophy wife.

I particularly liked the explanation of her motivation for staying in this loveless marriage. It was nothing dramatic: simply that she was tired of struggling and it was nice to be rich. It was a good reminder that ‘conflict’ in a story—even in crime fiction, which this is—doesn’t have to be dramatic or high-adventure. It can be ordinary and everyday and not remotely noble, as long as it is treated honestly.

I’ve read this story on two different occasions now and didn’t remember the ending, or much about it. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

I was a little surprised this was nominated for awards. It was solid. It didn’t wow me. But apparently it’s good enough to be nominated, so I definitely recommend taking a look.

Read The Story Online

[Write On Wednesday] Time Yourself

Today’s exercise is designed to help you see that you CAN write, even when you think you don’t have time. Take 30 minutes today to write a complete story. Here’s how…

Sometimes life gets in the way of writing. We must find ways to work in a time-crunch.

Today’s exercise is designed to help you see that you CAN write, even when you think you don’t have time.
time flies
The Prompt

Write A Story In 30 Minutes

Tips

  • Turn your phone off, mute your email, hang a sign on the door, put on huge silly headphones. Do whatever you need to do, carve out 30 minutes today to Just Write.
  • Use only 30 minutes, start to finish, brainstorming to ‘the end’.
  • Set a stopwatch. Take seven minutes to brainstorm. Think of a character. Give him/her a problem/desire. Pick a reason why solving this problem/achieving this desire causes them extreme heartache/peril (examples: Wesley loves Buttercup but is too poor to woo her. Becoming good for her means risking being murdered by pirates, a prince and a rodent of unusual size. A bookworm’s heart’s desire is simply to read, but his wife thinks its a waste of time so he can’t read at home; and his boss threatens to fire him if he catches him reading at work.)
  • Pick a good opening line that sums up the character and the problem. (“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” – J.D Salinger: The Catcher In The Rye)
  • You should be at about 10 minutes into your time now. Spend the next 15 minutes getting to the meat of the problem, throwing complications at your character, and having him start to try to resolve them. Fail at least once. (If it’s an interior kind of story, you can let that failure be ‘temptation to give up’)
  • Five minutes to go! At some point in the past 15 minutes your character should have started to tell you how the story should end. Tie up the last challenge you gave them and move immediately to the ending. Two sentences. Don’t worry about connecting the middle to the ending just yet. That’s what rewrites are for. Just write “[connecting stuff]” and move on to the end.
  • There. Didn’t that feel good?

What you have in front of you is likely not a complete short story. It’s a sketchy first draft. But it’s a sketchy first draft that moves. It has an interesting character. It has action. It has a sense that it’s going somewhere, and it has and ending.

Now you have a draft you can rework. Add a few lines to help clarify setting and description for the reader, if it’s that kind of story. Change some of your ‘info dump’ paragraphs to dialogue and move them to earlier/later in the story. Expand or delete details. Figure out your theme and how you can (subtly) strengthen it.

Do this, and I think you’ll have a pretty good story. All from taking 30 minutes to squeeze a little short story writing into your day.

SWAGr March Check In 2015

So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below:

What did you write last month? What will you do next month? It’s time for the  Serious Writer’s Accountability Group!

What people are saying about StoryADayMay 2014

Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.

(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)

Don’t remember what you promised to do? Check out the comments from last month.

And don’t forget to celebrate with/encourage your fellow SWAGr-ers on their progress!

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Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months

  • Finish novella – Maureen
  • Write two short stories. – Jami
  • Write 10,000 (fiction) words this month. – Julie
  • Work on a series – Brick
  • Track my time and see what’s getting in the way of my writing – Alex
  • Research the market – Jami
  • Writing the synopsis for my novel – Misa
  • Finish one story draft each month – Carol

 So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below:

(Next check-in, 1st of the month. Tell your friends. )


Don’t forget, if you need inspiration for a story you can still get ALL THE PROMPTS from StoryADay May 2014 and support the running of the StoryADay challenge at the same time. Give a little, get a little :) Click here.

[Reading Room] The Stars Are Falling by Joe R. Lansdale

Found in Stories: All-New Tales – Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrntonio

 

Before Deel Arrowsmith came back from the dead, he was crossing a field by late moonlight in search of his home.

I wasn’t sure where this story was going at first. I was a little surprised when it turned out to be a man returning to east Texas after fighting in The Great War.

The story moved at a laid-back pace, until it broke loose at the climax. It had great descriptive writing with character depth and complexity that I envied, without ever being boring or too slow.

We, the readers, experience everything from the point of view of the taciturn, changed older man, Deel, who has come home to his family, physically and is now trying to remake his home and family.

It was engrossing and a great example of how to create the internal landscape of a down-to-earth man traumatized by the impossible experiences war.

Want to find more great stories from last year? Here’s a round-up of the best of 2014 in Short Fiction

It’s A Story, Not Just A List of Stuff That Happens

[South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone] revealed that although they brainstorm and develop individual funny scenes, the key to turning those scenes into an actual story is in making sure that each scene causes the next scene to occur.

…[they] developed a very simple litmus test for determining whether they had achieved the desired causation between scenes, by seeing whether one of two words could be inserted between each scene:

“Therefore” or “but”

via Writer Unboxed » Story Lessons from South Park.

This seems like a wonderful lesson for short story writers.

We don’t tend to think in scenes (especially in a first draft), but applying this test to your story revisions, will make the difference between it being ‘a bunch of stuff that happens’ and ‘an actual story that pulls readers from the first word to the last and leaves them daydreaming about your characters later’.

Key point: as you revise (or draft) your short story, think about everything that happens and whether each is linked by a ‘therefore’ or a ‘but’.

Read the source article for four more lessons on storytelling from South Park.

Write What You Love

All this to say, You Be You. You Write You. It is said in Ye Olde Hallowed Annals of Writerly Bull that Thou Shalt Write The Book of Thy Heart. Truly. Do. Because life as a professional artist is HARD. You have to delight in what you’re writing and slaving away over because there are moments when that’s all you have. Take your craft deadly seriously, but not yourself, and not necessarily your genre. Wink at it, have a total blast, revel and wallow, and be only as indulgent as your editor allows. Try to be objective, and don’t be hurt if people think your cup of tea tastes like poo. With any luck, passion, love and creativity will shine through. For my part, I can only hope the wild expanse of whatever foggy moor I’m frolicking in will bring loyal readers, who don’t mind the eerie abandon, back time and again to my dark and stormy night.

via Leanna Renee Hieber: I Write What I Want! (aka: Ignoring the Haters since 1764) « terribleminds: chuck wendig.

 

Leanna has a very good point.

Are you writing what you love?

First, some questions:

  • What do you love?
  • What keeps you coming back to the desk every day?
  • Have you found your voice yet?

Obligatory StoryADay promo: writing a story every day for a month drives you to try new things, desperate measures, genres and voices you’ve never allowed to fly free before. Try it.

You might find your true voice and your true love lurking underneath all those stylized and ‘commercial’ things you think you ought to be writing.

That way lies fulfillment and riches (well, I can’t guarantee the riches, but I’m fairly certain they won’t come if you hate what you’re writing!)

Join us!

[Write on Wednesday] Inventor’s Day

Did you know Feb 11 is Inventor’s Day in the USA?

Oxford Words Blog Screenshot

Well, it is. The terrific OxfordWords blog has an entry about 10 products that were named after people (did you know them all? I knew some, but others were a surprise!).

The Prompt

Write about an inventor or his/her invention

Tips

  • You can use a real invention or make one up.
  • You could write a faux scholarly article/history of the person/invention.
  • Your story could be set at a middle school inventors’ faire, where kids have to dress up as famous inventors.
  • Perhaps your story follows an incident in the life of your inventor years before, during or years after the work on the invention. What brought them here? Where did their life go after the invention? What’s it like to invent something that took on your name? (If you want a tragic example, look at Richard Jordan Gatling, who was convinced he was inventing a weapon that would lead to smaller armies and less suffering).
  • You could go whimsical, with an invention of the type that ends up in an As Seen on TV box.
  • You could throw a little magical realism into this story as the invention produces unexpected results.

Go!

[Reading Room] Bertie’s New Year by L. M. Montgomery

This is a charming story about good little rich girls being nice to a poor little (good) poverty-stricken boy. The message of the piece is hopelessly outdated (the privileged should be charitable to the deserving poor, who will appreciate it, no strings), but it’s a nice story.

(N.B. I’m by no means opposed to the well-off helping those who’re struggling. I’m just not sure it ever goes as smoothly as it does in this story, and I think…no, never mind. The point is, the way this story unfolds feels very dated. And it is. So, not a crippling criticism).

Anyhoo, the thing that really struck me while reading this, was
how often LM Montgomery did things that my critique group would NEVER let her away with, if she ran the story by them before submitting it to her publisher. And none of them killed the story for me. I still enjoyed it.

So: lesson learned. Write your own story. Listen to critique partners, but don’t worry too much> Opinions are like…well, you know how that goes, right?

Story found via: Short Story Thursdays. You should subscribe, if you don’t already.

 

Read the story online here.

[Write On Wednesday] (re)Committed

After scaring you all with my writing prompt headline last week, I’m going much more positive this week.

The Prompt

(Re)Committed

Write a story about a character who is determined to achieve something difficult.

Tips

  • Tell us why that something matters to your character
  • Think about what obstacles you can put in her way. Go beyond the obvious.
  • Show us one way in which she is better, more determined, more heroic than we ourselves would be.
  • Let her triumph — or flop gloriously.

Go!

On Reading for Writing – Junot Diaz

I’m old enough and experienced enough to know when I’m reading to avoid. And then you gotta get back to work. And I also know — you get old enough, you know when you’re forcing the writing, so you need to go hit the books.

via Junot Díaz Hates Writing Short Stories – NYTimes.com.

A couple of years ago I discovered Ray Bradbury’s prescription for creativity and vowed to read more short stories. Soon I was drowning in ideas. This is the second half of what Junot Diaz is talking out here.

But Diaz makes an really interesting point in the first half of the quote.

Sometimes we ‘read to avoid’.

  • We read to avoid doing the work.
  • We read to avoid starting.
  • We read to feel like we’re being productive when really we should be writing.

How do you balance the reading and writing parts of your life? What is the most productive reading you do? The least productive? Share your thoughts in the comments, below. Let’s talk about this!

[Reading Room] Weights & Measures by Jodi Picoult

This is a sad story, dealing with two parents’ grief over losing their child: it’s a dangerous read for any parent. Do not attempt if you are feeling fragile.

That said, it is a very well written tale that totally lives up to the remit of the anthology it is published in: stories that keep you saying “…and then what happened?”

This story is contemporary, realistic fiction that veers into magical realism in a way I thought really fitted with the enormity of the subject. There is also a lovely helping of arcane knowledge (in this case about weights and measures) that made me happy.

My only complaint is that, while I liked the ending, I felt it swooped in a little too quickly.

Found in  – Stories: All-New TalesNeil Gaiman and Al Sarrntonio

The Time You Spend Waiting To Begin

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.

via Neil Gaimans Journal.

This except comes from a compendium of New Year’s Wishes from the master of modern storytelling, and champion of creatives, Neil Gaiman.

All of the New Year’s wishes are inspirational but this one struck me particularly.

  • We struggle to find time to write.
  • We make excuses for not doing the thing we love, in case we’re not good enough.
  • We say we’ll be creative another day, just as soon as we’ve cleared out plates of these urgent (but not necessarily important) tasks.

So try.

Try to do something creative today.

Then do the same tomorrow.

It’s worth it. I promise.

Need help getting started? Breaking Writers’ Block: A StoryADay.org Guideis chock-full of 60+ suggestions for ways to get started, even on the hardest day.

SWAGr February Check In

What did you write last month? What will you do in February? It’s time for the February  Serious Writer’s Accountability Group!

What people are saying about StoryADayMay 2014

Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.

(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)

Don’t remember what you promised to do? Check out the comments on previous SWAGr posts.

And don’t forget to celebrate with/encourage your fellow SWAGr-ers on their progress!

****

Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months

  • Complete a draft of a story – Ashley
  • Write 1 blog post a week – Cris
  • Write 10,000 (fiction) words this month.” – Julie
  • Read a new short story every day.” – Julie
  • Track my time and see what’s getting in the way of my writing – Alex
  • Revise two short stories and research possible markets – Jeannie
  •  Schedule “me time” to recharge my creative juices  – Jeannie
  • Finish one of my other short stories and send it out – Maureen
  • Write at least 500 words a day on any project – Maureen
  • Write 1,500 words a day on my book. On weekends … write 2,500 words a day – Jeffrey
  • Writing the synopsis for my novel – Misa
  • Finish one story draft each month – Carol

 So, what will you do this month? Leave your comment below:

(Next check-in, Feb 1, 2015. Tell your friends. )


Don’t forget, if you need inspiration for a story you can still get ALL THE PROMPTS from StoryADay May 2014 and support the running of the StoryADay challenge at the same time. Give a little, get a little 🙂 Click here.

It’s Only Painful Until You Start

Life is Pain — and you get to choose: either the Pain of Discipline or the Pain of Disappointment.

via Dear You Who Doesn’t Want to Do that Hard Thing
| A Holy Experience.

The thing is: choosing the pain of discipline doesn’t guarantee you won’t also get the pain of disappointment:

  • Work hard on your story and it may be rejected
  • Turn up to write every day and still fail to craft best-selling commercial fiction
  • Write your stories but fail to find the right readers.

Why Not Skip Straight To The Pain of Disappointment?

Because as long as you are showing up, Doing The Thing, writing the story, losing yourself int he words; disappointment will remain a fleeting thing.

Écriture/WritingDisappointments will only ever be momentary because you will have on-demand access to the joy of those moments when the writing is going well and you sense something greater than your every day self, just at the edges of your consciousness.

No matter if anyone buys your work, the writing itself will make you a better, happier, more-fulfilled and easier-to-live-with person.

(Added to which, if you do the work even when the discipline is painful, you are doing the work that may eventually turn in to something people want to read. They can’t read your aspirations. They can’t read anything you haven’t had the discipline to sit down and write, edit, improve and publish!)

The pain of discipline or the pain of disappointment?

I chose the latter for too long. Now I’m trying to embrace the former.

What I’ve Discovered About The Pain of Discipline.

  • It’s only painful until you get started.
  • The hardest part about writing is the ‘butt in chair’ part. And the keeping the butt in the chair part.)

Which is why I say:

Try StoryADay this May.

  • No, you won’t write a worthwhile story every day.
  • No, you may not manage to write a complete story draft every day.
  • Yes, you will write every day.
  • Yes, you will finish a story some days.
  • Yes, you will come back every day and break through the Pain of Discipline. The Stumbling Block of Starting, The Resistance, The Fear of Failure, The Myth of Perfection.

Do that for 31 days and you will be more of a writer than 99% of people who claim the title.

Sign up now!

[Write On Wednesday] Giving Up

No! I don’t mean you! And I don’t mean me.

But there comes a point in any venture when a person thinks of giving up.

I recently wrote about how glad I was for the tenacity and commitment of the star of a show I went to see. And it got me thinking about all the other stories that could have resulted from each decision he had made during his life. And that I have made. And that you have made. And that our characters make…

The Prompt

Giving Up

Write a story in which your character is tempted to give up on something that matters to them. Or maybe they already have.

Tips

  • Think about the emotional ramifications of making that decision. Is it something they have wanted for a long time, or just a whim? Your answer dictates how big a deal the decision is.
  • Think about the fall out from the decision. Who does it affect the most? Do the consequences match the expectations of your character? Is it easier than they thought it would be? Harder?
  • Think about how you can convey these things without directly telling the reader “She was finding it harder than she had expected”. What does it do to a person’s energy level, gait, relationships, ability to focus, when things are tough? What does it do to all these things if the character is surprised by how happy they are, after giving up?
  • You can write about the process of coming to the decision, or about the consequences, but remember to include some immediacy, some sense of movement in the events of the story. Don’t just tell it as if everything was resolved before you put pen to paper.

Go!

Post your story in the comments, or tell us how it went.

[Reading Room] The Knife by Richard Adams

On first coming to the end of this taut little tale I was a bit disappointed: is that it? But then I realized that the last line was perfect and the story really was done and that was all there was to it.

This is an atmospheric and well-drawn tale of a boy in a 1938 English boarding school, being bullied and wondering if he’s found a way out. It will feel familiar to anyone who has read C. S. Lewis’s memoirs about growing up and attending a school like this…or any fiction set in English public schools (what they call fee-paying schools). Heck, it’ll feel familiar to anyone who has watched the Human Nature/Family Of Blood episodes of Doctor Who.

Nevertheless, it is a unique and engrossing short tale with a chill in its bones and an absolutely delicious last line.

Found in Stories: All-New Tales – Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrntonio

Plot Twists To Avoid

  • The heroine/narrator is revealed to be a cat, dog, car, possum, tree or ghost!
  • A partner’s mysterious arrangements turn out to be for a surprise party
  • The perpetrators murder plan backfires and s/he eats the poison
  • A woman meets up with a handsome “stranger” for a steamy rendezvous and it turns out to be her husband
  • Someone nervous about a first day at school turns out to be the teacher; or about a wedding, the vicar; or an interview, the interviewer.
  • A woman spots her boyfriend/man of her dreams with a beautiful blonde lady – who turns out to be his sister
  • Anything involving twinsA murder/death actually turns out to be part of a play rehearsal

via Fast Fiction Guidelines – thats life!.

 

This is a great list of plot twists to avoid, found in the Writers’ Guidelines for an Australian magazine.

(The rest of the guidelines are good, too. I like the bit where they point out that too many characters and a story gets confusing. They recommend topping out at four.)

 

Although, it has to be said, the thrawn and perverse side of me is very tempted to write a series of stories in which one or all of these things happen, just to see if I could have fun with them. (Hey, the poison one worked for The Princess Bride…)

[Write On Wednesday] Christmas Redux

It’s the perfect time to write a Christmas/New Year/Winter story!

Don’t believe me? Take a lesson from the wily Dutch.

Everybody knows that the time to plant spring bulbs is in the autumn and yet every spring I receive multiple catalogues from dutch tulip and daffodil distributors. Six months after (or before) I should (have) plant(ed) their products. What lunacy is this?

The bulb marketers know that in spring I’m experiencing floral beauty and regretting not having planted more bulbs last year. It’s all fresh. I can see where I could put this Red Matador and that Orange Empress to fill a scraggy gap in my flower beds. I am full of good intentions about next year.

And, in January, is that not how you feel? As you pack away the holiday decorations, are you not full of regret over the things not done? The gifts unsought? The cards unsent? Is the memory of your brother-in-law’s annual jokes about your dessert not fresh in your memory?

Indeed. So now is the perfect time to write a story set in the season we have just endured enjoyed.

The Prompt

Write A December/Jan Holiday Story[1. No, I’m not conducting a War on Christmas. I, myself, celebrate Christmas. I just feel it’s polite to acknowledge the other 68% of humanity. It has less punch than “write a Christmas story”, I grant you. But if that’s the price for doing unto others, then I’m willing to pay it here in my blog…]

Tips

  • Think back over this past season and watch for strong emotions that pop up. What are they related to? Regrets? Vows of ‘never again’? Longing for next year’s repeat? Write those things down.
  • Think of moments that stood out for you. Why? What was the emotional resonance?
  • Think of a character you can put in a seasonal story who wants something. It can be something that is in tune with the message of the season or at odds with it, but they must feel strongly about it.
  • Now go about messing with their day. Put obstacles in their path. Put obnoxious visitors underfoot. Burn the turkey. Send in the ghosts of Christmas to settle their hash. Whatever works for your story…

Go!

There. Now you have a story ready to post on your blog/submit to a seasonal publication in early autumn/send out with your Christmas cards next Black Friday (you are going to send Christmas cards next year, aren’t you? Unlike this year? I know, I know, it’ll be our little secret…)

Now, excuse me while I check my mailbox for the Breck’s Bulb Catalogue…

 

 

(Do you send out a holiday story in seasonal cards to your friends? Make a note now on your calendar to do this next year!)

[Reading Room] A Mother’s Love by Lottie Lynn

A Mother’s Love is a chilling science fiction story that was selected for the BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines series in 2014.

The stories are supposed to “”have a strong emphasis on narrative”” and this one does. Here’s the opening:

“Child wanted something to do. Mother had left him in their room, because she had to fix a pipe. He had wanted to help; but she said no, she didn’t want him to get hurt. Child thought it was because he lacked sadness whenever she left…”

I love stories like this, where no-one really explains much and you have to figure it out from the clues in the story. And I had to keep reading when, in the second paragraph, I came across this line,

“Pulling at his wires, he began to move towards the jumbled mass of objects Mother had given him to play with.”

What: wires?!

What had started out like a twisted domestic scene had taken a turn for the strange and intriguing. Note to self: breadcrumbs in stories are essential for turning it from ‘good’ to ‘un-put-down-able’.

This year’s deadline for entries is Feb 13, 2015.

Revisiting Morning Pages – Charlotte Rains Dixon

If you haven’t tried Morning Pages, you are likely grousing that you don’t have time for such thing. I hear you.  But I say you’ll create time by doing them.  Because you’ll have more clarity, less anxiety and more of an ability to focus on what you really want to do throughout the day.  So try it:

via Revisiting Morning Pages – Charlotte Rains Dixon.

I first heard about Morning Pages and The Artist’s Way [af] from a co-workers in 1999 — not a writer, by the way, just a guy trying to get his stuff together.

I started turning my sporadic-journalling into Morning Pages and, like Charlotte, have revisited them over the years. It sounds too simple to be any use, but seriously: write three pages of stream of consciousness stuff as close to the start of your day as you can (even if you have to write “I can’t think of anything to write” over and over until you get so sick of yourself that you DO think of something to write) and you will fine yourself more creative, more calm and ready for anything.

I highly recommend the Artist’s Dates that Cameron talks about too. More on that later.

The Top Three Benefits of Writing Flash Fiction – DIY MFA : DIY MFA

The benefits of writing flash fiction can’t be denied. In addition to testing and sharing new story ideas and formats, flash fiction can teach you, as a writer, lessons you may not otherwise learn without hours and hours of classes and hundreds or thousands of dollars.

via The Top Three Benefits of Writing Flash Fiction – DIY MFA : DIY MFA.

 

You know how you sometimes have an idea that is interesting but you’re not sure if it’s a story? Take a leaf out of Alicia’s book and write it up as a Flash Fiction story, test it on some writer/reader friends. If they are hungry for more (backstory, front story or just MORE story) think about expanding it to a short story, novella or even a novel!

The Price Of Quitting

I was lucky enough to go to see Cabaret on Broadway this past December. The Emcee was played by Alan Cumming who, like me, is from Scotland.

I was absolutely transfixed by his performance and I couldn’t help being so very grateful that he had stuck with his talent through what must have been a challenging road from Carnoustie to Studio 54 in NYC, in part so that I, a total stranger, could experience a few moments of joy.

(Is there a reader out there, waiting for your story?)

It struck me:

  • What if he had decided not to leave home to go to theater school because it was too far away?
  • What if he had quit after a failed audition?
  • What if he had cared about all those people who make fun of boys who like the theater?
  • What if he had been scared to sing in public that first time?
  • What if he had let bad reviews get to him?
  • What if he had decided coming back to Broadway all these years later, would make him look foolish?
  • What if he had decided not to work so hard, to be mediocre, to be lazy because artistic success is difficult and chancy and really, why not just be cynical about it instead of working hard?

If he had let all those doubts, naysayers, fears and nerves gang up on him, I would have missed out on an absolutely transcendent moment.

Alan Cumming can’t possibly know what my trip to NYC and the fabulous performances in that show meant to me (unless he’s reading this. Hi, Alan!). But he did his bit, for 35 or so years, to become the performer he is today, and I thank him for that.

Where Do Your Talents Lie?

Do you understand that you can’t know who your stories will touch?

Are you brave enough to write the best stories you can, the truest stories you can muster, and put them out into the world to find their audience?

Are you strong enough to keep writing, year after year, using your gifts just for their own sake?

I hope so.

Because you never know who is out there, needing to hear your story.