Did you know that May 7 is “Military Spouses’ Day”? Well it is, and we’re all to stop and appreciate what it takes to be a military spouse.
Hey, I know. While you’re thinking about it…why not write a story featuring, if not a military couple, certainly two people who face challenges including but not limited to: separation, relocation, trauma. Or write something with a tangential connection to something military.
There. Broad enough? 😉
Go!
Somewhere in your story, use the line,
(Thanks, Cid!)
Go!
It’s Cinquo De Mayo and everyone loves a party! Except when they don’t.
Parties are a great setting for stories because they bring together people who have no business being in the same room; they put stress on relationships; they often involve booze and a consequent loosening of inhibitions…in other words, all the elements you need for a climactic moment in someone’s life.
Go!
Sorry, but give the sheer weight of all the Star Wars Lego in my house these days, I couldn’t resist.
…and remember, that could just as easily happen between two office cubicles as in a galaxy far, far away.
You could also make a case that Star Wars is just a big family saga — or maybe a romance — so feel free to go with that too.
And if you do go with the Hero Looking For A Quest thing, remember how whiny and unheroic Luke was at the start of those movies? You might want to emulate that and give your hero some room to grow.
Write A Story About Good Vs. Evil
Go!
A lot of short short stories focus on character and twists and surprise, because it’s a great form for exactly those things.
But I don’t want your descriptive muscles to get all flabby.
Why not write a story with a strong sense of place? At some point in the story, imagine you are a tour guide, pointing out the landmarks and notable features of your setting to me, your eager audience.
Be a tour guide to your story’s setting, for the reader
Go!
This is a staple of Sci-Fi and speculative fiction: you’re watching people in Forties garb but discover you’re on a space station populated by aliens who only know humans through one random Bogart movie they’ve intercepted….
But it happens in real life too: a woman thinks she’s in a happy marriage only to come home to empty closets and a note on the kitchen table; you think you’re reading a standard love story only to discover a twist at the end…
Write a story with an element of altered reality.
Go!
Huge thanks to StoryADay-er @cidwrites for today’s prompt.
Cid has created an imaginary book cover at her own StoryADay site, and invites you to use it as a writing prompt.
If the graphic doesn’t work for you, you can still use the prompt by writing a story that contains the line “They said it couldn’t be done.”
Writing prompts are optional, but do leave Cid a comment if you use hers!
Gabriela Pereira is a former StoryADay participant and has spent the past month launching her DIY MFA 2.0, an intensive writing program, all online.
She took some time to tell me about the course and give some great advice for writers about to embark on a big writing jag (know anyone like that?)
She is also hosting a write-in on Sunday May 1. I highly recommend checking out her DIY-MFA site and Facebook page and following her on Twitter.
Tell me about DIY MFA 2.0
The idea behind DIY MFA is to simulate the experience of a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing without actually going to school. DIY MFA has 4 main components: Reading, Writing, Workshops and Community. The original DIY MFA (which took place in September 2010) covered these four topics at length.
DIY MFA 2.0 takes a different approach, focusing mostly on the “writing” part of the equation. The idea in DIY MFA 2.0 is to spark new ideas and create a stash of ideas that writers can go to when they hit the wall or feel a creative drought coming on. There are 4 ways that DIY MFA can help generate new ideas and those are through: character, story, mood and words. Each week in April we focused on one of these areas and explored different writing exercises and techniques with that theme. Ultimately, the goal is to develop methods and tools for generating ideas so that when you need lots of new ideas in a short period of time (like when you’re writing a Story A Day) you have a bunch of concepts already ready and waiting.
How do you make time for writing?
I don’t make time for writing. I steal it. I’m always on the lookout for hidden pockets of time when I can read or write because if I sit around waiting for a huge block of time to land in my lap, I know it will never happen. I live in a city, so for me subways and buses are great places to sneak in some writing. I love my Kindle because I can put a copy of my WIP on it and can edit on the go. I also carry small notebook with me everywhere so that if I’m stuck waiting for an elevator or waiting on a subway platform, I can break out my notebook and jot down a few sentences.
Even with all this time-theft going on, I also try to carve out a few small chunks of time when I do writing “sprints.” In DIY MFA, I’ve asked participants to do at least one sprint per week on Saturdays, but for me these sprints happen whenever I manage to steal a chunk of time long enough that I can call it honest-to-goodness solid writing time. During these precious moments, I’ll practice some stealth writing, where I run to a coffee shop and hide out while I write. Not only am I more efficient if I know I only have a short span of time to write, but the stealth aspect also makes it more exciting (like I’m doing something I shouldn’t… something naughty).
And don’t underestimate the power of the Pomodoro. That adorable little tomato timer app that sits on my desktop has worked wonders for me. If I know I only have 25 minutes to write, I won’t stop to check email or twitter or anything else, I’ll just write. After I’ve finished a couple of rounds of Pomodoro, I’ll treat myself to a short spurt of internet fiddling.
What’s your best advice for someone who’s trying to make writing a priority (again)?
I’m a huge believer in baby steps and I’m not a fan of huge, unmanageable goals because they set writers up to fail. Missing a goal can lead to feelings of “I can’t do this” or “I’m not good enough” which only leads to paralysis, writer’s block and loss of motivation. Of course, lower motivation means the next set of goals becomes even more unmanageable so the cycle just continues. The trick is to break the cycle of negativity and find ways of sparking the motivation when it starts slipping away.
For me, writing isn’t about success vs. failure; it’s about doing. If a writing challenge helps a writer motivate themselves and stay on track, fantastic! But the important thing in my mind is that writers do the work, whether it means meeting a goal within a certain time frame or not. That’s where I think Story-A-Day gets it right: because it’s not just about writing a story every day, it’s about bouncing back on the days when you can’t actually get a story done. It’s about getting ideas down quickly, without judging. It’s about writing it and moving on, leaving the tweaks and edits for some later point.
Ultimately, I think StADa and DIY MFA have similar goals: to help writers rekindle their love of writing and help them develop a sustainable, enriching writing life.
Thanks, Gabriela!
Today’s guest post from Melissa Dinwiddie is a wonderful primer on how to use the StoryADay community to help you become more productive than you ever dreamed. Thanks, Melissa!
Do you know one of the most effective things you can do to get your writing done?
Make yourself accountable.
I don’t know the statistics, but it’s a well known fact that if you want to reach a goal, speaking your commitment — including your deadline — to someone you know will hold you to it makes you dramatically more likely to actually do it.
Accountability is a powerful tool, and there are a number of ways you can integrate it into your writing practice. One of my own secret weapons is an accountability buddy.
At the start of the year I was in a mastermind group (another great accountability tool), assembled with the express purpose of helping each other accomplish one specific goal in the month of January. When that group dissolved, a couple of us decided to keep checking in with each other.
At first our monthly calls started to get a little chatty — understandable enough, since we liked each other and had come to think of each other as friends.
This is an inherent danger in any accountability relationship. The problem, of course, is that chatting does not make for finished projects and completed goals.
Accountability partners have to be vigilant, and must keep coming back to the purpose for their partnership. If you want to chat, set up another date specifically for that. During your accountability check-ins, stick with the agenda: keeping each other on track.
This is exactly what I did at the end of a particularly chatty call. “Before we hang up,” I asked, “what’s your next step?”
My buddy confessed that she had a novel that had been sitting in a drawer for way too long, and what she really wanted was to get it edited and up for sale as a download on her site.
“Aha,” I responded, kicking into coaching mode, “so what’s stopping you?”
I asked her realistically how long she thought the editing would take, and when she said “about four hours,” I suggested (okay, I practically insisted) that she do it this week. In other words, I held out an expectation that I thought was achievable.
With my kick in the butt, she was ready to take on this project that she’d been putting off, so the next step was to set up a check-in schedule that worked for her. She committed to emailing me a progress report every night before going to bed, and set a goal of a 2-3 chapters per day.
Although it turned out four hours was an underestimation, I’m pleased to report that in less than two weeks my buddy had finished editing her entire manuscript and was ready to tackle the production side of getting her novel made into a downloadable ebook format. She swears she never would have gotten there without my help.
Do you think this kind of partnership might work for you? Give it a try! To keep you on track, I recommend sticking with the same structure every time you meet. The following questions are a good jumping off place:
Remember to reserve your chatting for another time, and let me know how it goes!
Artist, Writer and Inspirationalist Melissa Dinwiddie helps creatives (and “wannabe” creatives) to get unstuck, get unpoor, and just plain play bigger. Find her at her blogs, Living A Creative Life and 365 Days of Genius.
Leave a comment with your best tips for boosting productivity and/or working with other people and win a copy of Rory’s Story Cubes, a wonderful dice game that doubles as a story-telling tool. Roll the dice and make a story from the extremely cute images on the dice.
Today’s winner will be a random draw, so you get extra entries if you post about StoryADay on your blog, Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else (yes, I’ll give credit for blog posts from yesterday). Just leave me a comment saying where you posted.
Special thanks to Rory O’Connor and the lovely folks at Gamewright Games for donating this prize.
Ack!
There were so many great comments on yesterday’s post about creativity and productivity for writers that I had a hard time choosing a winner.
And in the end I chose two (and am suffering horrible guilt about leaving out all the other people who wrote great comments).
But don’t fret, because you can all enter again to win another copy of Rory’s Story Cubes on the next post, which is all about how to work with an accountability buddy to make your writing life more productive than you ever dreamed.
This next giveaway will be a drawing out of a virtual hat (red), and you can get extra entries for posting about StoryADay in other places. See the Accountability / Writing Buddy post for more details.
Thanks for all your great tips on creativity and productivity.
Brenda said,
1) Go someplace (a mall, a casino, etc.) and people-watch. I try to make up backstory for the people I see.
2) Listen to instrumental music. Classical and Drum music work well, as does the genre aptly called “Trance.”
3) I grab a box of cheap colored pencils and doodle. Sometimes the doodles end up being a creature, or a map of a fantasy land, or a character. I’m not an artist, by any means, but even my second-rate scribbles (lol) can cause a spark that becomes a story.
I think the reason that these 3 usually work for me is that they all have one thing in common: they make writing fun again.
Trina, in confessional-mode, spoke for many of us,
I say I have no time, but if I truly go back and look at how much time I spend on Twitter or surfing the Net, I have plenty of time. Guilty as charged.
MJ gave me a reason to stop feeling guilty for gossiping about strangers,
Myself and my boyfriend stole the idea of sitting in a restaurant and making up stories about the other diners from a movie we watched. It can be a lot of fun and generate a ton of ideas and helps with character development.
Janel had two great points,
I plan on pulling several prompts every night in May.
I’ve just decided that I will write to ease the stress instead of looking at the stress as a writing block.
Dominique’s suggestions were,
I overcome theses moments of writers block by keeping a pen and pencil around to writ down any great thought’s , plot ideas, or character lines. I also Take a trip to the bookstore to look through coffee table books full of images related to the subject I am writing
Steven made me feel a little less schizophrenic,
I was telling a friend about some story ideas I had mulling around in my head, she said that it must be busy “in there”. I told her that at times it seems like a cocktail party,…Once I get at least the outline of a guest’s story to paper, they tend to back off and let me relax.
Brandy is, like many of us, a list-maker and note-taker,
1. Keep paper and a pen/pencil everywhere; in the car, my purse, on tables, on window ledges, etc., because I never know when inspiration will strike and not having materials near me could kill or stall a great idea.
2. Install whiteboards with markers in different areas of the house and several larger ones in your office/studio. I have found that having a place where it is okay to write in an nontrational way helps me free my thoughts. ..Having a wall of white boards in the studio/office allows me to write “on the walls” which is something we have been trained not to do since childhood…
3. Write EVERYTHING down…My grocery lists end up with story ideas, character quotes, and settings along with the bananas and soup…
You can read all the comments in full here.
I have decided to award today’s prize to Brenda and Brandy, but thanks to everyone for taking the time to share your tips.
Recently, naturalists announced that the sloth — the animal whose name has become a synonym for laziness — is actually a lot more active than previously thought. It turns out that when we cage them and observe them, we don’t see what’s really going on in the sloth’s world.
Today I have a great guest post for you from Susan Daffron, a writer and publishing consultant. She shows us how, as writers, the times when our minds are most fertile and active, might — to an observer — look like the times when we are being, well, slothful. She shows us that productivity for writers makes its own demands, and how to succeed by embracing that.
(You can read more about Susan’s upcoming publishing conference at the end of the article).
Then, leave your comments about how you will jump-start your creativity at the end of the article and you’ll be entered to win a copy of Rory’s Story Cubes – a great creativity booster in a box!
As a writer, I’ve gone through periods of extreme productivity and extreme sloth. Although I have written 12 books, last year in 2010, I released exactly zero.
For a variety of personal and business-related reasons, I went through a creative burnout like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Writing, which had always been fairly easy for me in the past, was suddenly extremely difficult.
I also discovered that the less I wrote, the less I wanted to write. Talk about a lack of productivity!
I spent some time looking back at what happened during my creative slump. I realized my lack of writing productivity stemmed from three issues:
1. Lack of ideas. The stressful events I experienced caused my creativity to simply shut down. To jumpstart my mind, I surfed to online writing sites (like StoryaDay.org!), used random-word and writing-prompt generators, and started talking to my husband about my various writing thoughts for outside feedback and support.
2. Lack of motivation. As noted, a bunch of things that happened last year brought me down. Creativity does not flow when you’re depressed. I decided to make a commitment to exercising and started reading more inspirational materials on creativity, writing, and life balance. (The library is full of wonderful FREE books just waiting to be read!)
3. Lack of time. You’ve read it before, but I’ll say it again: you have time to write if you make time to write. During my slump, I wasn’t working smart. Part of me already knew it, but I had to forcibly reacquaint myself with the methods I’d used in the past to carve out real productive writing time. I opted to make a commitment to write every morning and also started thinking up ideas for articles and posts the night before. “Sleeping on” a writing idea really works!
I’m happy to report that the old adage “writers write” is true. Since I got my writing mojo back again, I have been writing regularly. I have my next book completely outlined and 19 case studies/interviews input so far. I’ll be speaking at a conference this summer and plan to release the book in time for it. (Deadlines help motivation too!)
If you’re a writer who wants to publish, you can get inspiration and learn more about the book publishing process at the Self-Publishers Online Conference. The third annual event is May 10-12, 2011 (http://www.SelfPublishersOnlineConference.com) Use the code SusanSentMe and get 10% off your registration!
Susan Daffron, aka The Book Consultant (http://www.TheBookConsultant.com) owns a book and software publishing company. She spends most of her time writing, laying out books in InDesign, or taking her five dogs out for romps in the forest. She also teaches people how to write and publish profitable client-attracting books and puts on the Self-Publishers Online conference (http://www.SelfPublishersOnlineConference.com) every May.
Leave a comment with your best tips for jump-starting creativity and win a copy of Rory’s Story Cubes, a wonderful dice game that doubles as a story-telling tool. Roll the dice and make a story from the extremely cute images on the dice. Brilliant for days when you’re stalled and need to regain your mojo.
Special thanks to Rory O’Connor and the lovely folks at Gamewright Games for donating this prize.
Today I have a great guest post for you from Productivity expert Benny Hsu. Benny shares some tips and some really useful tools for keeping focused on your writing. Thanks, Benny!
You’re sitting at your desk and you’re ready to write. You start writing and then you’re distracted by something on your computer. The next thing you know you’re checking Facebook, email, or Twitter.
If it’s not the computer, it’s the noises from your house or you start cleaning to procrastinate from writing. If it’s happened to you before don’t worry because there are ways to eliminate distractions.
Being aware of the distractions, proper preparation, and reducing them will help your focus and productivity.
If you’ve had problems in the past staying focused, here are tips to help you out.
Having a messy workspace will keep you fixated on the small things when your eyes wander from the computer screen. A disorganized desk will tempt you to start cleaning just to procrastinate. Keep it very minimal. A clean workspace also just feels more relaxing.
Since you’ll be sitting for awhile, having an ergonomically correct chair will be helpful. Also be sure you are in a good working position. You want to keep your attention on your writing and not how uncomfortable your body feels.
If you’re in a busy house, the most quiet time to write might be before the sun rises or after everyone goes to sleep. If that’s not optimal for you, let people in your house know to not disturb you for the next hour. Close the door. Hang a sign on the door. Put on noise canceling headphones. Turn off your phone. If you let others know in the house to not disturb you, you prevent distractions from occurring.
(Of course, this isn’t foolproof, but you might be surprised how cooperative people can be when they see you’re serious about your writing commitments – Ed.)
Having a set time to write will force you to stay focused on writing. Set it to a comfortable amount of time (30-45 mins), work until the timer goes off, take a short break (5-10 mins), reset the timer again, and do it again.
There are great writing programs that are full screen and have very few options besides spell checking, word counting and saving. They eliminate everything else on your computer screen but your text.
Try
.
All the programs are free except for WriteRoom and the newer version of OmmWriter.
I’d add IAWriter for the iPad crowd. Very nice app – Ed
Turn off Twitter. Close your internet browser. Turn off your email notifications. You do not want any popups sending you updates. Not only will it distract you but checking one thing will lead many more.
If you’re still tempted to check, disable your wi-fi on your laptop. Unplug your internet from your desktop.
Having the television on for background noise is a bad idea. Listening to some soft music is acceptable if you want to drown out outside noises. Just make sure you have a playlist created so you’re not constantly searching for the next song to play.
Try a pair of noise canceling headphones, whether you listen to music or not. Not only will it block out noise but people are less likely to bother you if you’re wearing headphones.
If the house will be too distracting, go to a coffee shop to write. Even though it will be noisy at the coffee store, it might serve as white noise and help you focus more. Noise canceling headphones are one way to block out the ambient noise.
Benny Hsu writes at GetBusylivingblog.com where he writes about pursuing your passion, being the person you want to be and living life to the fullest. You can connect with him on his blog, or on Twitter @Benny_Hsu. He’d love for you to say hi.
Here are your 2011 participant graphics! Download them and use them well.
500 x 234 pixels
240 x 112 pixels
100 x 47 pixels
What are the consequences of trying to write a perfect story?
That you might get stuck. That you might not progress. That you might quit. Don’t quit. Write a crappy First
Very few writers really know what they’ve done until they’ve done it…the only way I can get anything done at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts
Anne Lamott, “Bird By Bird”
What are the consequences of writing a bad story? That you might get discouraged?
That’s not something we embrace readily, but it’s not fatal.
Now, what are the consequences of trying to write a perfect story?
That you might get stuck.
That you might not progress.
That you might quit.
Embrace the cause of the crappy first draft, and save your writing life!
This is what keeps the Inner Editor from getting his claws into you.
Write like the wind. Keep running and leave the Inner Editor behind.
Write fast, get to the point where you get stuck, and keep writing anyway.
Literally, don’t look back at your draft as you’re writing. Even if you have forgotten what you named a secondary character or a town, just put in a placeholder and keep writing.
If you look back you’ll be tempted to judge, to edit, and you’ll slow down and then you’ll lose momentum, and then it’s so much harder to get going again.
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
-Richard Bach
Treat your first draft as your sandbox: get your fingers dirty, build ugly models, knock them down later.
Don’t Quit. Fight The Fear. Write A Crappy First Draft Today.
This week marks the 98th anniversary of the birth of blues great Muddy Waters.
This week write a story on the theme of one of his greatest hits:
Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] I’m Ready!”
I have a subscription to Storyville, on my iPhone, because I’m a sucker for new business models and digital publishing, and I’m enjoying being exposed to a wide array of stories (old and new) every week.
This week’s story, “Gold Boy, Emerald Girl” by Yiyun Li, slowly unfolds the story of a couple, past the first flush of youth, meeting and deciding whether or not to marry. The story is set in modern-day Beijing. The woman in the story has lived there all her life, hardly noticing that she is aging and becoming a spinster, while the bachelor son of her old college professor has been off living in America.
It is anything but a cliched romance, though I will say that it has a satisfying ending. The author is quite skilled at making the characters and their culture seem complete and real without losing their interesting edge.
I liked the indirect way we learn about the characters and their backstories, as in this remark about the professor,
“Professor Dai must miss her students these days,” Siuy said after she and Hanfeng had exchanged greetings, although she knew it was not the students that his mother missed but the white skulls of mammals and birds on her office shelves, the drawers filled with scalpels and clamps and tweezers that she had cleaned and maintained with care and the fact that she could mask her indifference to the human species with her devotion to animals.
All the revelations about the characters are measured and careful, just like the characters. The whole story is a skilled blend of what we are told and how it is told, leading us to accept the ending and even agree with the choices the characters make.
It’s worth remembering that how a story is told can contribute as much to the reader’s experience as the things we write.
This week my community is raising money and saying prayers for a little boy called Trey Love.
So how about a “love” story this week, in honor of Trey and his family?
Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Love”
Seedpod Publishing is a “micro-publishing cooperative” — which sounds to me like a collection of authors and publishing people banding together to distribute literary fiction, digitally.
They publish books and help with promotion and distribution – all digital and Digital Rights Management free, so your readers can read your book wherever they want, not linked to any particular device.
They also curate a Twitter stream of 140-character tiny tales at @seedpodpublishing . You can submit your Twitter stories here. (I particularly like their Publishing Rights section, written in Real English!)
From the Writers’ Guidelines page:
We believe that writers can and should be supported financially by the community. Because of this, the free versions of our books are made possible by donations as well as by advertising from organizations that are doing socially just work. Our aim is to nurture the work of writers and keep literature accessible for all.
It’s intriguing alternative to both traditional publishing and go-it-alone self-publishing. I’ll be watching with interest.
This course is now the I, WRITER Course.
Thinking about signing up for StoryADay May but scared to take the plunge?
If you need proof that YOU CAN WRITE, sign up for the StoryADay Warm-Up Writing Course I, WRITER Course:
Tomorrow is the birth date of escapologist and magician Harry Houdini, so it seems a good time to write a story about escape.
Conversely today marks the 10th anniversary of the Russian Space Station Mir falling back to the Earth that had held it in is gravitational embrace for so long. Mir never really escaped from Earth, but it did soar above us, suggesting the promise of escape to those of us who look to the stars in our dreams.
Write a story about escape – or the failure to escape.
This week, try starting in the middle of the action and unpacking the back story as you go.
Continue reading “[Write On Wednesdays] Escape”
“What if my stories are no good? What if I fail?”
This is possibly the most powerful thing holding us back.
We can find or make time if we really want to. Even if the power lines went down and the world ran out of paper, we could tell our stories out loud, around campfires as of old.
The most insightful of us understand that success brings its own stresses and that worries us.(Imagine if your first novel was a best-seller. Where would you go from there?!)
But the thing that really stops us?
Fear of failure.
Today’s prompt comes from Rory’s Story Cubes. I rolled them for you, but you can use them in any order and in any way you like.
Write On!
Yesterday was Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, Carnevale, Fastnacht, whatever you choose to call it.
In countries around the world, people celebrated in advance of the sombre season of Lent, which starts today. Poeple around the world celebrated, even if they aren’t participating in the penance-fest that is the Lenten season.
Write a story that features a big, last blow-out before a change, echoing the idea of Mardi Gras.
(It might be a stag night, the last meal at a diner before an old man goes into a nursing home, or it might be Mardi Gras in New Orleans, itself. And don’t forget, you can write it from the perspective of the day after, too!)
The Rules:
- You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
- You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
- Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
- Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!
Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook
Some tweets/updates you might use:
Don’t miss my Mardi Gras story: http://bit.ly/el8ltW #WriteOnWed #storyaday
Laissez les bon temps roulez! It’s still Mardi Gras at #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://bit.ly/el8ltW
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is “Mardi Gras”: http://bit.ly/el8ltW #storyaday
Come and write with us: http://bit.ly/el8ltW #WriteOnWed #storyaday
See my story – and write your own, today: http://bit.ly/el8ltW #WriteOnWed #storyaday
With thanks to my friends at Creative Copy Challenge for inspiration and support. Go to Creative Copy Challenge every day for a new writing prompt and supportive community of writers.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I was in touch and there’s lots happening behind the scenes at StoryADay HQ, gearing up to make this year an awesome year for you.
I’m currently chatting with my friendly neighbourhood business lawyer about the ins and outs of contests and whether I can host one at StoryADay without getting myself sued.
Also, this year I’ve decided to contact some companies that offer fun and useful writers’ swag and see if they want to kick in some giveaways and prizes. I’ve already had a ‘yes’ from the first company I talked to, so stayed tuned for News Of Swag.
from Fifty Great Short Stories
This story, originally published in The New Yorker in 1949, is a wonderful example of how every line in a short story should contribute to the story, the plot or the characterization. That’s tough to do, so don’t be discouraged if your first draft isn’t as good as Mr O’Connor’s New-Yorker-ready version! It is, however, a goal worth keeping in mind.
The story’s opening is crammed with short, efficient sentences that do an amazing job of setting the scene,
“When I woke, I heard my mother coughing, below in the kitchen.”
We don’t know yet, when the story is set, but we have a setting – a home, where the main character still lives with his/her mother. The mother is up early, in the kitchen, probably fixing breakfast.
“She had been coughing for days, but I had paid no attention.”
That sounds callous, but consistent with what we discover about the narrator: that his is a ten year old boy. It also sets up a tension that carries right through to the end: what is wrong with the mother. Will she survive? Will he be paid back for his callous disregard of her? When a line like “I had paid no attention’ is offered up right a the start of the story, it makes me nervous!
The third sentence (we’re still only 24 words into the story here) is completely natural and conversational, easily rooting the story in its geographical place, painting a picture of it and, at the same time, letting us know that this was happening some time ago,
“We were living on the Old Youghal road at the time, the old hilly coaching road into East Cork.”
All that from 19 words. I love it!
The rest of this paragraph paints a picture of both the mother and the narrator that puts us firmly on their side and rooting for them both,
“The coughing sounded terrible. I dressed and went downstairs in my stocking feet, and in the clear morning light I saw her, unaware that she was being watched, collapsed into a little wickerwork armchair, hoding her side. She had made an attempt to light the fire, but it had gone against her. She looked so tired and helpless that my heart turned over with compassion. I ran to her.”
Isn’t that a great opening?
The story is mostly told in one voice — that of the 10 yr old boy — but from time to time the voice of the older version of the boy creeps in, now grown up and telling us the story, judging, explaining. In one glaring example the narrator voices an opinion that will enrage most of the women (and some of the men) reading it, when he casually opines,
“It’s a funny thing about women, how they’ll take orders from anything in trousers, even if it’s only ten.”
Not a very modern, politically-correct attitude and it is the one line that makes the story seem old-fashioned. The rest of it seems fixed in a particular time, but also pretty timeless: a small boy is struggling between childhood and responsibility; sometimes he’s good; sometimes he fails; how he feels about it all. We’ve all been 10 [1. with apologies to any younger readers out there. You’re even better placed to understand this character!]. We’ve all struggled with the passage from childhood to adulthood, whether in rural Ireland or a suburb or a city.
But even that one jarring line serves an important purpose in the story. It’s not just in there because the writer wants to tell us something about his character’s attitude towards women. It tells us the age of the boy in the story, and that there is no way he should be the titular man of the house. It also tells us a thing or two about his mother in particular, (and you could argue that it talks about her only, rather than women as a whole, if the line makes you uncomfortable).
Most of the time, though, the world is presented to us through the voice of the ten year old from a particular time and place.
“In the afternoon, my mother wanted me to run out and play, but I didn’t go far. I knew if once I went a certain distance from the house, I was liable to stray into temptation. Below our house, there was a glen, the drill field of the barracks perched high above it on a chalky cliff, and below, in a deep hollow, the millpond and millstream running between wooded hills — the Rockies, the Himalayas, or the HIghlands, according to your mood. Once down there, I tended to forget the real world…”
He notices the things a ten year old boy would notice: the barracks where the soldiers live, the millpond where you could find creepy crawly things, and the hills, a setting for imagined adventures.
The story continues to take our likable little hero away from home and into temptation. Whether he resists and whether he has to pay for his sins are the questions that kept me turning the pages faster and faster until I reached the end.
Is your writing economical or more wordy? Which point-of-view do you use most often in short stories? Are your ‘voices’ distinctive?
Tell us in the comments:
Inspired by a postcard-length short story by science fiction master Arthur C. Clarke, Postcard Shorts accepts stories that are, well, postcard length.
(That translates to about 250 words)
Pretty much anything goes, as long as it’s not completely devoid of merit (in the Editor’s opinion). The Editor’s decision is final.
The copyright for anything you submit is wholly yours. You own it. This site just displays your work.
– from Postcardshorts.com
This is not a paying market but it is bite-sized and very tempting.
How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall? Practice, Practice, Practice!
If you really want to become a good writer, in this lifetime, you have to write. You have to write a lot.
Here are seven of the best tips from last year’s StoryADay participants, to help you become an insanely productive, happy and sane writer. Plus one bonus tip and a question for you, at the end.
“Nothing will work until you do.”
-Maya Angelou
There is nothing worse than carving out some time to write and then being stuck for a place to start. So start now: pay attention to all the ideas you have, all the time, when you are away from your desk. Carry a notebook around. Capture snippets of conversation, what ifs that occur to you as you people-watch, thoughts spurred by other people’s stories. Write them all down, ready to be picked up again when you sit down to write.
When you sit down to write, actually write. Don’t check email, don’t check Twitter, don’t even check the StADa site (unless you need the daily prompt). Just leaf through your ideas until you find one you can work with, and go. Turn off your email notifications, close all the browser windows. Don’t worry about fonts and formatting or whether it’ll be any good. Just write.
@Gabi If I think too much about writing before I actually start doing it, I tend to psych myself out. Instead I just start writing and before I know it, I’ve got a bunch of words on the page and it’s time to call it a day.
Starting stories is all very well, but anyone can do that. The point of StADa is to help you learn to craft a whole, finished story. Keep writing until you finish. Even if you hate it, keep writing. You’ll thank me later.
Obviously, if your kids are screaming or someone comes to the door to tell you you’ve won $10million in the lottery, or your boss calls to ask where you are, you might have to get up from your desk before your story is finished. In which case, go. But keep thinking about your story. Leave it in the middle of a sentence, so that you’re ready to leap back in, and go. But keep thinking about it. When you’re walking to the coffee machine, wonder what your characters will do next. When you’re doing some menial, mindless task (can you tell I’m a mother?) let your mind wander and picture how you’re going to resolve the central mystery of your story. If someone turns on a radio, listen to how people talk and steal yourself some dialogue.
@KristenRudd says: “My trick so far is to mull my story all day, while I’m doing whatever it is I do. I think about the directions it could go, but I mostly think about how to open it. Then, when I can finally sit down after the kids are in bed, the dishes are washed, and I’ve done everything else that needs doing, I’m excited about the story that’s been buzzing all day.
You can put off watching TV shows and you can turn down an occasional invitation for coffee without your life falling apart. Tell people you’re working on your writing this month, that you’ll be a better friend next month (maybe). Take some time to make your writing your top priority. You’ll always wonder, if you don’t, what you could have achieved. Explain to friends that you are investing in your dream of becoming a writer, just as they might make time to invest in a course of golf lessons or an art workshop. If you want to take your writing seriously you will find that something’s got to give, but the good news is: that could be the housework!
StADa: How do you make time for writing?
@AdorablyAlice This is a good question. And when I have an answer that doesn’t involve neglecting chores/cooking, I’ll let you know.
It’s tempting to think that you need solitude, silence and a particular pen to be able to write, but that’s a rookie mistake. Professional writers write wherever and whenever they can squeeze in some time.
You may need some peace and quiet to get a story started, but once you’re up and running, write! Write when ever you have 15 minutes, wherever you are, with whatever comes to hand. Write!
(Hint: you full-time workers have the gnawing envy of stay-at-home parents of young children: you get a lunch break. Are you sneaking off somewhere and using it for writing?)
You’re not going to write an epic or a polished draft in a day. You’re going to write something and it’ll likely be bewtween 30 and 2000 words. The more frequently you write and finish a story, the more you’ll get a sense for how to pace yourself and your story. Don’t waste time on backstory or explaining anything at the beginning. Jump in half way through and unpack the story as you go. Some of it will be terrible, some of it you will learn from and some of it might even be quite good. On a good day you’ll write a character you’re proud of or make yourself smile with a twist, or discover you can write really convincingly about a gardener.
@GabiOnly a handful of the stories are worth keeping and working on. One of them has spawned into an idea for a middle-grade book that I am in love with.
Every lesson enriches your writing. Every day you practice, you’re one step closer to Carnegie Hall.
I know a lot of us are loners (I certainly crave my ‘alone’ time) so the idea of joining a community seems strange. But one of the most valuable lessons I have learned in the past year is the value of having people on your side, people who understand what it’s like try to write, people who are rooting for you (because if you can do it, maybe they can too).It was incredibly inspiring to drop in to the StoryADay.org forums during May – and afterwards ‘meet up’ with people on Twitter – and trade stories of how our writing day is going.
Join our Serious Writers’ Accountability Group (SWAGr) and post your goals for this month…today! (We’re “Serious”, not sombre. All are welcome!)
Thanks to all the previous participants for their comments and suggestions, quoted here or otherwise.
What do you do to keep writing? Share your best tips in the comments.
To be among the first to hear when sign-ups open for this year’s challenge sign up for the Advance Notice List. (No spam. Just StoryADay.org news)
If you saw the comments on last week’s post 6 Reasons You’ll Never Be A Writer, you’ll know that one reasons touched a nerve with a lot of people:
#6: You’re Too Nice
Commenter Michelle Kobayashi captured the mood when she said:
“My first 17 chapters were very nice. There was little conflict and the characters worked out their issues reasonably.
“It sucked.
“Then I learned about inciting incidents and the need for conflict. That’s when the fun began. One character in particular is so rude I cringe when I reread her scenes. And I wouldn’t change a thing. Embrace your inner sadist indeed!”
(Thanks to Donald Maass for the catchy slogan at the end there!)
Seems like this is something ia lot of us need practise with. So,
Write a scene featuring a truly loathsome (but believable) character. They don’t have to be a Disney Villain. It could be that really annoying person at work who has no redeeming qualities that you can find, no matter how hard you try.
Dig deep. Remember how annoying, frustrating, irritating your least favorite person in the world is. Pair them up with your favorite hero-type and give them a scene.
Then let your hero say all the things you’ve rehearsed in your head but would never say, because you’re just, well, too nice.
Let it all out. Make us (and yourself) cringe.
The Rules:
- You should use the prompt in some way in your story (however tenuous the connection)
- You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
- Post your scene in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
- Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!
Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook
Some tweets/updates you might use:
Embracing My Inner Sadist: http://bit.ly/ehx03t #WriteOnWed #storyaday
I never knew I could be so mean! #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://bit.ly/ehx03t
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is “Embrace Your Inner Sadist″: http://bit.ly/ehx03t
Come and write with us today: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday
See my story – and write your own: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday
With thanks to my friends at Creative Copy Challenge for inspiration and support. Go to Creative Copy Challenge every day for a new writing prompt and supportive community of writers.
from Fifty Great Short Stories
I don’t know much about Henry James, though I have struggled through more of his short stories than I have novels. I’ve never formally studied his writing, so don’t know what the prevailing literary criticism theories are…but I can tell you this: I dislike his characters and I dislike his outlook and I always end up, as I did at the end of this story, wanting to punch at least one of the characters in the nose.
Which is, I suppose a kind of a compliment to the writer.
As much as I say I don’t ‘like’ Henry James’s stories, I do recognise the work of a master craftsman. (I wonder if I would have liked him any better if he had been writing today [1. Probably not.])
The first thing I admired about this story was the way he pulled me in right from the first sentence. You might not think of the slow-paced Henry James novels as belonging on the same shelf as Ian Fleming or James Patterson, but there is, nonetheless, plenty of suspense to keep the reader hooked:
We are scattered now, the friends of the late Mr. Oliver Offord, but whenever we chance to meet I think we are conscious of a certain esoteric respect for each other.
Who was the late Mr. Oliver Offord and why do his friends only ‘chance to meet’ and share a ‘certain esoteric respect’ – and what does that really mean?
James continues to ratchet up the suspense in the very next sentence,
“Yes, you too have been in Arcadia,” we seem not too grumpily to allow.
Why was it “Arcadia” (and why would they ordinarily be grumpy with each other)?
The story turns out not to be about Mr Offord at all, but about his butler, Brooksmith and the perils of allowing the servant class to rise above their station.
I’m not sure which side Henry James would really have taken on the issue of class and station, but his narrator has a very fixed, extremely anti-egalitarian viewpoint that makes him supremely unsympathetic to the modern reader.
He is, however, so unrelentingly shaped by his societal norms that he is absolutely believable and ‘true’ – and loathsome, I might add.
It really struck me — after putting down this book with a sneer on my face and a punchy urge in my fist — that my writing could benefit from a bit more loathesomeness. I’m really a very nice person, trained in life to be fair and tolerant and to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. But being well-brought-up can create a tendency to be too nice to my characters, too forgiving.
If I want to create characters as ‘true’ and real as Brooksmith‘s unworthy narrator, I have to risk creating characters that someone 111 years from now might want to punch.
What do you do to make your characters ‘real’? Please do leave a comment!
Six Sentences is a place to publish just that: six sentence stories.
It has been one of Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Sites For Writers and publishes a new six-sentence story every day. It’s a great (non-paying) market for flash fiction writers.
It offers readers the chance to vote the story “good”, or “spectacular” (a ratings system I love) and provides a link back to the author’s site.
Check out the writer’s guidlines here or read some recent six-sentence stories.
A supportive group of committed writers, who meet virtually, support each other’s efforts, and
become better writers today, not ‘some day’.
The only qualification to be a ‘Superstar” is a desire to write and support your fellow writers.
The only qualification to be a ‘Superstar” is a desire to write and support your fellow writers.
A supportive group of committed writers, who meet virtually, support each other’s efforts, and inspire each other.
Registration for 2024 open now-June 8, 2024
A 6-part journey through the short story.
Starts July 28, 2023
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