In which I tell you the rules for StoryADay May 2024
ntrigued by the StoryADay Challenge but intimidated? Don’t be! In this episode I explain all the rules including the most important rule: Make Your Own Rules!
In which I try to persuade you not to persuade anyone this way…
In which I talk about Mary Oliver and the power of words to lift us out of the everyday. I also invite you to take part in the January Challenge, a five-day exercise that will make you more decisive around your fiction and every aspect of your writing life. Sign up here: https://storyaday.org/jan-challenge
Transcript
Good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon, Julie from story a day here.
I’m going to be inviting you today to join me next week in a free mini challenge that’s going to set you up for the year ahead for the life ahead. And it’s, it’s a challenge that helps you get back in the groove with your writing helps you stay on track.
I’ll send you five tiny little lessons over the week and you’ll build a tool that will help you in your writing everyday.
But I wanted to. Read you something today that I wrote, this week. In case you are wavering in your commitment to your fiction, in your courage around your fiction, in case the world is beating you down and telling you that fiction doesn’t matter and you should be doing more important things.
I don’t think there’s much more. Important work than
stimulating peoples imaginations, giving them hope. Giving them a respite from the world. So here’s what I wrote one morning this week.
When it seems. Like everything in the world is terrible. How can I possibly justify writing about. Or playing with my imaginary friends. When there’s so much news to catch up on to care about. So many causes to champion. Persecuted groups to try and save. How can I possibly find the time and energy for creative acts?
It’s a real question.
But we creative people must be courageous enough to try.
Because we can write beautiful, inspiring. Terrifying. Hopeful things. That lift people out of their everyday experiences and show them how they are part of something bigger than themselves. Not everyone can do this. But you can.
This morning, I read an essay by the poet, Mary Oliver. In which she talked about Walt Whitman as if he really was her friend although I don’t think they ever met. She only met him on the page. She took him everywhere with her and he lifted her when times were difficult.
And I thought about all the times and places where I’ve heard Mary Oliver’s poems quoted, on social media, at business conferences. Poetry is possibly the most exalted and derided. Form of writing that there is: how are you ever going to make money from poetry? Nobody makes money from poetry.
And yet poetry reaches us in a way that sermons and lectures and essays can’t do.
I thought about the pause, the hush in the room, the sense of respite that her words provide.
In March of 2020, what did everyone reach for, to lift themselves out of the fear and uncertainty that the news was dishing up to us? Art. Stories. Stories made up by writers. Stories brought to life by actors. Stories sung by musicians. Wordless music shared from makeshift kitchen stages.
Humans can be rational creatures, but we don’t thrive on logic alone. So today, please, step away from the real world and create something true. Something that reminds me, that takes me into a moment of being human that I couldn’t experience otherwise.
Tell me about the sunrise over Martian mountains, or the houses where you live.
Show me a morning glory flower, unfurling.
Give me a moment of true connection between two characters when one finally learns the care, or terrify me as another character stands to lose everything that matters to them.
The world can overwhelm us and the only way to cope is to avoid or to shut down our feelings. So please write something that reminds me to feel. Remains me to fear. Reminds me to hope. Reminds me to love.
I realize the irony of delivering a kind of persuasive essay and then telling you that fiction is a much better way to persuade anyone of anything. And yet I’m doing it.
I think your teachers misled you. I don’t think persuasive essays should be called that they should be called. Informative essays. Because they don’t change hearts. Emotion persuades. And there is no better way to convey emotion, even though I’m doing it in an essay, than through the arts.
There’s no easier way to create empathy for others than by making me care for your characters.
So no, writing fiction is not an irresponsible use of your time, during difficult teams or any other times in the world.
You did it! Now let’s see if your character has THEIR wish granted…
The Prompt
Grant your character’s deepest wish, today
You’ve done it!
You started this month with the desire to write more, write better, and build your writing practice.
With commitment (and probably some imperfect execution) you’ve arrived here, at Day 31 of StoryADay. That’s a huge accomplishment.
As you write your story today, think about how it feels to get what you wanted.
Of course, reality never quite matches up with how we imagined the perfect outcome (for example, I imagined that this year I wouldn’t crave Sundays ‘off’ from my own challenge. This did not turn out to be true…)
For your character, feel free to use the old fairy-tale caution to be careful what you wish for.
For yourself, however, I’d remind you that achievements begin with two things: a vision of how things could be; and a decision to work towards that better future. You used both to write, this month.
CELEBRATE!
Whether you wrote three stories or 31, you Imaginedyourself as a writer, you Wrote, you Refinedyour practice, you Improved your craft, you Triumphedand, if you’re still reading this, I’m pretty sure you Engaged with the community.
You’re living the I, WRITER life.
If you’d like to keep Repeating this successful pattern, take the next steps with the self-paced I, WRITER Course, available now – a program of writing life and craft workshops that reinforces everything you’ve worked to build here.
Build your writing practice
Develop your craft
Start when you’re ready, go at your own pace
To celebrate the end of StoryADay May, if you join I, WRITER before my birthday on June 13, 2023, I’ll send you an invitation to join one of our Superstars Critique Weeks (valid until March 2024), at no cost (a $147 value).
Tomorrow, I’ll be back in your email inboxes one final time, related to StoryADay May 2023, to send you a self-assessment form, so you can capture what went well and what you will do differently as a result of everything you’ve learned on this journey.
This is one of the most valuable documents you’ll create for yourself and I recommend repeating the practice after every project, in future.
For now, sit back and bask in the your successes as a StoryADay 2023 Winner!
Julie Duffy
In 2010 Julie was a frustrated writer, who decided that writing a StoryADay in May would be a great way to kickstart her writing practice. 13 years later, it seems she was right. The rest of the writing world quickly caught on and now May is known as Short Story Month! Julie is the author of writing handbooks, articles, podcasts, workshops and courses, as well as a short story writer, and ‘Book Boss’.
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Here’s your final Game Piece (you’re amazing!). Save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
Start your story with the character walking away from a situation (figuratively-speaking) and then explain how they got there.
Things to Consider
Think of TV shows that start with a dramatic scene then jump back to eight hours earlier and show how the characters ended up there – in this case you can tell the rest of the story in chronological order from beginning to the moment we entered the story (Looks at the camera: this is where you came in…)
Another option is to step back through the day moment by moment, unpacking every event and the event before it, in reverse order. This can be very powerful if you take the readers on an emotional rollercoaster
Or you can do some blend of the two.
The great thing about this is that you know where you’re going, all the way through the story because you know the outcome. You know what you have to set up to make the ‘ending’ work. Even if you never use this story form again, it’s a great exercise that you can use to rough out the end of a novel or longer story, any time you get stuck!
Possible opening line templates:
As [character name] [active verb][setting], they [verbed] a [noun]. [Image]. [Transition] e.g. As Joanne fled the crowded pub, she lobbed what remained of her lemonade over her shoulder. With one last look over her shoulder she saw it arc through the air–globules caught in the security lights like fireworks–and spray across the faces of her three meathead pursuers, momentarily slowing them down. She put on a burst of speed. How had it come to this?
[Vivid details about something disastrous]. And to think, just [time period] earlier, everything had been going so well…
or
A [profession] in a [setting] doesn’t usually end up with [unexpected result], [conjunction]
Winners’ Swag
We’re so close! It’s not too soon to order your Winner’s Swag:
In 2010 Julie was a frustrated writer, who decided that writing a StoryADay in May would be a great way to kickstart her writing practice. 13 years later, it seems she was right. The rest of the writing world quickly caught on and now May is known as Short Story Month! Julie is the author of writing handbooks, articles, podcasts, workshops and courses, as well as a short story writer, and ‘Book Boss’.
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Here’s your final Game Piece (you’re amazing!). Save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
Write A Story Featuring an Assembly or Crowd Scene
Normally I caution against having too many people in a short story, but today I want you to practice filling the scene with a crowd…but still focusing on your main characters.
There’s lots of potential for noise, color, and action in this one!
Think about the way fish school or birds flock. Can you use that in the story somehow?
Is your character happy to be lost in the crowd (running from pursuers) or would they rather be found?
How does the outer action of being in the crowd compliment or contrast with what’s going on inside your character?
Where will the reader enter the story, and how will we know it is finished? (for example, if the story starts as your character enters the crowd, perhaps it ends when they find their way out? This is a technique I learned from Mary Robinette Kowal’s MICE Quotient class. She’s running another one next month. * #recommended.)
Julie Duffy
In 2010 Julie was a frustrated writer, who decided that writing a StoryADay in May would be a great way to kickstart her writing practice. 13 years later, it seems she was right. The rest of the writing world quickly caught on and now May is known as Short Story Month! Julie is the author of writing handbooks, articles, podcasts, workshops and courses, as well as a short story writer, and ‘Book Boss’.
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Here’s your final Game Piece (you’re amazing!). Save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
We communicate with more than words…let’s explore that today
The Prompt
Write a short story describing your character’s inner reactions/emotions/thoughts to outside events entirely through body description.
Use this ending for your short story. “After he signed the papers, he stood up slower than usual. He almost limped away from the desk and into the corridor.
No, that’s not it.
His head hung to the left a bit, his whole torso’s weight shifted to the right leg for longer than the left one, as if was lugging around a log of wood attached to his left calf. His left knee didn’t bend. His arms, usually swinging, hung limp.”
Steve Maxwell, a fitness instructor, says: “People’s bodies are exactly what their thoughts are.”
Including the body’s reactions to outside situations is a great way to develop depth in characters. It creates a more immediate connection with readers (since they can absorb a lot of implicit information through such descriptions) and makes your writing more effective with just a few details!
How can we show defeat (like in the ending shared above) or anger or love or excitement/fear through body reactions of characters?
Enjoy!
Neha Mediratta
Neha is a generalist currently obsessed with stretching, mind-body-world connection and the spirit’s dwelling place. She writes fiction, non-fiction, takes on editing assignments she enjoys and works with people she admires. She lives by a lake in an overcrowded coastal city with her family and some wildlife. Check out her writing here
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
