Tag Archives: Fiction

ebooks, Short Stories, Writings

Short Stories

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2013-02-04 08.49.23

I am a sucker for short stories, love reading and writing them. Most of my stories come from writing prompts. Two of which have been published in an anthology of short stories. That made me puff my chest out a little. But after that I did not think much of what else I had written.

It was not until I reviewed quite a number of ebooks that were collections of short stories that I thought hmm why not? I knew over the years I’ve written a number of them. There was bound to be enough to make a collection that I could self publish.

Gathering my stories together I made a chart. The sheet showed me if the stories were finished, typed, edited and the word count. Then my notebooks came out and the stories found inside were placed on the sheet. The list started to grow until I had to go to page two and make my way down. Whether they were completed made no different. I needed to know what I had written and what state they were currently in. After completely exhausting all my journals I counted and saw I had well over 50 in number. I was floored. Completely.

I sent 17 to my editor to do her magic while I thought of a plan. From the books I had reviewed most of them did not have a major theme that flowed between the stories. The length varied some had just a page while others had up to four in length. I decided to place them with a theme related. This is just me.  But the questions have begun to pile up. How many do I put per book? How long should each one be? What kind of cover should I get for each one? How much can I charge for these?

I am afraid if I think on it much longer more questions will pop up. This is all new territory for me. Each anthology is different and has no specific check off list to follow from what I have seen. It is probably author’s preference how it is done.

Even with the work that is involved in going forward I am rather excited to try this new aspect of getting my writings out there. I have scold myself already for adding more work to my plate. The projects that are already there are tugging at my brain yelling, “We were here first darn it work on us.”  Their right. But yet here I am looking at the other short stories I have to finish, type and get edited. This just gets me going mentally. It would be nice to have them all done and ready to go out into the world. Whether that be for self publication or for a contest it does not matter at least to me.

My written words keep interrupting my thoughts they must not be denied.

Boxed In, Creative Writing, POV

POV

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How comfortable are you in using different POVs for your characters and books? Do you stray outside the box and try different aspects? Or rather do you stick to the norm? I have taken three creative writing class, two under the same instructor. I firmly believe there is always something out there for me to learn to improve me as a person and a writer.

One particular class the instructor challenged us to change our POV. We were to check our stories that we had written and try writing from a person we had not thought to do before. He gave us an example. We were to think of a children’s story but to write it from someone’s else viewpoint. I chose the “The Three Little Pigs” and in it I wrote through the wolf’s eyes. It did not end with a happily ever after. But just doing that one story opened my eyes to new avenues that I had never thought of before. And by keeping myself in a box I was leaving a lot of potential amazing stories unwritten due to my mind being closed to this facet of writing.

At the time one of the novels I was working on was based on my war with my back yard squirrels. Taking a note from that WIP I wrote a collection of short stories with each one having a different POV from the characters of my novel.  I had so much fun exploring this and what came out of it was a comedy that I did no know existed inside of me. I am grateful for Mr. Wynn for bringing this up in class. Since then I have written a few short stories and another novel. But now when they are done I rewrite them giving them a different spin.

The potential has increased on what I can write about. So again I ask are you comfortable using different POVs in your stories or do you like to stay inside the box?

Antagonist, Uncategorized

Test Time

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Plot is more than dramatic action. It involves having character emotional development, dramatic action and thematic significance. This is also known as how your protagonist acts or reacts. By doing these three things he or she is changed and something is learned. When stories get stuck it is likely that one of these three key elements has been ignored. One might concentrate on the action only, forgetting that character provides interest and is the primary reason people read books.

Organizing solely around the character can make one overlook the fact that dramatic action provides the thrill that each story needs. One might forget to develop the overall meaning of the story or the thematic significance. When the dramatic action changes the character at depth over time, the story becomes significant.

The Power of Character

In a story line, the characters grow and change in reaction to the dramatic action. This growth does not rely solely on a physical level. The challenges the characters face must create emotional effects, the deeper the better for reader. An effective way to do so is the use of a Scene Tracker. A scene tracker will ask you to fulfill seven essential elements in every single scene, with the biggest being focused on the character emotional development.

For example:

The Crisis: The crisis is an event in a scene that works like any crisis we may come across in our real life. Its job is to shake things up in such a way that the protagonist has to act. It takes on dramatic proportions when it is seen as the highest point in the dramatic action plot up to date in the story.

It has been fortunate for me so far that I have not gotten stuck yet. But knowing that there is a guideline of things that need to be included is a good thing to know. Plus it is a good tool to put my stories to the test and see if they have the three key elements that is needed. I can use it as a checklist of sorts to see if my works are well working. I need all the help I can get.