I am at the tail end of a One Story course on self-editing your short stories. I’ve taken the material presented and some items from the discussion threads and turned them into a kind of checklist of things to look for when editing your fictional works. You can find the like to a PDF of […]
writing
Lost and Found Plot Development
Yesterday I finished taking an online course through the fine people at One Story. The course was presented by Assistant Editor Ann Napolitano and covered a “new way of looking at plot.” The approach focuses on first determining what characters in the story are “missing” from their lives, and then proceeds to follow them through […]
There’s Always a Little Truth ….
A two-sentence story: The clockwork beast lay before me, thanks to the advisements of one Mr. Carroll, burbling fluids from the hissing gash I cut through its infernal iron boiler. This Jabberwock would wreak no more havoc, but how many more were even now whiffling through the mysterious, flaming, eye-shaped portal in Tulgey Wood, and […]
A Shambles
A two-sentence story inspired by the joy of seeing the sun after > 3 weeks of continually overcast skies: The rain stopped and Rebekkah saw the sun for the first time since her wedding night. She heaved herself out of the earth and shambled off between the headstones to find a stream in which to […]
Uncle Cato
I won something! In a drawing held by the inimitable Jeanette Andromeda over at HorrorMade, I won a choice of prizes, the most valuable and desirable of which, if you ask me, was a custom art piece by Jeanette herself. I asked her to please draw Uncle Cato, a character from my novel-in-progress, The Last […]
My First Two Sentence Story
Here is my first attempt at writing a story in two sentences: I walk, for now undetected, with a mimic of their emotionless countenance set like chiseled flint on my face while the terror in my heart races beneath the drab, gray, requisite coveralls. The cold, unforgiving sidewalk provides the solution: fill the empty cavities […]
Hero’s Journey in Three Act Structure
I’ve was recently reading Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, and he has a nice outline of The Hero’s Journey, or Mythic Structure in a Three Act format, which I paraphrase here: Act I Introduction to hero and his world Disturbance that interrupts the hero’s routine and/or a “call to adventure” The hero may […]
Kinds of Writers
So I was poking around on the FA Forums to kill a few minutes, and I ran across this 3-month-old thread about how much description in writing, which caught my attention because I’d been thinking about it lately. I thought this post by Ursa Maximus was really well put: I think above all else, an […]
Their Ways
This page documents some things I found while reading other peoples’ works that I think stood out as lessons in greatness or lessons in mistakes. I only cite authors if I quote them verbatim and if it’s not so bad it might embarrass them :-O Errors of Their Ways I read a short story in […]
Character Discovery Scenarios
Sometimes it is helpful to see how your character would handle being in different situations to get a better idea of who he/she is. Here are a few samples: Set your character up on a blind date How does he/she react to the idea? What does he/she do to prepare? What happens on the date? […]