Follow my Tweets
Sending of manuscripts to publishers
No Comments »23rd September, 2009; Category: Fiction, Master of Arts course, Poetry, Short Stories, The Writer's Life
Yesterday I finished the first draft of my novel for children. I have been working hard on this over the last two months and finished it over a week ahead of the schedule I had set for myself. I love setting goals – and then achieving them. Now my creative brain needs a little break for a few days. Time to attend to a few other matters before launching into the rewriting phase.
Today I had a totally different writing task which took most of my attention. The whole point of writing, in my opinion, is to be published. Sure, there are people who write just for themselves and are totally happy with an audience of one. I guess my private journal writing comes into that category. Such writing is not aimed at a broader audience. Unless, of course, I become obscenely rich or infamously notorious as a result of my writing. Some people might want to read my private grumblings. But I doubt it.
Today I prepared some submissions for a publisher. I’m nearing the end of my Master of Arts course, and every year the humanities department calls for submissions from staff and students involved in the programme. The deadline is Friday, so I knew I had to get organised. Successful poems and stories are published in the annual anthology which is published in November. Last year I had a story and ten poems chosen which was very satisfying. This time around I have submitted eight poems and four short stories. It will be interesting to see which of them the editors choose.
One of the good things about this submission is that I could submit electronically. Makes the whole process relatively painless compared with sending off letters. Bit cheaper too.
Challenge to readers
Are you constantly writing but never sending off those stories and poems and articles you’ve slaved over so lovingly? The secret to getting published is no secret, really. You need to write, write, write and then submit, submit submit. And while waiting to hear back from the publishers, you need to write some more, and then write some more and then submit… I think you get the picture.
Send off a story or poem today.
Good writing – and may you see your writing in print soon. I know I will.
Fun at my writers’ group
2 Comments »12th September, 2009; Category: Events, Fiction, Poetry, Short Fiction, Short Stories, The Writer's Life
On Thursday of this week I attended my monthly writers’ group in Adelaide. It’s one of two I regularly attend; the other is devoted to poetry only.
We usually gather for pizza at 6pm and then start into reading and critiquing each other’s work. The readings are based on a challenge set the month before. We limit the activity to 1000 words so that everyone gets a go at reading and having their work critiqued. A good attendance is about 6-8 people, but this week we had 12 eager participants, 7 of whom had risen to the challenge of writing a short story.
This was the fun part. The challenge we had appeared to be very hard, but we all found it very interesting. We were asked to take a poem written by a fellow student which was published in last year’s anthology. This poem had some interesting Nordic references and names, which made the task even more challenging.
The Challenge
The writing task was as follows:
- Take the first word of the poem and use that as the first word of the first sentence of the story.
- Take the second word of the poem and use that as the first word of the second sentence.
- Take the third word of the poem and use this as the first word of the third sentence.
- Follow this pattern until you get to the end of the story – or the poem – whichever comes first.
The variations were wonderful. Using the same words we came up with seven quite different stories. These included:
- A recount of a classroom teacher grappling with unusual student names in the class.
- A stream of consciousness account of someone justifying why she should murder her mother.
- An account of the arrival home of a Viking raiding party.
- An snippet from a Shakespearean like scene written almost completely in iambic rhythm (this was my effort).
Reader challenge
Try it for yourself as a writing challenge. Take a poem – any poem – and try it. Last year we used a Robert Frost poem. Use one of your own poems. Whatever. You could be pleasantly surprised at the result.
Have fun with your writing.
Good writing.
Story endings
Quite often I get readers of this blog leaving questions in the comments section. That is great and I appreciate the feedback and try to help people with their writing problems.
Occasionally I also get readers leaving ideas from which I can benefit too. This is also great. Louise was one such reader today. Here is what she wrote:
You’ve just solved my problem! I have lots of short stories written – but with no ending! I get ideas for stories but then they sort of fizzle out.
Just for fun, I am going to create my own ‘final sentences’ and maybe something will click and maybe, they’ll trigger more ideas for short stories!
Thanks!
It must be a little discouraging to have lots of unfinished stories. Please, please, please don’t throw them away. They could well be the seeds of longer works later.
Another suggestion is to leave an unfinished story filed away for a few weeks or even months, then come back to it with almost “fresh” eyes and ears. You read that correctly – EARS. Read the unfinished story out loud – better yet – get someone you trust to read it to you. That story will have been ticking away in your subconscious for ages and might well be ready to mature into a complete story. The creative mind can be quite amazing at times.
Another suggestion: a commonly used technique is to ask the simple question: “What happens next?” or even “What if…?”
And how about “interviewing” your main character? You might be surprised what that character will say, or come up with.
You could also ask yourself the question: “What does the main character really want? What motivates her? How will he get what he wants? And what or who is hindering fulfilling those wants or desires? These could be triggers to get you writing again.
Hope this all helps.
Good writing.
Related article: Short story endings
Follow me on Twitter
A new phenomenon sweeping the internet is Twitter.
Okay – I’ll come clean, I’m new to Twitter and I’m not really sure how effective it will be in relation to my blogging, writing and the way in which I do things. I’ve only been on it a few weeks now, but already I find it great for keeping up with breaking news. The downside of this is that it can be a terrible distraction. During the recent tragic fires in Victoria, however, it was great keeping up to date on happenings.
I joined Twitter at the urging of my son Sim’ so he could keep informed about what I was doing. In return, I can easily keep track of what he is doing. It’s neat.
If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can do so on the sidebar where it says “Follow my Twitters.” That’s really intuitive, isn’t it? That way you will keep up to date with what’s happening around here.
Oh, by the way – I’m also fairly new on Facebook too.
Good writing.
Short Story Starters
2 Comments »6th February, 2009; Category: Fiction, Short Stories, Short Story Starters, Writer's block
It has been far too long since my last set of short story starters was published here. Entries in this series of articles have proved very popular with my readers for several years now.
Use them
I invite you to look through this latest list of short story starters. If anything grabs your imagination, run with it. Borrow my idea and use it for a short story (or even a novel).
Writer’s block
If you are suffering from the dreaded Writer’s Block, these ideas are the ideal way to write yourself out of that slump. Take one of the ideas and just write – anything that comes to mind. Don’t worry if it seems like rubbish. Just write – and soon the words will be flowing again.
New writers
If you are new to writing, here you will find some great ideas to get you going. Don’t worry too much about the technicalities of spelling, punctuation and grammar on your first, rough draft. You can go back over those things later, once you have the main bulk of the story written.
Here they are – more Short Story Starters:
- As Alice rounded the corner she could hear the train coming. She…
- Before I had a chance to fully grasp what was happening, Ben had whipped out his knife. Seconds later he…
- Considering his past record, this latest move was sure to create a new round of controversy. Peter knew this, but he was adamant that he must go on. He…
- ‘Don’t come in here!’ she shouted. ‘After what you’ve done I don’t want to see you again. Get lost.’
- Even as I entered the room I could tell that she was not happy. She had that certain look that spoke volumes. I knew…
- ‘Fine! You just go ahead and leave – tonight! Good riddance, I say. And don’t think I’ll come running after you.’
- Getting over the party was the least of my worries. The cleanup could wait; that mess wasn’t going anywhere. I had to find George and explain. He was probably wondering…
Show – don’t tell
Notice that I start in the middle of the story. Many short stories start in the wrong place. Beginner writers tend to give far too much background detail and the real story starts part way through.
In the example above I have tried to get the action going immediately. Pages of background information is fine if you are writing a novel. Short stories are just that – short. They are tiny glimpses into one scene, two at most.
Beginner and inexperienced writers want to tell everything, going into the minutest of details and their short stories have nothing interesting happening in them. ‘Show – don’t tell’ is a mantra repeated endlessly by teachers of writing. Show the character’s motives through what she does. Show your character’s emotions through what he says (see example 6 above). Notice that I’ve broken my own rule in number 5 above. Sometimes telling is needed; you have to know the rules before you know when to break them.
Good writing.
For more short story starters click here.
Conditions of use:
- Feel free to use any of the story starters listed above. Change anything to suit your needs.
- Give it your best shot.
- Edit your work carefully before sending it off to a publisher or posting it on your blog.
- Let me know in the comments section how it went.
- If you publish your story on your web site or on your blog let me know so I can make a link to it for others to read.