Tag: how to write a short story

Inspiration Monday II

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Thanks and kudos to Debra at Find An Outlet for participating in last week’s Inspiration Monday. Read her (two!) fantastic pieces here. If I missed any participants, let me know in the comments!

 

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

No really; I need rules!

If you work better with guidelines: write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

 

The Prompts

I ignored the raised eyebrow of the checkout girl

Time capsule from the future

The answer, one day too late

Saved by a broken law

Everyday villain

If you want to share your Inspiration Monday piece, post it on your blog and link back to today’s post; I’ll include a link to your piece in the next Inspiration Monday post.

Happy writing!

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Inspiration Monday

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Per Debra’s suggestion, I’ve decided to post some weekly writing prompts, here forward known as, “Inspiration Monday.” Of course, because I won’t get around to getting the post up until 8 or 9 pm CST Monday, most of you won’t see it until Tuesday. But I digress.

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

No really; I need rules!

If you work better with guidelines: write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

 

The Prompts

Leftover humans*

Our last kiss

When it looked at me, I screamed

I knew I shouldn’t have published that article

The invention of music

 

If you want to share your Inspiration Monday piece, post it on your blog and link back to today’s post; I’ll include a link to your piece in the next Inspiration Monday post.

Happy writing!

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* Today’s first prompt is brought to you by The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.

The four days that made me a writer

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When I was in grade school, I went to writing camp with my two best friends. This consisted of the three of us staying at the house of a creative writing teacher for four days.

The first thing I remember doing was sitting down at her little card table, one of us on each side, pencils poised over notebooks as we gazed off into space. Miss Judy was spouting random phrases, spaced out to give us time to think in between, and occasionally one of us would bend over the table, scribbling something on the notebook paper. I can’t remember any of the specific phrases she gave us, but they were something like: a strange visitor…the first day of school…the last time we met…my best friend…and so on. Writing prompts. Sources of inspiration.

Since then, I’ve looked at writing prompts on a few writing websites and been disappointed. Most set up a situation and then ask you how it ends. Others give you a list of words to use, or a picture to write a story about. This seems to me more exercise than inspiration. The simple phrases Miss Judy gave us sparked our imaginations and empowered us to write whole stories.

Second, Miss Judy separated us. We each had our own corner of the house, where we wouldn’t be distracted by one another. She would set the timer for 45 minutes and we would sit there and write whatever story had been inspired by her prompts. My writing spot was a long, straight hallway, with very few doors and no decoration. Stark white. It had a cold, clinical, futuristic feel. I can’t stress enough just how much I enjoyed sitting in this hallway. Something about its emptiness excited me, the same way a blank page excites me. I think this was the first time I felt the intense joy of creating.

When the 45 minutes were up, we gathered together and read aloud what we had written – and here was the kicker: we had to read it exactly as we had written it. No fixing grammar mid-read. This encouraged us to edit more meticulously before we came to the group session; it helped us to look more objectively at our own writing, because we knew we’d soon have to face the criticism of our fellow writers (which was always kind…but still!). Then, of course, we gave each other suggestions and encouragement.

Best. Four days. Ever. It was eat, sleep, write, critique. Miss Judy taught me a lot about writing, and she fueled my passion for something I had, until that point, only been mildly interested in. Although my two best friends now only write casually, occasionally, I have grown into a writing fiend. I’m addicted. If I go more than a week without working on some form of fiction, I start to get depressed. And I couldn’t be happier about that.

What’s your origin story? How did you become a writer?

5 Ways to Make Your Characters Believable

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Characters are the soul of a story, and the more clearly you can paint those characters, the more believable they (and your story) will be. So how do you do that?

1. How they talk

The more character you can convey through dialogue, the better. Make sure your characters don’t all talk the same way. Teach yourself to write unique speech for each character by listening to real people around you. How do your friends talk, in contrast with your parents? How does your boss talk as opposed to the guy in the next cubicle? Do they have an accent? Do they use certain phrases a lot? Do they tend to focus more on the technical side of things, or the emotional side? Are they sarcastic? Passive-aggressive? Non-confrontational?

2. How they move

Body language is a great way to Show, Don’t Tell. She stared at him as he struggled to find words. His eyes darted around the room as he looked for an escape. She push her hair behind her ear as she blushed. He folded his arms and shook his head as he surveyed the damage.

3. How they act

Actions speak louder than words, even when you’re using words to describe those actions. I’m always tempted to write things like; “He was a generous man,” but that’s telling, not showing. Show he’s kind by describing a specific act of generosity, like paying for the groceries of the woman behind him at the checkout.

4. What they think and feel

Use your character’s thoughts to convey their deepest desires, and what they learn throughout the story. Thoughts can greatly enhance any of the above three methods:

Your character might be furious her father, and might think out a whole paragraph of passionate things she’d like to say to him. But maybe she’s intimidated by her father, so all she gets out is one weak sentence.

If their words are the opposite of their thoughts, make their body language match their thoughts. The child says he didn’t steal the cookie, but drops his eyes in shame.

And third, of course, thoughts convey motives. Maybe by reading the thoughts of our generous man, we find out that he is generous now because he feels guilty about someone he hurt in his past.

5. What they look like

I listed appearance last, because many writers rely on it too much. Avoid the laundry list description; “He had blue eyes, blonde hair, and a medium build.” Instead, think about the things you notice the first time you meet someone; you really just get a general idea of what they look like. Convey a sense of appearance, rather than a list of details; “Scraggly yellow hair and a grin that seemed almost too wide for his face.”

Word search: the magic diet pill for novels

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 DailyWritingTips.com recently published a guest post I wrote called 3 Things the Novelist Can Learn from the Copywriter, roughly 1/3 of which was about brevity. Let’s expand on that!

Brevity is the soul of wit. The fewer the words, the harder they hit.

You’d be amazed how many unnecessary words are weighing down your manuscript, clogging up your sentences and tiring your readers. Fortunately, modern technology has given us an easy way to trim some of this grammar fat: word search!

How do you do a word search? In MS Word, click “Edit” then “Find…” and type in the word you are looking for. If you use a different program, try typing “word search” or “find and replace” into the “Help” search bar.

Got it? Here are eight examples of word calories you can cut:

1. Very

“Very” is a very evil word that sucks the power out of nearly every sentence it appears in. Just look at how very unnecessary “very” is in these sentences from a very old draft of my book:

It would very soon become the same for her.

She vaguely remembered seeing a very bright light coming at her.

He would have to decide very quickly how much he could tell her.

Very soon. Very bright. Very quickly. “Very” is overkill – modifying modifiers.

It would soon become the same for her.

She vaguely remembered seeing a bright light coming at her.

He would have to decide quickly how much he could tell her.

Do a word search in your novel or story for “very” and eliminate all that you can.

2. That

Not as bad as “very,” but still often unnecessary. Try eliminating this one as well.

3. By

“By” is a sign of passive voice, which should almost always be avoided which you should almost always avoid. (Except to preserve clarity or to break up a monotonously-active paragraph.) Search “by” and reword all you can.

      Passive: The ball was thrown over the fence by Billy.

      Active: Billy threw the ball over the fence.

4. –ly

Never use an adverb when the right verb works fine on its own. “Very” is just one example; most adverbs end in “ly.” Do a word search for “ly” and pay special attention to phrases like “walked quickly.” Search thesaurus.com for the root verb, “walk.” Keep clicking words within your results to find the right one. “Trotted” is descriptive enough to replace “walked quickly” – it sounds better, too.

5. In order to

Almost always cut “in order.”

6. The fact that

Depending on the context:

            “Owing/due to the fact that” – replace with “since” or “because”

            “In spite of the fact that” – replace with “though” or “although”

7. The question as to whether

Cut “the question as to”

8. The reason why is that

Replace with “because”

The Elements of Style by Strunk & White gives additional word-trimming advice (rule #17, p. 23-24). This book is the writer’s bible. If you don’t already own it, read it free here.

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