Tag: Writing

Translation to the Page

It’s always something about real life that doesn’t translate well to the page. Ever tried translating an actual conversation word for word? How about giving someone a blow-by-blow of something that happened?

Readers don’t want all the details. There is a point where you have to speed things up to make it – or keep it – interesting.

On the phone with someone you know, you ask about others to be polite or because you’re interested. In a story, your reader is going to wonder what the heck is up with Aunt Edna. If it doesn’t advance the plot, it shouldn’t be included.

Sometimes writers get so caught up in the characters, we see the whole thing about Aunt Edna, but we forget that it isn’t part of the story where Judy meets Robert and they save a dragon from the hunters.

I’m sure it’d be different if we needed Aunt Edna starting in Chapter 7 with a hideout or some other plot device. Always a good thing to check for during a rewrite to see if some of those things run away with you. They always seem to run away with me in the first draft(s).

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Short vs. Long

Every reader has a preference on what she likes to read, but what about the length?

What do you think about the length of a story? Some stories take longer than others to tell. Shouldn’t that be the determining factor? Sometimes it isn’t.

I don’t know any guideline that says this amount of conflict is that amount of story. Is there a limit to what I can show in a flash fiction piece? In a novel? I’m sure, but each author treats things differently. You can overstay your welcome in a scene, or you can gloss over too much and enter the dreaded realm of ‘telling’.

All of us have our own ideas about what length the story should be. Isn’t the adage to always leave them wanting more? Not a lot more, surely, but something has to keep those pages turning.

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A Question of Character

Do you know what makes some characters memorable and some not?

Everyone seems to be looking for character-oriented stories. It’s about being memorable, getting the reader to identify, and having a unique voice. Sounds easy when you state it that way, doesn’t it?

But some characters grab us from the first page and don’t let go. Something is the missing link – the part that really hooks a reader. There are actually four types of stories out there – Milieu, Idea, and Event often take the backstage with publishers.

I suppose it makes sense. When we discuss stories, we talk about the characters. We look into the minds of the characters when we read. As readers, we talk about who’s interesting, what’s happening, and sometimes why.

As an author, I struggle to show my characters as well on paper as I see them in my head. I do notice the more I like my characters the worse I make it for them. Poor characters… Not really. As important as the characters are, there must be a plot, and nothing drives a plot like the conflict of giving them such trouble.

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Rejected-

Happens to all of us sometimes. Just got the notice, I didn’t get into Footprints. The editor said I made the final list, but not into the book. I suppose that’s something.

I liked the submission guidelines on that piece, and I stretched myself to meet them. I seem to write novel-length stories, or almost  flash fiction short stories. That anthology required something in between, which I should strive for more often.

The editor also mentioned when the next submission call would be posted. That has to be a good sign, right? I’ll have to check it out. Even if I don’t get accepted, the writing and planning of these stories is good for me.

Next time might be different, though. I’ll only know if I try. Time to get another piece out there – or more if I can manage it.

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While reading…

Do you wonder how many people notice small errors? It’s one thing to misspell a word here or there, but what about a consistent misspelling? Or when you use the wrong word entirely?

I know authors and editors all comb through books several times to make sure things are error-free, but I also know sometimes things sneak in at the last moment.

Readers, I hear, mark out the wrong words and spell them correctly if it bothers them. I’m actually not one to do that. I don’t usually mark up books at all. If I read them often they begin to get soft on the bindings. (I’m a paperback sort of girl – I only get hardcovers on sale.) Still, I enjoy the story even if a typo sneaks in. When something becomes riddled with errors it becomes painful to sort out the story, which is why we proofread at all.

The weirdest thing I ran into with books I’ve purchased – I have one book that repeats about 50 pages. I don’t have 50 pages, and I have yet to call the publisher and ask after them. (Shame on me.) I don’t read it often enough to wonder what happened in the missing section, but it intrigued me that the book made it to the shelves that way.

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Truth is stranger than Fiction

Or, at least so I’ve heard so many times with this common adage. There are so many strange stories out there, but I find if I write them as fiction they’re too far out there to be believed.

Isn’t that amazing? You can find patents for crazy inventions, but use those inventions in science fiction (sometimes) and you lose the reader. You can observe behavior in people, but unless you really flesh out the true shadings of the individual the feedback from the average reader is ‘this person could never exist’. You can witness bizarre events, but describe them in detail without the ‘this actually happened’ banner and no one follows your creative path.

I can’t say I’m different than anyone else in that regard, but the observations are interesting. Until something changes, I’ll write on the believable side. Well, except for the suspended belief part of speculative fiction.

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Submissions

Now and then, I re-evaluate my current submissions and look for what I could send out.

I’m still waiting to hear from an anthology that I submitted to last November. I know I made it through the slush pile; I’m hoping I made it through the rest, but I don’t want to bug the editor.

I sent a flash fiction piece out for another anthology today.

Later this week I’ll send out a short story to a magazine. Just little tweaks here and there, but it’s better to let it sit a few extra days than to bang your face against the desk when it comes back rejected and you found you hadn’t looked it over that one last time. Or worse, you sent the older version of a file.

Also finishing up a title for Helium. Looks like a productive day.

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Flash Fiction

How many words do you need to tell a story? Flash Fiction sets the bar higher (or lower in the case of word count) than any other type of story.

There are so many categories of stories that have nothing to do with genre: flash fiction, short story, novelette, novella, novel, and I’m sure I don’t have them all. Vignettes and povels, while related, give me the impression of having their own categories.

Flash Fiction is a favorite of mine, partly because the challenge of the word count is what makes or breaks the piece. It may be shorter than any other story you’ve encountered, but it still requires a beginning, middle and end. It’s a great exercise in how to make every single word count.

The downside is sometimes words have to count for too much. Such short pieces rely heavily on the reader to fill in some of the blanks. While I like it, flash fiction can get the reader to author to forget what’s needed in longer stories to make them shine. Balance is always needed.

The shortest story I’ve ever heard of? Ernest Hemingway’s 6 word ditty: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

I’m no Hemingway (I think everyone knew that) and I’ve never written anything nearly that short. My shortest to date is 55 words, and an example is below.

Dirty Little Secret

“I have a friend you’d adore, Mara.”

“Maybe.”

“What’s wrong with one date?”

Mara remembered a tall man with blue eyes. Staring across the table at his wife’s ring, she smiled. She preferred her friends to think her picky than to know she loved someone she couldn’t have. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”

If you’re curious about more examples of 55 word stories, check out this magazine.

The cutoff for flash fiction is about 1000 words, which leaves a lot of room between the extremes. Happy Writing.

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Names

How much do you think about names? Still working on a compromise with my husband about the baby’s name, but the subject comes up often for me when I choose characters.

One thing that holds me back is I don’t want characters with the same name as my child, so I reserve names in hope that I might use them for the baby until I realize I’ll never talk my husband into it.

When the subject comes up with other writers, I learn how they look at characters differently than I do. Something in my head has to match the character’s personality with my feelings about the name. (Though this doesn’t always mean I hate the names I give characters I don’t like!) Some use random name generators to get what they need, while others can’t even begin the story until they find the name that fits the character in their heads.

I find myself in the middle. While I work for names early on, most of them come intuitively as the character emerges, and others get changed later if I find they don’t fit at a later time in the writing. Rarely I have unnamed characters in a flash fiction bit – but flash fiction is in a category of its own and sometimes names aren’t needed.

More about flash fiction later.

Have you ever thought about names so much? Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me, or the writer I am, or something that can be shared with others at all.

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Radioland Murders

Yes, the movie. My husband watches it while I’m writing. It isn’t one of my favorites, which makes it easier to focus on other things.

I’d forgotten how amusing the beginning was, with the script that wasn’t finished for the radio production that’s ongoing. They don’t really do scripts that way – they always have it written in advance. I’m sure there have been a fair share of winging it.

I wasn’t one for improv during speech or music classes, but it seems one of those things that get easier with time and familiarity. The first few times I taught yoga I had everything planned far in advance, but after a couple years I didn’t even need the paper in front of me, though I preferred that to announcing poses off the cuff.

Every movie must have some redeeming qualities. Quote: “Back to the word-factory.”

Do you think non-writers like to see the glimpses of the writing life they see in movies, tv, and books? Do they prefer our depictions of other professions? I suppose we all write what we know, so some writers write about writing. I find I like to write about artists, though i don’t do much art (in the sense of drawing or painting or the like) anymore. I ought to write more engineers – but I just haven’t found the right spot to put them yet.

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