Story Twenty-One

11 Comments

• 

  James Mendur

  April 22, 2017 at 8:50 am

  On several writing days this month, you mentioned picking up a partial story you had previously started and then finishing it. Where did those almost-abandoned stories come from? Were they ideas that ran out of steam for the moment and you decided to do something else? Were they stopped because something more immediate came up that had to be addressed? Something else?

  • 

    dwsmith

    April 22, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    James, honestly, I don’t remember. The ones I fixed were from the 1980s. I’m lucky to remember yesterday at this age. (grin)

    But I have always had a file of story starts. When I get sidetracked (normally the case) I just toss the story over into the story starts file figuring at some point in the future I would get to it. I usually never even look at the file to be honest. But I toss story starts into it all the time. Has to be maybe a hundred in there in various forms of starts, from title and a first line to a thousand words. Honestly sort of felt good to dig up a couple and finish them.

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  Thomas E

  April 22, 2017 at 4:05 pm

  Dean, you’re making it awfully easy to welch on the challenge you know:)

  Are we allowed to write more than one story a day so we can get the challenge over quicker (grin)?

  Not sure I’m serious about that last question…

  • 

    dwsmith

    April 22, 2017 at 4:43 pm

    You bet, Thomas. I did two one day in July and almost did two the other night. I call it “banking” a story in case of a problem. In July I ended up with 32 in the 31 days, so I didn’t use my bank, but not a bad idea if things are going well with a story and it gets done early. If I wasn’t already writing a nonfiction book at the same time and doing all the workshop stuff and stuff at WMG, I might have a few days with two. So I took your question seriously. (grin)

    I just figured that if someone wanted to push themselves, got started, saw how difficult it was going to be, they wouldn’t lose their money, but instead transfer it to learning. But five stories in over ten days and that option closes. (grin) I figured by five stories each person would get a sense of how it was going.

    Got three brave souls signed up so far. More than I expected, to be honest. But I have done this twice and even Bradbury dropped back to a story per week. I know how difficult it is because of the normal ups and downs of a month. But it is a great challenge and even if someone gets 20 stories out of it, that’s more short stories than most writers will write in years. And will help discoverability of the writer’s work.

    Also, anyone thinking of doing this, be prepared to come up with novel ideas along the way. I have done 21 stories so far and got six novel starts out of it. Which is going to help me a lot when I ramp up to two novels a month through the summer. I am sure as I first read stories in this challenge, my response will be something like “Works as a short story, but now write the novel.” Writers who have come to anthology workshop here can vouch for that. (grin)

    • 

      Thomas E

      April 22, 2017 at 11:30 pm

      I’m excited by the challenge, Dean. I’ve done a similar challenge three times before… Reached the goal twice and “failed” once. But I wasn’t too unhappy with the “failure” because I still wrote a lot of stories.

      Honestly, I think I’ve gained from it already. It’s been a long while since I wrote a short story so since I signed up I’ve been writing a short story a day to get into practice 🙂 It’s great fun.

      That’s five stories I wouldn’t have had except for this challenge.

      Er… You’re right about the novel start thing too… It’s definitely something that happens (grin).

• 

  Leah Cutter

  April 22, 2017 at 4:11 pm

  Oh, I hear you on the research pit. Deep, dark hole that is.

  One of the ways I’ve been able to handle it while writing is to bring my phone with me into my writing office. I can look up something quickly on my phone, but it annoys me so much that I won’t get trapped by doing research. That way I can look up a fact and then slide easily back into writing.

  If it’s a serious gap and I can’t get by it without a lot of research, I try to come up with creative ways to write around it. Which turns out to be rather fun, most of the time.

  Otherwise, I do as much of my research ahead of time as I can. Mind you, “research” for me involves reading lots of non-fiction, history books. Which I love to do. So that’s another dark hole of research, but it doesn’t take up writing time. It’s just another way of reading for fun.

  • 

    dwsmith

    April 22, 2017 at 4:47 pm

    Exactly, Leah. Research can’t be done during writing time. I love to read books on history and poker and other things like that, but I only do it away from my writing time.

    And I have what I call the “jump chairs” trick for my detail stuff. I jump up from my writing chair, do a quick Google search for the detail in my internet chair across my office, then shut it down and go back to my writing chair with a yellow note of the details. If a chair jump takes two minutes, it’s too long.

• 

  Patrick R

  April 23, 2017 at 5:25 am

  Hi Dean

  Six questions!

  1 – Does this challenge look or feel different with a word count approach? Something like 2000-3000 words on average per day, perhaps up to three hours writing (or only two) for some people?

  I found the word count approach interesting when you have discussed it before, breaking down the seeming greater challenge of projects to a steady daily output rate. Is it the same here, or are short stories complete entities and so a different dimension is added to the challenge (or opportunity!) of output?

  2 – What about the novel starts that come up? Should they be counted or simply put in the ‘novel bank’ as they wouldn’t be short stories, necessarily, and the short stories are still be needed!?

  Of course, could be that a short story works and also inspires possibilities for a novel, or series! Nice potential batch of pies for the magic bakery!

  3 – The workshop assignments produced some story starts, though not intended as short stories. I imagine that a) they couldn’t then work; and, b) aren’t to be used anyway for this challenge?

  4 – Building off that last bit of the question (3b) – all these short stories have to be brand new stories and writing, and done into the dark?

  5 – And, do you think it’d be more of a struggle for people who haven’t done/don’t generally do short stories, perhaps not in length but to know what forms and doesn’t form a short story, to best ease the way and enjoyment in gong into the dark with starting fresh words…and knowing where they end for a story?

  Or, who cares – have a blast a see how it all goes?

  6 – Could this be an opportunity for writers to blast out a flurry of short stories that would be in worlds they have already created, or to accompany novels (even if only one done), or pre- or side histories of characters?

  Or shouldn’t get so fussed or trying to do these. Just go utterly and plainly into the dark, every time.

  cheers

  Patrick

  • 

    dwsmith

    April 23, 2017 at 5:46 am

    Patrick, question by question.
    1… Totally different. This you get to finish a story every day, not just some word number. A completely different feeling.
    2… Novel starts, unless they are a stand-alone short story, just go over into the novel starts file and don’t count.
    3… I don’t care if someone uses a story start from anywhere. Makes no difference to me. Heck, this month I’ve used two story starts from the 1980s.
    4… You can write them any way you want. I have set no rules. Just got to get me a story every day or every other day. Do that any way that works.
    5… If you don’t normally write or read short stories, this challenge will be impossible. No matter how you try to write them. You will be producing more short stories in one month than other writers do in five years. Trust me, that takes a love of short fiction and an understanding of the short story form at a deep level.
    6… Well, I’m writing in worlds I have created. Almost every story is in one or another of my 15 series. Again, I don’t care what anyone writes, or even what genre. Or how they do it. They can outline every story to death as far as I car. Just finished short story every day for thirty days for me to read.
    Really is that simple. And that stunningly difficult.

    Cheers
    Dean

    • 

      Harvey

      April 24, 2017 at 5:35 am

      This reminds me of when I was teaching a grunt English class at a junior college. When it came time to assign essays, the students wanted to know how many pages.

      I said, “Write until you’ve covered the topic thoroughly, then stop. That might be two pages, and it might be ten or fifteen. Up to you.”

      “But Instructor Name always assigns ten pages.”

      “This is not Instructor Name’s class.”

      “Okay, so how many pages does this have to be again?”

      And on and on. (grin)

      Finally I said, “If you need to have a certain number of pages assigned, write ten. Ten pages of Times New Roman double spaced 12 point font. If you are able to think on your own, however, please just write until you’ve covered the topic, then stop.”

    • 

      patrick R

      April 24, 2017 at 7:39 am

      Thanks for looking over those questions, just musings really, and give your answers, Dean. Much as I’d anticipated, and all appreciated.

      I always found it interesting how you find time and give different perspective on what writers may feel are hurdles for them, such as changing perspective on writing a long story by appreciating that in daily terms it’s, ah, not so much. Push on, have fun. Shorts are different, for sure. Had simply wondered how other perspectives sometimes are useful to people, too, such as in this challenge of 30 in 30. Maybe can seem similar in word counts terms, but they are quite, quite different, tales to be enjoyed unto themselves…against the clock. Great fun. All writers are different. No one prescriptions needed, just reflecting and learning. Sharing.

      Excellent how you have fun letting folk play around with the ideas that come up, no problem. Great teacher. Again, I appreciate the chance for sharing, and learning from you and others.

      best