Short Story Writing 2011

I have written my first short story in two years. The last time I wrote a story was in March 2009. It is called "Vines". I recently re-read that story and cringed. The idea was good, the execution, not so good. I don't remember really editing it, so I'm sure I could get it to be much better.

The story I wrote this week is entitled "The House Began to Shake". It was for a WVU class. I have been up at nights trying to figure out what I'm going to write about. I started it and then changed my mind, I had a bad case of writer's block. But then I decided to just write and see what comes out. I'm not disappointed in it. I actually read it over and cried. I cried at my own story, good lord.

My mind is racing because I have been reading a lot about short story writing. It is such a different animal than novel writing. And to make matters worse, they want this story in 1st person. I'm not a 1st person writer, I can write in 1st person, although I prefer to write in 3rd person. This was tricky since the protagonist dies 2/3 of the way through the story, now how does one narrate dead? Think "The Lovely Bones".

I managed to get most of the adjectives and adverbs out. To my count there are only 2, they are both adverbs though, however, sometimes you just need that one to get your point across. I mean, when you are a sixteen year old girl, and you grab a huge man, you better grab him "gently".

I still have trouble with the "Show don't Tell" concept. I think most of the story is shown, except in part II where it gets a little narrat-y (made up word) in the first three paragraphs. I have until Tuesday to work this out.

The story limit is 2,500, I top out at the moment at around 1,600+. So I have some room to play with it.

I also am to write another short story starting next week for another class at WVU. I won't be up late at night thinking about this one as I already have this story mapped. Hopefully I can get it down on paper the way I see it in my mind. And then come the critiques, I'm sure they'll be brutal.

Writers Village University

I found a cool site for writers.

Writers Village University. This is an on-line course site that offers classes on writing. You can find courses in fiction (short story, novel...etc), non-fiction, poetry, etc. They even have MFA courses. It is $69 a year ($99 the first year because of the one $30 fee). I am taking a few courses at the moment and they are very helpful. Some of them are peer-facilitated, while others have a facilitator.

There is a free site that is associated with it called F2K Social. I have not joined that, but what I hear from others is that it is a good stepping stone before you sign up for WVU. It seems to be run differently, but it is still a good chance to see what it is about before commiting.

I haven't written for an on-line writing site in a while, but my first partial story was pretty bad. It was about 4 guys in the 1920s playing poker in a seedy, smoke filled bar. OK, I didn't pick the topic, it was given to me, I just picked the era and the place. What do I know about Poker? or the 1920s for that matter.

Hickey stood and pulled his piece from his waistband. “You wanna rephrase that last comment?” His gap toothed smile and tick gave way to a stone face and steady hand.

That's right, I have a character named Hickey!! What of it? LOL!

The course is loads of fun, it is having me write things I would not normally write. I mean really...

Also I found a very good Readability Calculator on line. I like this one because it is indepth. However, if you are trying to achieve a certain type of lingo, it kind of reads it as poor English, so take it with a grain of salt.