Day 4 and Day 5

Day 4 was July 4! What?! Yes, I took that day off.

Day 5 Thinking about what makes a short story. Writer Ken Kesey said, "What someone wants and is going though to get it."

Here is a writing prompt that I ran across today, try it out, I thought it was an interesting one and may use it in my fiction class this fall. From, Story Matters, (p269)

"...invent the most difficult, painful scene you can imagine. Write it using simple language. Don't flinch."

Day 3: Reading, Reading, Reading

Reading makes the best writing. Today was a research day, and lots of reading. Here is my reading list today:

1. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
2. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (love, love, love)
3. Every Tongue Shall Confess by ZZ Packer
4. The Mannequin of Soldotna by Melinda Moustakis
5. Red Moccasins by Susan Power

What did you read  today? Do you have a "go to" story that gives your own writing a jump start?

Day 2 Giving Way: Where the Story Starts

It's always a challenge to know where the story starts. The old wisdom is "in media res"  or begin in the middle. Some inciting event that hooks the reader enough to follow you, so that no matter where you take them after, that opening image resonates.

I like this quote from Julie Checkoway, "Fiction generally catches characters in the middle of their lives, at the point in which their habitual way of being in the world is about to give way (Creating Fiction, 172-3)."  This idea has stayed with me over the many years that I first read it. Maybe because these "giving way" moments are also the points in my own life I remember most.

 Beginnings then beg the question, which One Penny raised today, then where does the story end? Of course at this stage you just want to get the story on paper, write all that you can as fast as you can. But the more I write, the more I like to look upfront, or keep coming back to, the conversation between the opening and closing scenes of the story. Not as much bookends as scaffolding, a structure you can see through, rearrange, and move to the left or right as needed to tighten the tension. But a structure all the same.

So ends Day 2: a title, a main character, a theme, and two pages. Enough for me.  Happy writing.

15 Day Story Challenge

Writerly types, you know you want some...July 1 starts the 15 day story challenge.