Flash Fiction Chronicles

Secrets escape acute adorations, escape attack from the critical masses by nature of being hidden. When someone mentions SECRET concerning another’s interests, ears attune toward the sound of the one speaking, and syllables are licked from the air as if they were ice cream.

In today’s world, we have books for DUMMIES, how-to books and authors expunging themselves of secrets that supposedly made them billions of dollars.  The bestselling Bible Code reveals secret codes in—you guessed it—the Bible.  Self-help gurus attune the individual’s consciousness to his inner-nature through secrets of Eastern gurus now finally revealed for the FIRST TIME!

Secrets linger in courtyards, whispers of political intrigues and veiled threats spoken from seats of power.  They empower innuendo that cannot be understood by the masses teeming with ignorance, such as the Freemasonry symbols used in some of author Dan Brown’s works, until the spell of ignorance is broken by the solving of riddles—riddles that reveal secrets.

There have been how-to books concerning writing as well, works that promise to reveal the tips and tricks (secrets) to those willing to purchase them.  Most are good self-help modules to improve one’s writing, and some are quite excellent.  However, the catalyst for “writing secrets” often comes through writing groups based in the internet; one unknown writer reveals something he found on a blog, which is turn revealed to his group.  Someone within his group becomes excited and reveals that secret to another writing group she belongs to based in the UK, and pretty soon the SECRET starts to lose some of its secrecy.

This is where I come in.  I have a large private web office where secrets are often shouted from the rooftops.  Within my private office linger lots of editors concerned with promoting their publications and seeking quality writers, as well as those who wish to improve their own writing, both editors and writers alike.  Often, someone posts something of interest to the craft of storytelling.  More often than not, there are little snippets within what is presented—secrets, if you will—that go without comment.

I’m going to reveal one of those snippets based on an outline that swept through my private office and out again, with nary anyone commenting or saying a word.  Graeme Renolds is the writer who supplied the blueprint, snatched from another writer who received it from another… and through the grapevine it comes.  Graeme is a fantastic writer, astute and always willing to learn and evolve in his craft, which is how he came across the outline.  I believe he altered the outline somewhat with some modifications.

Here is that outline:

Story Flow Blueprint

Step 1: Characters, conflict, and major story goal are introduced
At the very beginning of your story, the characters, the opposition/conflict, and
the overall goal of the tale are introduced.
Step 2: Characters begin their journey
The characters will begin consciously or unconsciously making preparations for the “journey” or adventure that they will be undergoing throughout the tale. A deeper sense of their abilities and motivations is given to the reader during this section, a means of letting the reader “get to know them” better.
Step 3: First goal is determined
The characters make a decision to take some action relative to helping them reach the story goal. That goal is identified for the reader, as are the reasons behind it.
Step 4: Actions are taken to reach that goal
The characters take some action designed to bring them closer to the goal outlined in the previous step.
Step 5: Characters are prevented from reaching their first goal
The first goal is thwarted, either through the actions of the opposition or some other circumstances that are not under the characters’ control.
Step 6: Characters react
The characters react to the fact that they failed to reach their goal.
Step 7: Stakes are raised
The stakes the characters are facing if they do not reach the story goal are raised, which in turn raises the tension and excitement of the story for the reader.
This is also where the characters react to the raising of the stakes.
Step 8: A new (second) goal is developed
Determined not to let one set-back prevent them from reaching their goal, the characters develop a new, larger goal (since the stakes are now higher).
Step 9: Actions are taken to reach the second goal
The characters take some action designed to bring them closer to the goal outlined in the previous step.
Step 10: Characters are prevented from reaching their second goal
The second goal is thwarted, again either through the actions of the opposition or some other circumstances that are not under the characters’ control.
Step 11: Characters react
The characters react to the fact that they failed to reach their goal for the second time.
Step 12: Stakes are raised
The stakes become even higher, with greater consequences in the event of failure. The characters react to this change.
Step 13: Low period begins
At this point the characters are feeling their failures. They are demoralized and uncertain just what to do next. Some may even be on the verge of giving up. It is only the high stakes that keep them in the game now.
Step 14: Third goal is developed
With uncertainty and confusion running rampant, the characters try to rally and push onward. A new goal is developed, though this time the specter of failure
looms close at hand.
Step 15: Actions are taken despite uncertainty
Determined not to give up without a fight, the characters push through and attempt to reach the goal one more time, despite the fact that their chances of success look slimmer by the minute.
Step 16: Dark time begins
The characters fail miserably and the terrible circumstances they have been trying to avoid seem all too likely.
Step 17: Characters react to the dark time
Despair sets in as the characters reach their lowest emotional point in the story.
Everything they feared is about to come to pass and they seem to be completely out of options. The stakes are at a fever pitch by this point.
Step 18: Pivotal change occurs
A crucial event takes place that makes the character’s all too well aware that they don’t have the option of failing. Maybe their lives are on the line. Maybe it is the life of
a loved one or the fate of the entire world. Whatever it is, the characters must face it and decide that they have to give it a go or die trying.
Step 19: Goals are revised one last time
For the last time, the characters set a goal and go for it with all they’ve got. They are at their limit, not just physically but mentally and emotionally as well. This is the
point of no return.
Step 20: Final showdown happens, the opposition is defeated and the characters
react to their success
The characters face off against the opposition and this they succeed. The opposition is defeated and they are left to figure out just where to go from here.

One thing that is most interesting is that this blueprint is built for plot, and it creates stories entirely too long for flash fiction.  In fact, by itself this blueprint is 743 words.  I used it experimentally once shooting for 5,000 words, and I soared to 7,000 words (with the way I love description).  With that in mind, what good is this blueprint for flash fiction?

Well, breaking it down into smaller patterns is beneficial.  Removing steps can shorten it up.  But why would a writer of flash fiction want to do that?

One concept I found from this blueprint that swept through my office—and was forgotten about rather quickly—are the failures disclosed to the protagonist’s accomplishing of his/her goals.  Particularly, Step 5, Step 10, Step 16 and Step 20 reveal the secret I’m referring to, and that is one of failure. Writers are well versed with the concept of failure, often calling it rejection—although every bestselling novelist has had stories rejected including Stephen King.  The most beloved heroes often fail repeatedly before procuring their goals.  Some even fail at the story’s end, as did Mel Gibson’s historical character in Braveheart. The world (readers) are well acquainted with failure, and when they read about a character who fails as many times as they do, AND THEN SUCCEEDS, they tend to identify more with that character.

But this blueprint is already 743 words.  How could a writer of flash fiction utilize it?

One way is to get right to the action.  Editors are always saying how they want stories that begin with the action. But what if an astute writer began not only with the action, but with the mentioning of two or three previous failures as well?  What if the writer began with a character… say, at an abandoned castle surrounded by werewolves?  The writer could use some back-story to fill the reader in on the previous failure of the character trying to lead his village to safety from the growing werewolves.  After setting out on a two-day journey for the safety of a nearby citadel, the village is destroyed (a failure).  A new goal emerges.  Now the character must protect those who still survive: his family.  The stakes are raised because he loves his family, thus the drama intensifies.  He fails.  Now, alone, he is in the castle ruins, a very dark time in his life indeed.

Here come the werewolves.

Do you feel this sudden shift in intensity?  Just briefly mentioning the past two failures (secrets snatched from this blueprint), the story intensifies and, perhaps, we can use more dramatic language at this point: Behold now the iron will of the nefarious agents of abominable intent. See how negative the distraught hero embraces his doom.  Yet somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears his children’s voices saying, “Daddy, don’t give up,” and he remembers lessons he taught his children.  As howls fill the air and jaws snap at his heels, the hero races up the castle to the bell tower of the desolate abbey still attached.  After slamming a heavy oak door and barring it, he gazes at the vast sky because the roof is gone, recently collapsed.  Only his sword and an rusted iron bell hangs and—an idea!

Our hero rings the bell by beating it with his bloodied sword.  It creates a sad sound, a dull noise, but the more he beats it the more rust falls away; the outer casing comes off like crumbling armor.  Beneath the veneer of rust gleams solid metal, and now the sound rings pure and loud: CLANG, CLANG, CLANG! The werewolves cannot stand the tolling of the bell, and the hero rings the bell until morning, weeping the entire time, until the sun’s rays drive away the evil.

Failure is a tool to increase tension for your characters and readers, a secret for writers of both flash fiction and novels.  And it came as a nugget of truth buried within the blueprint listed here.  What other secrets lie in the blueprint above?  What secrets do you have regarding writing?

Please comment and reveal your writing secrets!

Liquid-Imagination

Silver Pen

American Zoetrope (where my private web office, Liquid Imagination, resides)

Silver Blade (sister publication of Liquid Imagination)

John “JAM” Arthur Miller owns Liquid Imagination Publishing, an ezine combining artwork and music with speculative fiction and poetry to create a new art form. JAM has over 65 publishing credits/acceptances with various publications ranging from anthologies, print publications and ezines. He is on the Board of Trustees at Silver Pen, a non-profit organization created to promote literacy.  JAM has full physical custody of three small children who have tamed his writing and slowed him down somewhat, and that’s just fine with JAM. The importance of optimism combined with the occasional YIPPIE (regardless of rejection) for writers is a frame of mind that, JAM believes, must be attained for optimum performance. “YIPPIE!!!”

So it’s November again, and that means that since it is already November 16th, many of us aspiring novelists are knee deep in NaNo.

It’s hard to believe that there are many authors out there that are at least not peripherally aware of this seminal masochistic endeavor, but for the sake of clarity, I’ll summarize: Between November 1st and November 30th an author makes a dedicated effort to hack out an entire novel of 50k. Whoa, that’s a lot of words, right? It’s quite a few, yes, but broken down that’s only 1666 words a day. Within reach for most of us, even with families and jobs.

The idea here is volume, anyway, not quality — although the rules do allow for you create notes, character bibles, plot outlines or whatever esoteric voodoo you might practice. I don’t do any of that, and don’t know anybody that does. (But hey, I live in a small world.) NaNo is really about writing on a schedule, about letting go of your preconceived ideas about what writing well means. It really is quite liberating to be excused from over-thinking every scene and every line of dialog. The end result will almost certainly be a raw and rough bit of fiction, but don’t let that stop you, with a little work you just may have something worth sending out to a lucky agent or publisher.

As a quite biased example: my 2007 run at NaNo landed me a contract with BeWrite Books, an awesome European indie press. My book should be available as a paperback before the end of the year. That book is called The Movie, and I hope everyone will buy, borrow, or beg a copy, it’s a fun story about hopes and dreams, and bad science fiction. Of course, as nearly all my stories, it’s  really about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Okay, okay, you are saying, I’ll buy the book when it comes out, (Thanks!) but what does NaNo have to do with flash fiction of all things? Flash fiction is just the opposite of NaNo. Well, to that, I assert the definitive reply of: well, yes and no. I’ve done NaNo in 2007, 2008, and 2009. And each and every time I can recall exactly how my work with flash fiction paid off to get these manuscripts written.

2007: The Movie

This was actually the third novel manuscript I wrote, and I was terribly intimated by length, and still wasn’t really sure I could write a novel manuscript that wasn’t painful to read. So I said to myself,  Bosley you’ve written a few short stories, you know a bit about character arcs, and motivation, and conflict. Just set a goal for your protagonist and make sure he can reach it if he works hard enough. (Who likes a lazy protag?) So that’s easy enough, I said to myself … but it kind of wasn’t easy. Nope. Not for Bosley.

So I came up with the idea to put bits of a meta-story in the book, as a kind of way to refresh the readers perspective and hopefully distract myself long enough to forget I was writing a very long novel manuscript. In this case the meta-story was scenes from my protagonists fancy-pants movie script. And can you guess? Yep, those scenes are essentially flash fiction. I’m not so sure I would have finished the novel if I hadn’t been able to look forward to writing these silly little stories within the bigger story. Not only was it fun for me, it allowed me to indirectly communicate the protagonist’s thoughts at a personal level. (We are what we write, right?) If  I hadn’t taken the time to learn the craft of flash fiction, the manuscript would have had much less impact, me thinks.

2008: Americana: The Last Gleaming

I actually punted on this manuscript and finished up at 30k. So I lost the NaNo that year. But I ran out of story, and happily finished it up at its natural stopping place. This story is about Drake Carson, a detective in the final stages of dementia who is chasing the Misfit, believed to be evil incarnate. Drake is a good guy even if he is insane. This story proper is actually 6 intertwined short stories/vignettes. How were  are they intertwined, Bosley? You might ask.  Flash fiction, naturally. What all the stories have in common are a series short flashbacks and self-contained scenes that describe the Misfit’s previous crimes and evil deeds.

These bits, essentially flash fiction, are the unifying force that holds the main story arc together. I’m on the second draft at the moment, so I’m not sure how well the final manuscript will actually work. But I am certain that this is 30k I wouldn’t have written if I hadn’t been able to look forward to those the ‘breather pieces’.

2009: Sweet Lies

There is less to say about this story since I’m only about 20k into it. But the first thing I did is find some method to my madness. In this case, Howie, a young murderous sociopath, has a tendency to deflect any serious thoughts by telling bizarre and surreal stories about his past. Not only does this keep others from thinking to hard about his actions, but it keeps himself from doing the same. What sort of bizarre and surreal stories? you might ask — right! What amounts to flash fiction. Good job. :p

I might even go so far as to cite upcoming novel, Servant of the Mud with Shadowfire Press as using that same technique of embedding mini-stories in story. This an urban fantasy with some tiny chapters woven into the larger story. These chapters attempt to show the more human side of the antagonist (despite not being human). It allows the reader to feel at least some sympathy to what would otherwise might be a kind of cardboard villain. Of course, these tiny chapters bear a great deal of resemblance to flash fiction.

So while flash fiction might seem tiny and insignificant next to a novel of even 50k, if one looks carefully enough it becomes clear that flash fiction can become another ingredient in a beautiful soup of words that perhaps someday will become a published novel.

And for those of you doing NaNo this year, come join me. It’s really not too late.  You’ve got almost half a month left!  Enough time to write half a novel.  And if you are sitting this one out. No sweat, there’s one every year. And keep in mind that the Office and Letters and Light needs money to continue doing what they do. If you can spare couple of bucks, why not make a donation?

Saddly, as a postscript, I’ll say that I am a couple of days behind in NaNo, but I have a very good excuse.  His name is Luke Fredrick Dean.  We’ve taken him home on purely trial basis, but after some discussion with my wife, she seems intent on keeping him despite his prodigal efforts to eat us out of house and home.  And, I’m told the grace period for returns is a measly five days.  So it seems he will need to board with us for the next twenty odd years.

Until next post … ciao.

Bosley Gravel, eclectic hack of an author, was born in the Midwest, and came of age in Texas and southern New Mexico. He writes in a variety of genres. His fiction focuses on the absurdly tragic, and the tragically absurd. He likes good black coffee, nightmares, Billie Holiday, and that hour just before the sun comes up.  You can find links to his flash fiction, short stories, novels, and other credits and affiliations at http://www.ripcot.com.

These observations about the submissions received in the String -of-10 Contest sponsored by this site are more about me and my reading experience than about any one entry. However, I am sharing them with you so that if and when we sponsor a fresh new contest, those who read this and enter will be at a distinct advantage.

1)Titles
All fiction stories benefit from a well-thought out title. A title should reflect the overall story if possible. One classic rule says that a title should be the character’s name (Antony and Cleopatra, Ethan Frome, Moby Dick) or the setting (Howard’s End, Mill on the Floss, Our Town), both character and setting (The Old Man and the Sea, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), or they reveal theme, in abstraction (Sound and the Fury, War and Peace, From Here to Eternity) or suggest theme in a specific object or event (The Golden Bowl, Light in August, The Sheltering Sky), or character or setting that reflect theme (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Paradise Lost, The Grapes of Wrath).

Titles should enhance the story, add to it in some way, yet not telegraph so much that there is no surprise left at the end. Specific ambiguity? Is that possible? I think so. This is even more important when writing short fiction. Whenever there is a word limit as in this 250-word contest, every word MUST count. The title gives the writer another way to set up, entice, and pay-off the reader, and title words are FREE, above and beyond the word count of the work itself. So use a title. Writing isn’t just random thoughts. It’s thinking carefully about all the ways you can help the reader have an emotional response to your story.

2. Surprise
Many stories lack surprise and surprise is what jolts a reader into having an emotional response. I don’t mean just a twist ending either. Surprise is more than that.

First, surprise comes to the reader when a setting is specific and interesting. When there is no setting established at all, the reader is left in a blank empty space, and readers, like Mother Nature, abhor a void. A writer can engage a reader with a few small details that create a unique place in which the story can exist.

Second, surprise comes to the reader when a character is unique. When there is something different than we expect about the person, his attitude, his way of speaking, even his appearance. A wise teacher once told me (and our class) to always do something unique to a character, give him a headache, a limp, a funny haircut that reflects in some way who that person is. Actually he used “a toothache” as an example, and I watched a movie in which the character had a toothache throughout and that toothache paid off in the end in his own behaviour. I thought aha, Gordon’s toothache! Dang. I can’t remember what it was, something by Russell Banks I think.

Third, surprise –and delight–happen when the language is full of vivid specific detail, images that pop off the page, clear and precise and visual.

Fourth, surprise happens when an ending provides both the unexpected and a sense of the inevitable. The reader might guess from the title, the specific character traits of the hero, the dangerous setting, that the story may end badly, but the reader should not know the exact details of that ending (I am thinking here of The Old Man and the Sea here or Of Mice and Men).

It is in the details that the reader will be surprised and satisfied because though the writer may have promised an unhappy ending, he ends it with epiphany or an unthought-of-sadness. The twist must NOT be the pulling out of a gun that the reader didn’t know a villain had, but rather the pulling out of the gun the reader knew he had, and then decides not to fire.

So yes, twist the ending, but don’t create surprise with a non-sequiter. Classic rule from Master Chekov: If there is a gun on the mantle in the beginning, use it by the end. And the reverse is also true, if you are going to use a gun in the end, put it on the mantle in the beginning, but do it all subtly because…

The real surprise should come with the revelation of the human spirit. We need to know the person, the character a little before we can appreciate the surprise. Can it be done in 250 words? Yes.

3) Cliched story plots
Third and last observation for today. It’s hard for a new writerto know what a cliched plot is. Everything feels new to him because he hasn’t written before. But what’s new to the writer isn’t necessarily new to the reader, especially an editor. Therefore if you are going to write about illness, revenge, execution, suicide, dead mothers, boy meets girl, Martians landing on the earth, and football quarterbacks, etc, then it is important to pay attention to the details of your story and create unique characters, unusual settings, screwy attitudes, a strong identifiable voice, anything that lifts the cliched plot above the mundane. Most of the time this means a lot of writing practice and thoughtful revision. Reading every line, every word, and doing the revision without overworking it. Not easy, but it comes with working at it every day, just like playing the basoon.

The classic belief in storytelling is that there are only 5-12-24 actual plots in the world, and that’s true on some levels. It’s what the writer brings to a cliched story that makes it good. This has been proven over and over by Will S, Charlie D, John S, Edith W, Charlotte B, Tommy Hardy, Margaret A, Carole S, Willie F, and even Stephen K.

This post by Gay Degani is reprinted here from her Words in Place Blog.

It’s not often that I find I can start a post by saying that it was inspired by hearing Irene Cara singing “Flashdance … What a Feeling” on my car radio. But it’s true, although we’ll come on to the reason for that later. What I really want to talk about is problem solving in writing, and how the most creative thing that can sometimes happen to you as a writer is to get stuck, because it’s often how you get yourself out of a tricky situation that can be the difference between a dull piece and something that’s truly inspired.

A classic example of this is in Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” As you may remember, Adams – who was possibly the most disorganized writer of all time – ended the first episode of the original radio series with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect being blasted into space with only seconds to live.  It made for a fantastic cliffhanger ending, but it presented Adams with something of a problem, because he’d painted himself into a corner.

The problem was that any way of extricating his two heroes from this situation would be so improbable that it would immediately be dismissed as an amateurish “deus ex machina.” So what Adams did was to turn the problem on its head and invent something that relied on the very improbability of the situation. The resulting concept of the infinite improbability drive is possibly one of the most inspired ideas to have come out of speculative fiction in the late twentieth century.

Here’s another example. The writers of “Back to the Future”, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, made a problem for themselves when they decided that their two key characters were going to be a schoolboy and a mad professor. But here’s the conundrum: how on earth could they establish some kind of link between these two disparate characters? The solution was that classic opening sequence where Marty McFly breaks into Doc Emmett Brown’s lab, plugs his guitar into that massive speaker, turns the volume up to 11, plays a single chord and gets thrown right across the room.

And so we come to Irene Cara. As soon as the song came on the radio, I immediately thought of that wonderful sequence in the film “The Full Monty”, where they’re sitting down to watch “Flashdance” to pick up some dancing tips, and Mark Addy’s character misses the point entirely and starts complaining about the quality of Jennifer Beals’ welding. The joke is so perfect that I started to wonder if it contained a clue as to how the entire film came about. I have no idea if this is remotely true, but what if Simon Beaufoy, the writer, happened to watch “Flashdance” one day, and thought to himself: wouldn’t it be hilarious to do a film like “Flashdance” except set in England, and about a bunch of male steelworkers who took up dancing?

So let’s look at the problems that this implausible scenario presents, and how solving them might have created the movie. First of all, why do they take up dancing? Because they’re broke. Why are they broke? Because the steel industry’s collapsed (and already we’re getting a much richer concoction). But why would anyone pay to watch them dance? Because they’re really good? Nah. Won’t work. Because they’re going to do something special? Maybe. Like what, though? Stripping? And at that point, you have the bare bones of the entire film.

Now I’m only guessing that it happened like that. But it strikes me as highly plausible. So don’t run away from problems – seek them out. The solution that you come up with to get yourself out of a hole might just be the thing that takes you to a different level.

Editor’s Note: Sarah Hilary submitted this post and suggested that other writers might want to add a few thoughts.  So here is Sarah’s tip and several others.   We have more tomorrow and Wednesday too!

FROM SARAH HILLARY:

Blocked re plotting? Unable to connect the dots in your own mind?

Take time out and try doing a jigsaw. Seriously.

I think it must because you’re exercising the same muscles and synapses but without pushing too hard on the story angle. Your brain is tricked into thinking all it needs to do is find the straight edges and voila! Before you know it, you’ve located the missing pieces of the fiction puzzle. I was never a fan of jigsaws, as a child or an adult, but now I’m on the lookout for good ones, the doing of which I’ll slot into my writing schedule. Try it and see for yourself. It really works! 

Sarah Hilary’s story, Two Minute Silence, published by Smokelong Quarterly, made it to the Long Shortlist for The Wigleaf Top 50.

FROM KERRY MADDEN:

Being blocked…I usually reread Brenda Ueland’s IF YOU WANT TO WRITE. I always find something new in it that gives me hope and courage. Carl Sandburg called it his favorite book on writing, and I believe it was first published in 1937 and is still in print. She said to take long meandering walks with no clear destination in order to help free your mind up from the clutter. I try to do this. I also trick myself out of of the great thud of “Writer’s Block” by writing longhand in a different place where there is less chance of distraction.

Or I warm up by writing a letter, and then I open the “New Novel File” just to edit the first page of the book I’m working on. If that goes okay, maybe I’ll write a few lines of dialogue in a new scene to see if a scene is even possible. Are the characters talking to each other? Then with the dialogue, I consider a gesture or two a character might have and some action in the scene. If I keep chipping away bit by bit and if I’m lucky, I usually have a rough scene where there was none. Then I can breathe and fall into the story and really write…and if all that fails, I go to the movies alone and escape into somebody else’s story for a while. Then I walk…and start all over again.

In 2009, Viking published Up Close: Harper Lee, Kerry Madden’s biography of the author of  To Kill a Mockingbird .  Kerry blogs at http://mountainmist.livejournal.com/.

FROM K. C. BALL:

When people tell me they are facing writer’s block, I accept the statement as fact, but it is something I can’t internalize.  It’s an affliction I have never suffered.

Perhaps that is because my most intense and lasting writing lessons were as a newspaper reporter.  Sitting at a typewriter (later a computer monitor), clock ticking and editors shouting for copy, there is no time for writer’s block.  If there is, you don’t last long on the job.

If you even stopped for a moment to think, someone would be shouting, “Write! Write! If it’s no good, I’ll cut it or rewrite it.  Just give me copy!”

So that’s the best and only advice I can offer to combat writer’s block.  It doesn’t matter if the first paragraph, the first page, the first chapter is no good.  If you keep producing copy, at some point in the process you will settle into the groove and what follows will be good.

Just write!

K. C. Ball has been published in Every Day Fiction, Boston Literary Review, Moon-Drenched Tales, and Fear and Trembling.   She blogs at http://kcball.wordpress.com/.

FROM A.H. REAM:

I don’t believe in writer’s block. I think writer’s block happens when you expect final draft quality out of your first draft effort. Giving yourself the freedom to write bad first drafts cures everything.

A.H. Ream can be found in the anthology Landmarked for Murder. In the meantime, rewrites for her first novel are due to her agent in a few days, which is why she’s no longer showering or answering the phone. www.journalscape.com/ahream

FROM MICHAEL MALLORY:

I may be something of a rarity among writers in that I do not believe in writer’s block.  I equate it to the phenomenon of ghost activity: it only exists if you believe it exists. Having said that, though, I admit to those days the words just don’t flow, or my thought processes in terms of continuing my story become clogged like an old drain.

On those days I use the magician’s trick of misdirection, but instead of flourishing with my left hand while I hide the quarter with my right, I misdirect my mind by doing other work usually related to writing (editing, general research, checking my submissions log, correspondence, etc.) until the clog clears. The ultimate misdirection trick is to have two projects going at once. To some this may seem counterintuitive—if one cannot get one story going, how could one get two?—but it is easier than it sounds (and starting books is always easier than breezing through that 100-to-125 page minefield).

When I feel like I am stuck on one story or book, I immediately turn my attention to the other. Before long, I find myself wanting to finish it so I can get back to the other story, and vice versa. This technique keeps me working productively on something at any given time, with the frequent result of having two completed works at once.

Michael Mallory is a Los Angeles-based writer and journalist.  Visit him at www. michaelmallory.com

FROM KATHLEEN PICHE:

Kathleen Piché has published several short stories, articles and essays. She is currently editing her first detective novel, The Last Illusion, about a psychiatric social worker who tries to find out who is killing her patients.