Flash Fiction Chronicles

Sometime ago I attended a poetry read meet after a very long time and was once again struck by how eager the poets were to explain their poetry!  

A typical reading is almost always followed by: “in my poem I am trying to say blah blah blah…Followed by, ” this (motif or image) means this in my poem,” and /or “I mean this in my poem” and so on and so forth. Why?

Isn’t it  the reader’s/listener’s prerogative to understand or takeaway whatever it is the poem is trying to convey? Shouldn’t the reader/listener be given an open mike as far as forming an opinion is concerned? 

Different people react to the same thing differently. I think it enriches the poetic/creative experience when one gets different perspectives. But this is not how writers and poets view it, usually.  They always have a long, often longer than the poem itself, list of reasons seasoned with all kinds of whys and wherefores for their creative outpouring!

 I can understand telling a story which may have led to the poem or writing being created in the first place. The owner is entitled to share the source of the inspiration, because this usually provides an interesting prologue (or epilogue if you will) to the verse. Besides, who doesn’t want to have a glimpse of another creative mind’s muse? However I think that’s where the explaining should end.

It’s time poets (writers too, but especially poets) allowed their verses to be viewed and weighed from points of view other than their own. If anything, it will enrich the poetic experience of everyone present. A poem comes alive when molded and shaped by another’s understanding; a poem takes on new cadences when uttered from another’s lips. Their lives get extended when lit up in the spotlight of unknown prisms. Ditto for stories. Likewise with plays.

Haven’t Shakespeare’s plays and poems been cast and recast a thousand times in different hues and tones down the centuries? I think that is the very reason why Shakespeare is still so alive!

Reprint from Writers & Writerisms

Rumjhum Biswas is still living in Chennai, India, but in another part where there were no mosquitoes until the rains came and all the incy wincy spiders were washed away. No she isn’t implying that spiders eat mosquitoes, but if they did she’d become a millionaire by breeding spiders and selling them all over the world, instead of being another poor writer who gets to answer the door and the phone because she is at home and that means she has a cushy life! She has a blog to prove that it’s not: http://rumjhumkbiswas.wordpress.com. You can also find her at times at Flash Fiction Chronicles.

I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing new pieces from the word-crumbs for writer-pigeons, and a few days ago I decided to give it another go – get back in the habit, as it were. As I reached the end of the exercise, I thought the process might make a decent entry here. So I’m going to give you a walkthrough.

First came the prompts. I copy and paste them, and then add the quote – and I stare at them until I get a thought. (if one doesn’t come, I play Bejeweled until one does.) I add thoughts or definitions or phrases about the words beside them – it looks like this when I’m done:

- TIN ROOF (rusted, cat on a hot)
- AVON LADY (avon calling)
- REFINEMENT (improvement)
- MOP CLOSET (narrow)
- LEAK (drip, pass through)
- AFFECTED (influenced)
- PULCHRITUDE (beauty)
- MACARONI (elbow pasta)
- LAME BRAINED (foolish)
- CURVY (rounded)

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time. –Henry Louis Mencken

 quote thoughts: Immorality. Sin. the roaring 20s. regular hausfrau dreaming of better times, better romance, etc.
her life – leak, mop closet, ornaments out of macaroni, avon lady, tin roof …
dream life – refinement, affected, pulchritude, curvy
Margaret – sensible name, sensible husband – Michael, sensible house. dreams of more, reads romance novels – the historic kind, where men have accents and write notes extolling their lady-love’s pulchritude. She’d had to look that one up, but wasn’t it a nice way to say a girl was pretty?
she is much older, kids are grown, it’s just her and Michael now. He still works, wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he didn’t, still won’t let her – she took in mending, once, when times were tough and the babies were little, but as soon as things were better she had to stop – hurt his pride, he’d say, having a wife he couldn’t support.

From there I generally have a picture of the story, or at least a start. I begin writing, working in the phrases with the prompt words. I add. I delete. I learn more about the character and change things. This is the “finished” product:

Margaret wiped the sweat from her forehead with the same rag she had been using to wipe down the leaky pipe under the sink so she could see where to fix it. Lady Wintercourt wouldn’t have had to fix a pipe, she thought to herself, beginning the complicated process of hauling herself to her feet. Winter’s Heat lay on the side table in the living room, next to her cigarettes and Pepsi, and if she was lucky she’d get to the end of this chapter before Michael was home expecting dinner.

She put the mop in the empty bucket and put the bucket back in the mop closet, then leaned on the counter until she caught her breath. Age was nipping at her heels, and the face in the mirror was no longer the fresh beauty that had graduated at the top of her refinement classes. Margaret imagined Lady Wintercourt in all of her curvy glory, gasping for breath, and how Lord Darien would be entranced by her heaving bosoms …

“Cor,” she scolded herself. “Such nonsense.” She smiled at her own foolishness, and went back to her reclining chair. Oh, for a time when her own bosoms would heave fetchingly, and some Lord would send her a handwritten note about how he was so affected by her pulchritude that he could scarcely sleep. She’d had to look pulchritude up in her son’s dictionary, but wasn’t it a fancy way to say a woman was pretty? Michael hadn’t called her naught but lovely since she was a new bride, and he called her pot roast lovely.

Oh, Michael loved her, she knew. He provided for her, refusing to let her work when he could support her. She had done a brief tour as an Avon Lady, back when times were tight and the babies were small, but he had asked her to stop just as soon as they were back on their feet. It hurt his pride, he said, people thinking he couldn’t take care of his own. Margaret had liked getting out and talking to the ladies, but she quit because he asked her to.

So now she stayed home, keeping things tidy and reading her romance novels and showing Michael that returned his love by making sure there was a hot meal on the table when he got home from work. Sometimes she rang her sister just to chat, but she didn’t want to be a bother – Martha’s girls were still at home, and such a handful. Her own boys called every Sunday. They were working over in the States now, and she couldn’t be prouder.

Margaret lifted up her readers from the beaded chain around her neck, and tucked into Winter’s Heat again. Her own adventures, sensible as they were, were over – but there were at least three more Wintercourt novels at the public library waiting for her.

Now, the important thing about this exercise is not the fact that I hate the piece (which I do). It’s crap, and we all know it. Say it with me, kids. LESSON NUMBER ONE: The First Draft of Anything Is Crap.

No – the important thing about the exercise is what I can take away from it, and even more importantly, what I SHOULD take away from it.

I could clean this up. I could contrive a “real” plot, or at least a believable one, and squish the words like PlayDoh until they fit the mold I had made.

Or, I could identify what would make it possible for the story to be reworked, and just save that piece.

Margaret is what works for me. I like her, I can see her so clearly, I know her whole life. (and while she reminds me a bit of Shirley Valentine, she is still her own person.) I get her husband, too, what motivates him and how much he loves his wife and how little he knows how to show it. These people, this relationship – this is what clicks.

As I have said before, people are what work for me. Characters. I collect them in my memory, I have mental boxes full of habits and traits and situations and experiences and sometimes complete people. Every now and then, one of them will move to the forefront, and that’s when the archaeology dig begins – I catch the tip of something larger out of the corner of my eye, and slowly brush away the bits that aren’t relevant until all that remains is the story. But 90% of the time, it starts with the character.

And characters are born of exercises like this – even exercises that are wildly, irredeemably terrible. So I have tucked Margaret and Michael (and even Lady Wintercourt and her heaving bosoms) away, and when they’re ready to tell their story, I’ll be ready to write it down.

In the mean time, I’ll work on today’s prompts – you never know what might come of it.

Previously published at Blogging in the Dark

TL.Schofield lives in central GA with a white dog and a black cat – one of which she is allergic to. Her second published piece is currently posted at AlienSkin Magazine.  She is getting back into the swing of things after a holiday hiatus, and blogs about the writing process  at Blogging in the Dark.

Post Written by DJ Barber

I write every day.  Sometimes all I can squeeze out is a mere sentence. Then there are days I might complete a chapter. But I remember there are good days, days where words just drip from the keyboard, words just flow. 

Stories sometimes fall out of our heads and onto the computer screen, surprising us, filling us with an elation that comes mighty close to other kinds of elations.  The temptation is to get it out there into some editors hands immediately.  Usually we zip it straight to the editor we want most to love our work, an editor who’ll email us with praise, no edits, and a Pushcart nomination.  We are hot and bothered, and to use a phrase from my junior high years –STOKED–because we realize we’re beginning to get it. Writing is getting easier…

Beware the flush of love…I mean, the flush of drafts that are effortless.  Sometimes they really are good.  Sometimes they just FEEL good.  The most important thing to remember is WAIT.  Sleep on it.  Don’t lose your heart on a one night stand.  At least not yet. 

After you’ve cooled down, taken a hot shower, and rested, you may discover that what you’ve written is almost ready to go, but it needs proof-reading, a little polish, it needs to be more than it is.  On the occasion when the Muse has guided you, maybe a proof-read is enough.  But most of the time–I’d say 99% of the time–if it’s that good, it can still be better. 

Taking a piece of writing one more level up can mean the difference to finding a home for a story and not finding a home.

It could be as simple as doublechecking to see if your opening is sharp, seductive, and just as important, prescient.  Does it set up your ending.  If the first sentence, the first paragraph is a scene where siblings fight, then what you have communicated to the reader is that the relationship between this brother and this sister is important enough to start off your story.  I’m basically talking about short stories here, especially flash because the word count is such that nothing can be put into the story because because the author likes it or because that how it started in the head of the writer.  Not good enough. 

That opening paragraph must signal in some way, and yes it can be subtle, what it is this story is about. It should suggest both the main characters “journey and epiphany” without giving away the ending.  It can be done in clear straight forward way or it can be subtle, even metaphorical, but it does need to give the reader a hint to the main conflict, what this story is about on a “plot level” and on a “thematic level.” And yes, good genre writing has a theme just like “lit.”

 Creating the link between the beginning of the story and the end will bring complexity to a story.

Word count is a tool.  It sets up boundaries and when there are boundaries we are pushed to know about them, accomodate them, and break away from them.  Word count forces us to look at our stories under a microscope and to needle away anything that doesn’t do service to the story.There are almost always words and phrases that can be cut or sentences reworded by finding more exact and vivid language.

We all put words and phrases in stories when we are writing drafts and some of them eventually become invisible to us. But many of them become obsolete or unnecessary as we work with the material zeroing in on just what the story is about. 

I am trying to teach myself patience.  Trying to set aside work I think is strong in that first rush to the page, just for a day or two, before deciding if this is the best I can do.  And it never is because when I reread the attachment to the submission I’ve sent off in the afterglow of a good write (and I can never resist), there’s always a flaw in the first paragraph, a misused word, an awkwardness, and I want to haul it back from the ether and have it at least one more time.

Gay Degani has published in journals and anthologies including The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008 and The Best of Every Day Fiction  TWO (2009).  Her stories online can be read at Smokelong Quarterly, The Battered Suitcase, Night Train, Every Day Fiction as well as other publications.  Pomegranate Stories is a collection of eight stories by Gay. She is the editor of EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles and blogs at Words in Place.

I’ve read a lot of online discussion lately that suggests flash fiction stories are quick, easy pieces that you can dash off in a morning. That’s not my experience at all. The only reason I can afford to write flash is that I have a day job.

As an example, I thought I’d describe the process I used to write “Home to Perfect,” a flash piece published in the Best of Every Day Fiction Two anthology. This story took me a solid 15 hours to write. I’ll try to break down how those hours were spent. (The description below assumes you’ve read the story).

I got the idea for the story when I was poking around the Internet one day and found a clip on YouTube of a kid playing “Through the Fire and Flames” perfectly in expert mode on the video game Guitar Hero. At the end of the clip, the kid is visibly trembling, cursing in disbelief, and totally overwhelmed. I found myself thinking over the next several days about the kid’s awe and how he shared it with an audience on YouTube. I wondered if his parents had any idea what that moment meant to him.

I spent about 3 hours over the next several days developing the idea. I asked myself who Vic (my main character) was, why he cared about playing through the song perfectly, and what else was going on in his life. I wrote extensive notes on him, his mom, his dad, and his brother Kurt. This was the point at which I realized that I was writing about domestic violence. I could tell you a lot of details about all of these characters that never made it into the story. I believe a story should be an iceberg–what’s visible should be only a small amount of the material that’s in the author’s possession.

In a flash piece, I look for the iceberg effect even more. In very few words, I have to make the reader aware of significant emotions and history that bear on the scene I chose to show.

At that point, I wrote my first draft, spending about 2 hours on it. (My first draft rate for longer pieces is much faster, but my speed of writing seems to be inversely related to the length of the piece).

I put my first draft down for about a week. When I picked it up again, something was wrong with it, and I couldn’t figure out what. After much rereading and consideration (which I’m not counting towards the total time spent on the work), I figured out that “Through the Fire and Flames” was the problem. I had no emotional connection to the song, and I hadn’t spent much time playing Guitar Hero. I had, on the other hand, pulled many all-nighters playing Rock Band. There’s a song on Rock Band called “Green Grass and High Tides” that I love deeply and find wickedly difficult. I changed the story so that Vic is playing Rock Band, and spent about 5 hours writing a new draft. While I wrote this draft, I listened repeatedly to “Green Grass and High Tides” and periodically took breaks to watch videos on YouTube of people playing this song on Rock Band.

At that point, I thought I’d finished the story, so I let my husband read it. As always happens, he made me realize that I had a lot of work left to do, pointing out several problems with how it was structured. I spent about 3 hours restructuring and fixing those problems. Then, I spent 2 hours doing a final polish and preparing the story for submission. For me, this consists of reading the whole thing out loud several times, fixing anything that trips me up, and fiddling with things until I’m sure I really want to send the story out into the world. I run spellcheck. I obsessively study the guidelines for the market to which I’m sending the story.

And that’s a wrap. I’ve wished that I could write faster, but I’m proud of the piece and am glad I took my time.

The original version of this post appeared as Best of Every Day Fiction on Words, Words, Words.

Erica Naone writes by day about topics related to the Internet and computer software. Her fiction has appeared in On The Premises, Storyglossia, Every Day Fiction and Flashquake. She recently received an honourable mention in the 32nd annual International 3-Day Novel Contest. She lives with her husband in Allston, MA. You can read her blog or follow her on Twitter.

On January 26th, I sat down and wrote 1,000 words for the first time in something like two months. (There has been a staggering lack of writing at my house lately.) It was a first person narrative that began with:

“I’m no hero, all right? Let’s get that straight up front.”

As of today, 15 days later, I have an entirely outlined and characterized novel plan. This is how I did it.

_____________

The initial narrative took several days to get out of my system, so I went with it, following the narrator right into the middle of his current situation. I would revise the beginning to reflect things I was learning as I wrote the continuation. I shoved “show don’t tell” under my chair and let him tell me about each of his companions, until I felt like I knew them all. (I did all of the preliminary writing in a simple text-edit program so I could easily bounce back and forth between Bianca (my main computer) and Cheese (my baby hackbook).) I took the file with me everywhere for a few days, and worked on it in all of my spare time.

For several days after that, I characterized. (Maker bless the StoryMill for giving me one place to keep track of everything) I made an entry for each character, then jotted ideas and asked questions and bounced from one character to the others as I learned how they all interacted with each other, and why. The characters told me their stories, and I took notes.

Then came the outline, which was a relatively simple matter of piecing together all the quilt-square-stories my characters had told me into one ‘big picture’ of a story. The only challenge this time was puzzling out the right order in which to tell four separate stories until they could unite into one.

With the piecing came more learning, and some of the stories shifted or grew or became less important. I made notes along the way in each of the character’s records … going so far as to use strikethrough text for older ideas instead of deleting them outright, so I could see what I had scrapped in case I needed it again. I determined how many key events occurred during the scope of the tale.

At this point came the numbers – I need the numbers, they act as a boundaries to keep me from going on and on and on like some reincarnation of a famously verbose author (who shall remain nameless even though the fact that he is still being published after his demise is something of an annoyance to me, being that one printing run of his book could theoretically wipe out an entire rainforest in Bolivia.)

Anyway. I picked 65,000 as a starting point for my first draft (not too short, but with room to grow later when things require more explanation and detail.) I determined that the story could best be told in 10 chapters. Behold, each chapter now has a temporary goal of 6,500 words.

I created the 10 chapters, and named them to give myself a reminder of what happens in each one. From the chapter overviews, I determined the scenes – what events occur in what order to convey the story of the bigger picture? Sometimes there were two scenes, sometimes there were four. I entered them into the program as well, giving them names that helped me remember what happens within them, and assigning them to the appropriate chapter. I applied the numbers again, to give myself a framework for how many words each scene in each chapter should have.

At this point, I took an afternoon and made scene notes … one scene at a time, I made the notation: “In which …” and described the action that would be taking place in that scene when I wrote it. This is my map, the road marker I look back on when I am tempted to tangent in a wonderfully written side-story which is completely irrelevant and that I would only have to cut later.

Yesterday I was back to characterizing, since a few of them had come forward while I was making scene notes and requested some changes, or suggested some motivational aids. That was when I got to the nitty-gritty – the physical appearance, the life goal/motivation, the internal agendas, etc.

I also started the list of the things I need — as I encounter something in my descriptions that is incomplete, I make a note of it and keep going, so as not to slow myself down on the details that don’t really matter and can be dealt with later. Currently this list is begging for a world map, names for towns and countries and Inns, and a real name for a guy I am referring to as “Nameless Guy” in every section of notes – before “Nameless Guy” sticks and I have to name him that – keep an eye out for a guy named Inconnu or some form thereof. It’s french for “nameless”. (Thank you Babel Fish!)

I should be starting the actual writing today or tomorrow.

And that’s how it happened.

The problem I am having, however, is the guilt. I have this terrible feeling that working on a long piece, a novel-length work, is nothing but selfish indulgence. Only short pieces are going to make it out into the world and keep my name in the pond … so how can I justify taking the time to write something no one will ever read because the publishing world is a dank, scary place and I don’t have a map or a sherpa? *sigh*

(previously published at Blogging in the Dark)

It has happened to many of us at one time or another: The words are flowing, the story is unfolding on the page and then … the words just stop.

(a) Work on something else and hope that, in the interim, the block will resolve itself.

(b) Try to force your way through the block.

 (c) Read back through the story until you reach the last point where you were excited about what would happen next, and delete everything that came after.

Different writers have different solutions. I know plenty of people who manage to fight through blocks quite successfully. I’m not one of those people.

I generally choose option C.

I believe that writer’s block is my subconscious mind’s way of telling me that my story has derailed, that what I am writing now is not as good as what came before, that I am no longer telling the story I should be telling. Sometimes, the block occurs only a few sentences after the point where the story derailed. Sometimes, five or 10 pages or more go by before I realize something isn’t right. However big the off-track section is, I get rid of it all. Why? Because the only other viable choice – fighting through the block – keeps me going in the same wrong direction that caused the block in the first place.

So next time you hit a block you can’t write your way out of, you might try this:

Cut-and-paste the offending material into a separate document. Don’t delete it outright because something in there might be worth salvaging later. Spend as much time as you need to figure out what went wrong and what is the right direction for your story. Then put your butt back in your chair and write.

Chances are, the words will start flowing again.

Jennifer Campbell Hick’s work recently appeared in Science Fiction Trails. She lives in Arvada, Colorado where she tries to find time to write between two full-time jobs as a journalist and a mother of three.

A woman who recently started to tread water in fiction writing asked me the other day what she should write to an editor regarding a piece that had been shortlisted in a contest but hadn’t won anything. The shortlisted pieces were available in a public domain and anyone could read them.  I told her that in that case her piece was as good as published and she should look at the reprint markets. However, if the editor was open to reprints, she could send it on. And also that she should always state the submitted piece’s status upfront in her cover letter. Integrity is something that is appreciated by all, and editors are no exception.

Writers often make the mistake of running headlong into a submission process without knowing what the publisher/editor needs. You would do better selling candy to a bunch of diabetics!

 The best and easiest way to know what your editor wants is to do something so obvious that many writers bypass this crucial step in their submission process. READ THE MAGAZINE’S/PUBLISHER’S SUBMISSION GUIDELINES! And read a few issues of the magazine as well. In the case of book publishers, take a long hard look at what books they are currently publishing.

No matter how many guidelines you have read already, and no matter how many times you have submitted to that particular editor before, glance at the submissions page just that one more time before you even begin to write your cover letter. Editorial policies change as do editors. Publishing houses may change their policies too.

You may have heard of the old adage “first impression is the last impression.” Well, your cover letter’s job is to create that all important first impression.  So please read and re-read, and go through the process all over again in your cover letter and of course your submission as well.

The cover letter is the part that introduces you to the editor and you wouldn’t want to spoil your chances at this stage. With more and more editors preferring the paperless  (read email) submission process over traditional methods (as editors like to put it in their guidelines page “paperless submissions kill less trees and are therefore more environment friendly), markets for writers never seemed closer. But herein lie the all the near invisible pitfalls.

In their impatience to be published many writers shoot off letters without hitting the spell check button. It’s the simplest of spellings that have all the devilry up their sleeve. So spell check, spell check and spell check.

I was careless once and just at the nick of time caught the gaffe which I put up in in the headline of this piece. Yes that’s right, I spelt editor wrong! Luckily for me I had to go down to answer the door or something and clicked “save” and five minutes later when I returned, my mind being refreshed somewhat, I spotted the error straightaway! Imagine calling your editor an “edioter!” That nonsense word has such terrible connotations that had I hit the send button I would have closed that particular editorial door forever!

Rumjhum Biswas’s fiction and poetry have been published in all the five continents, in print as well as online journals and anthologies. She has won prizes for poetrry in India and was long listed in the Bridport Poetry Prize in 2006. She blogs at htt://rumjhumkbiswas.wordpress.com

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!!!”

When in college, I was required for a humanities course to read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, her collection of essays about women and writing. At the time, my goal was simply to finish the book before the test, and so years later, I haven’t retained much of what she wrote. The one thing that has stuck with me is her thesis:

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

Her room is not so much an actual place as it is a metaphor for privacy. Stephen King gives similar advice in On Writing, although he doesn’t limit it to just the ladies and is more literal on the room part. He says to be a writer, you must have a room, and the room must have a door, and you must have the determination to shut the door.

That all sounded fine, but I didn’t take it seriously. I work in a newsroom, where at any given time, five conversations are going on near my desk, in addition to reporters on the phone, the police scanner, a football game on the television and the never-ending clicks of fingers on keyboards. Peace and quiet is for sissies, I thought.

That changed 18 months ago when I decided to write fiction in earnest.

To start with, I needed a computer, and the only one at my house was in the family room. The kids mostly used it for playing games and surfing the Internet, so the first difficulty I encountered was getting any time on it at all. And when I did, I had to deal with the myriad distractions that come with writing in the same room with three kids, my husband, the dog, and the television. I love my family and enjoy spending time with them, but family time and writing time mix about as well as oil and water. I kept trying to make it work though. I persevered for months amid the family room circus. Then the computer crashed. Permanently.

So I started writing at the office instead. At times, when there were no articles to edit and my colleagues were checking e-mail or posting on Facebook, I was pounding away at my latest short story. The approach was only marginally doable. It narrowed my writing time to five minutes here, ten minutes there. It was like setting a faucet to drip and trying to fill a glass.

Then at Christmas came a godsend: I received a generous amount of money, and there was no question in my mind what to spend it on. I researched the options for a few days and bought my first laptop.

Now every night after I get home from work, I take my laptop to my bedroom and close the door. I shut out the television shows and movies, video games, music, the dog who thinks he’s attention-starved, family members who want to talk about their day, the toddler who wants to “help” me hit the keys, the rumbling dishwasher and the tumbling clothes dryer. I shut it all out, and I write. I turn on the metaphorical faucet full blast and watch the words spill out on the screen. It’s beautiful.

In 1929, Virginia Woolf said a writer needs a room of her own.

Eight-one years later, here is my room: It’s a screen 14” wide, backed up by 3 GB of memory and a decent word-processing program, and I can take it with me anywhere. Along with my imagination, a thick skin, and a whole lot of determination, it’s all this woman needs to be a writer.

This piece originally appeared Jan. 2 on Jennifer’s blog.

Jennifer Campbell-Hicks lives in Arvada, Colorado, where she tries to find time to write in between her two full-time jobs as a journalist and mother of three. Her short story “Cowboy Jake and the Moon Men” will be appearing in the upcoming issue of Science Fiction Trails.