Flash Fiction Chronicles

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)

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!!!”

One of the important things a writer needs to understand is how people react to varying situations.

The best way to do this, most of the time, is to sit by quietly and watch. But once in awhile, it’s fun to jump in and participate. If you’ve never done this, as an experiment, try it.

Find an elevator system that gets lots of use. Wait for a car full of people, get in and then stand in the front of the car, with your back to the doors.

Watch how nervous the other passengers get. Most of them won’t even realize why they are upset, but I guarantee you will see the symptoms. Lots of eye movement. Shoulder and arm twitches. Foot shuffling.

Now turn it up a notch. Stare at someone. Better yet, look from person to person, studying them. You might get a verbal reaction on this one, from a polite “May I help you?” to an aggressive “What are you looking at?”

Ramp it up some more. Spout nonsense. Don’t talk directly to anyone, just talk. Loudly. People will be jumping off the elevator at the next opportunity, even if it isn’t their floor.

You are violating elevator etiquette. Move to the back. Face forward. Don’t look at anyone else. Don’t talk, unless it’s to someone you know, and then speak in hushed tones.

Unless you have never been on an elevator in your life, you know the rules as well as I do, but consider this. When did you learn them? Who taught them to you? Only the Shadow knows for sure, but there is a science devoted to the study of such things.

It’s called Proxemics and it examines how people perceive and use space, alone or in groups, particularly tight spaces such as an elevator.

It may not be polite to break those unwritten rules, but it is fun. And examining the way people react to such situations, filing their antics away for later use, can make you a better writer.

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K.C. Ball lives in Seattle, a stone’s throw from Puget Sound. She is an night writer, who works through the wee hours because there are so few interruptions and because that is when all the good ideas pop up.

One of her SF stories, Flotsam, was recently purchased by Analog. Other short fiction has appeared in various online and print publications, including Flash Fiction Online, Every Day Fiction, Boston Literary Magazine, Big Pulp, A Thousand Faces and Murky Depths.

K.C.’s flash fiction stories have been included in the Best of Every Day Fiction 2008 and the Best of Every Day Fiction Two anthologies and her story, Coward’s Steel, won third place in the 1st Quarter 2009 Writers of the Future competition. It will appear in the Writers of the Future XXVI anthology in August 2010.

K.C. is editor of 10Flash Quarterly, an online magazine featuring genre flash fiction, and she blogs about writing at A Moving Line.

I sold my first piece of fiction in 2007 to a small magazine that has since folded. After I’d done a happy dance around the house and called to order a celebratory pizza, I reread the editor’s note and started to panic.

She really liked the story and wanted to publish it. But she also asked if I could rewrite the ending to make the story a little more speculative in nature. Since I thought the story was perfect in every way already, I emailed a friend to complain that the editor was an idiot, an idiot! and that she wanted me to ruin my story for a token payment. But once I’d finished venting, I opened up the file and rewrote the ending.

The editor loved the new version–and so did I. Since that first sale, I’ve had a few dozen stories published, and a number of editors have asked for rewrites. In every single case, the rewrite has made the story stronger. The same goes for edits.

A lot of writers are so focused on the process of getting accepted that they have no idea what to expect afterwards. I know I didn’t. The rewrite and editing process for that first story confused me. If the story wasn’t perfect in the first place, why did the editor accept it? Why did she want to change it?

Nearly three years later, I now know that there is no such thing as a perfect story. Of course, I try to make each story as near-perfect as I can, but I’m not insulted or worried if an editor asks for a rewrite or extensive edits. Sometimes an editor sees an underdeveloped theme in a story that I never noticed, and wants me to emphasize it. Sometimes an editor finds a plot hole or pinpoints a problem with motivation. Sometimes, alas, my writing is unclear.

There are all sorts of reasons why an editor wants changes. I may complain (to myself or a friend, never the editor), but I always make the changes and I always end up happy with them. After all, the editor and I are both aiming for the same result: to make my story as good as possible so that readers will like it. That’s worth a little extra work.

Look for K. C. Shaw’s story, Fall or Fly tomorrow November 24th at Every Day Fiction.

K.C. Shaw’s fiction has appeared in Every Day Fiction, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Space Squid, Fictitious Force, and many other fine magazines. Her first novel, Jack of All Trades, was published in September 2009. Visit her website at http://kcshaw.net and her blog at http://kcshaw.blogspot.com/.

To outline, or not to outline: that is the question.

And it’s a surprisingly tricky question.  I’ve always been a proponent of the Whatever Works for You School of Writing, but some people seem to have very strong feelings one way or the other when it comes to outlining.   I once saw an online discussion where someone vehemently insisted that it was impossible to write a good fantasy novel without an outline.  Not too surprisingly, others strongly disagreed.

I think the extreme views some people take on the outline vs. no outline issue stems from the fact that one writer’s idea of an outline doesn’t necessarily match another’s.  Some people have very detailed blow-by-blow breakdowns.  My outlines tend to be a loose collection of sketched-out scenes—some detailed, some no more than “Joe does something to annoy Mary.”

Also, different writers have different feelings about outlines.  I know some writers who feel they have to stick to the outline no matter what.  For some, that’s a good thing because it keeps them focused; others find it constraining and therefore don’t use outlines.  And then there are people like me for whom the outline is a very fluid, ever-changing thing.  I don’t always use an outline, but when I do, I have no qualms about changing it if the story wants to take a different direction once I start writing.

So when do I outline?  Not very often for a girl who’s writing a blog post about outlining.  I used an outline for the novel I’m currently revising, and I have outlines for two sequels to it.  Even though the first novel’s outline changed constantly, having it was extremely helpful while writing.

For short stories and flash fiction, however, I’ve found that the write-the-first-draft-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach works better for me. Sometimes I do a sort of pseudo-outline partway into a story.  I’ll start writing with no idea where I’m going, and once I figure it out, I’ll jot down some notes real quick and then get back to the draft.  Mostly, though, I need to spew out the wordage to find the story.  Then I can worry about the proper structure for it.

When I attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2007, we were encouraged to experiment with a different approach to see if helped:  try outlining if you normally didn’t use one, or vice versa.  So I tried outlining a short story first to see if worked any better.  It didn’t.  In fact, I ended up with lots of unnecessary scenes and a story that was almost twice as long as it needed to be.

While outlining a short story didn’t work for me, I think it was an experiment worth trying.  Some of my Odyssey classmates found that a different approach improved their writing, and that’s the kind of thing you’re never going to discover unless you try.  Also, it may not have helped my story, but it did help me better understand my process.

I’m a singer as well as a writer, and I realized that my short story writing isn’t all that dissimilar from how I learned to approach a song.  During my voice lessons, we’d pick songs apart to the smallest detail.  Notes, rhythms, phrasing, dynamics, tempo, breathing, interpretation—there’s a hell of a lot that goes into just one song.  But my college voice teacher always reminded me that, when it came time for performance, you couldn’t think about all those things on the same analytical level you did during practice.  Thought during performance is required, of course, but for the most part, you just had to sing and hope all the minutiae clicked.

So that’s sort of how I’ve come to view writing short stories now, except the process is reversed.  The revision and critiquing stage is when the thing gets picked apart.  The first draft is when I just write and hope that all of my previous practice clicks.

As with performing a song, if I make a mistake in the first draft, the best thing is to just keep going.  But every so often in performance, I’ve seen even professional singers get off on such a wrong foot that they have to stop, apologize to the audience, and start the song over.  The same thing sometimes happens to me with a story.  Luckily, writers generally don’t have to start over in front of an audience.

Partway through a story I was writing a few months ago, I became stuck and felt like I was flailing blindly.  The more I tried to plow forward, the worse it got.  So I started over.  The first thing I realized was that what I had written, even when slogging, wasn’t as terrible as I thought.  Better yet, I figured out why I was stuck.  By the time I reached the point in the story where I had given up and started over, everything clicked and I knew how to move forward with the rest.  That time, I got through the whole song without apologizing and starting over.

Would outlining first have helped me avoid starting over with that story?  Probably not.  While thinking about this process, I realized that outlining doesn’t necessarily keep you (or at least me) from having to start over.  For example, I ran into the same problem with the first draft of my novel a few years back.  Even though I had an outline, I got stuck somewhere around chapter 2 or 3.  I kept trying to move forward, but it was rather like bashing my head against a wall—not a pleasant feeling.  So I went back to the beginning, started revising, and voila!  I figured out what wasn’t working and was able to plow straight through the rest of the novel.

So, the lesson learned for my writerly self is this: outline or no outline, sometimes you’re better off apologizing to the audience and starting over.  If the final product’s good enough, no one will care that you screwed up the first time, and they certainly won’t care if you used a road map to get there.

Barbara A. Barnett is a 2007 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, where she learned valuable things about writing and the evil ways of chickens. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Shimmer, Hub, Every Day Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, Kaleidotrope and Flash Me Magazine.  She lives with her husband in southern New Jersey, works for a theater company in Philadelphia, and frequently bursts into song. You can find her online at www.babarnett.com.

The editor of Flash Fiction Chronicles asked me to write a post about my writing life and I’m happy to answer her questions, though my first response was to make a joke, but she wouldn’t take “no” for an answer so here are my responses to her insistent questions.

How do I manage to be so prolific? 

I write for an audience and the audience is mostly the folks in my writer’s community.  We do challenges every week and that gives me something to write about and it keeps me writing regularly.  They are very short pieces of course.  I’m in flash poetry forum too so I usually write one to two pieces of poetry and flash a week.  That’s output!  

Of course I have a few other little audiences as well – the audience at Every Day Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Static Movement and last but not least, Micro Horror.  I tend to put stories together in such a way that they can be submitted to one of those magazines and I have a few others I submit to too.  10FLASH and Doorknobs and Bodypaint run regular themed challenges and I can’t resist that.  

I’ve been on over-drive throughout October.  The Halloween Competition at Micro Horror always inspires me.  I wrote six flashes for that this year.  I usually send one a month but I just love Halloween!  I’ve won the competition twice and the prize is always something unique and well worth winning but I’d do it anyway.  My husband says I have to lose sometime but even if I lose I win because I get read.  I’m a most unusual candidate for writing horror because I don’t read horror – too scary!  But my brand of horror is I think fairly traditional – more ‘chiller’ than horror.  I was invited to write a story for Toe Tags because Brian Barnett and William Pauley III liked my Micro Horror work.  That was great! 

I love when somebody wants me to tell them a story.  Being so prolific in the way that I am does have a down side.  I don’t have a book out there and I’m just vain enough to think that I should.  Larger projects tend to get pushed out by ‘immediate gratification’.  I have a collection of poetry but it wasn’t big enough to go for the Crashaw Prize – I’d not have won anyway…  I have 7 chapters of a novella, and unfinished business with some Technopolymorphs I know.

 Where do I get ideas? 

For a start, I write according to prescribed parameters.  I mostly know the length and the theme and sometimes the genre I am going to write.  After that I use whatever knowledge and experience life has thrown at me, information gleaned from internet research, conversations with my very erudite spouse, other peoples’ conversations at the pool, on the bus – anything really. 

I look for a character’s name to give me an idea who I’m talking about and then I people his or her world and it seems to fall into place with the name.  

How long does it take? 

It’s a piece of string.  Sometimes the first draft is almost the final draft.  “Trip to Tangier” took me two years.  “Dance” took me three.  I had a poem published in Twisted Tongue that I finally got right after twenty years!  “Resolution,” a favourite for many EDF readers took me just over half an hour and one revision. 

Sometimes you just know when something is right.  At other times it takes a clever editor’s eye to see where improvements are needed.  My story “Dock,” due this month in EDF on November 15, was one of those.  It just needed a tiny tweak but I needed Camille and the team to tell me that.  

Well, Gay I hope that answers your questions – thanks for asking!

Oonah V. Joslin is the winner of two Micro Horror prizes and an honoree in The 2009 Binnacle Comp. Full lists of what went where available on at Oonah’s Every Day Fiction author site. She also served as judge of  The Shine Poetry Competition 2008 and is managing editor of Every Day Poets. Anthologies: The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008, Toe Tags, and  A Man of Few Words.

I have come to the conclusion that Ideas Are Alive.  I will explain with an anecdote.

Last night, I worked on a practice piece (from the prompt for the 25th.) I had shortened my brainstorm and actual writing time significantly, since I did want to get to bed sometime before I had to be awake. The stuff I came up with was, in a word, garbage. Regurgitated garbage, in truth, so I felt no guilt in closing the laptop when the timer went off and simply going to bed without giving the piece a second thought.

But then, something happened when the lights went out. My terrible idea began to bubble in the back of my mind, something I was only dimly aware of as I settled down. It percolated into something better as I sank into sleep, and I remember hoping that I would be able to recall the new slant for the idea when I awoke.

While I slept, the idea kept working – like yeast-leavened bread, it expanded and became something not so sticky and hard to work with, but the foundation for something delicious. I woke this morning with the story fully formed in my head, and wrote it down in an hour and a half. None of the prompt words made an appearance, but they didn’t need to. The idea did all the work. It needs tidying, of course, and several edits with breaks between before I send it out into the world. But it is there.

And all I did was sleep on it.

(reprinted from original at Blogging in the Dark)

TL.Schofield is the sum of an equation factoring in her upbringing, her love, her passions, her children, her pets, and her insatiable need to create something out of nothing. The results of this equation are often inconsistent, depending on the chameleon color of her hair, her proximity to the ocean, and her consumption of coffee and / or cheese. She is often lost in thought.

Content, structure, and language work together. No one element can make a story work. Many writers use a series of steps—brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revision, editing, and proofreading—to juggle content, structure, and language. The order of each step is a matter of choice and fluctuates with story ideas. Here is my preference:

•  To create content: brainstorm, free-write, draft a first draft
•  To apply structure: outline first draft, then draft second draft
•  To perfect language: revise, edit, and proofread

Content refers to the subject matter of a story.

• The who, what, when, where, and how of a specific idea.
• A character (the protagonist) finds himself in a difficult situation at a certain time and place and must deal with that situation. 
• How the protagonist deals with the situation depends on the protagonist’s wants, character, and the nature of the obstacles he must overcome.
• Content provides the “story question or problem” that propels the protagonist through the plot and ultimately reveals a universal theme, a jolt, an epiphany, some small observance of life.
• Content evolves from a premise, notes, a rough draft, research, observation, plus the attitudes and concerns of the writer.

Structure refers to the basic organization of a story.

• Just as a play is divided into three acts, most stories have three main segments
  • The opening (Act 1) gives a story focus and meaning by providing the premise, setting, and tone of the story as well as hints at the nature of obstacles the protagonist will face.
  • The main body of the story (Act 2) focuses on the protagonist’s actions to resolve the story problem.
  • The conclusion (Act 3) reveals the results of the protagonist’s struggle and infuses that struggle with meaning.
• Each segment of a story has a similar structure: the overall story as well as each chapter, each scene within the chapter, each beat within the scene
• Structure also involves other devices such as set-ups and pay-offs, sub-plots, and the shaping of structure specifically to content.
• Structure evolves from outlines, note-taking, drafts or a combination of the three.
   

Language refers the diction and style used to express a story’s idea.

• Diction refers the specific words that are chosen
• Style refers to how those words are combined, the order, the length of sentences and includes the use of literary devices such as metaphor, symbolism, and allusion.
• Grammar keeps writing clear and understandable.
• Language evolves from revision and rhythm.

Process is what brings these three basic components of composition together.

Writing is a Process. Yeah, it is!

The rough draft is about content…
making it up.
The second draft is about structure…
making sense.
The third draft is about language…
making it clear.
The fourth draft is about perfection…
making it publishable.

Actually, the steps to the writing process bleed into each other like ink dropped from a leaky pen over one spot. The blotches don’t land in exactly the same place, but they seep beyond each other’s borders, and create a new kind of art.

This post appeared last year at Gay Degani’s Words in Place Blog.

When I started writing seriously a few years ago, the novel was, in my mind, the pinnacle of fiction.  Flash fiction sat at the other end of the writing spectrum, the wasteland of lazy writers without much to say.  I wrote that first novel, edited it countless times, and failed.  The process held value; my manuscript did not.  Since then, I have written two more short novels for young adults and I am working on a third.  Along the way, I fell in love with flash.

I have always had a passion for words.  As an undergraduate student, I found myself at a crossroads.  Teaching was the family curse, but what subject would I study?  Math and science seem too clean, too perfect.  History, while fascinating, is an adventure to discover what actually happened.  English—especially literature—is an adventure in what is possible.

But words are difficult.  Too often, I find myself struggling for just the right phrase to make the jumbled mess in my brain make sense to another person.  As a high school teacher, I try to make sense of the curriculum, school expectations, and the future for my students. 

Words are difficult, but mighty, and flash allows words to share the spotlight with all other elements of fiction.  In longer works, the words sometimes move aside for characters, conflict, and plot.  Sure, no story lives without words, but a reader can lose sight of them when they are strung together 100,000 strong, just as the beauty of a single tree can be lost in the forest. 

In flash, each word counts.  A story of 500 words only has so much wiggle room.  I welcome the challenge of trimming a flash piece to fit a market’s guidelines.  Two words too long?  Time to revisit the verbs and nouns, making sure they deliver as much impact as possible.

I primarily write dark fantasy and horror.  Readers come to a horror story with certain expectations, and some are quite jaded about trick endings and long, drawn out narratives.  Flash fiction can free a writer to grab the reader with powerful language and force them to an inevitable, horrifying conclusion.   It is a quick jab in the gut, a jolt to remind weary readers that they do love stories.

For this writer, flash reminds me why I love words.

Aaron currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons and a tattooed rabbit, enjoying every mood swing in the Midwest weather. His flash fiction has appeared in Every Day Fiction, 10Flash, Northern Haunts, Everyday Weirdness, and on various bathroom walls.  Stop by his blog and read the free Friday flash.

I’ve been working on a story, “Starkville,” draft by draft, and posting it, warts and all, over at  Words in Place. 

Although sometimes whole essays or stories present themselves as full entities, these occasions are rare for me. I need to revisit a piece of work several times before putting it out for public consumption, but this time I’m putting it out there during the process.  Brave for me.  I used to be one of those people who could be alone in a room and still be embarrassed by her writing.

But now that I understand that writing is a process, I look forward to the stage after my first “shit” draft.  The stage where I dive in, analyze, cogitate, simmer. 

There is, of  course, the knowledge that on the other side of multiple drafts lays the obvious joy of having a better product.  But  rewriting itself has its own allure, its own rewards during the act of rewriting.  It’s in the thrill of the challenge, and the moments when frustration breaks out, but patience wins over. 

It’s similar to working a crossword puzzle or a sudoku.   Sometimes when I run up against an impenetrable block of black and white squares in a crossword puzzle,  I have to give up for awhile, walk away, wash a few dishes, but I know, know, when I get back to it, I’ll experience a breakthrough.  The anwers to a series of clues will be startlingly clear, one completed word leading to the next and the next after that.  And there’s that moment of triumph. 

The same is true with rewriting.  The frustration, the patience, the breakthrough.  Dish-washing isn’t always about procrastination.

The act of writing is organic .  It grows and changes and twists back on itself, and then grows again.  Unless someone has sold you a handful of magic beans,  growth can only happen if given time and tending.  I’ve learned (and it’s been a long hard lesson) to have faith in the process and by doing that, I’ve learned to have faith in myself. 

When I first sit down to write a new piece, I’m excited to see what happens. I throw words and ideas down, conscious of, but not worried about, clarity, connection, conciseness. At that point, I don’t stress too much because I know there are forgotten angles, structural screw-ups, words misused, people offended. It’s on the revisits that a piece develops and deepens, and for me, that’s where the fun is. I am seduced by the promise of discovering something in my head I didn’t know was there the first time around. Returning to the work often leads into “epiphany.”

This self-enlightenment can only come from setting aside a project and letting it percolate. That’s trite, but it’s dead-on accurate. While the first draft is locked in my subconscious (the brain’s back burner) , I go about my life. It cooks. I forget about it. Then I come back. The act of moving it out to the front of the stove (the conscious brain) is rewarding. What do I have here? I made this? Let me taste it. Has the flavor of the dish (story/essay) deepened? What spices (a sex scene, more conflict, a startling fact) will it need to be better? What in the world have I forgotten? 

The best and most gratifying part is, if it isn’t just right, story or essay, crossword puzzle, or even the gumbo I’m serving for dinner, I can make it work.

Usually it’s the “fixed” product I put out there for public consumption or at least as fixed as I think it needs to be.  But with “Starkville,” which wasn’t “Starkville” when I started, I wanted to see what would happen if I put it out there right from the shit draft on. 

It’s been motivating. 

Get in that chair, Gay, make it better.  You’re embarrassing yourself by leaving that draft up there.   

And it’s been confidence-building. 

Have faith, Gay.  You’ve got a lot of words still in you, so don’t worry about one piece of writing so much.  Just do it, for pete’s sake and lighten up. 

I guess I’ve finally learned enough not to mind being stark-naked in public!

So if you want to read the most current draft of Starkville, as of today June 12, click here.  And then check back.  It just might get better.