I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!
SUCH A BUSY WEEKEND!! (You’d never believe that a RETIRED person could be busy, you I WAS WRONG! I AM busy!) SO, without further ado, short story observations by – with a few from myself…
1) “Everyone would imagine [Douglas Adams, who created the hysterically funny novel ‘HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY’ would be] an author this creative to be in a joking mood the whole time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Adams knew first-hand what it’s like to hate writing, to give up, and to throw in the towel […the one] he wrote about.”
It's funny, ‘cause I sometimes reach a point when I just don’t WANT to write. For ME, I’m most vulnerable to this after I’ve finished writing, editing, and polishing a work. For example, I recently finished a novel that I began here with blog entries in 17 years ago. Not only did I finish it, I had NOT finished it when I was writing it as a series of blog entries. Don’t get too excited for me – I’m not Matt Weir who “…originally self-published on [blog] blog, in a serialized format.” – which novel was then discovered, published in total, and went on to be made into a movie staring Matt Damon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel). That’s not my story…
2) “Writing involves worrying. It’s a natural part of the process…Tell yourself that you need to separate the act of writing from the act of worrying. First things first. And writing is always first, right?”
Yeah! Um…sort of. My FIRST thing is to noodle. I write pages and pages of dialogue, directions the story could go, what needs to happen, and possible character names and relationships. I also research – for my last book, I looked up pictures of imaginary Martian colonies; what the Apostle Paul and Queen Esther might have looked like; what a Martian “rover” might look like; and about how long it would take for a Martian, planet-wide colony might take to grow to six million people.
3) “Learn to love editing…[after you write the story]…You can come back and do it again in the light of what you discover about the story later on…] The story needs to develop and so do you as the writer. Once you write the ending, you will have developed more skills as a writer, skills you didn’t have when you started…The idea is to accept that writing and editing are separate processes.”
This was more evident that ever after I finished editing my FIRST novel down from a bunch of blog entries; squeezed it into a novel, then shortened it, then it was published (online only – my theory is that young people can own VERY few things in their world…I certainly couldn’t!...but we COULD own books! Bought with allowance…or mowing lawns.) Buying an online book apparently isn’t the same thing as owning and holding a paper book!
To get to the end whatever novel or book I’m writing, I have to back OVER what I first wrote, then edited, then rewrote, and then finally edited into something I I found myself lost in when I read it “one-more-time” before mailing it out.
That’s when I know the story is ready: I read it one more time, even when I know the ending, and even though I’m the one that INVENTED it!...and I find myself reading the story for the sake of the story.
4) “Fourteen underappreciated quotes for writers…When your plot takes you somewhere you weren't expecting…my methods of navigation have their advantage…I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be…For when you're in need of a different perspective…[you might discover] that solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there's no point trying to look in that direction because it won't be coming from there.”
I’ve lost track of the times my story has been abruptly hijacked by my characters who look disdainfully from my imagination and say something like, “You want me to do WHAT? That’s not what I’d do! You made me a person who can’t stand purple martins and you have me working for the American Stochastic Terrorists for the Protection of Purple Martins! That’s not RIGHT!”
I have surprised myself with the ending of a story – my most recent completed novel had one of the main characters die in a gruesome way that I had not envisioned even in my wildest nightmares!
So, I need to be ready to FOLLOW THE STORY rather than trying to force characters – who I have deliberately given brains to think with! Even if they ARE imaginary; they come from my own mind, my own feelings, and sometimes even out of things I didn’t realize I was having trouble dealing with until they suddenly pop into life in a story.
My succinct advice: Write the story, let it take you where it NEEDS to take you, then put it away for a while, then take it out and reread it, changing what CRIES OUT to be changed…and when you reach the point where your own story takes you by surprise, polish it and send it out…
References: https://www.writerswrite.co.za/douglas-adams-on-the-difficulties-of-writing/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3EUfkVUIiJ5e5wmvPVQlnfDmPsaCFV_W44qFOdksJN6ypcIZvws2fYzoo_aem_AcdovO8ji8HPtGguT1wTy1xuVlkfy3YnZ63ayAn-nmQd_ZHY_IGu6sLCrkEfpb6i0e_AFGZ2hxkpw6eHM3kZ08pH; https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/douglas-adams-quotes-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy ; https://www.primedraft.app/blog/douglas-adams-on-writing/ Image: https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/vvzgr_8t62DN58ea90G_ig--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTQyNw--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/space_311/c2533ec4e78b65579e68a4920a40802f
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