Archive for the ‘Writing Tips’ Category

Sep

Short Story Fundamentals: How to grab your reader

Posted by: DaronFraley Tags: Short Stories, Writing Tips

Ever since my creative writing class in High School, I have been facinated by the written word as an art form. Masterful art touches the soul. Ms. Flowers (great name for an art teacher, no?) taught me that there are so many methods of expression with art–charcoal, watercolors, oils, acrylics, pencil, ceramics, clay, bronze, stone. This list could go on for a long time.

Ms. Bowzer (awesome teacher) did the same for me in my writing class–novel, essay, metered poem, haiku, free-form, and many more. We spent a lot of time learning about short stories. I suppose it’s because short stories are just the right format and length for grading. I also think it’s because short stories are fun.

But what makes a short story? How is it the same as a novel? How is it different? I am far from an expert, but let me share a few tips I have learned.

1. LENGTH: Like poetry, a short story needs to get to the point without a bunch of fluff. Words should be chosen carefully. Make every word count. Keep it… short. If you want to practice this skill, try to write a haiku. English haiku contains 17 syllables, metered as 5-7-5, in three lines, with the first and third line typically rhyming. This will get the creative juices flowing!

2. CHARACTERS and SETTING: As a short story writer, you don’t have much time or space to elaborate. Backstory should be as minimal as possible. Don’t tell everything! You need just enough description and personality for both the setting and character to interest the reader. Make the reader care. Illicit an emotional response, but don’t sell it all. Think of this as more of an advertisement for a character who could be in a novel someday. That will help you to use only the most important words about them and the setting in which you paint them.

3. THEME: A short story typically has a point to it, or a theme. Sometimes the theme is stated or obvious. Sometimes it is very subtle. Stated or not, you need to give the reader a reason to remember the story. If the reader comes away from the experience and says, “What was that all about?”, then the writer hasn’t done their job.

4. PLOT and ENDING: Just like a novel, there needs to be some kind of conflict, or the reader will be bored. And this is just my personal opinion, but the ending is critical. If you want the reader to remember the story, grab their attention at the very end. Make them fall out of their chair with surprise. One of the best examples I have ever seen of this is Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “The Star“. If you decide to read it, NO CHEATING! Read it slow. Treat the ending with respect without jumping ahead.

If you have a short story you would like to share, give us a link in your comments. One rule: Keep it clean. No “R” rated material or profanity please.

Here is one of mine: “WATER” by Daron D. Fraley

Have fun!

2 Comments

Aug

Writing Tip – Word Repetitions

Posted by: DaronFraley Tags: Computer Nerdiness, My Writing Life, Writing Tips

Today I am going to share something I have learned as a writer: frequent word repetitions can be the ugly wart on Nanny McPhee’s face. Have you seen the movie? I thought it was great fun. And the wart was hideous. So was the snaggletooth. I digress…

Frequent word repetition can pull a reader out of the story. They make the reader stare at the page. Or the wart.

Them thar’ words might indicate a tendency for the author to write in passive voice (too many be / was words). Or they might be an author’s favorite word (like “just”). Sometimes they are simply a result of writing small amounts each day and forgetting what you wrote yesterday. I can’t remember what I ate yesterday, let alone what I wrote yesterday. And I like to eat. Even more than I like to write. Maybe.

But if the high-frequency occurrences are so undesireable, how can you squash all them little pests?

Here is a MS-WORD tip to brighten your day:

In your WORD tool bar, find the HIGHLIGHTER. Turn on a color. Any color. Except for pink. No pun intended for the word brighten in the previous sentence. Which I have now repeated.

In your Edit menu, click on “Replace”.

Fill in the fields as shown below:

First fill in your “Find what” field. Then click on the check-box for “Find whole words only”.

Then fill in your “Replace with” field. When I am editing, I find “was” and replace it with a “was” which is highlighted. You highlight by clicking the “Format” button and choosing “Highlight”. I leave these highlights in and then edit the entire manuscript for that type of word. Editing goes quite fast with the green and yellow highlights. Remember, no pink.

If I am only wanting a frequency count, I replace “was” with “ZZZZ” or something else, and watch how many it finds when I click the “Replace All” button. Once it is done replacing the words, I can change it back. Using a strange string of letters and choosing the “whole words only” option assures me that I don’t replace the was in washington by accident. We wouldn’t want to count that one anyway. The “ZZZZ” also makes it easy see, and easy to turn back to a “was”.

NOTE: Notice that your buttons at the bottom of the window will change (and the lable for the section also changes) depending on whether your cursor is IN the find field or the replace field. That will help you to not be LOOKING for highlighted text…. unless you really mean to do that.

I hope this was helpful for all you writers out there. Just kidding about the pink.

Have fun!

5 Comments