Lisa Rodrigues's Blog, page 2
June 3, 2020
Shortlisted for Flashing the Cover competition
Very happy to be shortlisted for the “flashing the cover” flash fiction competition by Writing WA and judged by Night Parrot Press. With over 100 entries, it’s pretty exciting to get a special mention in the top 10.
You can read all the shortlisted entries with the judges comments here.
April 25, 2020
What I’m learning about writing, April edition
Just finished Jeff Vaandermeers Wonderbook. It provided me with just the right inspiration to knuckle through some short stories in the past couple of months. I was going to try to summarise everything it taught me about writing, but the book hasnt been my only influence this month. Ive also been doing Writer Victorias 5 month emerging short story course online, and Ive started the process of using beta readers, as well as attending and workshopping with my local writers group.
As a beginner,...
April 15, 2020
March 28, 2020
On villains and complex characters
JK Rowling hated a woman who used twee little bows in her hair, and she used that character trait in one of her villains. This got me thinking about what villainous traits I know in real life and how I can borrow from them to create complex and interesting villains on the page. This is a brain dump for me to refer back to later.
Villains in text
In comic books villains can be the opposite of the protagonist, brought to light in the movie Unbreakable, against the villain Mr Glass. Their...
March 21, 2020
March 17, 2020
Editing short stories: my process
I’m writing more shorts now and it’s helping me get a handle on what works for me in terms of my editing process.
First draft: I try to just write freely for my first draft, trying to immerse myself in the story as much as possible, and taking Terry Pratchett’s advice to Neil Gaiman – ‘You don’t have to know where the story ends up’.
Second draft: Going through and making sure everything makes sense, and doing a basic grammar check. Checking that dialogue is realistic – all the basics, but no major tweaks. This functions like a basic re-read to see if the story has legs.
Third draft: This is the hefty one for me. At this point I
Check that the characters are likeable and have enough backstory. Who are they? Can I say more about who they are and how they came to this story? Do they have depth and are not just carbon copies? In this draft I also think of my overall structure – is the start, middle and end strong? Does it have a good opening? Is there additional meaning I can add to the opening? ie ‘book ending’ a story with an end that reflects that start? In this draft I also think about tone and add in or remove figurative language.
At this point I pull in a couple of beta readers
Fourth draft: Acting on feedback from the beta read, which is often little bits of consistency – clarity and logic checking. This is a good time to consider structure again after checking with beta readers to see if anything works.
At this point I run past another couple of readers or a writing group
Fifth draft: Hopefully this should be ready, and this draft is just little tweaks based on the writing group’s feedback.
March 14, 2020
Bird
You are a bird
trapped in a glass box.
You put yourself there.
You are bleeding.
No-one will help you.
