Julie Duffy's Blog, page 184

Adjust Your Expectations

I’m all for big dreams and Big Hairy Audacious Goals 1 (after all, I’m the one who set herself the goal of completing a short story every day in May!) but not all goals are appropriate at every stage in our development.

What Is Success?

Maybe you will get published in Granta or Ellery Queen or McSweeneys one day. But if you’re still grappling with so-so feedback from your writers’ group perhaps today is not that day. That doesn’t mean you can’t shoot for a closer target. Perhaps you can submit to a smaller-circulation market, a newer publication that hasn’t attracted as much attention yet, a regional contest or anthology.

Or maybe you don’t need to ‘be published’ at all right now.

Reasons Not To Publish

Perhaps your version of success is ‘good feedback from my friends’. Perhaps you want to put together a collection of your stories and have it bound by a print on-demand publishing service to leave to your heirs.

Perhaps you can dedicate the next year to writing and revising rather than submitting stories, freeing yourself from the pressure of thinking about ‘success’ in terms of ‘acceptances’. File your stories chronologically and, at the end of the year, look back and see how far they have come. Then—and this is crucial—review your progress and decide what your next set of goals should be. Base your decision on where-my-writing-is-now rather than where-I-wish-it-was.

Reaching and Stretching

Whatever you decide to focus on, try to set your expectations at a level just a little beyond your current abilities. Give yourself something to strive for, but don’t set yourself you up for failure.

Having Said All That…

- Don’t let your inner critic obscure all that is good about your writing.

- Don’t let fear hold you back from finding out if your writing really IS ready for the big leagues.

- Don’t be timid in the face of challenge.

- Do set yourself ‘stretch’ goals that push you to improve.

- Do allow yourself to dream about your perfect reader, curled up in a comfy chair somewhere, transfixed by your stories, feeling the same joy you feel when you read a really great story.

- Do work hard towards your goal of being the best writer you can be.

- Do keep writing.

 

This post is part of the Becoming A Better Writer series. Find the other parts here:

Becoming A Better Writer Pt. I: One Skill You Must Master To Become A Great Writer

Becoming A Better Writer Pt. II: How To Ask For — And Deal With — Feedback

Becoming A Better Writer Pt. III: Learn From Your Writing Heroes

Becoming A Better Writer Pt. IV: Practice Makes Perfect (Or: Write More!)

Becoming A Better Writer Pt. V: Adjust Your Expectations

A term coined by Jim Collins in “Built To Last”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hair... ↩

[Writing Prompt] A February Story

It’s February.

What does it mean to you? Shortest month? Leap year? Darkness and winter? Summer in the southern hemisphere?

Write A February Story
Tips

What might “February” mean to an old woman? A young man? A kid whose birthday is in Feb?

Might you write a story with a sentence for each day in February? A 28-sentence story? (or maybe 29)

What unexpected stories could you tell, with a theme of “February”?

 

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: February #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://storyaday.org/wow-february

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is February! #storyaday http://storyaday.org/wow-february

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://storyaday.org/wow-february

See my story – and write your own, today: February at #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://storyaday.org/wow-february

The Write On Wednesday story prompts are designed to prompt quickly-written stories that you can share in the comments. It’s a warm-up exercise, to loosen up your creativity muscles. Come back every Wednesday to see a new prompt or subscribe.

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter,  click here .

Who’s Your Writing Hero – And Why?

This post is a Q&A post. I do the Q-ing, you do the A-ing.

Photo by Karla_K

I’m dying to hear your responses to this one, so please do wade in with any comments.

Q. Who Is Your Writing Hero And Why?

I know it’s a hard question to answer.

I mean, there are writers I have loved for almost as long as I could read. There are other writers whose careers I admire. There are other writers who are so bad and yet so successful that they give me hope (any time I’m feeling discouraged about my writing, I reach for one of their books and remind myself that if they have 22 books in the world, surely my first draft isn’t as far from “publishable” as it feels right now!)

So what writers do you you emulate? How? Why? Or do you reject the whole idea of writing heroes? Let me know:

Write More

The only way to learn how to write is to write.

Write, finish, write some more.

After that you can start worrying about critiques and editors and agents and publishing and publicity.

But all of that is secondary to the writing. To become better at writing you must sit down and spin tales, craft stories, put words on the page.

The world is awash in articles, books and courses on how to manage the business of a writer’s life. You can find all the advice you will ever need and more on how to make time to write, how to write when you don’t have time, how to write better, and on how to find critique partners, find agents, find your audience.

The more important question is:

Can you find the will to sit down and put words on the page day after day after day?

[Reading Room] A Priest In The Family by Colm Tóibín

A story about a paedophile priest in Ireland? My heart sank at the mere thought. Not really my usual cup of tea.

However, I’d heard enough about Colm Tóibín to be curious. I hadn’t read any of his work, so when this story popped up on the Selected Shorts Podcast, I decided to give it a try (albeit with my finger poised over the ‘skip’ button).

I’m so glad I did.

The story centers around Molly, a septuginarian mother-of-three, who has that traditional symbol of respectability, “a priest in the family.” Not that she shows any great reverence for the idea — or the church.

Molly, modern enough to be learning to email her grandchildren and with a social life better than that of her grown daughters, lives in a village in Ireland, the kind where your neighbours know more about you than you do yourself. Which, in this case, turns out to be true.

Tóibín goes into the excruciating details of Molly’s day and routine — something that would irritate me if handled by a less deft-writer, but which instead spun a web of suspense and reality that made the quiet end to the story pack such a punch.

I’m not a fan of stories where ‘nothing happens’. In this story you may have to watch carefully for the somethings that happen, but they’re there. The story is as restrained as its main character, and just as impressive.

I often find myself growing impatient with ‘literary’ stories, but this is an excellent example of how to write a quiet, literary story without losing readers who love a great character and a good ending.

[Reading Room] Lamentations of the Father by Ian Frazier

This is a wonderful, funny piece, written in high biblical style, but in fact spoken by a modern, harried father.

It is a great example of how to write humor, subvert expectations and trade on the language in which your life has been (perhaps unknowingly) steeped.

If you can, get hold of the Selected Shorts version read by the late, lamented Isaiah Sheffer.

(The full title of the piece is: “Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father”)

Finding Your Ending

Just a quick tip, today, from my own writing experience.

Today I was writing a story for Five Minute Fridays1. I wrote my first sentence and then a second.

As soon as I tried to write a third sentence I realized I had already written my last line. I had the essence of the story in those first two sentences. I had simply arrived at the end too soon.

So I put my cursor in between the two sentences and filled in the rest of the story.

Having the last line — the destination — already in place made it so much easier to stay on track in the middle.

 

Why not try this as an exercise?

Write “Once upon a time there was a _________”

Then write “And in the end_________”

Then go back and fill in the middle.

If you like what you wrote, leave a comment so we can come and have a look.

 

Yeah, I love a challenge. So what?! ↩

Learning From Your Writing Heroes

So you’ve decided you can be a better writer, you’ve listened to feedback and now you have resolved to act to strengthen your skills.

Now, how do you do that?

Seek Out Knowledge

If you’re a self-starter, consider the feedback you’ve had and plug those terms (“realistic dialogue”, “character deveopment”) into a search engine. Seek out insightful blogs and articles to help you improve those areas in which you are weak.

Read blogs by successful writers who are further along the path to you. Many published writers are extremely generous (if sporadic) in their blog posts. Check out the blogs (and their archives) by Neil Gaiman, Jane Espensen, and more.

Read/Listen to interviews with writers and podcasts about writing. You can find some of my favorite podcasts for writers, here.

Commit to reading about writing over the long term, and dismiss the urge it raises in you to whine “I’ll never be able to…” or “I’ll never be as good as…”. If you do keep reading and listening for months and years, you’ll find that you’ll learn more and despair less.

Classes

If you like classroom learning there is no shortage of writing classes, workshops and ebooks to help guide your way.

Don’t be afraid to specialize. Don’t take a generalized ‘short story writing’ class if you’ve come to realize that what you need help with is dialogue.

Likewise don’t be afraid to reach outside your specialty. If you see an interesting drama workshop or screenwriting class about “action and suspense”, give it a second look. If you are interested, you’ll get much more out of the class than if you are taking it because you just feel you ought to.

If you like the classroom feel, but can’t get to an online or real-world class, look out for ‘home-study’ workbooks and e-books that are structured on a class format, with weekly (or daily) assignments and lessons. Set yourself a deadline and, better yet, see if you can get a writing friend to go through the course with you, to simulate that in-class experience.

CopyCat Writing

This is one of the most popular segments of the Warm Up Writing Course that I run each year before StoryADay May.

During the Renaissance — the great flowering of European art and culture during the 16th and 17th centuries — great artists and artisans enrolled apprentices to train with them. The apprentices learned the principles of their craft not by creating their own unique works but by painstakingly copying the works and style of their masters.

We can do this in writing too (just as long as we don’t attempt to get any of our trainee copycat work published. That’s a plagiarism scandal just waiting to erupt!).

Take a story by a writer you really, really admire — preferably a short short story that won’t take for ever to reproduce. Analyze it in minute detail: from word choice to sentence length. Now, choose a different setting and different characters with different dreams from that of the originals, and write a copycat story, following the exact structure and tone of the original.

(If you want more details about this, and examples to follow, consider signing up for the Warm Up Writing Class I run each April, or try the home study version, available year round.)

Keep Learning

Nowt hat you have some great sources for how to learn from the greats, there is one final thing to realize:

You are never going to be finished.

You will grow and change as a writer as long as you keep doing…and every stage is going to require more learning, more inspiration and new heroes.

Commit to learning about your craft for as long as you are doing it, and you’ll be firmly on the path taken by all your writing heroes.

This post is part of a series on Becoming A Better Writer (or: “What If My Writing Really Isn’t Good Enough”)

You can start at the beginning of the series, read the previous article (How To Ask For — And Deal With — Writing Feedback) or read the next article (Write More!).

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a single episode in this series, let me send it to your inbox:

[Writing Prompt] Writing From A Scenario – Lorina’s Story

Today’s prompt is a whole scenario with a named character and a tricky situation. Your job is to decide who this character is and how they will ultimately react. I’m really curious to see how different people deal with this, so please do post either the story or a link to your version in the comments, if you’re OK with posting it online.

The Prompt

Lorina Dorsey is nice. Always has been. Which is probably why she’s 52, unmarried and still teaching 5th Grade at the same school after 29 years, she thinks, wryly. She sometimes wonders if people think her weak. If they only knew the strength it took to…but no.

As our story starts, Lorina, is returning to work after the shattering business of burying her widowed mother. Lorina has no siblings. Walking into the school where she has taught fifth grade for 29 years, she sees that the door to Dr Tatchell’s office is closed. She can, nevertheless, hear voices. Dr Tatchell is roaring at someone. It’ll be that nice young Mr Santiago, getting some ‘professional development’ from Tatchell, no doubt. Only the timid, like her, stayed here longer than a semester.

Rounding the corner, Lorina sees a heap of coats on the floor outside her room. She tuts. Nothing bothers her more than sloppiness. Reaching down to pluck the coats off the ground, she is startled to find Andrew Smeel, the smallest boy in her class, curled up underneath them, sobbing. With some coaxing he tells her that he’d been involved in a scuffle with the other boys yesterday and the substitute had sent them all to Dr. Tatchell. At this point, Andrew curls up in a ball and refuses to say any more.

Lorina is standing, looking down at an 11 year old boy, curled into a fetal position outside her door. She turns to see Mr. Santiago stumbling towards her, white-faced. Her mother is dead. All she has is this school. Her eyes bore into the door of the Principal’s office. She takes one step.

Write Lorina’s story.

Tips

Feel free to change the gender or ethnicity of the characters, as well as the period if it helps.

Start anywhere. Use the backstory explicitly or, better yet, simply use it to inform the choices you make for Lorina.

Ask yourself what Lorina wants, what she’s capable of, what you can show the readers to make them suspect she’s capable of anything.

Will you write this realistically, or take a flight of fancy?

 

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Lorina’s Story #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is a scenario! #storyaday http://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

See my story – and write your own, today: Lorina’s Story at #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter,  click here .

 

The Write On Wednesday story prompts are designed to prompt quickly-written stories that you can share in the comments. It’s a warm-up exercise, to loosen up your creativity muscles. Come back every Wednesday to see a new prompt or subscribe.

[Reading Room] – Heart of a Champion by T. C. Boyle

“Heart of a Champion” takes the reader from the opening credits to the close of an old (fictional) Lassie serial.

It is fascinating tutorial for those of us who have absorbed most of our ‘short stories’ in the form of TV shows or webisodes or through other visual media. It demonstrates quite nimbly, how to move from a visual image to the written word. It’d be worth reading for that alone, even if it wasn’t beautifully written and laugh-out-loud funny, too.

Another great feature of this story is that it parodies a much-loved show but goes beyond simple goofing around with the predictability of the TV show. The author thinks hard about the question of ‘what if it didn’t have to end the way it always had to end?’. He comments, subtly on what the show said about the characters who sleep-walked their way through it and the society that it was created by and that it reflected.

If you are heavily influenced by movies or TV shows, read this story, then write a story that contains similarly cinematic images.

If you are attempting a parody, take a close look at what this story does to do more than simply turn into a ‘skit’ and instead become a whole, novel piece of art.