Stephen L. Thompson's Blog, page 13

Random Writing Tips – Love is weird

 I’min the process of revising a story about a guy whose fiancée dies.  The story covers from when he learns of herdeath to the funeral.  The writing groupI’m in critiqued the first draft, and one of them commented that they wanted toknow more about the relationship.  And Ihad realized that was something I had glossed over.  I think I just had one scene of himremembering how they met.  So I

Critiquing everything

Iseem to have a knack at finding plot holes and inconsistencies.  That can be good if I’m reading someone’sstory and I point them out so they can fix it before submitting it somewhere.  But it kind of sucks when I’m reading abestseller or watching a blockbuster. Thereis this one book series that I love and have read at least five times.  It wasn’t until the second or third time thatI

Free Pies!

Herein the US, we’ll be having an election on November 2.  It’s not a Presidential Election, and for mostpeople you’ll only be voting for local elections or issues, but voting isimportant.  So if you’re an Americancitizen over 18, I hope you’re registered and will be voting.Every election I tryto have a sale for Political Pies, mycollection of forty short stories of a political nature. 

Free story idea – Over the Edge

Ihave a lot of ideas for stories.  Like,if I wrote a novel’s worth of them every month, I’d still most likely diebefore getting through them all.  I willadmit that some of the ideas probably suck, but I think there are some that agood writer could make something of them. I’ll just never get a chance to. So, I give them to the world.  Ifyou can make something of these, go right ahead.  And

Random Writing Tips – Social experiments

 Everynow and then, I’ll come across a writer saying that they’re looking for anagent.  But instead of looking forquality writing, the agent is more interested in how many followers the writerhas.  Because how many people you canspam with messages to buy your book is, apparently, an important factor inmodern publishing.  I understand that itis a publishing business andbusinesses need to

Reboots, reboots, reboots

Inthe last few weeks, I’ve heard about attempts to reboot Quantum Leap, Babylon 5,even Jaws.  I understand that the entertainment businessis a business, and they know they can safely make money by rebooting a belovedclassic.  Even though half the money theymake will be from people who only watch it so that they can bitch online abouthow the original was better, it’s still money. And while

Writing Newsletter Third Quarter 2021

Inthe last three months, I’ve republished three of my stories.  They are “The Greater the Risk,” “Good for the Goose,” and “Shake Things Up.”Ialso published my … unfinished story “The News.” This is a story that I shouldhave finished in 2005, but it got forgotten about.  And now, it’s too outdated to really workwithout a major overhaul.  I hated tojust throw it away, so I just cut out all

Free story idea – The Wall

Ihave a lot of ideas for stories.  Like,if I wrote a novel’s worth of them every month, I’d still most likely diebefore getting through them all.  I willadmit that some of the ideas probably suck, but I think there are some that agood writer could make something of them. I’ll just never get a chance to. So, I give them to the world.  Ifyou can make something of these, go right ahead.  And

Unfinished story, “The News”

I probablystarted this story a few months after 9/11, back when I’d turn on the news thefirst thing in the morning just in case something had happened in thenight.  I started the story, thought itwas interesting, but didn’t finish it for one reason or another.  A few years later, I came across it and addedin some new details, but I think it was becoming dated, so I didn’t put muchwork into

Random Writing Tips – Finding a balance

 Lately,I’ve been having a hard time finding a writing/job/farm/life balance.  Meaning, I had plans for several writingprojects this year that I’ve done almost nothing with and I’m behind oncritiques for the writing group I’m a part of. The crappy part-time job I got to pay the bills is … draining.  I live on a small farm and recently it’s beena never-ending job of picking beans, tomatoes,