Getting Started As A Writer: National Short Story Month

I love interacting with everyone on my Facebook page. The one question I get all the time is, “I want to write a novel but I don’t know where to start?”

My response is always the same, write a short story.

George R. R. Martin said, “I suggest that any aspiring writer begins with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That’s like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft.” Mr. Martin is 100% correct. Short stories help you develop your skills with dialogue, plotting, characterization and most importantly pacing. 90,000 words can seem daunting when you’re staring at a blank screen, and all you have is just an idea. Sometimes it’s not even an idea it’s just a flash of a dream that you think might at some point develop into something amazing. That’s how all great ideas start, a flash of inspiration usually from an unlikely place. The most important thing (that was not a shameless plug for my book) is to get it down.

I know you’re thinking, “Well that’s easy for you to say you’re not the one staring at a blank screen not knowing what do next.” Writers always say, “just write”, but no one ever says how or what they do when they sit down at their computer, or notepad in my case, to write. They act like it’s a trade secret that no one can divulge. Everyone comes at the process differently. I write differently depending on the project. But I’m going to share with you, my process for writing one of my favorite short stories, The Husband, currently published in Truly Wicked.

When I started The Husband, I had the idea that I wanted to write a story about a woman who kills her husband by exploiting his allergy to fish. That was all I had, and I got that idea because my husband has a seafood allergy. Real original. From there, I asked myself the question, what would motivate her to kill her husband? Infidelity. Easily relatable and done a million times over. But how do I make it different? What if she helped him cover up a murder? Now, I had my plot points but what about emotions and characterization? What if she loved her husband and covered up the murder to protect him? What if she thought that he would change?

Writing, for me, is all about asking yourself questions and being able to answer them through storytelling. How would a character react in this situation? What could they do? What would happen if they did x instead of y or vice versa? The great thing about storytelling, whether it be a short story or a novel is that they all start from some sort of truth for the author. Then that truth is manipulated into a work of fiction. It can be anything from emotions to memories; anything is fair game for a writer. I love Virgina Wolf’s quote, “Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.” That’s very true for me as I’m sure it is to some extent with all writers.

The best advice I ever received as a writer is, start with what you know. I knew my husband was allergic to fish, and then I went from there. In other words, sit down, start writing.

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I promised you all on Facebook something free, and I keep my word. If you’ve been following me, you’ll notice that I’ve done promotions of my book The Most Important Thing for free on Amazon, but all my other readers who don’t use Kindle have been out of luck. In honor of National Short Story Month, I’m my making my book of short stories available for FREE for my Nook, iTunes, and Kobo readers. If you use Kindle, you can get it for .99 which is still super cheap.  I hope you all enjoy it, it’s brand new, and remember if you liked it, leave a review and if you hated it, tell me that too. The only way to become a better writer is through honest criticism, and I welcome it. As Ernest Hemingway said, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”