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Mindful Fiction: Write a Short Story in 10 Days
Writing short fiction is about creating new realities and reframing our own. In this 10-day experience, writers will follow simple, 20-minute prompts designed to support the creation of a full short story draft. Easy techniques are provided for creating dynamic characters, vivid settings, strong details, and memorable scenes.
*Audio book forthcoming.
*Audio book forthcoming.
35 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 15, 2020
24 people are currently reading
615 people want to read
About the author
Jen Knox
23 books498 followersThe Founder and Executive Director of Unleash Creatives, Jen Knox is an educator and storyteller who teaches writing, leadership, and meditation.
Her books include the short story collection The Glass City (Hollywood, CA: Winner, Prize Americana for Prose), and the novels We Arrive Uninvited (Steel Toe Books) and Chaos Magic (Kallisto Gaia Press).
Her first essay collection, At Work, will be released by Cornerstone Press UWSP in 2027.
Jen's writing has earned multiple awards. Her short stories, poetry, and essays have been featured in textbooks, classrooms, and publications in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Turkey, India, and Scotland. Her fiction appears in The Best Small Fictions (Braddock Avenue Books), The Adirondack Review, Sivana East, Chicago Tribune's Printers Row, Chicago Quarterly Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Crannog, Cutthroat Magazine, Elephant Journal, Fairlight Books, Fiction Southeast, Juked, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, MJI News, Poor Claudia, The Saturday Evening Post, The Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, NPR, Short Story America, and Sequestrum, among over a hundred other publications. Read many of her stories here.
Her books include the short story collection The Glass City (Hollywood, CA: Winner, Prize Americana for Prose), and the novels We Arrive Uninvited (Steel Toe Books) and Chaos Magic (Kallisto Gaia Press).
Her first essay collection, At Work, will be released by Cornerstone Press UWSP in 2027.
Jen's writing has earned multiple awards. Her short stories, poetry, and essays have been featured in textbooks, classrooms, and publications in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Turkey, India, and Scotland. Her fiction appears in The Best Small Fictions (Braddock Avenue Books), The Adirondack Review, Sivana East, Chicago Tribune's Printers Row, Chicago Quarterly Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Crannog, Cutthroat Magazine, Elephant Journal, Fairlight Books, Fiction Southeast, Juked, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, MJI News, Poor Claudia, The Saturday Evening Post, The Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, NPR, Short Story America, and Sequestrum, among over a hundred other publications. Read many of her stories here.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 8, 2020
I received this e-book through the Goodreads Giveaway program.
This book is a brief, direct way to jumpstart your short story writing in ten days. Though I am not a fiction writer and have concentrated on non-fiction in the past, I actually stood up from my chair as I was reading "Day 1: Meet Your Protagonist" and got a notebook and a pen so I could try the exercise. I have always thought that I could never write fiction (and have ended up with thinly disguised truth when I tried), so I was a little startled to find that I was able to develop a picture of a protagonist rather quickly.
The exercises are pretty painless - minimal time is required to perform them, and only a short introduction appears before each exercise.
If you're bogged down by how to begin a story or feel overwhelmed by a need to research how to write instead of actually writing, this is a terrific little book to just get you writing. The section on editing is too short to get you to a publishable story, but the focus of this book seems to be more on producing a story that you can then polish on your own (or with the help of other resources).
I finished reading the book without trying all the exercises but I plan on trying them later because now I'm a little curious to discover what happens next with my hero... This book is great at making you excited about the idea of creating, so I'd recommend it for people who have started feeling like writing is homework.
This book is a brief, direct way to jumpstart your short story writing in ten days. Though I am not a fiction writer and have concentrated on non-fiction in the past, I actually stood up from my chair as I was reading "Day 1: Meet Your Protagonist" and got a notebook and a pen so I could try the exercise. I have always thought that I could never write fiction (and have ended up with thinly disguised truth when I tried), so I was a little startled to find that I was able to develop a picture of a protagonist rather quickly.
The exercises are pretty painless - minimal time is required to perform them, and only a short introduction appears before each exercise.
If you're bogged down by how to begin a story or feel overwhelmed by a need to research how to write instead of actually writing, this is a terrific little book to just get you writing. The section on editing is too short to get you to a publishable story, but the focus of this book seems to be more on producing a story that you can then polish on your own (or with the help of other resources).
I finished reading the book without trying all the exercises but I plan on trying them later because now I'm a little curious to discover what happens next with my hero... This book is great at making you excited about the idea of creating, so I'd recommend it for people who have started feeling like writing is homework.
September 26, 2020
Rather than reading Mindful Fiction: Write a Short Story in 10 Days, I'm working through it exercise by exercise. Unfortunately I don't get into it every day. Through Day 3 it is a good, solid tool. I suspect it will continue that way, and I'll have more to say when I complete it.
Right now, I recommend it as a practical guide for digging in and developing characters. More will be revealed.
www.writeradvice.com
Right now, I recommend it as a practical guide for digging in and developing characters. More will be revealed.
www.writeradvice.com
September 25, 2020
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway - Opinions are my own.
For a writer with no clue whatsoever how to write short stories (me), this book is a good jumping point. I tend to prefer hard copy, but this Kindle volume has links to guided meditations. I love the focus on nurturing the writer's whole brain.
For a writer with no clue whatsoever how to write short stories (me), this book is a good jumping point. I tend to prefer hard copy, but this Kindle volume has links to guided meditations. I love the focus on nurturing the writer's whole brain.
September 12, 2020
Great quick primer to write a short story
Awesome tool that breaks down the short story process. Simple yet effective. Worth a purchase and a keeper for your research library.
Awesome tool that breaks down the short story process. Simple yet effective. Worth a purchase and a keeper for your research library.
September 27, 2020
Thank you Goodreads Giveaway for my free copy of Mindful Fiction. I enjoyed the exercises and process in this book. It made writing feel very accessible.
February 7, 2021
I enjoyed reading this book and found it a quick, easy read. This time around I read it straight through without doing any of the exercises or meditations; later today I´ll go back, start at the beginning and go it through it more slowly, doing each of the exercises as I go along. I feel this book will be a huge help in writing my short stories, especially listing out the characteristics of protagonists, etc. And it´s so straightforward and uncomplicated - unlike some writing books I have read!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews