Tag: writer

Every Author’s Must-Do Checklist

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After years of writing (and receiving a mountain load of feedback), I’ve created a guide on how to write better.

Here’s what I’ve learned and try to follow so far. Add your tips to the comments!

STORY INTRODUCTION

  • Introduce setting – where is the reader? Be quick about it, no extensive descriptions
  • Introduce character right away. Who are they? What do they care about (motivation)? Why do I care about them?
  • Now introduce character situation that we’ve all found ourselves in and can relate to. Immediately! This makes the reader feel connected to the character, “Yup, I’ve been there.”
  • Now introduce what’s different about how the character acts in the situation that the reader might not have thought of OR how the situation forces the character to act in a way that the reader would wonder what they would do
    • This lets the reader know what kind of character the main character is and how they differ from them

STORY PROGRESSION

  • Explain what is happening through dialogue or action – do not “tell” back story or what is happening!
  • Don’t tell the reader everything upfront, let them discover where they are.
    • John was scuba diving at the great barrier reef VS swarms of fish danced around John’s arms. He turned to examine the blue corals that clung to the rock cliff.
  • Every page and situation must
    • contain no adverbs
    • contain no descriptive ways to explain dialogue other than, “he said” “she said”
    • Start late
    • Leave early
  • Take time and really think through the setting. This way you’ll be one step ahead of the reader and they’ll think, “that makes total sense where they are, I didn’t think of that yet!”
    • If someone is hiking, think about everything they could possibly bring. If someone is in a new setting, think of everything they could possibly see – then slowly reveal these things.
  • Write freely – then go back and trim everything but what’s absolutely necessary
  • List the most expecting thing that might happen next. DON’T let that happen! It’s too easy
  • At any point in the story, the reader must know what’s at stake and what must be done to solve the main problem. You’ll lose them if the path is ambiguous
  • The main character tries to achieve his/her goal, but the exact opposite happens and he/she has to regroup and form a new plan, being extra vulnerable, but coming out stronger
  • Never let the main character reflect on what’s happened to him/her, until they’re forced to reflect from something bad happening to them
  • In the ending, the character must come back to an original problem/situation. The only difference is that they’ve changed how they acted based on their character arch and what they learned.

MAIN CHARACTER(S)

  • Never force the main character to create situations until they’ve come through their arch. Every situation is forced upon the character and he/she is only forced to choose how to act
  • The main character doesn’t have to succeed, he/she just has to try his/her hardest (until the climax)
  • You character needs a backstory – what makes them who they are today?
  • The main character should be a reflection of the reader and get into situations the reader can see themselves getting into given the setting. The main difference is that the main character is the reader’s ideal. He/she is slightly better at doing what they do than the reader.
  • The main character can get into cliché problems, but never solve them in cliché ways
  • The main character is decisive, not passive.
  • The main character must always be honest with himself/herself. You can’t lie to the reader
  • The reader should always know slightly more than the main character so that they can’t wait for the main character to find out (kinda like how you can’t wait to tell a good friend something you know and they don’t)

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

  • Every secondary character must act in their expected ways
    • if a character is easily angered, they are always easily angered – the reader shouldn’t have to guess how they’ll act
  •  Secondary characters can create situations for the main character

ANTAGONIST

  • The antagonist, no matter how vile, must always have some redeeming quality.

 Traditional Storytelling Framework

  1. Your character is in their comfort zone
  2. They want something they can’t have
  3. To try and get it, they embark on a journey into unfamiliar territory
  4. They realize they’ve entered into something beyond them, but they master it
  5. They are faced with a big decision – get what they want, or do the greater good
  6. Climax! They do everything they can possibly do to do the greater good and pay a heavy price for it
  7. They travel back home
  8. They reach home, but realize they’ve changed

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How I got my first Flash Fiction Published

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I’ve had 4 of my short stories published now — I’m just at the start of my writing career.

I was first published nearly a year ago after pushing myself to write some short stories as I worked on my first novel (figured I might as well start getting my name out there). I tried writing about the most outlandish things in order to catch attention. A story about a hopelessly romantic giraffe and the blue kite that flies into his life. Another about an entrepreneurial vampire midget trying to market her frozen treats called, Bloodsicles.

All my premises were WAAAAAY out there!

Some were so absurd I’m sure they barely made sense to even a seasoned Hallucinologist (and those people spend a lot of time trying to make sense of things).

I figured that the best way to capture attention was by being unique, but I wasn’t sure if there really was a market for the fantastically absurd, so I started doing some internet research.

I discovered that people are dying to pay for stories! DYING!

My hopelessly romantic giraffe story – yeah, there’s a cult following of long necked lovers lurking in a zoo chat group. My entrepreneurial vampire midget story – yeah, small business tips in gothic settings are trending somewhere in Panama.

Okay, so I made some of that up, but the point is that I discovered that there’s a market for nearly anything, which was exciting! I spent a night or two’s worth of internet research and compiled a list of a dozen places that accepted quirky fantasy stories, then I bombarded them with submissions.

My first publication WITH PAY (muahaha!) was a story I wrote with the prompt of two words: RED ICE.

Somehow with those two words as my inspiration, I ended up creating a story about a man who bought a house on the edge of a volcano with the intent of hosting a suicidal dinner party for all his friends as it was erupting. Unfortunately the volcano erupts before his guests arrive, and he’s left lamenting over his daddy-problems with his mother over the phone while his robot servant fixes him a sandwich.

If that story isn’t crazy enough of a premise, I don’t know what is.

It took me 7 months to find a publisher that wanted to buy it. In the process, I was rejected 4 times. Even the paying publisher requested a lot of edits before he agreed to publish it.

The final review from the editors was that they enjoyed the weirdness of the situation. It was refreshing and fun to think about. It also brought up questions of what type of society would be okay with suicidal parties as commonplace—distant futures where people live through holograms? Weird aliens that have multiple lives? People that live hundreds of years and get bored with life? I got some really interesting comments from both the editors and readers after it was published.

The editors also liked that they could connect with the character on a more grounded level: his daddy issues, his condescending attitude towards his robot, the way his mother spoke to him.

Overall, the main reason it got published (according to the publisher), was that it was unique. It was something different, something refreshing, something that fit their audience. The other publishers rejected it because they didn’t feel their audiences would like it. If I had given up after my first rejections, I wouldn’t have been published.

So, how much did I get paid? A whopping $3.00.

But, that’s okay. It was the first time I got paid for something I wrote. It also gave me inspiration knowing that there really is a market for my work. I’ve since been published three more times and starting to get my name out there.

As always,

Happy Writing!

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Flash Fiction: Beverly Draws on Deck

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Beverly Draws on Deck

A drop of sweat from my brow landed in my glass and I put my pen down. The ink was melting down the page, ruining the bird I had drawn. With a sigh, I skimmed through all my drawings from the trip so far – a smoking man, two dancing octopi, a smashed guitar.

A waitress appeared and offered me another drink.

“Away,” I shooed, still a bit annoyed that my art would never be recovered now.

She scuttled off like a little hermit crab in her high heels and short skirt and picked at the back of her blouse. It was completely soaked.

The alarm finally went off and I looked around the room. The tables were red, the walls and floor were red, the musicians were red. I looked to my husband as a single tear trailed down his cheek before evaporating in a puff of steam. Even that was red too. The giant warning light on the ceiling made everything red. It really wasn’t needed at this point.

“Excuse me, darling,” I said, dabbing my brow with a hanky. “This colour really isn’t doing anything for me. I’m going on deck for inspiration.”

“Indeed, Bev,” he huffed, a dry cough in his voice. Neither of us acknowledged the impending doom.

I passed some friends we had made earlier in our trip. We exchanged pleasantries with sad eyes and I wished them well (what foolishness). The viewing deck was bare and the heat glared in through the glass making it unbearably hot. I checked my pocked barometer.

130 degrees

131 degrees

132 degrees

The temperature climbed dangerously as we spun out of control. In one direction the sun ever growing larger. In the other, clouds of smoke streamed out into space. We had hit an icesteroid while on our leisurely cruise to Mars.

“Impenetrable,” the newspaper had advertised. “Climb aboard the luxurious Titanic 3000 for a trip of a lifetime!”

Oh the irony.

I took out my pen and paper and drew the sun, my last piece of art.

Flash Fiction: Doron and Erin Get Lost

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Doron and Erin Get Lost

Waking up is never easy. It’s sluggish and you feel very old.

“Something isn’t right! Doron, come quick!”

Her voice was shrill. I yawned and wiped my eyes.

“No no no! ” she yelled. I carefully stepped out of the cyrosleep chamber and grabbed a towel.

“Quit worrying, Erin,” I called as I wiped slime from my body. “Did you turn the ship around?”

I chuckled to myself. Last time we visited my parents in Sector 6, she freaked out thinking we were lost. Turned out we had arrived facing the other way, their planet was just behind us.

“Yes! I’m serious! Come here!”

I sighed and grabbed my housecoat. She was in the control deck, frantically scrolling through the ship’s readouts.

“Calm down, let’s see.”

“We’re not in Sector 6 at all! Look!”

According to the readout, we were 12 light years from my parent’s.

“How the heck?” I scanned through the inputs and quickly realised she had entered the wrong coordinates. One degree off for thirty years in cyrosleep meant we were twelve light years away.

“We’re going to miss your dad’s 150th!”

“That’s it, Erin,” I said. “This is the last time I let you drive.”

Flash Fiction: Invasion

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Invasion

Still no attempts. 30 seconds till deadline.

“At the ready!”

I thought of my mother. She gave me courage all these years since I quit medical school. On my command, 40 billion tonnes of tetrafluoromethane would be released.

We established contact with Inanna three years ago, but all negotiation attempts were futile. They remained hostile, shooting down all our probes.

15 seconds.

I remembered the films I watched as a boy— aliens invading in tiny saucers— laughable now. Dumping greenhouse gases into a planet’s atmosphere was much more efficient. All life would be annihilated within a decade. They weren’t at a technological age to negate the effects, only Earth Equivalent 1940s. We had to establish peace or nip them now. They had just begun experimenting with nuclear fission.

5 seconds.

After med school, I quickly ascended the ranks, my mother’s support my anchor. Now the fate of billions rested on me. I had gone from saving lives to taking them. My heart raced.

0 seconds.

Why didn’t they respond? I imagine they’ve created their own films of alien invasions and in the end they win. They have no idea.

I sent a prayer to my mother.

“Fire at will!”