  Short Stories
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The purpose of this newsletter is to help the Writing.com short story author hone their craft and improve their skills. Along with that I would like to inform, advocate, and create new, fresh ideas for the short story author. Write to me if you have an idea you would like presented.
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The Symbol of Fire
Fire can be a powerful symbol in your writing. Being one of the basic earth elements, it can easily be brought into your story to suggest a strong emotion or a desire for change. Like the phoenix, a consuming fire can bring resurrection, rebirth, and metamorphisis. Burning a letter, blowing out a candle or walking away from a fire can signal change. Rising smoke can also be a symbol of turning events. Lightning can mean enlightenment or inspiration.
When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.
~Dylan Thomas
Flames can hypnotize, seduce, and calm. Fire can be a guardian, protection, warmth and light. Fiery heat can suggest love, intimacy, passion and attraction. The fireplace hearth can symbolize heart and home. Fire is welcoming and banishes darkness. Home fires represent well-being and contentment. In Christian religions, fire can represent the presence of God, or messages from Him. Flames can represent Hell, show brimstone, the pain and punishment of God's rejection.
I shall desire and I shall find
The best of my desires;
The autumn road, the mellow wind
That soothes the darkening shires.
And laughter, and inn-fires.
~Rupert Brooke, The Chilterns
Characters with fiery elements to their nature can suggest a destructive or dangerous element to their makeup. A classic "redhead" is often used because red suggests heat and fire. Often it can signal emotional outbursts, a strong will and independence. Think about smaller subliminal messages such as red shoes or a red cap. Nature's flames can be the sun, lightning or a forest fire.
Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame."
~Henry Thoreau
When writing or editing your story, think about the images you'd like to project within your plot. Do you want to foreshadow change? Do you want show passion and desire? Fire could be your answer.
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#1558944 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: He had not set his eyes upon this certain troll in many, many years, but its image was etched in his memory and the desire to slay it was branded upon his heart. The king could not escape the power of his vengeance, nor did he want to.
Excerpt: SPARRING WAS SOMETHING God Ra did best alone, on his own time. There was no one else within the Paut Neteru who could even begin to hope to take him on and succeed for long. Although swordfighting wasn't exactly his favorite pastime, at least it gave him something to do, kept him fit, and allowed him time to think things over without having to resort to the annoyance of discussing them with the other neteru. Ra disliked discussing things very much, and so sparring was also a good way to hold his temper in check.
Excerpt: There she stands behind the counter, slightly awkward as ever, weight fractionally to one side. Maybe one leg is shorter than the other; a subtle shift to balance an opposite eyebrow raised in thought.
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#865713 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: In the late afternoon, the tall one in aqua passed through the room again on her way out. Don couldn't remember her name, but he knew he had to follow her.
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She had a thing for spiders, the color red, the number 8, and college men.
#1219423 by Kotaro  |
Excerpt: A woman in tight fitting jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt, her red framed glasses a match for her red pony tail, watched the flies in the glass case.
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#1579882 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: The town calls him Jim, but we have no idea of his real name. He appeared out of nowhere one day with scanty knowledge of things everyone just naturally understands -- like knowing how to tie shoes or peel a banana. We had to teach him those things.
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#1611222 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Drake pelted down the forest path, one hand holding his hat in place, the other hand holding his school books. He was late. Again. Master Devlin would cane him for sure. Or, worse, would make him stay after classes and scrub all of the long wooden tables in their classroom at Finghul’s School for Boys.
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#531743 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: “Where’s the novelty?” Alec muttered a little too loudly.
“What’s that dear?” his wife quickly responded. She knew he hated these little weekend trips to the second-hand stores. It seemed work, television, and complaining were the only things he took comfort in anymore.
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This month's question: What symbols of fire have you used in your writing? Send in your comment below 
Last month's question: What are your expectations of your first drafts? Do you get bogged down trying to edit during the draft?
Doug Rainbow  : Get six creative writing teachers together and you will get eight opinions on how to best draft, edit, and revise fiction.And they are probably all correct. My advice, worth about what you are paying for it, is (1) Do what you enjoy, or you will stop doing it at all. (2) Experiment with different approaches: outlining, character sketches, drafting chapter by chapter, etc. (3) Don't throw anything away, at least until you are done with the whole thing, and maybe not even then. It's nice to be able to see where you've been.
NickiD89  : Your newsletters always come at the perfect time for me! I've been working on my "vomit writing" skills  in preparation for NaNo. I picked up a great book yesterday called "Writing Down the Bones, Freeing the Writer Within," by Natalie Goldberg. (Copyright 1986, 2005 by Natalie Goldberb, Shambhala Publications, Inc.) In it, Goldberg advocates daily writing practice unconstrained by cares for poor sentence structure, punctuation, spelling. She says we must give ourselves the freedom to let out the 'first thoughts' however random or rough they are because they possess the most energy of all written thoughts. The careful, edit-as-I-go writer in me is excited to explore this process and see where it takes my first novel draft.
AliceNgoreland : One of the best things about writing is that it is liquid, so easily changed. No matter what is on the page, I can make it better and with feedback, even more so.
Getting the words out is huge. Then you have some place to go. I thought my goal was laughable, but I heard an interview with E.L. Doctorow. A good day of writing for him is 500 words. I can do that.
sarahreed: I always struggle with editing while writing my first draft. I want things to be good, not perfect, but good. I know I have to let go and just write. Hopefully, one day soon, I'll get it. 
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Short Stories: October 28, 2009 Issue [#3352]
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