  Short Stories
This week: Trying a New Tool Edited by: Legerdemain  
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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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Trying a New Tool
I was reading a short story in the NY Times this weekend by John Patrick Shanley and the thought crossed my mind that it was interesting that a playwright-screenwriter-director would write an anecdotal story. Perhaps he'd told it to a friend and they encouraged him to write it. I thought the story very amusing, especially since I'm of Irish descent. It painted a vivid picture of the people, the country and family in a short story.
I thought, why couldn't a poet write a work like this? Would it be freeing to step away from form and meter and write a story? Could a technical writer find a story within themselves merely for the entertainment of others? Even those who stick to our site interactive stories, could they complete one of their own? We all have a writing toolbox. Not many of these toolboxes look similar. Some are old, rusty and only have a few of the basics. Some come with a kit full of digital readouts, the bells and whistles of higher education. And yet we all have a story inside to tell. We all settle into a comfortable format and show the world a piece of our dreams.
What if we tried some new tools? It might be a cool ratcheting wrench that solved all your needs, or a screwdriver that didn't mess up your wrist. If we didn't give something new a try, how could we improve? How could you add new things to your toolbox? There are lots of tutorials and member-instructed classes to be found in our community and plenty of people willing to mentor. It certainly doesn't hurt to give it a try or ask for some help.
Think about it and take a look inside your toolbox, perhaps you have a story to tell. Write on!
This month's question: What do you have in your toolbox and are you willing to try something new?
Send in your reply below! I'd love to hear from you!
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This item number is not valid.
#1655825 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Bubba looked that clerk right square in the eye and said, “Ok you little weasel, I’m back and I’m a declarin’ a shovel fight to the end. I know you got one cause you got mine from last night. Haul it out here and take what’s comin’ to ya.”
| | | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#775838 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Down he went into the basement. I heard the many dings and pings of different size tools, hitting against metal. Sadly, my husband was busy at work. I slowly open the door, gingerly peeking around the corner to take another unwilling look. Now, instead of seeing the one initial leak, water is spewing from two opposite pipes!
Excerpt: As he neared the mouth of the cave he could see that just inside the entrance there was a small room with a low ceiling. On either side of the room were two more open doorways, which forked into separate paths. He stood for a moment at the entrance, his cloak now blanketed in snow. Shivering, he contemplated the task he was about to undertake. The enormity of what he had been chosen to do was staggering, yet the survival of his people, his world, depended on his success. He took one deep breath, crossed the threshold of the opening and stepped inside.
Excerpt: "But, dear-" Nettie began. She was interrupted by a brilliant flash, a flash seemingly all the brighter due to the darkness that immediately followed, a darkness only partially relieved by the flashlight's weakened glow.
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This item number is not valid.
#1873693 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: His back was coming apart again. Little Rory always forgot to check the stitching in his back.
Excerpt: The old house was set aways off the road at the edge of the woods in County Mar near the Hills of Rock. It was a small house to be sure and much in need of repair. Abandoned and haunted, or damned, depending on who spun the yarn about the history of the place, but it was the only shelter around when the storm broke as we hiked up the road.
| |  | Clovers (18+)
A girl hopes to catch a leprechaun so she can wish for her father to come back.
#1893656 by Chloe  |
Excerpt: An old, slightly tattered cardboard box sits upside down in a large field, propped up on one end by a large stick. Although it is mostly surrounded by snow, small handfuls of clovers surround it, scattered by the wind. The field surrounding it is filled with small gouges of dirt, mixed with snow and old, upturned clovers.
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#1655188 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Being unlucky twern't nothing new to Lucky, or Larry, as twas his given Christian name. Not even kissing that blasted Blarney Stone fer thirty days, leading up to St. Paddy's Day, could cure poor Lucky's string o' bad luck!
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This item number is not valid.
#1763798 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: I knew when I first saw him that this little fellow could be nothing less than a leprechaun. I concentrated all of my efforts into staring him down and into not loosing eye contact while I took one slow step after another towards him. I could see the fear in his eyes growing with each step I took.
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This month's question: What do you have in your toolbox and are you willing to try something new?
Last month's question: Do you inject passion involving your hobbies into your writing?
Elisa the Bunny Stik  sent: Since my passion is research and observation, I end up making my main characters inquisitive types. They all end up doing some sort of research that changes the game. One's a social media analyst. Another's a high school student who delves into Constitutional law in an effort to protect herself from invasive pro-natalist government agents. A third is a computer programmer who delves into religious scholastics when her dreams feel more like prophesy. Research is their common thread, even though their locations and life events are all rather different.
Quick-Quill  answered: I will sometimes slip in a hobby or interest I have. If there is something I am passionate about that gets there too. I am the opposite of a clean freak. My MC is OCB (my husband) while his uncle is a hoarder (more like me with the same excuses). 
blunderbuss said: This newsletter made me think. The immediate answer was 'no'. But then I realised that I do use those passions/interests in indirect ways. They can give you a bit of a knowledge-base to draw on too, which can inspire a story. So, my answer is now, 'Yes, I do!'
Lunarmirror replied: Yeah, my passions do have a tendency to pop up in my writing though of course writing different characters means you put stuff into them that may not be you at all.
BIG BAD WOLF is hopping  responded: If you can't inject passion into your writing, you shouldn't write at all, except to sign for things.
ANN Counselor, Lesbian & Happy commented: The premise of this newsletter is so very true; for me anyway. After years of writing on various subjects, in May 2012 I found my niche, what you've suggested. Since then I have over 150 stories that fit my found genre: Lesbian Romance. Until then, subjects of my stories were scattered and took much energy. You are so very correct: a writer does best when finding the perfect place, nobody else's place.
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Short Stories: March 13, 2013 Issue [#5567]
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