  Short Stories
This week: What's the Holdup? Edited by: Jay's debut novel is out now!  
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This Short Stories Newsletter is dedicated to readers and writers of short fiction and to those who want to know more about the art of telling big stories in small spaces.
This month:
What's the Holdup?
Why "waiting for inspiration" is not a great plan. Find ways to write yourself out of a funk. |
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I don't believe in writer's block. Not the way it's portrayed in television and movies, at least, where usually the erstwhile writer is pictured clutching their forehead and wailing as though ill with the flu. No. I think "writer's block" is mostly a function of other preoccupations, though not always. Sometimes, it's your mind saying, "I have other stuff to think about," and sometimes it's something else, but at the core, it's an excuse, and the sooner we learn to deal with that notion the better off we are as writers. It happens to the best of us; we run out of personal time to work on what never looks like "a priority" to an outside opinion, and for some of us-- well, it's hard to MAKE it a priority when there are so many other things to do. The StoryMistress  's recent poster series on this topic ought to be a pretty big clue: we find lots of reasons not to write, and being creatively blocked is an easy crutch. (If I hear someone blame "the muse" for their productivity problems one more time...)
So, let's say, hypothetically, that you're feeling like that? That for whatever reason, you can't seem to keep the flow of words going. It happens to all of us every now and again, where overcommitments lead to missing deadlines and than halting our imaginations, or worse, leading them astray and never capitalizing on them. Here are some of the steps I've come up with through my personal experience:
 Identify the source of the problem: this is not as hard as it sounds, and sometimes it's a tangible reason and sometimes not. Is work of home life stressing you out? Do you have too many tasks that need to be done before you can give yourself over to the time it takes to become a decent writer.
 If the outside blocker isn't "number of hours free to do things like write," then it might be more of a stimulation problem. I find that the best solution to writer's "block" is definitely to read more. Read everything you can get your hands on. Just be sure to read well outside your chosen parameters for best effect.
 aim higher: find prompts for upcoming anthologies for your preferred genre and see if any of those lead you anywhere. For a long time I was prompts- and deadlines-guided only, in my writing. Nowadays I am more able to generate more stories than I was, and more that need spit-polishing, but racing to meet a deadline will get my gears in motion. FInd a prompt; there are tons of writing prompt generators on the internet ready and waiting for you to click for some inspiration.
 If you want to give up? I totally understand, but try, try again! Do whatever it is that gets you back into the writer-mojo.
What do you do when you're feeling creativity blocked?
Take care and Write on!
~jay |
This month's picks:
Struggling? Get over the creative block by making yourself write once a week, come Heck or High Water:
There's a new quick round started up over at
And don't forget to nominate great short stories you've read from other members here on WdC over in
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From last month's issue: "Check Your Facts!"
Annette  writes:
I'm going to have to agree and disagree with this newsletter. I agree with the parts that all facts that can be easily overturned should be correct as far as possible for things that are contemporary or historical in broad terms. It's hard to know the flavor of a place without going there, but even if you visit a place as a tourist for three days, you don't "get the flavor." I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood in West-Berlin. David Bowie lived there for a while, less than half a mile from my home. He made sure to get the "flavor." Even then, he was already an international star at the time. Did he get the flavor I got being a little girl of a single mom? Absolutely not. He got the night life, swooning groupies, and artsy folks flavor. My point is that it also depends on whose point of view you want to write about. If I tried to write from a super star's point of view, there is no way for me to get into that role. No matter how much I'd like to, I'm never going to be David Bowie in 1980s Kreuzberg. I'm always going to be that little girl with the bad haircut and hand-me-down boys clothes (true fact) in 1980s Kreuzberg. So, for guns, street names, copy machines, and cars, I agree. Except when writing about guns, cars, or smart phones that don't exist yet. Think tablets in Star Trek. They used iPads back then, without knowing it. 
I don't disagree-- I meant more for places that you are *never* going to necessarily have an option to visit in the time that you're writing about it, or if you're only able to spend a short time in a part where, you're right, you might not get exactly what makes something tick. I think it's possible to use imagination for the experiences if we cross-reference; not entirely unlike what they taught us to do in the library.
Pepper writes:
You are so right; nothing turns off a reader quicker than to have blatant errors filling the text. One suggestion for your readers—in lieu of actually visiting a place, Google Earth is also a great resource for writers. Not only are there great pictures, but in street view, you can move along the street as if you were in a car driving along a route.
That's a great tip! Not the same as going there, but no excuse for not knowing what's at the corner of X Street and Y Boulevard, right? 
Catherine Hall  writes:
Thank you. I really needed this newsletter. I once wrote a poem which was inaccurate in a vital detail.
I think we've all been there! I am here to commiserate, LOL.
sherrimoorer writes:
So true, and thanks for addressing this important issue! Nothing kills a story like a glaring error in the details. I think all of us writers make this mistake at least once, and we try to never make it again! Wonderful point to consider. Thanks for sharing!
Oh my goodness, yes. It's always sad when something doesn't fit, but it's worse when it's such an easy error to fix just by doing it right and looking it up the first time around.
PandaPaws Licensed VetTech writes:
That is awesome advice with looking up facts. I enjoy writing Historical Poetry especially about the Civil War and I have spent almost as much time looking up details as I have spent writing the piece.
Yeah, facts make a huge difference in historical fiction, and it's important to interweave them in a way that doesn't send your reader dashing off to Wikipedia to see if you got it right!
J. A. Buxton writes:
I agree we as writers should verify facts in our stories. I once wrote a series of articles about how useful Google was to us. They might be a tad outdated by now, but I think all serious WdC members might find them useful.
"Google: A Writer's Tool - Part I" by J. A. Buxton
Google's just the first step, but it's better than taking no steps at all! Thanks for the link. 
Quick-Quill  writes:
I'm in total agreement. I'm writing a story for which I have no idea what protocol is for a terrorist attack, how do you ask about something that's a secret? I'm doing the best I can with information from the web. I'm sure if I don't get it exactly right, no one but a person in the know will know and they will have to give me a little leeway.
Well, I think this is probably something you might have better luck finding in recent fiction than nonfiction! Terrorism is an unfortunately predominant component of many of our current programs and shows, but that's a topic for another time, I think. In any case, this is one of those places where you might need to look to someone else you think has done it well and take cues from their delivery.
blunderbuss writes:
Thank you for the previous explanation on the 100-word story. That makes good sense to me. (in "Under the Microfiction-Scope" -- ed.)
As to this newsletter (another thought-provoking one), I couldn't agree more about historical research in particular. It isn't just a problem of modernising the vocabulary and speech structures, it is also about behaviour in public for period pieces. There are public actions - I am thinking of a story I reviewed recently - which would simply not have happened in earlier times e.g. a woman slapping a man's face during a parade.
Yeah, this is another thing that is frustrating. On the one hand, cultures adapt, and a lot of our stories adapt with us. I like to feel like I am immersed in another time, and certainly a character saying "Dude" in a story taking place in the late 19th century had better be involved in a cattle ranch, but I think that there are some parts of our fiction where freedoms are probably okay. I don't think slapping people is appropriate in any context except *possibly* in cartoons, much as there are always a few folks I'd like to drop-kick. I would probably stop reading if there wasn't a very strong reaction to the slap, unless it was playful or in jest, because I can't imagine even nowadays that it would be okay.
jackflash writes:
Good advise for reviewers as well. I've had them tell me that I'd made historical and cultural errors regarding periods through which I had lived and which they obviously had not. (Yes, boys wore hoodies in the sixties. I did. And Lowes was a beloved marque in the film industry long before it was a home improvement store.) Guess they thought I was twenty-three, like they were. Ha!
Well, one thing we do have to be wary of as writers is that even when writing nonfiction that we write it with the idea in mind that reality can only go so far, so the fact that that detail stuck out for any reason means it might need to be smoothed in to make it more smooth with the rest of the narrative. (an aside: the only theater company I know with that name spells it "Loews." Which actually manages to look even more wrong! )
BIG BAD WOLF is hopping  writes:
Research is always important, especially if one of the characters is a creature from a section of mythology you're not familiar with, like Native American Folklore. After all, you have to know if the Coyote trickster is a Hero, a Villain, or someone looking for Fun. Say, anyone out there know the answer to that?
Well, it's funny you asked, because within a minute of googling "coyote lore" I came up with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_in_mythology
http://www.indians.org/articles/coyote-facts.html
http://www.native-languages.org/legends-coyote.htm
so... yes?  |
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Short Stories: October 16, 2013 Issue [#5948]
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