  Short Stories
This week: Settings...Where, again? 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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| ASIN: B07B63CTKX |
Product Type: Kindle Store
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Amazon's Price: $ 6.99
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Eons ago, in a dark cavern in the sea...
How important is a setting to your story? Very. To create a believable character, your story needs to reside in a believable setting. First decide the scope of your story. Do you need to create a new world, social system and method of communication? Or do you merely need a forest floor with twittering birds in the tree canopy. A science fiction story may need more scope and description than a Victorian romance story. As a writer, you need "facts" to create belief. If you're creating a larger image for your reader, be sure you stay true to the world you create. If the world is airless, your character can't whip off his breathing apparatus in chapter three and talk to native species.
If your damsel in the Victorian era needs to get from point A to point B, she certainly can't leap on a motorcycle and buzz over to the neighbor. If you're writing about a past era, know the world as those living in it did. Know the damsel couldn't go without an escort, what method of transport would be available to her and her proper manners of introduction upon arrival. Understand her world and write your plot within that envelope of belief. While each detail isn't essential to moving a plot along, you need these details to place your character in a proper setting.
Finally, as a writer you need to know all the details, your reader does not. Dumping a truckload of details on your reader will not only distract them from the story line, it will bore them to death. The last thing a reader wants to do is plod through four paragraphs on the construction details of a crinoline. As a writer, you need to know how a Victorian character managed to sit down on all that fluff. So when editing, keep the details necessary to the plot and eliminate the distracting points, to create a believable picture in your reader's mind.
This month's question: Have you ever been distracted by a bad detail in a story?
Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback!
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Excerpt: This activity is exclusively for building entirely new worlds in the fantasy/sci-fi genres. If you just want to write something that takes place in our world with fantasy/sci-fi elements, this activity will not work.
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Excerpt: “Mornin’ Dave, sorry to call you in on this one,” he said pumping my hand enthusiastically. “I know you’re not the detective on call, but the Chief insisted we hand you this one. Said it was related to some cases you’ve got on your plate.”
Excerpt: I haven't seen my best friend Maddie since my sister's funeral. Today we remember her grandfather in the same pews in the same church, the same pastor using the same empty words in the dead's honor. The air is stale, the organ playing the same notes it did for my sister Asha.
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#2133824 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Clouds scudded beyond the looming grey stone slabs above Kai’s head. Rows of windows were dull from dirt or lack of lighting within. Pigeons fluttered suddenly on ledges and whitened the concrete afresh. He watched from across the street, his eyes wide and restless, his feet fidgety on the pavement. Fingers threaded through a tangle of itchy, ginger hair, then scratched stubble impatiently. Evening was draining the last breath of warmth from the air.
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Excerpt: A violet shadow formed beside her. Do not turn and look directly at it, she mentally reminded herself, you cannot see it if you look at it directly. She turned off the water, unfocused her eyes, and gazed in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. The shadow wavered, but she kept it in her peripheral as she pulled out a bandage from the other side of the medicine cabinet.
"I can see you. Who are you and what do you want?"
The shadow wavered and ringing in her ears overwhelmed her auditory senses. She closed the medicine cabinet and walked out of the bathroom.
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#1435920 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: As I looked on Jeff said, "these are children who were either sick or in some kind of an accident and died at an early age… they are cared for here until their parents arrive. If they are still young when their parents arrive then they go to live with and are raised by their parents but none of them, not one, goes without a loving family that they are apart of here in Heaven". I nodded my acknowledgment of what he had said as we continued on.
Excerpt: This forum is designed to get your creative juices flowing. 10,000 gps will be given away every 24 hours!
Excerpt: Prompt for September Contest that runs from the first day of the month to the last. There will be DOUBLE the prizes this month as we celebrate WDC's Wild Birthday Bash!!!!
Excerpt: The object of this contest is to write a fantasy short story or poem using the given prompt as inspiration. The prompt will change each round and I aim to give you something as open to interpretation as possible to allow your imagination to run free, to conjure up something fabulously fantastic.
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This month's question: Have you ever been distracted by a bad detail in a story?
Last month's question: My concern is if everyone skips shorts while searching the apps for stuff to read, have we effectively killed the short story? I know it is hard to get short stories published, but are they now dead even when offered for free?
Joy  replied: I so agree. I sometimes get free books, too, but the short stories I read are either from known authors or they are classics or I get them from the library. Not everything in the library is great, but at least, those books went through some kind of an elimination or a choice by people who aren't totaly alien to the lit business.
dragonwoman  sent: Since my favorite format is the short story, what you bring up is probably true, I guess the solution is more short story collections.
Rebecca  answered: I am like you, when I go to the Kindle store to download a book. I like the free ones also. I have paid for books, especially if there in a series and the first book is so good that I have to have the other ones. lol. I have also paid for short stories, and been very disappointed because I didn't realize the shortness of the book. I again learned my lesson, and I look to see how many pages the book is before I even think to download it. I write short stories, have not had one published, but I have fun writing them. I think they can be read if you don't want to spend hours reading a story.
Danger Mouse said: Hey Leger, If I get you right, you think that, possibly, by only downloading the, free, stories that are large/long readers are discouraging the writers from offering, free, stories that are small/short.
Don't worry, there are many people like me who love to take their reading in short doses. .
And, while I don't mind a bit of bad grammar; I hate reading 100 pages before discovering that the writer has lost the plot. Thank you for bringing up this thoughtful question.
Pumpkin responded: I like getting classics free, but sometimes there are some editing errors. Otherwise, the cheap or free new books are usually badly written or not edited well. I've had a few first chapter only types, too.
Quick-Quill  agreed: This is so true. I want a good mystery. Kendra Elliott has a good set of books, and I liked her character. I went to find other books similar. Just a good mystery. Maybe no deaths to solve, but a missing perosn, lost items, stolen stuff? where are these good stories? When I type in mystery I get hard core popular writers. I don't want kozy mysteries. They are too much fluff! Some made me sick to read they were so sweet with baked goods, sewing circles, and canning grandmas. Please just a good mystery.
Osirantinous  admits: Fascinating questions! I love my short stories but I would never sell them on their own - I'd be too embarrassed asking someone to buy something tiny. I'd be more inclined to include one as an 'extra' in a novel or (most likely) create a book of short stories (especially since I tend to create a group of stories on the same characters). Or put them on my website as tasters of my writing. I don't think you're killing of short stories at all. People need to market their items more correctly on the web, I reckon. I've not looked at genres/types much on Amazon but is there a 'short story' type that you can attach to your story and that a reader can search by? If not, there should be!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses! |
| ASIN: 197380364X |
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Amazon's Price: $ 15.99
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Short Stories: September 20, 2017 Issue [#8515]
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