Part Two of how to write fiction based on fact. Part One is Prompt #40. Alla Crone-Hayden began one of her first historical novels with this opening line: On the cold Sunday of January 9, 1905, the pallid sun hung over the rooftops of St. Petersburg trying to burn its way through a thin layer of clouds. The weather matches the mood of character, of story. Perhaps draws you in. Maybe you want to know more . . . does the sun succeed in burning through? Second sentence: By two o’clock in the afternoon the dull light had done little to warm the thousands of people milling in the streets. The second sentence answers the unasked question about the sun. Notice the word choices: cold, pallid sun, thin, dull light . . . words match the mood or tone of the day/event. Alla used weather to match the narrator’s…
Writing is like being a salesperson . .
Elizabeth Berg, Escaping Into The Open, The Art of Writing True on Persuasiveness, page 32. Excerpt: In some ways, writing is like being a salesperson. you are in the business of convincing someone to buy something, as in, believe something. Try to develop your skills of persuasion so that your villain, say, is really felt as a villain. In doing that, think about the small things—everything really is in the details. For example, it’s not so much the description of the murderer killing someone that demonstrates his evil nature, it’s the flatness in his eyes as he does it; it’s the way he goes and gets an ice cream immediately afterward. Similarly, a man offering a diamond bracelet to a woman shows love; but that same person smiling tenderly when he wipes the smear of catsup off her face shows more. Your turn. Write a scene showing the bad guy…
Make a list of pivotal events. . . Prompt #40
Today’s Prompt is Part 1 of 2. Part 2 is “How to Write Fact Based on Fiction,” Prompt #41. Part 1 Make a list of pivotal events in your life. Those times when, at night, you were not the same person you were in the morning. By day’s end, you were a different person. Just write a list. When you are finished writing the list: take something from your list and write the details . . . as you remember them. You can be as detailed, or as general as you want to be. Write about an event that altered your life: all the gritty details. . . be as honest and as genuine as you can. Bleed onto the page. Part 2 will be the next prompt post.
Your Life. . . in 100 words
Reader’s Digest 100 words contest. In 100 words or fewer, tell a true story about yourself. One grand-prize winner will receive $5,000 and have his or her story published in our June issue. One runner-up winner will receive $500, and six finalists will receive $100 each. Entries must be received by March 14, 2014 Good Luck!
Guest Blogger Maria Victoria: My novels are not for free.
Guest Blogger Maria Victoria: My novels are not for free. Give away your stories for free, suggests the book marketing “expert.” He insists that if I follow his advice, readers will immediately download my novels on their reading tablets and once they read my work, they will be so enamored with my pen that they will buy everything else I publish from here on out. His logic reminds me a little of the slogan for Lay’s Potato Chips, “you can’t eat just one.” The problem is that I’m not a potato chip. And if I don’t eat now (even a bag of Lay’s) how will I survive to write more novels? Moreover, this guy forgets that I’m paying for his advice and if I give my work away, how am I going to pay him? Of course I understand the marketing strategy of “giving a taste,” like when we get…
When you look for things in life like . . .
“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you. ” — Neil deGrasse Tyson. Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. He is currently the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space and a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History.
A strong feeling . . . Prompt #39
Today’s writing prompt: Write about a strong feeling or attachment you had when you were young.
Take a risk and go long.
In the January 2014 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine, Elizabeth Sims writes about “Miscalculations and Missteps.” One is, “take a risk and go long.” “The value of a relatively long description is that it draws your readers deeper into the scene. The worry is that you’ll bore them. But if you do a good job you’ll engross them. Really getting into a description is one of the most fun things you can do as an author. Here’s the trick: Get going on a description with the attitude of discovering, not informing. In this zone, you’re not writing to tell readers stuff you already know—rather, you are writing to discover and experience the scene right alongside them.” Sims continues with “Go below the surface.” “A gateway to describing a person, place or thing in depth is to assign mood or emotion to him/her/it. . . . The Bay Bridge was somber…
Play with anaphoras. Prompt #38
Anaphora: Repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect. For example: Abraham Lincoln’s speech, “We cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground.” — Merriam-Webster online dictionary. When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous 1963 March on Washington speech, he repeated the phrase “I have a dream” at the beginning of his sentences. Prompt: Using Lincoln’s speech or King’s speech as inspiration, incorporate anaphora in your next story, poem or essay. Repeat a statement or idea that drives home the core message of your narrative. — except from January 2014, The Writer magazine.
Every Day Fiction
Every Day Fiction is a magazine that specializes in fine fiction in bite-sized doses. Every day, they publish a new short story that can be read during lunch hour, on transit, or over breakfast. Every Day Fiction is looking for very short (flash) fiction, of up to 1,000 words. “There’s no such thing as too short — if you can do the job in 50 words, have at it! — but our readers prefer pieces that tell or at least hint at a complete story.”