 Short Stories: May 24, 2023 Issue [#11983] |
This week: Geek Pride Edited by: Leger~  
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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.
This week's Short Story Editor
Leger~ |
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Geek Pride Day
It's an actual day! I found this and couldn't resist sharing it with my WDC community.
The first Geek Pride Day was organized in 2006 by Germán Martínez, a Spanish blogger. The internet and media attention helped the holiday grow. In 2008, the U.S. began celebrating Geek Pride Day. The holiday celebrates the evolution and growth of geek culture worldwide, embracing the hobbies and interests geeks hold dear. From anime and manga to building gaming PCs and painting figurines, geek culture has entered its golden age.
Geek Pride Day is celebrated on May 25 every year. This international holiday promotes the culture, hobbies, and interests of geeks worldwide. Once a niche movement, geek culture has gone mainstream, thanks to its contribution to popular culture. In recent years, the world has seen increased media based on comic books, novels, role-playing games, tabletop games, video games, and even trading card games. Obscure things like cosplaying are now part of everyday life. These things were seen as childish and sometimes downright shameful in the past, but not anymore.
Who is a geek? Well according to the Oxford dictionary, a geek is a person who is knowledgeable about and obsessively interested in a particular subject, especially one that is technical or of specialist or niche interest. "a computer geek" That term could cover a lot of interests, couldn't it? When an author gets deep into a story and spends a lot of time writing it, are they a writing geek?
Think about it, and Write On.
This month's question: What kind of geek are you? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback!
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WDC SITE CONTEST
Character Prompt for May 2023:
An opsimath is someone who begins to learn or study only late in life.
Write a story about an opsimath of an unusual field or subject matter.
You can do a good deed by reviewing any qualifying item* on Writing.Com and you might win! Enter as many times as you want to increase your odds of being selected as a prize winner!
Few writers make all these errors, but every writer has made many of these mistakes, even if they have since improved and become a best-selling author. These mistakes are fixable and writing is a constant learning process so don't feel bad if you're a more seasoned writer and still make a few of these errors, because no one's perfect.
Try one of three different prompts, with some sort of science fiction element integrated into it, and have a beginning, middle and end. Vignette entries will not qualify
Use the picture prompt below to create an engaging opening. Your opening should be one or two sentences. No more. Any longer and your entry will be disqualified.
Write a poem or story and incorporate the prompted lyric somewhere in your work, word for word. This can be the opening line, dialogue, character description, whatever you want. Your entry must be at least 50 words for a poem or 100 words for a story. There's no time limit. Your work doesn't have to be related to the song at all, as long as you include the prompt. Part of the challenge is to see how you can reinterpret and work the lyric into your own work. Take the line in a new direction and get creative with it!
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#2289166 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: The Temporal Integrity Commission was established in the early 1950s using technology recovered from the 1947 Roswell Crash. Its primary mission was to protect the timeline from both accidental tampering and malicious attempts to change history.
Until a security breach in December 2022, it was the US Government's most closely guarded secret. The NSA dispatched an agent to conduct a thorough security audit at the facility. As part of this audit, the agent was granted access to mission files that did not go according to plan.
Excerpt: I have a confession to make: There's a ghost in my head. He won't let me go anywhere or do anything for fear that I will get someone sick. I call him "Bruno".
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This month's question: What kind of geek are you? Send in your answer below! Editors love feedback!
Last month's "Short Stories Newsletter (April 26, 2023)" question: How do you get information into your story without an info dump?
Pumpkin Spice Sox  : Thank you for writing this newsletter I am in the middle of writing a story heavily dependent on family relationships and didn't have a clue how to incorporate my genealogy charts into the story.
~Lifelessons~  : I don't like to dump too much at once. I usually use it in dialogue, memory, emotions, and inner thought. Also connecting the dots along the way with added characters, places, and objects. There are so many ways to allow a reader to read at a pace with information through showing rather than telling.
Siobhan Falen : I set my info dump to the side for me. I know why they're the way they are. I know what they like to wear, what they look like, what's happened to them in their past. This is a trick I've only recently started doing but I open up a separate document and throw that all in there. Then I pepper the details into the story, using the separate document to make sure I keep the details straight. By peppering it in, you build a layered character who you get to know and not be overwhelmed by information that may or may not be relevant.
keyisfake : Research is best but I do ask questions to people who are experienced in a certain field.
TheBusmanPoet : Through observation of everything around me and what's in my heart, is how I get mine.
Turkey DrumStik  : Really specific descriptions/adjectives can help on this front
Bilal Latif  : Share relevant information only, in easily digestible chunks, ideally while advancing the story (rather than pausing events to exposit). This helps keep the piece engaging rather than boring or confusing.
oldgreywolf on wheels : Edit, edit, edit, until your ms imparts content w/o any buttdragging or WTF? sections.
Lili : you don't want to pause the entire story for a description. try adding small details as the story goes on. for example; instead of: "i walked into a room and saw a man, he had a lot of tattoos", try: "as i walked into the room i saw a man standing further away, holding a drink with tattoo-covered arms."
i'm sure there are better ways to put in descriptions, but this gives your writing more flow and doesn't create bumps in the sentences.
Dave's trying to catch up  : Sprinkle, sprinkle in plain veracular.
jdennis01jaj: An intellectual conversation. A scientific observation that precludes a realization of great discovery. An action that leads the reader eventually to discover something that just took place. Never underestimate the reader's ability to play into your hands, and let you lead them to a destination of discovery.
s : I drip-feed. Then again, editors have taken some out because it was not relevant in any way to the story, the characters, or the world building as presented.
NaNotatoGo! : I try dialogue but avoiding info dumps is hard for me.
Thanks to everyone for your replies. |
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