 Short Stories: June 29, 2005 Issue [#448] |
 
Short Stories
This week: 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 and fresh ideas for the short story author.
This week's Short Story Editor
Leger~
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Emotion
crestfallen dolorous mirthful melancholy jocund dismal gleeful lugubrious vivacious woebegone jubilant aggrieved euphoric saturnine exultant dispirited blithe despair insouciant funereal lively
This edition I would like to write about adding emotion to your writing. A key to involving your reader is to get them to empathize with your character.
em∙pa∙thy ~ Intellectual or imaginative apprehension of another's condition or state of mind.
In writing short stories, it is often difficult to draw in a reader with long descriptions of past history or eloquent prologue. A successful way of engaging your reader is to get them emotionally involved in your story. Show your character's feelings!
 For example:
Jane was shocked.
Not much, is it? We know she's shocked, and while we can probably relate to the emotion, it doesn't involve us as a reader or cause us to empathize with the character.
Jane fell to her knees, her tear-filled eyes wide and unbelieving, her mouth agape in shock.
A single, more descriptive sentence begins to improve your story.
I fell to my knees, shaking and unbelieving, shocked by the scene before me. I was frozen in place, unable to cry out.
Think about a change in Point of View.
Overall, I'd like to suggest you examine your writing and think about gaining your reader's empathy. A few changes could add to your reader's emotional experience and enhance your character.
Excerpt: "Take a deep breath and focus your mind on the tiny hole at the end. Imagine all your worries, pains, regrets, grudges, and all the bad things bothering you, are slipping out of your mind and flowing carefully into a funnel, into the hole. After that, cover the hole with tape. You will feel refreshed."
Excerpt: Brian coughed as he opened the cellar door and the dank stench of stagnant air rushed out and surrounded him, choking his throat and blurring his eyes. He peered into the subterranean expanse and discerned little, narrow windows filtered only trace amounts of light into the cellar.
Excerpt: Life keeps twisting and turning in the minds of mortal men. An eclipse of speech, a shooting star of thought, the mythology behind emotion. I never understood that. They say that facial expression is the window to someone’s emotions. They were wrong.
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Excerpt: We all have times when we’re down on our luck... things just don’t go our way. But what if one day you could change it all, what if you had the chance to turn your entire life around, finally put and end to your losing streak.
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This month's question: What are some methods you use to involve your reader?
Last month's question: Do you have any favorite "great beginnings"?
spiral kinetochore  comments:
A few people commented on my first paragraph of this article, that it was quite a good hook, and I think it really starts the gears moving for the storyline. It was not exactly a dialogue (yet at first it seems) but I later reveal it as an inscription on the central object critical to my story. Sometimes, laying out mysterious dialogues at the beginning works wonders.
SEE EDITOR'S PICK ABOVE
rose_shadow comments:
Good newsletter! Thinking of an opening is almost as difficult as thinking of a title  .
One of my favorite openings to a novel is from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man of good fortune must be in want of a wife."
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis is also a good one: "There once was a boy by the name of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
Good ones, Moira!
BarryJive comments:
I am a bit confused with this month's Short Story Newsletter. I agree that first paragraphs are an important topic to address, but why use examples from epic novels. I would assert that the differences between short stories and novels, aside from the size, is significant in the area of effective beginings.
Names of charaters and specific settings while important to establish in a short story, are not neccessarily needed in the opeing paragraph. I think the most important element (and one which you did address) is the mood. That can be created through as little as a sentence with no specific place or character mentioned.
When I write, I focus on mood and chracterization through details for a solid intro.
Thanks for your input Barry!
schipperke comments:
Great Newsletter! My favorite opening is from Rebecca..."Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again..." Excellent opening and excellent book!
Thanks for the recommendation Schip!
megsie2584 comments:
Great Beginnings:
"The senior partner studied the resume for the hundreth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y. McDeere, at least not on paper." The Firm by John Grisham
"Why had this happened? Why, of all the children, was Kyle the one?" The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks
A great beginning is urgent. It snaps you into the story so you can't bear to only read the first paragraph... you must go on.
Great advice Meg!
billwilcox comments:
A Write On Topic and a Write On Newsletter. Thanks,
W.D.
Thank you Bill!
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