  Short Stories
This week: A Year in Review 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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A Year in Review
As always, when the year is coming to a close and the new year is about to begin, we are reminded about making changes and resolutions. We look back and vow to do better and improve things we like about ourselves. So of course, with this being my last short story newsletter of the year, I'm jumping on the bandwagon and talking about your year in review.
No, I don't need to know if you lost weight or got more exercise. I'd like to know if you're happy with how much you reviewed. Did you find time to help support the other members in this community? Personally, I like to receive one in-depth review rather than a bushel full of fluff. I like to hear how my words affected you. So the question is, were you happy with the reviews you sent and received? Did your readers understand your story? Did you take the time to correct the grammar pointers?
Take a look at the reviews you sent this year. If they were for a reviewing group, did you put effort into the review or did you dash one off to make the requirement for the group? Did you find some good in each story and send praise along with critique? Did you take the time to read the whole story? (I've seen reviewers admit they didn't read the whole thing...) Did you tell the author how the story made you feel?
Now comes the fun part... Take a moment, and I don't mean in between shopping, wrapping and visiting. I mean when you have a moment to truly concentrate, take a look at your reviews sent this year. If those were reviews you received, what more could be said? What else would you as a writer want to see in a review? Take a look at the winner's reviews in the "Good Deeds Get CASH!" contest. Then resolve to review more, resolve to review better, and resolve to be kind. See you next year!
This month's question: What points do you like to see covered in reviews you receive?
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Excerpt: ‘Tell me…’ the dragon said, its voice the slow rumble of thunder, ‘tell me why I should not just eat you.’
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Excerpt: If telling my son his father and I were getting a divorce because I was a lesbian was agonizingly difficult, telling my father was more so by an order of magnitude.
Excerpt: They say that the first explosion is always the loudest. It’s not. Each one is just as loud, and just as terrifying as the last. But it’s the first one that has the greatest impact. In that split second any sense of peace is obliterated and your subconscious is dragged abruptly back to reality; just in time for the next detonation.
Excerpt: Something about the King always unsettled her, and she could never find her words.
Excerpt: Maine? What's she doing in Florida? How am I supposed to return it? Can't mail it back to Maine. She must be in Florida. I'll have to locate her using my non-existent super-sleuth skills. Valarie Chapman. Her name is a song in my head.
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Excerpt: She lit a cigarette before the smell reached her senses. It was the foulest smell she’d ever encountered. She gathered her cigarettes, her drink and the baby monitor rushing into the kitchen and closing the door tight. She peered out the kitchen window; still she saw nothing in the field. That smell, what the hell was that smell? It was worse then skunk, it almost smelled like rotting urine, dried feces, and hot puke. It must be a wounded animal. Sissy automatically ran a list of animals that she knew might be in the area. It would have to be low to the ground, so a raccoon, a coyote, maybe even a possum?
Excerpt: For the month of December I am now taking stories for CHRISTMAS
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Excerpt: DECEMBER'S PROMPT: Holidays Children's or young adult story or poem. (Christmas, Hanukkah, etc.)
Excerpt: The task is simple: get inspired by the photograph above and write a short story using this inspiration!
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Excerpt: The three main types of sentence errors are fragments, run-ons, and dangling modifiers.
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This month's question: What points do you like to see covered in reviews you receive?
Send in a reply and help our members resolve to review better.
Last month's question: What triggers a story in your mind?
Karl Doyle  replied: Your title reminded me visits to my doctor. He has pictures of old outhouses in every exam room. Patients now even bring photos in when they spot one in their travels. Otherwise, he's a perfectly well adjusted physician.
Getting to your point; I'm more like you; ideas take time to formulate into poems, essays, what have you. As my age continues to advance and my memory continues to diminish, I find it necessary to write down ideas randomly then when time is more available I try to reformulate and enhance my prior thoughts. Having to work on Thanksgiving is good fodder, but it may not be written until well after the holiday.
whimsicalme answered: Leger, there is nothing like looking into the pit of your soul to find a story. If you have a pit, of course, which I believe many of us do. However, my stories and poems come from my own pit as well as my observations of the pits of others. An internal journey of a beggar sitting on the sidewalk can be a story; a young girl exposed to the nakedness of the world can present the idea of a story; a mundane encounter in a cafe in San Francisco can open up a conversation that leads to the idea of a story. Indeed, ideas are endless, however, it is ultimately the things we relate to that trigger the words for a story. In my humble opinion, anyway.
ricia said: A lot of different things can trigger a story in my mind. If something I read on the net or hear in the news intrigues me or even just pisses me off, there is a story there that I could make, either fictional based on the facts of the true story, or nonfictional, kind of a statement of facts with my opinions sprinkled on top, which is what I normally do on my blog.
Jeannie  responded: Sometimes I get crazy dreams that make me want to write it down and see where it goes. Other times, I'll spot something that'll trigger an idea. Most of the time though, I'm reviewing, because my muse has gone to sleep… This is when began looking at prompts that are given out in the different contest on WDC. All of these work for me in some way where I can get excited enough to sit down and write.
vada sent: Very often music triggers my ideas. I'm a sucker for sad love songs and want to give them a happy ending.
pinkbarbie replied: A prompt that sounds interesting to me triggers a story into my mind.
Quick-Quill  answered: What Doesn't trigger a story? I see sermons and life lessons all around me. What if? is my favorite question. I read an article in the mid '80s about a family that disappeared into the river and is today an unsolved murder. What if they were in witness protection and found? I pursued the story to find an entirely different more interesting WHAT IF? my first novel was born.
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Short Stories: December 18, 2013 Issue [#6055]
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