 Short Stories: November 26, 2014 Issue [#6663] |
  Short Stories
This week: Where Are You? Edited by: NaNoNette  
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| Hello short story writers and readers. I am NaNoNette , and I will be your guest editor for this newsletter. |
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Where Are You?
Extensive and over-accurate location descriptions can harm your story.
Incorporating landmarks and locations into your story can be very effective. For instance, landmarks that a lot of people are familiar with such as the White House, the Taj Mahal, Mount Rushmore, or the Moon make great backdrops for your stories.
I actually only recently found out in which of the US States Mount Rushmore is and I remember being surprised. I also forgot already. I know what it looks like from movies, so using that place as the location for an action adventure for instance can work well. While I don't know how many rooms the White House or the Taj Mahal have, each conjure distinct outside images for many readers. Using those first images that come to mind, your readers will be delighted to find secret pathways, hidden doors, or discover other things in a mystery happening at those places.
The intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard. Have you ever heard of it? It's in Beverly Hills, California. There are no palm trees, and you also can't see Rodeo Drive from that intersection. It looks nothing like "typical California." A reader would get nothing from describing that intersection at length.
In writing your story, you want your reader to get carried off by your words. Make everything easy to see. If your reader feels like taking out a map and looking up where your story takes place, you've lost them. When you decide to include very detailed descriptions of the local geography, make sure it has something to do with your story and plot.
Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe lived and worked in Los Angeles in the 1940s. His office was on Wilshire Boulevard in a basic office in a generic office building. While naming the street his office was on could qualify as too much information, it worked for Raymond Chandler's stories because his character was a private eye. Keeping track of locations is part of his job and helps him solve cases. Any specific location that is mentioned in these stories are part of the story just like a character, that is why they have to be named.
In Cassandra Clare's sixth installment of the Mortal Instruments "City of Heavenly Fire," she describes the location of the building where her characters train in great detail and several times. It serves no purpose. The building is on a cliff overlooking a bay of the Pacific Ocean. That information is all I needed to figure out the sea is to the west, the continent to the east. Instead of leaving it at this basic description, she describes Point Dume, the San Fernando Valley, and other named areas that do nothing for her story. Because I have been to both of the places she names, I kept wanting to grab a map and figure out where her building could be. The book stands unread in my shelf because it cost me too much energy to deal with her location descriptions.
In your short stories and long stories, stay with imaginary places or use only very famous locations that a reasonably educated reader has at least seen in a movie, on a travel magazine, or at school.
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| |  | Loch Song (13+)
Those who claim to have heard the loch's spectral song have all disappeared.
#2017799 by S. E. Rose  |
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#2008605 by Not Available. |
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#2002998 by Not Available. |
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#1948187 by Not Available. |
| | | Flint (13+)
On a group tour, finding what has been lost
#1938768 by Joy  |
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For my last Short Story newsletter "Short Story or Chapter?" , I got the following replies:
captainjirk76 wrote: I originally thought about writing a trilogy of novels, but now I am thinking of writing a series of short stories with all the characters from my novels. some of the short stories will have same character(s) and eventually there are midpoint events(for instance, a very pivotal POW camp escape story). can this be done?
Anne M. wrote: wrote: Thanks for the newsletter Giselle. I agree that sometimes you can get so hung up by all the advice and 'do's and 'don't's that you can forget that enjoying your writing is probably the most important thing!
Yes. If we didn't enjoy writing, how are our readers supposed to enjoy reading it?
****Now that's great advice*****
Jeff  wrote: Good newsletter, Giselle! I've never quite understood writers who adapt the same idea into different and/or mediums. I love graphic novels, short stories, novels, screenplays, and all kinds of other writing, but I couldn't imagine simply transitioning a story from one medium to another. It's not impossible to do (if someone wants to pay me to turn my idea into a whole franchise of properties... absolutely!  ), but when I think about the stories I want to write, the elements of the story usually dictate the best medium of expression. I just don't see the appeal of turning a really good novel idea, for example, into a merely so-so screenplay.
Doug Rainbow wrote: When you say that short stories don't make good chapters in novels you write off some pretty good literature. Most of Garrison Keillor's work about Lake Woebegone is a series of short stories. Tom Sawyer is really a collection of short stories. I could go on and on. Sometimes the chapter notion works and sometimes not so much. Kind of like just about anything else related to writing stylistic choice.
dblameck (David)  wrote: I agree with your position about chapters and short stories. I get irritated by writing that presupposes that I already have some of understanding of characters or relationships. Some people can carry if off because they make each chapter an almost complete story with good character work.
writergeorge wrote: Thank you for making Mars Ice and Editor's Pick. "Mars Ice"
Joto-Kai  wrote: I've put a slice of my novel as a stand alone. It was rubbish! Nobody understood the characters, couldn't really relate. Why was Carolie such a "cold fish" when she heard about Kissla's affair with her husband? (Because that's who she is! I've shown... nevermind.)
BIG BAD WOLF is Howling  wrote: In a way, Chapter 7 of my Monster Cowboys is a summary of the First 6 chapters, and was meant to be a Stand-Alone story. "Monster Cowboys Part Seven (Ghost Story)"
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