  Short Stories
This week: Are you a Frog? 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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"I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!"
— Emily Dickinson
Wait! Don't click that page! This really is the short story newsletter, not the poetry one. But I liked what dear ole Emily had to say. Or at least how I interpreted it. As a fiction writer, I sometimes find the people I know, love or bump into on the street finagling their way into my stories. I find my neighbor's voice coming out of my fiendish character in one of my chapters. She's really a lovely lady but she has a wicked good laugh and knows how to use it. When she laughs like that, a broomstick appears and takes her off into the night. I used to know a man who could mimic the Donald Duck voice, he'd waddle, talk silly and make everyone laugh. That raspy quack belongs to a couple characters I've introduced to readers.
When writing, I'm really a nobody; creating characters from my imagination and the world around me. But as it has been said, there always has to be a little truth in your fiction or your reader can't believe. To truly enjoy a story, I think a reader needs to suspend real life and believe your written word. Even if the main character is a fictional creature, their challenges, feelings and conflicts have to jive with the feelings of your reader. If you can't feel the heartbreak of a dragon's lost love, you can't enjoy the story. It's still important to have all the essential elements to your story arc, but adding the richness of supporting characters, colorful scenes and the occasional foreshadowing here and there helps surround your reader with authenticity.
So perhaps while your Varnak is exploring a new frontier, remember your character and give them some human elements to keep your story real.
This month's question: Do your friends and family end up as characters in your writing? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback!
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Excerpt: Steve asks "What's his name?"
"You sure you wanna know? They say once his name is spoken in a home he won't leave till he's taken everyone in it."
"How? He’d have to force us to say his name." Megan asks.
"He has his ways."
"We'll take our chances. What's his name?" Kevin demands.
Excerpt: "I don't like it," grumbled Agjulon.
"What's the problem?" asked technician Cluoman.
"I don't know. The code just doesn't feel right. The more I think about it, the more I get the sense that if this new code is implemented, the flow of our darling Earth's progression will... I don't know... stagnate." He turned to face Cluoman, looking for consensus, but found none.
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#2102531 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: There was the scent, unmistakable. It’s sweetness calling like mother to child. It must be obeyed. Its spice the essence of life and this-one must have it. Yet this-one must not be careless for it knows that its own spice is the essence of life to others in the forest. This-one must be wary for many of the clique have been lost to the prowess of the others.
Excerpt: A mild and morbid curiosity had always been with him concerning the dead. Even from childhood, he had been enamored by the mystery, the secrecy of what happens to a dead body after disposition, after burial, after entombment.
Excerpt: I skidded my dirt bike to a hard stop as my cell phone went bleedle-deedle-deet a second time. Other kids use pop songs for ringtones, but for me a cell phone is serious business.
As in, my serious business.
And who am I?
I'm a guy who likes asking questions, not so much answering them. You wanna know who I am and what's my business? Hang out with me sometime, if you can keep up, and figure it out for yourself.
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Excerpt: I'm an elf on a shelf; what's so scary about that? Every time someone enters the room and sees me, they scream and run away. Do you realize how annoying that is? How can I relax and enjoy the season with all the running and screaming?
Excerpt: Detective John Hall drove over to Elmer Jones’s place to find out what Joyce Root, Elmer’s neighbor, was so excited about; on arrival, he spotted an opened metal box on a picnic table, and examined its contents.
"I wonder who would bury money along with the gun, that just doesn't make sense to me," Detective said.
THIS contest is designed to take you back to those days. So now you TOO can write for the old pulp fiction magazines just like the 'master story-tellers' did back in the day.
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#2098625 by Not Available. |
Are you good at writing folktales? Have you never written a folktale in your life? It doesn’t matter!! The contest accepts all entries from newbies to seasoned members! You will be given a prompt, and you must write a short folk tale around that prompt. Think outside of the box. Challenge yourself to branch out and try something new!!
This forum is designed to get your creative juices flowing. 10,000 gps will be given away every 24 hours!
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This month's question: Do your friends and family end up as characters in your writing? Send in your answer below! Editors love feedback!
Last month's question: What resources do you use to submit short stories?
SmokeyMtn  replied: I'm very fond of using Duotrope to find my markets and manage my submissions. Great tool!
Imogen Elliott responded: I use a variety of tools and websites to submit my stories, poems, manuscripts, and etc.
I use facebook writing groups: AllPoetry, Writers Inc., Writing 2.o, and Horror society Groups. I use LinkedIn and WordPress apps to display my submissions and or things I'm currently working on. My favorite is Allpoetry.com and of course Writing.com
Quick-Quill  answered: I haven't submitted anything outside of WDc for a long time. I did submit to Oasis Journal and had a story I wrote for WDC accepted (2007) and then a defunct ezine as short story I keep here also. There have been other WDC anthologies that have accepted my stories. Not so much out of this arena. I tried Glimmer Train a number of times. Not sure what the problem was. I don't know if the story wasn't good or who the people are who choose. I find that a lot of the authors are alread published with a large readership. Maybe thats the key, they feel that would give them a larger buying power. I'm a small fry. I have noticed in other publications the bio's include many time published authors versus new authors.....no sour grapes.
SB Musing  sent: I tend to focus more on submitting my poetry to outside sources than short stories. With that said, I've made it my mission to put myself out there like I used to 'back in the day' when I was submitting my stuff left and right to literary magazines. Maybe I can read the rules better and I know my mistakes I've made in my stories so that I can make them more effective. That's the hope at least!
I feel like once NaNo hits on November 1st there should be some bells and whistles that go off yelling out 'get to Novel writing!"  Hopefully, it'll be all in good fun and not killing myself softly and slowly by writing a ton.
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Short Stories: November 16, 2016 Issue [#7981]
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