  Short Stories
This week: Short Stories - Burn Out 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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Writing Stamina
In the month of NaNoWriMo, I'm sure some of our authors are suffering a little burn out. So how do you plug on, trying to win the challenge? How does an author build up stamina? You've been preparing for the challenge but how do you stick with it. Some people, once they know the story, once the characters reveal themselves, find it hard to finish writing the story. After all, it's finished in their head. This also happens with short story writers.
I try a few tricks. First, I normally sit down around the same time of the day to write. So perhaps switch up the time, when you find yourself thinking about writing, scurry over to the keyboard and start typing. I also have a chat with my characters. Why are you doing this or that? Why are you a redhead in my mind? Could you please tell me why you did a certain thing? Rarely do they answer, but I seem to sort out what is bugging me about the character and I'm able to move the story forward. I also have a tendency to fiddle with stuff on my desk when I'm thinking. So I try to keep my desk relatively neat so I'm not housekeeping instead of thinking.
I read back on what I've written earlier but unless there's something crazy wrong with the writing, I don't go back and tinker. Tinkering is a huge time waster. It's easier to go over the story when it's completed and you have less to think about and more time to search out stuff like passive writing. I don't fuss over dialog tags or perfecting paragraphs. There's time for that later.
And when the well runs dry, or my back end falls asleep, it's time to step away for a while and get some fresh air. We spend enough time preparing and writing, we also deserve a break. Don't worry, that character problem or place you've gotten stuck will follow you while you do other things. I do my best pondering in traffic or scrubbing floors. But whatever you do, stick with it and as always, Write On!
This month's question: What do you do to build writing stamina? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback! |
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#2140285 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: The following is a dreadfully fantastic yet equally horrifying true story. No one believes what you are about to read actually happened the way I present it here, but please, believe me. Every word I write is fact; so help me God.
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#2139270 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: "Let me repeat the two choices available, Mr. Benwa... Benwa, right?"
I nod.
Sgt. Cren Dennard wipes his fingers with the dirty rag from his back pocket and steps away from the open hood. "You can wait the hour for them to deliver the new fan belt, or you can order the tow truck to take you and your Jaguar back to New Orleans to get fixed. I done told you the tow won't be here for another two hours or so."
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#2140674 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: It was a dark, moonless night when Eric pulled up to the intersection. A strange fog, brown and heavy, hung over the road and reflected the red stop light like bloody soup.
Excerpt: It's an awful thing to be considered 'surplus to requirements', but there you have it. It's what I have become and yet I don't feel irrelevant.
Maybe to my family I am. The children have made their own way in the world, so much so, that I never see them or hear from them. My wife has long since been involved in her own things, to the extent that we only extend cursory greetings as she passes by me in her busy schedule.
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#2122021 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Distinct shouting and the clashing of swords rang in my ears, smoldering ruins of once human dwellings now infested the air with the scent of blood and burning flesh. Peering from the mountainside, on the outskirts of the battlefield, the Bandits fell back steps at a time.
"Commander!, the bandit horde is dwindling, this is our chance to push them back out of the territory." Looking to the sergeant as he stood bloodied and battered, "No, they still pose a threat."
Pointing toward the south edge of the village he turned in awe.
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#2140463 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Saliva built up, causing Jacob’s esophagus to squeeze green mucous up his tight throat with the pressure of toothpaste through a tube. In one glorified release, he choked out a wad of saliva, and spit it onto the concrete sidewalk, splattering in a rounded body the circumference of four silver dollars.
“You okay?” Terrence asked in mid-jog.
Jacob, hunched over with hands cupped on knees, nodded. “Just feeling a little queasy, that’s all.”
A daily short contest with great prizes!
Excerpt: I am aware of humans. I don't know why, but I remember the beginning. Nothing more than watery glop, beaten to submission and then poured into a cold receptacle. Soon I warmed, until the heat nearly incinerated me. Right before I burned a comforting and soft thing saved me. Placed on a flat surface, I pondered my existence.
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A story of two young sisters helping a crash landed alien.
#901482 by Kotaro  |
Excerpt: The globe came burning into the atmosphere. Coming in very low, trailing steam, and just missing a hilltop, it flamed into the valley, sweeping between two rows of trees. It made landfall, rolling over the grass, and crossing a street before coming to rest in a garden.
An opening appeared in the shape of a hexagon, and something the size of a kitten emerged. It slipped head first to the grass, staggered a few meters, and collapsed into a flower bed.
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This month's question: What do you do to build writing stamina? Send in your answer below! Editors love feedback!
Last month's question: What do you do with a story that ends up novella-sized?
abcoachnz-Sometimes around  responds: I personally do not suffer from this as I find it difficult to write anything less than novel length. However, the one option I would consider is to possibly combine a couple of them into a single product that I may consider publishing.
Quick-Quill  answers: I’ve been looking at this more lately. I bought a couple e books and didn’t look at the page count. They were short books. Good reads. This could be a great story line for my new romance.
Legendary❤️Mask  sends: Hello Leger, Great newsletter this week, I'm filing this one for keeps. Great ideas for a Novela. Thanks
blimprider comments: I AIM for the novella, and bind five or six on one theme together into a novel-size book. Critics and reviewers seem to like it, if the reviews and ratings here, at Amazon, and on Goodreads are any indication. Good writing will find its readers.
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Short Stories: November 15, 2017 Issue [#8608]
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