I’ve learned a few things from some recent efforts. I should say failed efforts, because these are stories that aren’t going out the door; at least not in their current shape. I’ll pull parts of them out and reuse them, but they won’t resemble the current stories much at all. I’m OK with this.
I still feel a little like I’m in a place where I’m writing a lot, but publishing very little. However, I think if something is fundamentally flawed, it has to go. There is a school of thought that you write every story and send every story. I guess that’s fine if you want pages and pages of publications. I do agree that looking at someone with pages and pages of publications is impressive. Maybe I’m on the brink of getting to a place where everything I write is publishable.
I’m just not that comfortable with what I’m writing yet. I sort of ask myself after every writing session, “Is this something they might be willing to read on PRI’s Selected Shorts?” I guess when the answer is closer to yes than “no fucking way”, I’ll be where I want to be.
The first failed effort was a story about a woman attempting to connect with her dead niece. I liked some of the character work I did, a lot of the description and general writing was working well, and it’s one of the few first person stories I’ve ever written that I think could have stayed in first person. However, it totally failed on the story front. Motivations seemed very contrived and a bit unrealistic. It was huge. Way too long for the payoff—or lack thereof.
I learned these things from this story:
-Even a more literary work needs conflict (character goal + obstacles)
-It’s incredibly difficult to tell the story of someone offscreen. This is actually something I’ve attempted with a few stories. I’ve not managed it very well so far, I think I’m going to give up trying for a while until I find a way to make it work.
-Literary pieces are often about the big event. There must be a build up to this big event and there must be a leading down from the big event. Not showing the big event and then attempting to just tell the post big event portion of the story doesn’t feel complete. In fact, it doesn’t feel much like a story at that point.
-focus is important. Again, this was a story where I tried to tell too many people’s stories in one place. This should have been about two people, not six. Six people collectively are a novel’s worth of characters. Two people are a short story’s worth of characters.
The second recent failed attempt was the Strange Loop story. I went a little weaker on the characters on this one and focused on plot. However, it has many of the same issues as the first story. Seems contrived and a lot of the character motivation doesn’t make sense.
I learned the following from this story:
-conflict wasn’t clearly defined (What was the goal? What was the obstacle?)
-too many characters explored in one place
-misplaced big event
-focus was OK, but the message was muddled
-basic idea was good, but there was probably a better way to explore it
*(Funny side note on this story. Another writer liked the concept so much he asked if he could use it to write his own version of the story—his is much better. I hope he gets it published, because it’s a really great story. So this didn’t complete go to pot.)
Yeah, there’s a pattern here.
I’m doing something new with the current WIP. I’m taking extra time exploring character motivations. In fact, it’s an entire story that explores motivation and lack of understanding between characters. I’m not sure if this is making any difference, but it’s also not a speculative fiction piece. This leads me to wonder if too many of my works are trying too hard to be speculative fiction pieces, because every time I bring in the speculative elements it seems to throw off the rest of the work. It’s as though I’m building a nice sand castle and decide it really needs a wrench somewhere.
-this story is about the little girl and her mother. There are other characters in this, but the focus is on that relationship.
-there is a clear goal (it’s the mother’s goal, but I think it works in this story for my POV character to not be the hero, but the person most hurt by the events).
-the big event is in the middle. There is clear movement toward this event and clear movement from the event. The little girl is deeply changed by the event. The event is natural and all of the actions and reactions of the characters are believable. So far, what I read, sounds like something that might be on Selected Shorts—so that’s cool.
That’s mostly what I worked on over the weekend. I’ve been doing some revisions to a story about a house burning down, sort of a homage to the Ray Bradbury story “There Will Come Soft Rains”. I think I finished those up last night. I have the editor’s notes to go over against my changes today, but that should go quickly. This means I’ll deliver it on time. So I have another story getting published this year.
The goal for the next few weeks is to finish up the current WIP and quickly get started on two more.
Additionally, I like the way I’m writing the current WIP. It might be that I’m moving into a new process. It’s a bit different from the way I’ve written in the past, but it feels pretty good.
I like the results anyway—and really, that’s what matters, right?
