| Last week was the second installment of talking about how we can SAVE money in the editing process. When I talked about editing your book, a few came back and said they couldn’t edit because it costs too much. Which, it certainly does cost a bit of money. BUT, this series is about showing us as writers who we can get so much better at writing that our books need minimal editing. The first installment was about starting at the beginning with grammar. ‘Oh, lovely,’ you might groan, but the truth is that if you know how to place commas and indents and Em dashes, the less your editor will have to find them and subsequently charge you for this changes. If you missed last week installment you can find it here. Then last week I gave you a list of podcasts I love to check in on that talk a lot about WRITING. There are quite a few about the career of being an indie author, but the ones I spoke about last week were specifically about the craft of writing. You can go back and see those here. The other part of honing our craft is about reading. There are several books that are well-known for being really well-written, but not everyone has time to read novels. I get it. You have an entire stack of books waiting to be read, so you’re already groaning at the prospect of adding to that pile.Today I’m going to focus on short stories that you can read. Short stories are nice because, as my friend Traci Skuce says, you can read them over and over again to find out WHY they work as a story without taking up tons of your time.So true.Read these stories. Then read them again and highlight or circle or underline the phrases or parts that speak to you. Read them again and try to look at the word the writer uses, and the grammar they use and the way the characters speak or move. Another great way to hone your craft is to try your hand at writing in the same format or with the same theme as a short story. We should all learn from the masters! |
All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
The Rememberer by Aimee Bender
The Hunter’s Wife by Anthony Doerr
Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff
These are just a few of the thousands of short stories out there. If you short stories I encourage you to pick up a few anthologies at your library and dig into them more. Again, writing one with the same theme or plot points or structure as one from a great writer is a wonderful way to stretch and develop your own writing. I highly encourage you to try it.
As a side note, I entered a writing contest on Shortfictionbreak.com this summer where the theme was Anniversary and the limit was 1500 words. Eek! You can read my story here.