Holy cats, November is almost here. That is nanowrimo time. I’ve been nano-ing for twelve years. It used to be the one time of year I actually was able to focus on writing. That’s changed a bit in recent years, but it is still a time of greater focus on writing. I have a five part sci-fi series that is just itching to break free. But that means I need to focus.
Ah yes, my old nemesis focus.
To win this epic battle, I am not taking any classes (oh the horror) and I also need to get my blog posts scheduled through November. Coming up with what to write on a weekly blog post is hard enough, ya’all, coming up with them for the whole month plus. Man. I need some kind of series.
I decided it might work to to tell you about what I did for the short story I’m writing. I’m currently taking a Community Ed class on short stories. This is a fantasy/sci fi focused class and I really want to explore this story creation process with humor involved.
Why short stories? Because they are short. They allow you to experiment without much commitment. If it does not work, I can shrug, and move on.
Short Story are generally 1000 to 7500 words. It has one to two scenes. You can have more if they are short, but they should have one (maybe two) character goals. So my plan is to have a series of posts about the process I went through to draft out what is currently called ‘Lost his head’.
I’ll catch two dragons with one net.
Here’s my plan for posts.
- Short Story: Getting the Idea
- Short Story: Brainstorming 101
- Short Story: Character – Basics
- Short Story: Character – Archetypes
- Short Story: End – The twist at the end
- Short Story: Finding the humor – Illogical Comparisons
- Short Story: Finding the humor – Journalistic approach
- Short Story: Beginning – What does it need to do?
- Short Story: Middle – try fail cycles
- Short Story: Checklist
- Short Story: Finding the perfect title
So next week I will talk about generating ideas.
What else would you want to see on this topic?
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