For the short story writers out there:
Short Story Craft (a blog)
Storyglossia: The Art of Short Stories (a blog)
Storyglossia: Because Stories Matter (a journal)
and
The 39 Steps: A Primer on Story Writing from The Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi.
I find #12 particularly helpful: We can't care about sand mutants; if you do, or think you do, kill yourself.
Also #9: Grace Slick.
But it's not all hilarity and madcap hijinx. Here's #14: For dramatic purposes you're probably well-served sticking close to an objective narrative (1st person unvoiced, or 3rd person objective—in either case, the camera view). This forces you to write scenes in which characters do and say things to/with/for each other; these things will then construct the story for you. This expedient blocks the "telling" problem.
Of course, don't spend so much time exploring these links that you forget to, um, write. Woops.
1 comment:
Cool links, Ver. Although I take exception about the sand mutants. Their struggles against the heirarchy of the Oasis Oligarchy is well documented and an excellent metaphor for our post-neo-colonial-Bush times. *cough*
I've decided even after taking grad classes in writing I have no idea what the significance of #9 is, nor how Third Person Objective POV blocks the "telling" problem. *sigh*
I gots a long way to go on this stuff. Say, are you going to here: http://www.vona-voices.org/index.php this year?
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