In Today’s Journal
* The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
* An Encounter With Critical Voice
* “The Breath Formed”
* Christopher Fried
* The Numbers
The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
I really wish more of you guys would jump into this. C’mon, show us what you’ve got. The whole point is to have fun and grow as a writer.
There is no cost. The only requirement is to write at least one short story per week. (I’m no longer keeping track of your longer fiction. Too erratic.)
During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported these new stories:
- Vanessa V. Kilmer “Dinner in the Back” 4687 Fantasy
- Adam Kozak “Love and Lawnmower Maintenance” 1819 Humor
- Harvey Stanbrough “Incident on a Georgia Bridge” 1745 Historical
- Dave Taylor “The Old Man’s Dream” 2,305 paranormal
- Dave Taylor “Saber Bay” 5,034 post-apocalyptic/romance
Good job, everyone!
An Encounter With Critical Voice
You all know I write into the dark, meaning I don’t plot or plan or think my way through writing short stories or novels.
I simply run through the story with the characters as it unfolds around us. Then I report what happens and how the characters react in dialogue and action.
So what follows is a forewarning for those of you who write into the dark. If you’re a plotter, etc. this won’t apply to you since you write from the conscious, critical mind.
On Saturday I had a major attack of critical voice. It didn’t hit while I was writing. It hit while I was cycling.
In the early morning on Saturday, as is my routine, I was cycling over what I’d written on Friday. Friday was a great day with over 5000 words, so I was feeling great.
The story was racing along and I was looking forward to getting through the cycling and continuing the story.
But one chapter, about 1400 words—tbe third chapter I’d written on Friday—didn’t feel right.
Now, I should have left it alone and continued cycling, then continued writing the story. But I didn’t. Instead I cycled over and over that errant chapter, and before I realized what was happening, I let the critical mind slip in.
By the time that quiet little sick feeling in my gut came in to warn me, I’d added around 800 words, then deleted them, then added a different 800 words or so.
That’s when I finally realized the chapter was crap, by which I mean it wasn’t what really happened in the story. I’d ruined it.
I panicked a little, left the ruined chapter as it was, and continued writing.
But of course, what happens in one chapter always affects everything else in the story as you keep writing.
So on Saturday I recorded writing only the 1500 words I’d written and kept before I finally called it a day.
Sometime on Saturday night, I realized I shouldn’t have even cycled through that chapter. I knew something didn’t feel right, so I should have deleted it outright and recast it instead of “trying to fix it” (conscious, critical mind).
So barely into Sunday morning (a minute or two after midnight Saturday), I got up, made my coffee, and went out to the Hovel. I highlighted the part of the chapter that had gone wrong (roughly three-fourths of the chapter, a highly emotional phone conversation), deleted it, and started over.
I focused on just writing what actually happened—what the characters said and did—and by 2 a.m. the chapter finally wrapped at 2199 words. That’s a few hundred words longer than most of my chapters, but you couldn’t pay me to change a word of it.
Then I took a break to post the Sunday issue of TNDJ. Afterward I started cycling through the next chapter and the partial one that followed it, and the story was back on track again.
MAN I hope that never happens again. Of course, I’m always aware it might.
The volume and frequency of the critical voice wanes as you practice writing into the dark and learn to trust your characters and their stories more and more, but it never really goes away completely.
So learn from my experience. Be on your guard against the critical voice at all times. If you don’t, it will sneak up on you.
“The Breath Formed”
This is another example of the sort of information that might appear in the new ‘Down in the Weeds’ newsletter, coming in January.
Disclaimer: In the question and comment below, I perceived a double entendre, one the writer might not have intended to convey. In my world, the speaker’s or writer’s intention far outweighs the listener’s or reader’s perception. However, the rest of this post is based on my perception, not necessarily her intent.
My short story “The Breath Formed” went live (free) last Friday. You can read it here, but you might consider bringing tissues with you. It might stir your emotions. The final three words of the story was a simile: “like a tear.”
Early this morning, I opened an email from a longtime friend and excellent poet. (Thanks, ND.) She wrote that she very much enjoyed the story but asked, “Is it possible you would consider leaving off the last three words? I think anyone reading it would understand.”
The double entendre I perceived was in the final two words of the comment following the question. “Anyone reading it would understand.”
One, that the reader would understand why I left off the simile? (Because the suggestive quality of the simile overloads and enhances the final action of the story, thereby forcing the reader to consider and agree with the narrator’s perception of the droplet.)
Or two (and I suspect her intention was only this), that the reader would understand the emotion of the final sentence just as well without the simile? That omitting the simile (leaving the droplet to the reader’s perception) would tighten the story by an extra quarter-turn?
Of course, I won’t go back now and omit the simile. I wrote the story a long time ago and I seldom if ever “go back” to tweak something I’ve written after it’s published. But had I written the story as a poem, I probably would not have included the simile.
- The purpose of the poem is to gesture toward a scene, inviting the reader to take a look and form his or her own (if guided) opinion.
- The purpose of the story is to report the scene, action by action, as if it were nonfiction.
Christopher Fried
Coincidentally enough, I opened ND’s email on the same morning I received another email, a very gracious email, from a poet named Christopher Fried. He asked whether I would write a cover blurb for his forthcoming second poetry collection, Analog Synthesis.
Having visited his website and sampled some of his work, after I’ve filed this issue of TNDJ, I will email him to let him know I look forward to reading his collection and that I will write a cover blurb for him, something I very seldom do.
To quote Joey “Bones” Salerno, “Hey, th’kid’s jus’ that freakin’ good, a’right?”
Bones is right. I was neither aware of nor acquainted with Mr. Fried before, but I’m glad I am now.
I was particularly struck by the sheer power of his poem “A Buck Stares at Life” (the very first poem he offers as an example of his work) and how powerfully it tackles the same issue I addressed with “The Breath Formed.” I have a feeling we know the same buck.
The guy’s one hell of a good poet.
Talk with you again soon.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 1260
Writing of Blackwell Ops 30: John Quick Returns
Day 1…… 2155 words. To date…… 2155
Day 2…… 3930 words. To date……. 6085
Day 3…… 3042 words. To date……. 9127
Day 4…… 3057 words. To date……. 12184
Day 5…… 5268 words. To date……. 17452
Day 6…… 1500 words. To date……. 18952
Day 7…… 3194 words. To date……. 22146
Fiction for November…………………. 9962
Fiction for 2024……………………….. 847094
Nonfiction for November…………….. 4220
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 338640
2024 consumable words…………….. 1009773
Average Fiction WPD (November)…… 3321
2024 Novels to Date……………………….. 15
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..…… 97
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………. 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…………. 255
Short story collections…………………….…… 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
If you are able, please support TNDJ with a paid subscription. Thank you!