Saturday, August 01, 2020

IWSG Question - August 2020

August 5 question - Quote: "Although I have written a short story collection, the form found me and not the other way around. Don't write short stories, novels or poems. Just write your truth and your stories will mold into the shapes they need to be."
Have you ever written a piece that became a form, or even a genre, you hadn't planned on writing in? Or do you choose a form/genre in advance?

Most of my short stories have started with vaguely remembered dreams. The usual sequence goes like this:
  • Wake up from a vivid dream
  • Get out of bed, and write down notes on what I can remember
  • Go back to bed
  • In the morning, look over my notes. If it sparks something interesting, continue fleshing out the story. Otherwise, set it aside until the next wakeful night.
  • Repeat until the basic framework is written.
At that point, if the story is viable, I finish it. As I didn't consciously plan the story, they often cover genres I don't normally read or write about. My first short story was a Noir-type, the second a modern update of a well-known story, and the one I'm writing now is science fiction (I plan to enter the Dark Matter anthology contest - wish me luck!)

Short stories are the perfect vehicle to experiment with form or genre - if you screw 'em up, you haven't wasted much time on the effort. and, I'm of the belief that ALL writing - even those projects that never get finished - teach the writer some technique or piece of craft that he/she/xe needed. Practice is never wasted; you have learned something on every session, even if it's what NOT to do again.

The Jobs are Getting Done!

First one - finished the Creating Your Life Story in Bite-Sized Pieces. 4 classes, 90 minutes each. Followed that up with a Slack Space for ...