EXERCISE: Three words...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting Tuesday, May 14, 2013 11:24 AM

And just in time for spring, here's something to play with. Consider what sprouts in your mind with these three seeds:

-- Synergy
-- Triage
-- Beach

Let the April showers bring May flowers, and see what grows around those three terms for you. Could be poetry, could be story, could be essary (what do you mean, that's not the word? Doesn't it rhyme with poetry and story? Sure, it's essary!).

Anyway, write!

EXERCISE: a collection of lines

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting Friday, May 17, 2013 8:45 PM

Here we go. Over here, http://madgeniusclub.com/2013/05/15/expose-it-yourself/ Sarah Hoyt talks about some different ways to heinlein background information into your stories. That's the antidote to info dumps, those unsightly author intrusions where we suddenly yanked the reader out of the story so that we can lecture them about the information we think they need. Heinlein just slip the information in around the edges, with hints, comments, and such.

Anyway, in the process, Sarah tossed off a few examples. So here's my challenge. Take one of these examples and spin a tale around it. What's happening, who is involved, and what happens next? Any and all scenes and tales happily accepted, so let's get started writing.

Sly examples

The car took off, low altitude at first, then rising.

Every morning at 6 AM, the Mars launch rattled the house and woke me up.

My suit needed reprogramming.

Misdirection examples

It seemed like all the representatives of the 50 planets were fixed to give us their sort of law, again, long on graft opportunities in short on substance.

The corn crop is going to be terrible, of course. They'd been terrible the last 15 years, since the Mage War had devastated Krevalen.

Mina was not going to use a mage spell to make herself prettier. She always thought the girls who did that and got elected Queen of the Prom should be flayed with a butter knife.

Matter-of-fact example

It probably was going to come to war, and when 50 civilized planets get in a war, every world was likely to get time-bombed out of existence.

There you go. Slide that information in, and let us see what kind of a tale it spins.

EXERCISE: Write a short story!

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting Wednesday, June 05, 2013 11:46 AM

If you go over here,

http://wetranscripts.livejournal.com/74699.html

you can read a transcript, or over here,

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2013/05/19/writing-excuses-8-20-the-short-story-with-mary-robinette-kowal/

and listen to a podcast, wherein Mary Robinette Kowal talks about writing short stories. Along the way, she recommends a simple formula:

1. Get a geewhiz idea and a character.
2. Give them a desire. What does the character want?
3. Systematically deny it to them. Use yes-but and no-and to pile it up (yes, they get one step closer, BUT they also now have more problems OR no, they didn't get what they wanted, AND it added even more difficulties.)
4. For a happy ending, let them have their desire. For a sad ending, deny it to them.

She also pointed to one of her short stories as a model. The Hugo nominated Evil Robot Monkey! Right over here...

http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/evil-robot-monkey/

Go, read, consider how this story fits her model, and then...

WRITE!